ÉPINOMIS.

the spectacle of the day. From the aspect of the day, man passes to that of the night, which offers him a completely different tableau; and, not ceasing to bring back the successive revolution of days and nights, the sky does not cease to teach men what one and two are, until the most stupid has sufficiently learned to count; for this same sequence of days and nights also teaches each of us what three, four, and several are. Furthermore, among the celestial bodies, God has made one, the moon, which, in its course, appearing now larger, now smaller, shows us without ceasing a new kind of day, during the space of fifteen days and fifteen nights; such is the measure of its revolution, if one wishes to add all its parts together to make a circle: so that the most stupid of all the animals that God has endowed with the faculty of learning finally conceives what number is. Up to that point, and as long as it is only a question of considering each number separately, any animal that has the necessary intelligence will become skilled in this science. But it requires, it seems to me, a greater effort of spirit to combine various numbers together: that is why God, having made, as I have said, the moon subject to waxing and waning, showed us thereby the relationship of months to years *, and happily set us on the path of comparing one number with another. From there also have come to us the fruits and fertility of the earth, which gives all animals their nourishment, with the help of winds and rains distributed appropriately and with measure. If sometimes this order is changed and altered, it is not God who must be blamed,

* This refers to lunar months, the first to be used. In Greek the word month, mēn, comes from mēnē, moon.