[42] Firmicus calls the geniture of the world a _fabulous_ device, because it supposes the mundane periods to have had a temporal beginning, though they are in reality eternal. For in a fable, the _inward_ is different from the _outward_ meaning. [43] In the greater apocatastasis of the world, which is effected by a deluge or a conflagration, the continent becomes sea, and the sea continent: “This, however,” says Olympiodorus, (in his Scholia on the first book of Aristotle’s Treatise on Meteors,) “happens in consequence of what is called _the great winter_, and _the great summer_. But _the great winter_ is when all the planets become situated in a wintry sign, viz. either in Aquarius or in Pisces. And _the great summer_ is when all of them are situated in a summer sign, viz. either in Leo or in Cancer. For as the Sun alone, when he is in Leo, causes summer, but when he is in Capricorn winter, and thus the year is formed, which is so denominated, because the Sun tends to one and the same point (ενιαυτος), for his restitution is from the same to the same,—in like manner there is an arrangement of all the planets effected in long periods of time, which produces the great year. For if all the planets becoming vertical, heat in the same manner as the sun, but departing from this vertical position refrigerate, it is not unreasonable to suppose, that when they become vertical, they produce _a great summer_, but when they have departed from this position, _a great winter_. In _the great winter_, therefore, the continent becomes sea, but in _the great summer_ the contrary happens, in consequence of the burning heat, and there being great dryness where there was moisture.” At the end too of this first book of Aristotle on Meteors, Olympiodorus observes, “that when _the great winter_ happens, a part of the earth being deluged, a change then takes place to a more dry condition, till _the great summer_ succeeds, which however does not cause the corruption of all the earth. For neither was the deluge of Deucalion mundane, since this happened principally in Greece.” See the volume of my Aristotle containing this Treatise on Meteors, p. 478, &c. Firmicus, therefore, is mistaken in asserting that a deluge follows a conflagration; since the contrary is true. For it is obviously necessary that places which have been inundated should afterwards become dry, or they would no longer be habitable. [44] In the original, “positæ humanitatis ratio deserebat;” but for _positæ humanitatis_, it appears to me to be requisite to read, conformably to the above translation, _positâ humanitate_. [45] Is not what is here said about the last period verified in the present age?