earth, both the billowing flood and the sighing breeze can also be perceived; that
Book III 221 hand, which receives the humid exhalations of sea and earth and is somehow or other thickened up in order to be able to hold the birds up, only receives its animal inhabitants from the waters. It is its humidity, after all, that bears the bodies of winged fowl, which maneuver with their wings as they fly in much the same way as fish do with their equivalent of wings as they swim.
Flying creatures rightly said to have been createdfrom the waters
7. 9. Accordingly it is almost like a scientist that the Spirit of God, who was assisting the writer, says flying things were produced from the waters. These waters, after all, obtained a twofold place: namely a lower one in the flowing billows and a higher one in the airy breezes, the former allotted to living things that swim, the latter to ones that fly. ln the same way we see two senses corre sponding to this element given to animals, the sense of smell for investigating vapors, that of taste for investigating liquids. That we also in fact feel water and wind with the sense of touch means that the solidity of earth is mixed into all the elements; but denser, coarser-grained objects, in addition to being felt, can also be handled by being touched.
That is why in the two main sections of the cosmos all these elements are embraced under the general name of "earth," as that psalm shows, listing all the higher beings under that first heading: Praise the Lordfrom the heavens (Ps
1 48: 1 ); and all the lower ones under this other heading: Praise the Lordfrom the earth (Ps 148:7), where both the spirits of the tempest are named and all the deeps and the fire that burns you when you touch it, because it springs into being from earthy and humid movements in such a way that it is forthwith changed into another element. And although it indicates what its natural inclination is by thrusting upwards, it is for all that unable to escape into the calm of the higher heaven because it is overcome by so much air, turned into it and so extinguished. And thus it is that in this more perishable and sluggish section of creation fire is activated by turbulent movements in order to temper its severity and to render it both useful and terrifying to mortals.
10. So then, by the sense of touch, which properly belongs to the element earth, both the billowing flood and the sighing breeze can also be perceived; that explains why the bodies of aquatic animals too feed on earthy substances and, especially the birds, also take their rest on earth and raise their young there. Part of the moist element, after all, which is exhaled as vapor also extends over the dry land. And that is why, after scripture had said, Let the waters produce reptiles oflive souls andflying things (it goes on) over the earth, it added with a sure touch, along the solid structure ofheaven (Gn 1 :20), which can clear up to some extent a point that previously seemed obscure. lt does not say, you see, "in the solid structure of heaven," as it does with the luminaries, butflying things, it