se which are called the fixed stars
have the same indications of reason and prudence. Their motion is
daily, regular, and constant. They do not move with the sky, nor have
they an adhesion to the firmament, as they who are ignorant of natural
philosophy affirm. For the sky, which is thin, transparent, and
suffused with an equal heat, does not seem by its nature to have power
to whirl about the stars, or to be proper to contain them. The fixed
stars, therefore, have their own sphere, separate and free from any
conjunction with the sky. Their perpetual courses, with that admirable
and incredible regularity of theirs, so plainly declare a divine power
and mind to be in them, that he who cannot perceive that they are also
endowed with divine power must be incapable of all perception whatever.

In the heavens, therefore, there is nothing fortuitous, unadvised,
inconstant, or variable: all there is order, truth, reason, and
constancy; and all the things which are destitute of these qualities
are counterfeit, deceitful, and erroneous, and have their residence
about the earth[135] beneath the moon, the lowest of all the planets.
He, therefore, who believes that this admirable order and almost
incredible regularity of the heavenly bodies, by which the preservation
and entire safety of all things is secured, is destitute of
intelligence, must be considered to be himself wholly destitute of all
intellect whatever.

I think, then, I shall not deceive myself in maintaining this dispute
upon the principle of Zeno, who went the farthest in his search after
truth.

XXII. Zeno, then, defines nature to be "an artificial fire, proceeding
in a regular way to generation;" for he thinks that to create and beget
are especial properties of art, and that whatever may be wrought by the
hands of our artificers is much more skilfully performed by nature,
that is, by this artificial fire, which is the master of all other
arts.

According to this manner of reasoning, every particular nature is
artificial, as it operates agreeably to a certain method peculiar to
itself; but that universal nature which embraces all things is said by
Zeno to be not only artificial, but absolutely the artificer, ever
thinking and providing all things useful and proper; and as every
particular nature owes its rise and increase to its own proper seed, so
universal nature has all her motions voluntary, has affections and
desires (by the Greeks called [Greek: hormas])