He did not even discuss that topic so favoured by other talkers, the Nature of the Universe : and avoided
 speculation on the so-called Cosmos of the
 Professors, how it works, and on the laws that govern the phenomena
 of the heavens: indeed he would argue that to trouble one’s mind
 with such problems is sheer folly. In the first place, he would inquire, did these thinkers suppose that
 their knowledge of human affairs was so complete that they must seek
 these new fields for the exercise of their brains; or that it was
 their duty to neglect human affairs and consider only things
 divine? Moreover, he marvelled at their blindness in not seeing that man
 cannot solve these riddles; since even the most conceited talkers on
 these problems did not agree in their theories, but behaved to one
 another like madmen. As some madmen have no fear of danger and others are afraid where
 there is nothing to be afraid of, as some will do or say anything in
 a crowd with no sense of shame, while others shrink even from going
 abroad among men, some respect neither temple nor altar nor any
 other sacred thing, others worship stocks and stones and beasts, so
 is it, he held, with those who worry with Universal Nature. Some hold that What
 is is one, others that it is infinite in number: some that
 all things are in perpetual motion, others that nothing can ever be
 moved at any time: some that all life is birth and decay, others
 that nothing can ever be born or ever die. Nor were those the only questions he asked about such theorists.
 Students of human nature, he said, think that they will apply their
 knowledge in due course for the good of themselves and any others
 they choose. Do those who pry into heavenly phenomena imagine that,
 once they have discovered the laws by which these are produced, they
 will create at their will winds, waters, seasons and such things to
 their need? Or have they no such expectation, and are they satisfied
 with knowing the causes of these various phenomena?