XXIII. Can we doubt that the climate of this abode of the human
race is regulated by the motion of the sun and moon in their
orbits? that our bodies are sustained, the hard earth loosened,
excessive moisture reduced, and the surly bonds of winter broken by
the heat of the one, and that crops are brought to ripeness by the
effectual all-pervading warmth of the other? that the fertility of
the human race corresponds to the courses of the moon? that the sun
by its revolution marks out the year, and that the moon, moving in
a smaller orbit, marks out the months? Yet, setting aside all this,
would not the sun be a sight worthy to be contemplated and
worshipped, if he did no more than rise and set? would not the moon
be worth looking at, even if it passed uselessly through the
heavens? Whose attention is not arrested by the universe itself,
when by night it pours forth its fires and glitters with
innumerable stars? Who, while he admires them, thinks of their
being of use to him? Look at that great company gliding over our
heads, how they conceal their swift motion under the semblance of a
fixed and immovable work. How much takes place in that night which
you make use of merely to mark and count your days! What a mass of
events is being prepared in that silence! What a chain of destiny
their unerring path is forming! Those which you imagine to be
merely strewn about for ornament are really one and all at work.
Nor is there any ground for your belief that only seven stars
revolve, and that the rest remain still: we understand the orbits
of a few, but countless divinities, further removed from our sight,
come and go; while the greater part of those whom our sight reaches
move in a mysterious manner and by an unknown path.

XXIV. What then? would you not be captivated by the sight of such a