it; and the stars are, with the
sun, kindled from the sea." Now what is more contrary to kindling than
refrigeration, or to rarefaction than condensation? For the one makes
water and earth of fire and air, and the other changes that which
is moist and earthy into fire and air. But yet in one place he makes
kindling, in another cooling, to be the beginning of animation. And he
moreover says, that when the inflammation is throughout, it lives and
is an animal, but being again extinct and thickened, it is turned into
water and earth and corporeity. Now in his First Book of Providence he
says: "For the world, indeed, being wholly set on fire, is presently
also the soul and guide of itself; but when it is changed into moisture,
and has altered the soul remaining within it by some method into a body
and soul, so as to consist of these two it exists then after another
manner." Here, forsooth, he plainly says, that the inanimate parts of
the world are by inflammation turned into an animated thing, and that
again by extinction the soul is relaxed and moistened, being changed
into corporeity. He seems therefore very absurd, one while by
refrigeration making animals of senseless things, and again, by the
same changing the greatest part of the world's soul into senseless and
inanimate things.

But besides this, his discourse concerning the generation of the soul
has a demonstration contrary to his own opinion; or he says, that the
soul is generated when the infant is already brought forth, the spirit
being changed by refrigeration, as by hardening. Now for the soul's
being engendered, and that after the birth, he chiefly uses this
demonstration, that the children are for the most part in manners and
inclinations like to their parents. Now the repugnancy of these things
is evident. For it is not possible that the soul, which is not generated
till after the birth, should have its inclination before the birth; or
it will fall out that the soul is like before it is generated; that is,
it will be in likeness, and yet not be, because it is not yet generated.
But if any one says that, the likeness being bred in the tempers of the
bodies, the souls are changed when they are generated, he destroys the
argument of the soul's being generated. For thus it may come to pass,
that the soul, though not generated, may at its entrance into the body
be changed by the mixture of likeness.

He says sometimes, that the air is light and mounts upwards,