On the Universe

OR OF COSMOGRAPHY.

to the quantity which we perceive. Therefore, the most subtle extremity of the first matter, stripped of its corruptive accidents and purified, was elevated into the mass of the ten celestial spheres. The mass of the four elements remained wrapped in corruptive accidents. Fire, in one part, more subtle in the elemental order, air twice, water three times, and earth four times more subtle, rarer, thinner, and more purified than itself, were carried thither. And thus from the four elements, ten celestial spheres arose, which are not only like the form of the world, but have individual motivating intelligences: by whose will the influx of the individual heavens becomes unequal, whence arises the diversity of the regions of the world in the same parallel. For in the same reason of heaven, India is most happy, Ethiopia is sandy and