e freedom of the will. How heavy is the weight of all this
thou canst judge for thyself. But, inasmuch as to know these things also
is part of the treatment of thy malady, we will try to give them some
consideration, despite the restrictions of the narrow limits of our
time. Moreover, thou must for a time dispense with the pleasures of
music and song, if so be that thou findest any delight therein, whilst I
weave together the connected train of reasons in proper order.'

'As thou wilt,' said I.

Then, as if making a new beginning, she thus discoursed: 'The coming
into being of all things, the whole course of development in things that
change, every sort of thing that moves in any wise, receives its due
cause, order, and form from the steadfastness of the Divine mind. This
mind, calm in the citadel of its own essential simplicity, has decreed
that the method of its rule shall be manifold. Viewed in the very purity
of the Divine intelligence, this method is called _providence_; but
viewed in regard to those things which it moves and disposes, it is
what the ancients called _fate_. That these two are different will
easily be clear to anyone who passes in review their respective
efficacies. Providence is the Divine reason itself, seated in the
Supreme Being, which disposes all things; fate is the disposition
inherent in all things which move, through which providence joins all
things in their proper order. Providence embraces all things, however
different, however infinite; fate sets in motion separately individual
things, and assigns to them severally their position, form, and time.

'So the unfolding of this temporal order unified into the foreview of
the Divine mind is providence, while the same unity broken up and
unfolded in time is fate. And although these are different, yet is there
a dependence between them; for the order of destiny issues from the
essential simplicity of providence. For as the artificer, forming in his
mind beforehand the idea of the thing to be made, carries out his
design, and develops from moment to moment what he had before seen in a
single instant as a whole, so God in His providence ordains all things
as parts of a single unchanging whole, but carries out these very
ordinances by fate in a time of manifold unity. So whether fate is
accomplished by Divine spirits as the ministers of providence, or by a
soul, or by the service of all nature--whether by the celestial motion
of the stars, by th