But also because Aristotle bears witness to this fact in the case of Plato, who, from his great reverence for philosophy, would never have spoken falsely, and also because no one can possibly be more to be credited in the case of a teacher than his pupil, especially when the pupil is such a man as this who did not apply himself to instruction lightly with an indifference easily satisfied, but who even endeavoured to surpass all the discoveries of former men, and did actually devise some novelties and enrich every part of philosophy with some most important discoveries.
 But some persons think that the father of the Platonic theory was the poet Hesiod, as they conceive that the world is spoken of by him as created and indestructible; as created, when he says, —

 "First did Chaos rule 
 Then the broad-chested earth was brought to light, 
 Foundation firm and lasting for whatever 
 Exists among mankind;" 

 Hesiod, Theogon 116. and as indestructible, because he has given no hint of its dissolution or destruction.
 Now Chaos was conceived by Aristotle to be a place, because it is absolutely necessary that a place to receive them must be in existence before bodies. But some of the Stoics think that it is water, imagining that its name has been derived from effusion. Χύσις , as if chaos were derived from Χέω , " to pour." But however that may be, it is exceedingly plain that the world is spoken of by Hesiod as having been created: and a very long time before him Moses, the lawgiver of the Jews, had said in his sacred volumes that the world was both created and indestructible, and the number of the books is five. The first of which he entitled Genesis, in which he begins in the following manner: "in the beginning God created the heaven and the earth; and the earth was invisible and without form." Then proceeding onwards he relates in the following verses, that days and nights, and seasons, and years, and the sun and moon, which showed the nature of the measurement
 There is probably some corruption in the text here, 
 Hesiod, Theogon 116. 
 Χύσις , as if chaos were derived from Χέω , " to pour." 
 
of time, were created, which, having received an immortal portion in common with the whole heaven, continue for ever indestructible.
 But we must place those arguments first which make out the world to be uncreated and indestructible, because of our respect for that which is visible, employing an appropriate commencement. To all things which are liable to destruction there are two causes of that destruction, one being internal and the other external; therefore you may find iron, and brass, and all other substances of that kind destroyed by themselves when rust, like a creeping disease, overruns and devours them; and by external causes when, if a house or a city is burnt, they also are consumed in the conflagration, being melted by the violent impetuosity of the fire.
A similar end also befalls animals, partly when they are sick of diseases arising internally, and partly when they are destroyed by external causes, being sacrificed, or stoned, or burnt, or when they endure an unclean death by hanging.