On the Resurrection of the Dead 17

For this is the nature of human beings: from the beginning, by the purpose of the Maker, unevenness has been allotted to it, and so it has an uneven life and continuance, interrupted now by sleep, now by death, and by the changes of each stage of life, in which what comes later does not clearly appear in what comes first. Who would have believed, had he not learned it from experience, that so many and such great powers lie stored in the seed, uniform and unformed as it is, or the variety of masses that form and solidify from it: bones, I mean, and sinews and cartilage, and muscles, flesh, entrails, and the other parts of the body? None of these can be seen in the seed while it is still moist; nor does anything of what comes to adults appear in infants, nor anything of those past their prime in adults, nor of the aged in them. Yet though some of these stages show the natural sequence and the changes that come upon human nature not at all, and others only dimly, all who are not blinded by wickedness or sloth in judging these matters know that first the seed must be sown; then, when it has been formed in every part and particle and what was conceived has come forth into the light, there follows growth in the first stage of life, and the maturity that results from growth; after maturity comes a decline of the natural powers until old age; and then, when the bodies are worn out, dissolution. In this case, then, although the seed does not have the life or form of human beings written in it, nor life its dissolution into the first elements, the sequence of natural events makes it credible to those who cannot believe it from what is visible. Much more, then, does reason, tracing out the truth from the natural sequence, confirm the resurrection, since reason is safer and stronger than experience for establishing the truth.