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Though they might not exempt themselves from the misfortunes to which the imperfections of human nature give rise—transitory dissensions, civil wars, seditions, etc.—their individual interests would soon have led them to invent some system of relative equiponderance.

Thus Ritter interprets him as supposing "that the earth is in the centre spherical, and maintained in rotary motion by its equiponderance; around it lie certain rings, the highest composed of the rare element fire, the next lower a compound of light and darkness, and lowest of all one wholly of night, which probably indicated to his mind the surface of the earth, the centre of which again he probably considered to be fire."