t us forget that this system of astronomy has been overthrown, and
that we now know that Man is not the centre of the universe. Let us
forget that the majestic order which reigns, or seems to reign, among
the stars, is matched by a brutal conflict and a chaos of jarring
purposes in the realms of those sciences which deal with life.[98:1] If
we can recover the imaginative outlook of the generations which
stretched from, say, Meton in the fifth century before Christ to
Copernicus in the sixteenth after, we shall be able to understand the
spiritual exaltation with which men like Zeno or Poseidonius regarded
the world.

We are part of an Order, a Cosmos, which we see to be infinitely above
our comprehension but which we know to be an expression of love for Man;
what can we do but accept it, not with resignation but with enthusiasm,
and offer to it with pride any sacrifice which it may demand of us. It
is a glory to suffer for such an end.

And there is more. For the Stars show only what may be called a
stationary purpose, an Order which is and remains for ever. But in the
rest of the world, we can see a moving Purpose. It is Phusis, the word
which the Romans unfortunately translated 'Natura', but which means
'Growing' or 'the way things grow'--almost what we call Evolution. But
to the Stoic it is a living and conscious evolution, a forethought or
+Pronoia+ in the mind of God, what the Romans called _providentia_,
guiding all things that grow in a direction which accords with the
divine will. And the direction, the Stoic pointed out, was not towards
mere happiness but towards _Arete_, or the perfection of each thing or
each species after its kind. _Phusis_ shapes the acorn to grow into the
perfect oak, the blind puppy into the good hound; it makes the deer grow
in swiftness to perform the function of a deer, and man grow in power
and wisdom to perform the function of a man. If a man is an artist it is
his function to produce beauty; if he a governor, it is his function to
produce a flourishing and virtuous city. True, the things that he
produces are but shadows and in themselves utterly valueless; it matters
not one straw whether the deer goes at ten miles an hour or twenty,
whether the population of a city die this year of famine and sickness or
twenty years hence of old age. But it belongs to the good governor to
avert famine and to produce healthy conditions, as it belongs to the
deer to run its best. So it is the part o