229
without any approximation to them; but a celestial body, also, is unmingled with all the material elements;[1] nor does it receive into itself any thing extraneous, nor impart any portion of itself to things of a foreign nature. How, therefore, can any terrestrial vapour, which is not elevated five stadia from the earth before it again flows down to the earth, either nourish a circulating and immaterial body, or, in short, produce in it a certain defilement, or any other passion? For it is acknowledged that an etherial body is void of all contrariety, is liberated from all mutation, is entirely pure from the possibility of being transmuted into any thing else, and is perfectly free from a tendency to, and from the middle, because it is either without any tendency, or is convolved in a circle. Hence, it is not possible that bodies, which consist of different powers and motions, which are all-variously changed, and are moved either upwards or downwards, should have any communion of nature or power with celestial bodies, or that any exhalation of the former should be mingled with the latter. As the former, therefore, are entirely separated
- ↑ A celestial body, as is beautifully shown by Proclus in Tim. lib. iii. contains the summits of all the elements, but is characterized by vivific unburning fire; so that, in short, it is vitalized extension.
