IMMORTALITY DOES NOT EXTEND TO THE SUB-LUNAR SPHERE.
If we be right in attributing immortality to the heaven, we shall have to extend that conception to the stars it contains; for unless its parts endured, neither could the heaven. However, the things beneath the heaven do not form part of it. The region which constitutes the heaven does not extend further down than the moon. As to us, having our organs formed by the (vegetative) soul which was given us by the celestial divinities (the stars), and even the heaven itself,[210] we are united to the body by that soul. Indeed, the other soul (the reasonable soul), which constitutes our person, our "me,"[211] is not the cause of our being,[212] but of our well-being (which consists in our intellectual life). She comes to join our body when it is already formed (by the vegetative soul), and contributes to our being only by one part, by giving us reason (in making of us reasonable beings, and men).
THE STARS CONTAIN NOT ONLY FIRE, BUT TANGIBLE EARTH.
6. Is the heaven composed exclusively of fire? Does the fire allow any of its substance to flow off, or escape? Does it, therefore, need being fed? (Plato[213]) thinks the body of the universe is composed of earth and fire; fire to explain its being visible, and earth to explain its being tangible. This would lead us to suppose that the stars are composed of fire not exclusively, but predominatingly, since they seem to possess a tangible element. This opinion is plausible because Plato supports it with reasonable grounds. Sense, sight and touch would lead us to believe that the greater part, if not the whole, of the heaven, is fire. But reason suggests that the heaven also contains earth, because without earth it could not be tangible.[214] This however does not imply that it contains also air and water. It would seem absurd to think that water could subsist in so great a fire; nor could air survive therein without immediately being transformed to steam. It might be objected that two solids which play the parts of extremes in a proportion, cannot be united without two means.[213] This objection, however, might have no cogency, for this mathematical relation might not apply to natural things, as indeed we are led to surmise by the possibility of mingling earth and water without any intermediary. To this it may be answered that earth and water already contain the other elements. Some persons might think that the latter could not effectually unite earth and water; but this would not disturb our contention that the earth and water are related because each of these two elements contains all the others.
EARTH CONTAINS ALL THE OTHER ELEMENTS.
Besides, we shall have to examine whether the earth be invisible without fire, and the fire intangible without the earth. Were this the case, nothing would possess its own proper being. All things would be mixed; each would reclaim its name only by the element preponderating in it; for it has been claimed that the earth could not exist without the humidity of water, which alone keeps all its parts united. Even were this granted, it would, none the less, remain absurd to say that each of these elements is something, while claiming that it does not possess any characteristically individual constitution, except by its union with the other elements, which, nevertheless, would not, any the more, exist individually, each in itself. What reality, indeed, would inhere in the nature or being of the earth, if none of its parts were earth except because the water that operated as a bond? Besides, with what could water unite without the preliminary existence of an extension whose parts were to be bound together for the formation of a continuous whole? The existence of an extension, however small it be, will imply the self-existence of earth, without the assistance of water; otherwise, there would be nothing for water to bind together. Nor would the earth have any need of air, since the air exists before the observation of any change within it. Nor is fire any more necessary to the constitution of the earth; fire only serves in making it visible, like all other objects. It is indeed reasonable to assert that it is fire which renders objects visible, and it is a mistake[215] to state that "one sees darkness," which cannot be seen any more than silence can be heard. Besides, there is no necessity for fire to be in earth; light suffices (to make it visible). Snow, and many other very cold substances are, without any fire, very brilliant—that is, unless we say that the fire approached them, and colored them before leaving them.
ELEMENTS ARE NEVERTHELESS INDIVIDUAL.
As to the other elements, could not water exist without participating in the earth? Air could certainly not be said to participate in earth, because of its penetrability. It is very doubtful that the fire contains any earth, because it does not seem continuous, and does not, by itself, seem to be tri-dimensional. True, fire does seem to contain solidity, but not of a tri-dimensional kind; it seems rather to be a sort of resistance corporeal nature[214]). Only of earth may hardness be predicated; indeed, gold, in liquid state, is dense; not because it is earth, but because it possesses density, and is solidified. It would therefore not be unreasonable that fire, apart by itself, could subsist by the power of the Soul which sustains it by her presence. The bodies of (certain among) the guardian spirits consist of fire.[216]