XXXVII. ‘What is the real reason, some one will ask, why Plato[177] referred the number of five for his worlds to the five solid figures, saying that “God used the fifth formation on the universe to mark it out”? In the sequel, when he raises the [Sidenote: B] problem of plurality of worlds, whether we should properly speak of one or of five as naturally existing, he shows clearly that the suggestion came from the solids. If, then, we are to adjust what is actually probable to his conception, let us consider that difference in movement must in each case follow difference in the solids and their shapes, as Plato[178] himself teaches, when he [Sidenote: C] shows that what is rarefied or condensed suffers a change of place simultaneously with alteration of substance. If from air fire be formed, the Octahedron being resolved and broken up into Pyramids, or again if air from fire, when compressed and thrust into an Octahedron, it is impossible that either should remain where it was before; they fly off rapidly to another place, forcing a way out and battling with whatever resists and presses upon them. The result is shown still more clearly by an illustration from grain “tossed and winnowed by the fans and implements used for cleaning corn”; Plato[179] says that [Sidenote: D] in like manner the elements toss matter about and are tossed by it; like approaches like, different objects take different places, before the whole comes out finally marshalled. Thus then, matter being what any universe must be from which God is absent, the first five properties, each with its own tendency, at once began to move apart, not being entirely or purely separated, because, when all things were mixed up together, the vanquished particles always followed their conquerors, in despite of Nature. Hence they produced in the kinds of bodies, as they were borne in different directions, parts and divisions as many as themselves: one not of pure fire but [Sidenote: E] resembling fire, one not of unmixed air but resembling air, one not of earth simple and absolute but resembling earth. Most general was the association of air with water, because they passed out saturated with the many other classes. For God did not separate nor disperse being; but taking it up dispersed by its own operation and borne about in so many streams of disorder, he ordered and disposed it in symmetry and proportion. [Sidenote: F] Then he set reason in each to be a governor and guardian, and created as many worlds as there were kinds of primal bodies. Let so much then be inscribed to Plato for Ammonius’ sake. For myself, I could never speak with confidence as to the number of worlds and affirm that there are so many: but I think the view that there are more than one, yet not an indefinite but a limited number, as reasonable as either of the other views, when I see how scattered and divided matter naturally is, that it does not abide in one place, nor yet [Sidenote: 431] is suffered by reason to