gathering this by argument: for himself has
plainly written in the same place: "But the World alone is said to be
self-sufficient, because it alone has in itself all things it stands in
need of, and is nourished and augmented of itself, the other parts being
mutually changed into one another." He is then repugnant to himself, not
only by declaring in one place that all the gods are nourished except
the World and Jupiter, and saying in another, that the World also is
nourished; but much more, when he affirms that the World increases by
nourishing itself. Now the contrary had been much more probable, to wit,
that the World alone does not increase, having its own destruction for
its food; but that addition and increase are incident to the other gods,
who are nourished from without, and the World is rather consumed into
them, if so it is that the World feeds on itself, and they always
receive something and are nourished from that.

Secondly, the conception of the gods contains in it felicity,
blessedness, and self-perfection. Wherefore also Euripides is commanded
for saying:--

For God, if truly God, does nothing want,
So all these speeches are the poets' cant.
("Hercules Furens," 1345.)

But Chrysippus in the places I have alleged says, that the World only is
self-sufficient, because this alone has in itself all things it needs.
What then follows from this, that the World alone is self-sufficient?
That neither the Sun, Moon, nor any other of the gods is
self-sufficient, and not being self-sufficient, they cannot be happy or
blessed.

He says, that the infant in the womb is nourished by Nature, like a
plant; but when it is brought forth, being cooled and hardened by the
air, it changes its spirit and becomes an animal; whence the soul is not
unfitly named Psyche because of this refrigeration [Greek omitted]. But
again he esteems the soul the more subtile and fine spirit of Nature,
therein contradicting himself; for how can a subtile thing be made of a
gross one, and be rarefied by refrigeration and condensation? And what
is more, how does he, declaring an animal to be made by refrigeration,
think the sun to be animated, which is of fire and made of an exhalation
changed into fire? For he says in his Third Book of Nature: "Now the
change of fire is such, that it is turned by the air into water; and the
earth subsiding from this, the air exhales; the air being subtilized,
the ether is produced round about