consume almost all bodies, or convert them into ashes and smoke; and
finally, how from these ashes, by the mere intensity of its action, it
forms glass: for as this transmutation of ashes into glass appeared to me
as wonderful as any other in nature, I took a special pleasure in
describing it. I was not, however, disposed, from these circumstances, to
conclude that this world had been created in the manner I described; for
it is much more likely that God made it at the first such as it was to be.
But this is certain, and an opinion commonly received among theologians,
that the action by which he now sustains it is the same with that by which
he originally created it; so that even although he had from the beginning
given it no other form than that of chaos, provided only he had
established certain laws of nature, and had lent it his concurrence to
enable it to act as it is wont to do, it may be believed, without
discredit to the miracle of creation, that, in this way alone, things
purely material might, in course of time, have become such as we observe
them at present; and their nature is much more easily conceived when they
are beheld coming in this manner gradually into existence, than when they
are only considered as produced at once in a finished and perfect state.

From the description of inanimate bodies and plants, I passed to animals,
and particularly to man. But since I had not as yet sufficient knowledge
to enable me to treat of these in the same manner as of the rest, that is
to say, by deducing effects from their causes, and by showing from what
elements and in what manner nature must produce them, I remained satisfied
with the supposition that God formed the body of man wholly like to one of
ours, as well in the external shape of the members as in the internal
conformation of the organs, of the same matter with that I had described,
and at first placed in it no rational soul, nor any other principle, in
room of the vegetative or sensitive soul, beyond kindling in the heart one
of those fires without light, such as I had already described, and which I