As to the land of the Cyclopes, since that race is a mythical fiction, it is not the case that cultivated fruit is produced without seed being sown or husbandmen tilling it, on the principle that from what does not exist nothing is generated. Greece must not be accused of being a sour unproductive land. For it too has plenty of deep rich soil, and if the world outside excels in fruitfulness its superiority in foodstuffs is counterbalanced by inferiority in the people to be fed for whose sake the food is produced. For Greece alone can be truly said to produce mankind, she who engenders the heavenly plant, the divine shoot, a perfect growth, even reason so closely allied to knowledge, and the cause of this is that the mind is naturally sharpened by the fineness of the air.
On Providence 74
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