Nevertheless, supposing, if you please, that it is against Nature for earthly bodies to have any motions in heaven, let us consider leisurely and mildly-and not violently, as is done in tragedies—that this is no proof of the moon’s not being earth, but only that earth is in a place where by nature it should not be; for the fire of Mount Aetna is indeed against nature under ground, nevertheless it ceases not to be fire. And the wind contained within bottles is indeed of its own nature light and inclined to ascend, but is yet by force constrained to be there where naturally it should not be. And is not our very soul, I beseech you in the name of Jupiter, which, as yourselves say, is light, of a fiery substance, and imperceptible to sense, included within the body, which is heavy, cold, and palpable? Yet do we therefore say that the soul does not belong to the body; or that it is not a divine substance under a gross and heavy mass, or that it does not in a moment pass through heaven, earth, and sea, pierce into the flesh, nerves, and marrow, and into the humors which are the cause of a thousand passions? And even your Jupiter, such as you imagine him and depaint him to be, is he not of his own nature a great and perpetual fire? Yet now he submits, is pliable, and transformed into all things by several mutations. Take heed therefore, good sir, lest, by transferring and reducing every thing to the place assigned it by Nature, you so philosophize as to bring in a dissolution of the whole world, and put all things again into that state of enmity mentioned by Empedocles, or (to speak more properly) lest you raise up again those ancient Titans and Giants to put on arms against Nature, and endeavor to introduce again that fabulous disorder and confusion, where all that is heavy goes one way apart, and all that is light another; Where neither sun’s bright face is seen, Nor earth beheld, spread o’er with green, Nor the salt sea, as Empedocles has it. Then the earth felt no heat, nor the sea any wind; no heavy thing moved upwards, nor any light thing downwards; but the principles of all things were solitary, without any mutual love or dilection one to another, not admitting any society or mixture together; but shunning and avoiding all communication, moving separately by particular motions, as being disdainful, proud, and altogether carrying themselves in such manner as every thing does from which (as Plato says) God is absent; that is, as those bodies do in which there is neither soul nor understanding; till such time as, by Divine Providence, desire coming into Nature engendered mutual amity, Venus, and Love,—as Empedocles, Parmenides, and Hesiod have it,—to the end that changing their natural places, and reciprocally communicating their faculties, some being by necessity bound to motion, others to quiet and rest, and all tending to the better, every thing remitting a little of its power and yielding a little from its place, they might make at length a harmony, accord, and society together.