We are fond of saying that the highest good is to live according to Nature. Nature has begotten us for both purposes — for contemplation and for action. Let me now prove the first statement. But why anything more? Will not this be proved if each one of us shall take counsel simply of himself, and ponder how great is his desire to gain knowledge of the unknown, and how this desire is stirred by tales of every sort? Some sail the sea and endure the hardships of journeying to distant lands for the sole reward of discovering something hidden and remote. It is this that collects people everywhere to see sights, it is this that forces them to pry into things that are closed, to search out the more hidden things, to unroll the past, and to listen to the tales of the customs of barbarous tribes. Nature has bestowed upon us an inquisitive disposition, and being well aware of her own skill and beauty, has begotten us to be spectators of her mighty array, since she would lose the fruit of her labor if her works, so vast, so glorious, so artfully contrived, so bright and so beautiful in more ways than one, were displayed to a lonely solitude. That you may understand how she wished us, not merely to behold her, but to gaze upon her, see the position in which she has placed us. She has set us in the center of her creation, and has granted us a view that sweeps the cosmos; and she has not only created man erect, but in order to fit him for contemplation of herself, she has given him a head to top the body, and set it upon a pliant neck, in order that he might follow the stars as they glide from their rising to their setting and turn his face about with the whole revolving heaven. And besides, guiding on their course six constellations by day, and six by night, she left no part of herself unrevealed, hoping that by these wonders which she had presented to man’s eyes she might also arouse his curiosity in the rest. For we have not beheld them all, nor the full compass of them, but our vision opens up a path for its investigation, and lays the foundations of truth so that our research may pass from revealed to hidden things and discover something more ancient than the world itself — whence yon stars came forth, what was the state of the cosmos before the several elements separated to form its parts, what principle separated the engulfed and confused elements, who appointed their places to things, whether the heavy elements sank and the light ones flew aloft by reason of their own nature,12 or apart from the energy and gravity of matter some higher power13 has appointed laws for each of them, or whether that theory is true which strives especially to prove that man is part of the divine spirit, that some part, sparks, as it were, of the stars fell down to earth and lingered here in a place that is not their own. Our thought bursts through the ramparts14 of the sky, and is not content to know that which is revealed. “I search out that,” it says, “which lies beyond the world whether the vastness of space is unending, or whether this also is enclosed within its own boundaries; what is the appearance of whatever exists outside, whether it is formless and disordered, occupying the same amount of room in every direction, or whether that also has been arranged into some show of elegance; whether it clings close to this world, or has withdrawn far from it and revolves there in the void; whether it is atoms15 by means of which everything that has been born and will be born is built up or whether the matter of things is continuous and throughout is capable of change16; whether the elements are hostile to each other, or whether they are not at war, but while they differ are in harmony.” Since man was born for inquiring into such matters as these, consider how little time has been allotted to him even if he claims the whole of it for himself. Though he allows none of it to be snatched from him by ease, none of it to be lost through carelessness, though he guards his hours with most miserly care, and attains to the utmost limit of human life, though Fortune wrecks no part of that which Nature has appointed for him, yet man is too mortal to comprehend things immortal. Consequently I live according to Nature if I surrender myself entirely to her, if I become her admirer and worshiper. But Nature intended me to do both — to be active and to have leisure for contemplation. And really I do both, since even the contemplative life is not devoid of action.17