1. INTRODUCTION.

WALKING once alone in a pleasant grove to dispel my disturbing thoughts, and seeing that the trees were shedding their foliage, and that the falling leaves were flying about - for autumn was then taking its turn in the revolution of the year, and dispersing the decorations of summer-from being sad I became serious, while I recollected the delights which that grove, from spring even to this season, had communicated, and so often diffused through my whole mind.

(From the visible things of the world it appears that there is nothing which does not pass through its times and its ages, consequently also the whole earth with human societies.) ¹

But on seeing this change of scene I began to meditate on the vicissitudes of times; and it occurred to me whether all things relating to time do not also pass through similar vicissitudes, namely, whether this is not the case, not only with forests but also with our lives and ages; for it is evident that they, in like manner, commencing from a kind of spring and blossom, and passing through their summer, sink rapidly into their old age, an image of autumn. Nor is this the case only with the periods of men's individual lives, but also with the ages or eons of the world's existence, that is, with the general lives of societies, which from their infancy, integrity, and innocence, were formerly called the golden and silver ages, and which, it is now believed, are about to be succeeded by the last or iron ages, which will shortly moulder away into rust or the dust of clay.

¹ The text has inserted comments on the side of the page. These comments exist periodically throughout the text and have been placed in parentheses at approximately where they occur.

3. THE WORSHIP AND LOVE OF GOD

PART ONE, which discusses the origin of the earth, paradise, and the abode of living creatures also the birth, infancy, and love of the first-born or Adam

Chapter I. Section First. Concerning the Origin of the Earth.

Round about the sun, the centre of this universe, our earthly globe revolves every year in an orbit, and measures the stages of its gyration by the constellations of the zodiac past which it is carried; the time of its circuit, or its return to the same point of its circle, is called its year.

(By the gyration of the earth around the sun and around its axis, there arose the four times [or seasons] of the year, and the same number in each day, together with hours.)

While it performs this its gyration or year, it is turned aside, a little obliquely towards the constellation of the seven stars, and downwards in opposition to them, from the great equinoctial circle, and thus in its every least progress, wheresoever it is, it beholds the sun under a varied aspect, whence come its four seasons of the year, namely, spring, summer, autumn, and winter. In this its circumvolution, it turns like a wheel about its axis, which runs from pole to pole through the middle equinoctial circle or equator, and by these revolutions it divides the circumference through which it runs, into parts or degrees, which are called the days of its year. The effect of each of these rotations is, that the sun rises, and from rising gains a meridian altitude, and thence declines, and at length sets and is hidden. Hence again come the four times of every day, called morning, noon, evening, and night, together with their hours, which, as it were, surround this day, and measure the divisions of the seasons of the year. The four intervals of every day represent themselves in the four intervals of the whole year, as lesser effigies in greater; thus the morning represents itself in the spring, noon in summer, autumn in evening, and winter in night, and so forth. ¹

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