moistened, and the like.

Let me ask a question in which a great principle is involved: Is there an
essence of fire and the other elements, or are there only fires visible to
sense? I answer in a word: If mind is one thing and true opinion another,
then there are self-existent essences; but if mind is the same with
opinion, then the visible and corporeal is most real. But they are not the
same, and they have a different origin and nature. The one comes to us by
instruction, the other by persuasion, the one is rational, the other is
irrational; the one is movable by persuasion, the other immovable; the one
is possessed by every man, the other by the gods and by very few men. And
we must acknowledge that as there are two kinds of knowledge, so there are
two kinds of being corresponding to them; the one uncreated,
indestructible, immovable, which is seen by intelligence only; the other
created, which is always becoming in place and vanishing out of place, and
is apprehended by opinion and sense. There is also a third nature--that of
space, which is indestructible, and is perceived by a kind of spurious
reason without the help of sense. This is presented to us in a dreamy
manner, and yet is said to be necessary, for we say that all things must be
somewhere in space. For they are the images of other things and must
therefore have a separate existence and exist in something (i.e. in space).
But true reason assures us that while two things (i.e. the idea and the
image) are different they cannot inhere in one another, so as to be one and
two at the same time.

To sum up: Being and generation and space, these three, existed before the
heavens, and the nurse or vessel of generation, moistened by water and
inflamed by fire, and taking the forms of air and earth, assumed various
shapes. By the motion of the vessel, the elements were divided, and like
grain winnowed by fans, the close and heavy particles settled in one place,