Aristotle has finely said that we should never be more reverent 1 than when we are treating of the gods. We enter a temple with all due gravity, we lower our eyes, draw up our toga, and assume every token of modesty when we approach the sacrifice. How much more is all this due when we discuss the heavenly bodies, the stars, the nature of the gods, lest in ignorance we make any assertion regarding them that is hasty, or disrespectful; or lest we wittingly lie. Let us not 2 be surprised that what is buried so deeply should be unearthed so slowly. Panaetius and others, who will have it that a comet is not an ordinary star but the mere counterfeit of a star, have bestowed careful treatment on the question whether all seasons of the year are equally fitted to produce comets, and whether all quarters of the sky are equally suitable for their creation. They have inquired, too, whether they can be formed in all regions through which they can pass, and have discussed other points of a like kind. But all these questions are foreclosed by my statement that they are not accidental fires, but inwoven in the texture of the universe, directed by it in secret, but not often revealed. And how many bodies besides revolve in secret, 3 never dawning upon human eyes? Nor is it for man that God has made all things.[100] How small a portion of His mighty work is entrusted to us? But He who directs them all, who established and laid the foundations of all this world, who has clothed Himself with creation, and is the greater and better part of His work, He is hidden from our eyes, He can be perceived only by thought. [100] Another reading runs: Nor has God revealed all things to man. XXXI