colour which we call auburn. The law of proportion, however, according to
which compound colours are formed, cannot be determined scientifically or
even probably. Red, when mingled with black and white, gives a purple hue,
which becomes umber when the colours are burnt and there is a larger
admixture of black. Flame-colour is a mixture of auburn and dun; dun of
white and black; yellow of white and auburn. White and bright meeting, and
falling upon a full black, become dark blue; dark blue mingling with white
becomes a light blue; the union of flame-colour and black makes leek-green.
There is no difficulty in seeing how other colours are probably composed.
But he who should attempt to test the truth of this by experiment, would
forget the difference of the human and divine nature. God only is able to
compound and resolve substances; such experiments are impossible to man.

These are the elements of necessity which the Creator received in the world
of generation when he made the all-sufficient and perfect creature, using
the secondary causes as his ministers, but himself fashioning the good in
all things. For there are two sorts of causes, the one divine, the other
necessary; and we should seek to discover the divine above all, and, for
their sake, the necessary, because without them the higher cannot be
attained by us.

Having now before us the causes out of which the rest of our discourse is
to be framed, let us go back to the point at which we began, and add a fair
ending to our tale. As I said at first, all things were originally a chaos
in which there was no order or proportion. The elements of this chaos were
arranged by the Creator, and out of them he made the world. Of the divine
he himself was the author, but he committed to his offspring the creation
of the mortal. From him they received the immortal soul, but themselves
made the body to be its vehicle, and constructed within another soul which
was mortal, and subject to terrible affections--pleasure, the inciter of