Note 11 — Quest. XIV., XV.
Reading edition
See this argument farther improved, by those who have insisted on the first inventors of things; as Polydor. Virgil. de Rerum inventoribus; and Plin. Secund. Hist. Mundi. Lib. VII. cap. 56.-60. and Clem. Alex. Strom. Lib. I. Lucretius, though an assertor of the eternity of matter and motion, from his master Epicurus, yet proves, that the world, as to its present form, had a beginning; and what he says is so much to our present argument, that I cannot but mention it. Vid. Lucret. de Rer. Nat. Lib. V.
Prætera si nulla fuit genitalis origo Terrarum & Cœli, semperq; æterna fuere;
Cur supra bellum Thebanum, & funera Trojæ,
Non alias alii quoque res cecinere Poetæ?
Quo tot facta virum toties cecidere? neque usquam
Æternis famæ monimentis insita florent?
Verum, ut opinor, habet novitatem Summa, recensq;
Natura est Mundi, neque pridem exordia cepit.
Quare etiam quædam nunc artes expoliuntur.
Nunc etiam augescunt; nunc addita navigiis sunt.
Multa: modo organici melicos peperere sonores.
Denique Natura hæc rerum, ratioque reperta est
Nuper.——