Evolution

There are 3 kinds of soul within us, having each of them motions

• one part, if remaining inactive and ceasing from its natural motion, must necessarily become very weak, but that which is trained and exercised, very strong.

Wherefore we should take care that the movements of the different parts of the soul should be in due proportion.

God gave the sovereign part of the human soul to be the divinity of each one, being that part which, as we say, dwells at the top of the body, and inasmuch as we are a plant not of an earthly but of a heavenly growth, raises us from earth to our kindred who are in heaven.

The divine power suspended the head and root of us from that place where the generation of the soul first began, and thus made the whole body upright.

When a man is always occupied with the cravings of desire and ambition, and is eagerly striving to satisfy them, all his thoughts must be mortal, and, as far as it is possible altogether to become such, he must be mortal every whit, because he has cherished his mortal part.

But a person will have immortal and divine thoughts if he:

• has been earnest in the love of knowledge and of true wisdom
• has exercised his intellect more than any other part of him

He will be immortal.

He will be perfectly happy because he:

• is ever cherishing the divine power
• has the divinity within him in perfect order

There is only one way of taking care of things. This is to give to each the food and motion which are natural to it.

The motions which are naturally akin to the divine principle within us are the thoughts and revolutions of the universe. The courses of the head were corrupted at our birth. These should correct such corruption. Everyone should:

• learn the harmonies and revolutions of the universe
• assimilate the thinking being to the thought
• renew his original nature
• should attain to that perfect life which the gods have set before mankind, having assimilated them, both for the present and the future.

Thus our original design of discoursing about the universe down to the creation of man is nearly completed. A brief mention may be made of the generation of other animals, so far as the subject admits of brevity; in this manner our argument will best attain a due proportion.

Animals

The men who were cowards or led unrighteous lives changed into women in their second generation.

This was the reason why at that time the gods created in us the desire of sexual intercourse, contriving in man one animated substance, and in woman another, which they formed respectively in the following manner.

Liquids pass through the lung under the kidneys and into the bladder. This liquid is emitted by the pressure of the air*. This air penetrates also into the body of the marrow, which passes from the head along the neck and through the back. It ends in “the seed”.

1. Humans

The seed has life and respiration. It produces in that part in which it respires a lively desire of emission, and thus creates in us the love of procreation.

Wherefore also in men the organ of generation becoming rebellious and masterful, like an animal disobedient to reason, and maddened with the sting of lust, seeks to gain absolute sway.

The same is the case with the so-called womb or matrix of women; the animal within them is desirous of procreating children, and when remaining unfruitful long beyond its proper time, gets discontented and angry, and wandering in every direction through the body, closes up the passages of the breath, and, by obstructing respiration, drives them to extremity, causing all varieties of disease, until at length the desire and love of the man and the woman, bringing them together and as it were plucking the fruit from the tree, sow in the womb, as in a field, animals unseen by reason of their smallness and without form; these again are separated and matured within; they are then finally brought out into the light, and thus the generation of animals is completed.

Thus, the female sex was created.

2. Birds

The race of birds was created out of innocent light-minded men, who, although their minds were directed toward heaven, imagined, in their simplicity, that the clearest demonstration of the things above was to be obtained by sight;

these were remodelled and transformed into birds, and they grew feathers instead of hair.

3. Land Animals

The race of wild pedestrian animals came from those who had no philosophy in any of their thoughts, and never considered at all about the nature of the heavens, because they had ceased to use the courses of the head, but followed the guidance of those parts of the soul which are in the breast.

In consequence of these habits of theirs they had their front-legs and their heads resting upon the earth to which they were drawn by natural affinity; and the crowns of their heads were elongated and of all sorts of shapes, into which the courses of the soul were crushed by reason of disuse.

This was the reason why they were created quadrupeds and polypods: God gave the more senseless of them the more support that they might be more attracted to the earth. And the most foolish of them, who trail their bodies entirely upon the ground and have no longer any need of feet, he made without feet to crawl upon the earth.

4. The inhabitants of the water

These were made out of the most entirely senseless and ignorant of all, whom the transformers did not think any longer worthy of pure respiration, because they possessed a soul which was made impure by all sorts of transgression.

Instead of the subtle and pure medium of air, they gave them the deep and muddy sea to be their element of respiration. and hence arose the race of fishes and oysters, and other aquatic animals, which have received the most remote habitations as a punishment of their outlandish ignorance.

These are the laws by which animals pass into one another, now, as ever, changing as they lose or gain wisdom and folly.