doug (08/08/82)
>From CREATION by Gore Vidal:
(Cyrus Spitama is the writer's uncle - an ambassador from Persia
to Greece about 2500 years ago and also the grandson of Zoroaster.)
"...I have been able in the course of a long life to work out the
causes not only of all celestial phenomena but of creation itself.
The first principles of the universe are atoms and empty
space; everything else is merely human thought. Worlds such as
this one are unlimited in number. They come into being, and
perish. But nothing can come into being from that which is not,
or pass away into what is not. Further, the essential atoms are
without limit in size and number and they make of the universe
a vortex in which all composite things are generated - fire,
water, air, earth.
The cause of the coming into being of all things is the
ceaseless whirl, which I call necessity; and everything happens
according to necessity. Thus creation is constantly created and
re-created.
As Cyrus Spitama was beginning to suspect, if not believe,
there is neither a beginning nor an end to a creation which exists
in a state of flux in a time that is truly infinite. Although I
have nowhere observed the slightest trace of Zoroaster's Wise
Lord, he might well be a concept which can be translated into that
circle which stands for the cosmos, for the primal unity, for
creation."