Now since the earth holds the last place among simple
bodies, even though it is productive of many things, yet it
is much less prolific than the higher elements ; being both
far longer in gestation, and slower in parturition, and finally
having more difficulty in supporting its ofepring. For the
latter, through the infirmity of their nature, are constantly
perishing, and need support, and require renewal. Hence
arises the succession of earth's offspring, and the yearly
repeated birth of the plants that grow upon her. In the
ether, and the heaven, this is by no means the case ; for
what is once bom in it, abides for ever, by reason of the
innate force of the parent heaven.
* Or elements : — see note above, p. 14.
^ This idea of a gradual degeneracy, or deterioration,* which Colet
often reverts to, may perhaps have been suggested by the last chapter
of the TifntBus. In Plato's cosmogony, *' the first stage, and the least
amount of degeneracy, was exhibited in the formation of woman, the
original type of man not having included diversity of sex. By farther
steps of degradation, in different ways, the inferior animals were formed
— birds, quadrupeds, and, fishes." — Grote's Aristotle (1872), II. 173.
As Grote elsewhere says, it resembles the theory of Darwin, " with its
steps inverted.'* — See his Plato and the other Companions of Socrates
(1865), m. 292 ; and also Philo, De Mundi Opijicio (ed. 1613), p. 24.
It furnishes the argument of Canto xiii. of the Paradiso.
