quid tam confusum specie, quid tam vice certum est? Ac mihi tam praesens ratio non ulla videtur, qua pateat mundum divino numine verti atque ipsum esse deum, nec forte coisse magistra, ut voluit credi, qui primus moenia mundi seminibus struxit minimis inque illa resolvit; e quibus et maria et terras et sidera caeli aetheraque immensis fabricantem finibus orbes solventemque alios constare, et cuncta reverti in sua principia et rerum mutare figuras.
What is there so complex in its appearance, and yet so sure in the uniformity of its changes? For my part I find no argument so compelling as this to show that the universe moves in obedience to a divine power and is indeed the manifestation of God, and did not come together at the dictation of chance. Yet this is what he would have us believe who first built the walls of the heavens from minute atoms and into these resolved them again; he held that from these atoms are formed the seas, the lands, and the stars in the sky, and the air by which in its vast space worlds are created and dissolved; and that all matter returns to its first origins and changes the shapes of things.
final_alignments\Manilius_Astronomica_Book1.json