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Those then who think the moon to be a fiery and burning body are in an error; and in like manner those who would have all such things to be necessary for the generation, life, food, and entertainment of the animals dwelling there as are requisite to those that are here below, consider not the vast diversity and inequality there is in Nature; in which there are found greater varieties and differences between animals and animals, than there are between animals and other subjects that are not animated. There are surely not in the world any men of such pure mouths that they feed only on smells. But that power of Nature which Ammonius himself has shown us, and which Hesiod has obscurely signified in these words, Nor how great virtue is in asphodels and mallows, Hesiod, Works and Days, 41. Epimenides has made plain to us in effect, teaching us that Nature sustains a living creature with very little food, and that, provided it has but the quantity of an olive, it stands in need of no other nourishment. Now, if any, those surely who dwell within the moon should be active, light, and easy to be nourished with any thing whatsoever; since they affirm that the moon herself, as also the sun, which is a fiery animal, and manifoldly greater than the earth, is nourished and maintained by the moistures that come from the earth, as are also all the other stars, whose number is in a manner infinite; such light and slender animals do they assign to the upper region, and with so small necessaries do they think them contented and satisfied. But we neither see these things, nor consider that a quite different region, nature, and temperature is accommodated to those lunar men.
