The visible order of the universe proves a divine maker
Octavius is replying to Caecilius, arguing that the order of the world proves one creator God.
I do not refuse what Caecilius worked hard to establish among his chief points: that a human being must know himself and look around at what he is, where he comes from, and why he exists. Is he compounded of elements or fitted together from atoms? Or is he rather made, formed, and given life by God? But we cannot investigate and dig out that very question without examining the universe. All things are so joined, connected, and linked together that unless you have thoroughly examined the reason of divinity, you cannot know the reason of humanity. Nor can you manage civic affairs well unless you have come to know this common city of the whole world. This is especially true because we differ from wild beasts in this: they are bent down toward the earth and born to look at nothing but their food. But we, whose faces are upright, whose gaze is given toward heaven, who have speech and reason through which we recognize, perceive, and imitate God, must not and may not ignore the heavenly brightness that presses itself upon our eyes and senses. For it is the likeness of the very greatest sacrilege to search on the ground for what you ought to find on high.
For this reason, those who claim that this adornment of the whole world was not perfected by divine reason but lumped together from certain fragments clinging together at random seem to me to lack mind, sense, and even eyes themselves. For what can be so open, so acknowledged, and so clear, when you have lifted your eyes to heaven and surveyed what is below and around, than that there is some deity of the most excellent mind, by whom all nature is breathed into, moved, nourished, and governed?
Look at the sky itself: how widely it stretches, how swiftly it revolves, how it is marked with stars at night or illuminated by the sun by day. You will then know how wonderful and divine is the balancing of the highest governor within it. Look also at the year, how it is made by the sun's circuit, and look at the month, how the moon drives it around through increase, decline, and labor.
What shall I say of the returning alternations of darkness and light, so that we have a regular restoration of work and rest? A longer speech about the stars must be left to the astrologers, whether they guide the course of sailing or mark the time for plowing and harvesting. Each of these things not only required the highest craftsman and perfect reason to be created, made, and arranged, but they cannot even be perceived, discerned, and understood without the highest skill and reason.
What of the fact that the order of the seasons and crops is marked by stable variety? Does not spring with its flowers, summer with its harvests, the welcome ripeness of autumn, and the necessary olive-gathering of winter all testify to their author and parent? This order would easily be thrown into confusion unless it stood firm by the greatest reason.
Consider how much providence there is in inserting the moderate temperature of autumn and spring between winter and summer, so that winter alone would not burn with ice or summer alone scorch with heat, and so that the hidden and harmless transitions of the returning year might glide along their own tracks.
Look at the sea: it is bound by the law of the shore. See all the trees: how they are given life from the bowels of the earth. Gaze at the ocean: it flows back with alternating tides. See the springs: they pour out in never-failing veins. Observe the rivers: they always go with practiced glidings.
Why should I speak of the straight lines of mountains so fittingly arranged, the curves of hills, the stretches of plains? Or why should I speak of the many forms of protection living creatures have against one another, some armed with horns, others fenced with teeth and grounded on hooves, some spiked with stings, some freed by speed of foot or by the loftiness of wings?
Above all, the beauty of our own form confesses God as craftsman: the upright posture, the lifted face, the eyes placed on high as if in a watchtower, and all the other senses arranged as if in a citadel.
Latin
Nec recuso, quod Caecilius adserere inter praecipua conisus est, hominem nosse se et circumspicere debere, quid sit, unde sit, quare sit: utrum elementis concretus an concinnatus atomis, an potius a Deo factus, formatus, animatus.
quod ipsum explorare et eruere sine uniuersitatis inquisitione non possumus, cum ita cohaerentia, conexa, concatenata sint, ut nisi diuinitatis rationem diligenter excusseris, nescias humanitatis, nec possis pulchre gerere rem ciuilem, nisi cognoueris hanc communem omnium mundi ciuitatem, praecipue cum a feris beluis hoc differamus, quod illa prona in terramque uergentia nihil nata sunt prospicere nisi pabulum. nos, quibus uultus erectus, quibus suspectus in caelum datus est, sermo et ratio, per quae Deum adgnoscimus, sentimus, imitamur, ignorare nec fas nec licet ingerentem sese oculis et sensibus nostris caelestem claritatem:
sacrilegii enim uel maximi instar est, humi quaerere quod in sublimi debeas inuenire. quo magis mihi uidentur qui hunc mundi totius ornatum non diuina ratione perfectum uolunt, sed frustis quibusdam temere cohaerentibus conglobatum, mentem, sensum, oculos denique ipsos non habere.
quid enim potest esse tam apertum, tam confessum tamque perspicuum, cum oculos in caelum sustuleris et quae sunt infra circaque lustraueris, quam esse aliquod numen praestantissimae mentis, quo omnis natura inspiretur, moueatur, alatur, gubernetur?
caelum ipsum uide, quam late tenditur, quam rapide uoluitur, uel quod in noctem astris distinguitur, uel quod in diem sole lustratur: iam scies, quam sit in eo summi moderatoris mira et diuina libratio. uide et annum, ut solis ambitus faciat, et mensem uide, ut luna auctu, senio, labore circumagat.
quid tenebrarum et luminis dicam recursantes uices, ut sit nobis operis et quietis alterna reparatio? relinquenda uero astrologis prolixior de sideribus oratio, uel quod regant cursum nauigandi. uel quod arandi metendique tempus indicant, quae singula non modo ut crearentur, fierent, disponerentur, summi opificis et perfectae rationis eguerunt, uerum etiam sentiri, perspici, intellegi sine summa sollertia et ratione non possunt.
quid, cum ordo temporum ac frugum stabili uarietate distinguitur, nonne auctorem suum parentemque testatur uer aeque cum suis floribus et aestas cum suis messibus et autumni maturitas grata et hiberna oliuitas necessaria? qui ordo facile turbaretur, nisi maxima ratione consisteret.
iam prouidentiae quantae, ne hiemps sola glacie ureret aut sola aestas ardore torreret, autumni et ueris inserere medium temperamentum, ut per uestigia sua anni reuertentis occulti et innoxii transitus laberentur.
mari intende, lege litoris stringitur: quicquid arborum est uide, quam e terrae uisceribus animatur: aspice oceanum, refluit reciprocis aestibus: uide fontes, manant uenis perennibus: fluuios intuere, eunt semper exercitis lapsibus.
quid loquar apte disposita recta montium, collium flexa, porrecta camporum? quidue animantium loquar aduersus sese tutelam multiformem? alias armatas cornibus, alias dentibus saeptas et fundatas ungulis et spicatas aculeis aut pedum celeritate liberas aut elatione pinnarum?
ipsa praecipue formae nostrae pulchritudo Deum fatetur artificem : status rigidus, uultus erectus, oculi in summo uelut in specula constituti et omnes ceteri sensus uelut in arce compositi.