In the celestial spheres all the stars were situated, which were so many gods, and among them the sun, the largest and most powerful of all. In these spheres is never any disturbance, storm, or destruction, and consequently no reparation, no reproduction, no action of any kind was required on the part of the gods. Below the moon all is at war, all is destroyed and reconstructed, and here therefore it is that generations are possible. But these take place under the influence of the stars, and particularly that of the sun, which in its course acts in different ways on the elementary spheres, and produces continual variations in them, from whence arises the replenishing and diversifying of nature. It is the sun that lights up the region of fire, that dilates the air, melts the water, and renders fertile the earth, in its daily course from east to west, as well as in this annual journey into the two tropics. But to what does the earth owe its germs and its species? According to some philosophers these germs were celestial ideas which both gods and demons scattered from above over every part of nature, but according to Ocellus they arise continually under the influence of the heavenly bodies. The divisions of the heavens were supposed to separate the portion that is unalterable from that which is in ceaseless change. The line dividing the mortal from the immortal is that described by the moon: all that lies above that, inclusive, is the habitation of the gods; all that lies below is the abode of nature and discord; the latter tending constantly to destruction, the former to the reconstruction of all created things.