He goes on: "No part of anything void of sense is capable of perception; some parts of the world have perception; the world, therefore, has sense." He proceeds, and pursues the argument closely.

"Nothing," says he, "that is destitute itself of life and reason can generate a being possessed of life and reason; but the world does generate beings possessed of life and reason; the world, therefore, is not itself destitute of life and reason." He concludes his argument in his usual manner with a simile: "If well-tuned pipes should spring out of the olive, would you have the slightest doubt that there was in the olive-tree itself some kind of skill and knowledge?
Or if the plane-tree could produce harmonious lutes, surely you would infer, on the same principle, that music was contained in the plane-tree.

Why, then, should we not believe the world is a living and wise being, since it produces living and wise beings out of itself ?" IX.

But as I have been insensibly led into a length of discourse beyond my first design (for I said that, as the existence of the Gods was evident to all, there was no need of any long oration to prove it), I will demonstrate it by reasons deduced from the nature of things.

For it is a fact that all beings which take nourishment and increase contain in themselves a power of natural heat, without which they could neither be nourished nor increase.