cultivated by learning, and naturally formed to rectitude by the several disciplines, was under the dominion of Venus; so that being protected by the majesty of this joyful and salutary divinity, they might govern their erroneous actions by the ruling power of Providence. But [these divine men] conceived the last period to be under the dominion of Mercury, to whom the Moon in the last place conjoins herself. What can be found more subtle than this arrangement? For mankind being purified from rude and savage pursuits, arts also having been invented, and disciplines disposed in an orderly manner, the human race sharpened its inventive power. And because the noble genius in man could not preserve [uniformly] one course of life, the improbity of evil increased from various institutes, and confused manners and the crimes of a life of wickedness prevailed: hence the human race in this period both invented and delivered to others more enormous machinations. On this account these wise men thought that this last period should be assigned to Mercury[e], so that, in imitation of that star, the human race might give birth to inventions replete with evil[45]. “That nothing, however, may be omitted by us requisite to the elucidation of this subject, all things are to be explained, which prove that man was formed in the imitation and similitude of the world[46]. And that the mundane apocatastasis is effected through a conflagration and a deluge, we also have asserted, and is confirmed by all men. The substance likewise of the human body, the course of life having received its completion, is, after a similar manner, dissolved. For as often as, through the natural ardour of heat, the human body is too much relaxed, it evaporates in consequence of the inundations of humours; and thus it always suffers a decoction from a fiery ardour, or is dissolved by excessive desudation. Nor do the wisest interpreters of the medical art assert, that the substance of the human race is dissolved by a natural termination in any other way, than by either moisture dissolving fire, or again heat predominating, fire being inwardly and deeply extinguished, is left without moisture. Thus the artificer, Nature, constituted man in an all-various imitation of the world, so that whatever dissolves, or forms the essence of the world, this also should be the cause of the formation and dissolution of man.” FOOTNOTES: [35] Nature may be said to point out the way, because its forerunning energy is employed by Divinity in the formation of bodies. By _the fabricator_, in the above sentence, Firmicus means Jupiter, who is called the _Demiurgus_ by Plato, in the Timæus. [36] i. e. Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury. [37] —— Quid mirum noscere mundum Si possent homines, quibus est et mundus in ipsis; Exemplumque Dei quisque est in imagine parva? MANILIUS.