No fact is so simple that it is not harder to believe than to doubt at the first presentation. Equally, there is nothing so mighty or so marvelous that the wonder it evokes does not tend to diminish in time.
Some species increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and, like runners, pass on the torch of life.
All things around, convulsed with violent thunder, seem to tremble, and the mighty walls of the capacious world appear at once to have started and burst asunder.
Meantime, when once we know from nothing still Nothing can be create, we shall divine More clearly what we seek: those elements From which alone all things created are, And how accomplished by no tool of Gods.
Thus the sum Forever is replenished, and we live As mortals by eternal give and take. The nations wax, the nations wane away; In a brief space the generations pass, And like to runners hand the lamp of life One unto other.
