The transmigration of souls can be proved from the congenital afflictions of persons. For why are some born blind, others paralytic, others with some sickness in the soul itself? Again, it is the natural duty of Souls to do their work in the body; are we to suppose that when once they leave the body they spend all eternity in idleness? Again, if the souls did not again enter into bodies, they must either be infinite in number or God must constantly be making new ones. But there is nothing infinite in the world; for in a finite whole there cannot be an infinite part. Neither can others be made; for everything in which something new goes on being created, must be imperfect. And the World, being made by a perfect author, ought naturally to be perfect. XXI. _That the Good are happy, both living and dead._ Souls that have lived in virtue are in general happy,[224:2] and when separated from the irrational part of their nature, and made clean from all matter, have communion with the gods and join them in the governing of the whole world. Yet even if none of this happiness fell to their lot, virtue itself, and the joy and glory of virtue, and the life that is subject to no grief and no master are enough to make happy those who have set themselves to live according to virtue and have achieved it. FOOTNOTES: [200:1] I translate κόσμος generally as 'World', sometimes as 'Cosmos'. It always has the connotation of 'divine order'; ψυχή always 'Soul', to keep it distinct from ζωή, 'physical life', though often 'Life' would be a more natural English equivalent; ἐμψυχοῦν 'to animate'; οὐσία sometimes 'essence', sometimes 'being' (never 'substance' or 'nature'); φύσις 'nature'; σῶμα sometimes 'body', sometimes 'matter'. [203:1] e. g. when we say 'The sun is coming in through the window', or in Greek ἐξαίφνης ἥκων ἐκ τοῦ ἡλίου, Plat. _Rep._ 516 E. This appears to mean that you can loosely apply the term 'Osiris' both to (i) the real Osiris and (ii) the corn which comes from him, as you can apply the name 'Sun' both to (i) the real orb and (ii) the ray that comes from the orb. However, Julian, _Or._ v, on the Sun suggests a different view--that both the orb and the ray are mere effects and symbols of the true spiritual Sun, as corn is of Osiris. [204:1] ἄρχεσθαι Mr. L. W. Hunter, ἔρχεσθαι MS. Above the Milky Way there is no such body, only σῶμα ἀπαθές. Cf. Macrob. in _Somn. Scip._ i. 12. [208:1] i. e. if the Firmament or Fixed Sphere moved in the same direction as the seven Planets, the speed would become too great. On the circular movement cf. Plot. _Eun._ ii. 2. [209:1] The fire of which the heavenly bodies are made is the πέμπτον σῶμα, matter, but different from earthly matter. See p. 137. [209:2] Proclus, _Elem. Theol._ xx, calls it ἡ νοερὰ φύσις, _Natura Intellectualis_. There are four degrees of existence: lowest of all, Bodies; above that, Soul; above all Souls, this 'Intellectual Nature'; above that, The One.