33. As the circular movement of the world has nothing fortuitous,
inasmuch as it is produced conformably to the reason of this great
animal, a perfect symphonic (co-operation) between what "acts" and
what "reacts" must exist within it; and there must also have been an
order which would co-ordinate things one with another, so that at
each of the phases of the circular movement of the world there might
be a correspondence between the various beings subject to it, as if,
in a varied choric ballet the dancers formed a single figure. As to
our own modern dances, it is easy to explain the eternal things which
contribute thereto, and which differ for every motion, like the sounds
of the flute, the songs, and the other circumstances which are thereto
related. It is not however as easy to conceive the motions of a person
who conforms himself strictly to each figure, who accompanies, who
raises one limb, or lowers another, who moves this limb, or holds
the other limb motionless in a different attitude. The dancer's eyes
are doubtless fixed on some further aim while his limbs are still
responding to the motions inspired by the music, by co-operating in
expressing them, and in completing them symmetrically. Likewise, a man
learned in the art of dancing could explain the reason that, in such a
figure, such a limb is raised, such a limb is bent, while others are
hidden or lowered; not indeed that the dancer deliberates about these
different attitudes, but because in the general movement of his body he
considers such a posture suitable to such a limb to fulfil its proper
part in the dance. Likewise do the stars produce certain facts, and
announce other ones. The entire world realizes its universal life by
causing the motion of the greater parts it comprises, by ceaselessly
changing the figures, so that the different positions of the parts,
and their mutual relations may determine the rest, and that things may
occur as in a movement executed by a single moving living organism.
Thus such a state is produced by such an attitude, such positions,
such figures; while some other state is produced by some other kind
of figures, and so forth. Consequently, the real authors of what is
occurring do not seem to be those who carry out the figures, but He who
commands them; and He who plans the figures does not do one thing while
busying Himself with another, because He is not acting on something
different from Himself; He himself is all the things that are done;
He here is the figures (formed by the universal movement), He himself
there is the resultant passions in the animal so moved and constituted
by nature, simultaneously "active" and "passive" as the result of
necessary laws.