Lachesis effect, who is indeed the daughter of Necessity,--as we
have both already related, and shall yet better understand by that which
will be said in the progress of our discourse. Thus you see what Fate
is, when it is taken for an action.

But as it is a substance, it seems to be the universal soul of the
world, and admits of a threefold distribution; the first destiny being
that which errs not; the second, that which is thought to err; and the
third that which, being under the heaven, is conversant about the
earth. Of these, the highest is called Clotho, the next Atropos, and the
lowest, Lachesis; who, receiving the celestial influences and efficacies
of her sisters, transmits and fastens them to the terrestrial things
which are under her government. Thus have we declared briefly what is to
be said of Fate, taken as a substance; what it is, what are its parts,
after what manner it is, how it is ordained, and how it stands, both
in respect to itself and to us. But as to the particularities of these
things, there is another fable in his Commonweal, by which they are in
some measure covertly insinuated, and we ourselves have, in the best
manner we can, endeavored to explain them to you.

But we now once again turn our discourse to Fate, as it is an energy.
For concerning this it is that there are so many natural, moral, and
logical questions. Having therefore already in some sort sufficiently
defined what it is, we are now in the next place to say something of
its quality, although it may to many seem absurd. I say then that Fate,
though comprehending as it were in a circle the infinity of all those
things which are and have been from infinite times and shall be to
infinite ages, is not in itself infinite, but determinate and finite;
for neither law, reason, nor any other divine thing can be infinite.
And this you will the better understand, if you consider the total
revolution and the total time in which the revolutions of the eight
circles (that is, of the eight spheres of the fixed stars, sun, moon,
and five planets), having (as Timaeus (Plato, "Timaeus," p.39 D.) says)
finished their course, return to one and the same point, being measured
by the circle of the Same, which goes always after one manner. For in
this order, which is finite and determinate, shall all things (which, as
well in heaven as in earth, consist by necessity from above) be reduced
to the same situation, and restored again to their first begin