One Hundred and Fifty Chapters

That the world had a beginning, nature itself teaches, history confirms, and the discoveries of the arts, the establishment of laws, and the practice of civil institutions make plainly evident. For we know the inventors of nearly all the arts, the lawgivers of the laws, and those who first made use of civil institutions. Moreover, we know the beginning of all who have written on any subject whatsoever, and we see that none of them reaches back beyond the origin of the world and of time, which Moses recorded. And Moses himself, who wrote of the beginning of the world's creation, furnished irrefutable proofs of the truth of his account through so many extraordinary works and words that he brought nearly the whole human race to full persuasion and convinced them to mock those who had devised contrary opinions. For the very nature of this world, which always requires a fresh originating principle for each particular thing and is in no way able to subsist without it, demonstrates through the facts themselves that first principle of its own existence which derived from no other source.