[1a] Lactantius, On the Workmanship of God 1.11–13: Since reference has been made to the body and the mind, I will try to explain the rationale of each within the limited understanding of my feeble intelligence. I think it particularly important to take up this task, because Marcus Cicero, a man of outstanding talent, tried to do this in the fourth book of On the Commonwealth but compressed a vast amount of material within a narrow compass and only touched lightly on the main points. Indeed, he removes any excuse for not having dealt with the topic thoroughly by saying himself “that he had lacked neither the will nor the effort”: in the first book of On the Laws, when he was equally cursory on the same topic, he says: “As far as I am concerned, Scipio dealt adequately with this subject in the book which you have read” [1.27]. Even so, he tried to give a fuller treatment of the same subject in the second book of On the Nature of the Gods.

[1b] And the mind itself, which foresees the future, also remembers what is past. [+ Nonius 500.9]

[1e] … and finally that by its regular interposition it also creates the shade of night, something that is useful not only for the reckoning of days but for rest from toil. [+ Nonius 234.14]