Observe also his arrangement (or rather not his, but the arrangement of Him who by an ordinance determined his course), how in summer he rises higher and makes the days longer, giving men good time for their works:  but in winter contracts his course, that the period of cold may be increased, and that the nights becoming longer may contribute to men’s rest, and contribute also to the fruitfulness of the products of the earth The common reading ἵνα μὴ τοῦ ψύχους πλείων γένηται ὁ χρόνος, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα αἱ νύκτες, κ.τ.λ. gives a meaning contrary to the facts.  The translation follows the mss. Roe, Casaubon, which omit μή and for ἀλλά read καί.  Compare Whewell’s Astromony, p. 22:  “The length of the year is so determined as to be adapted to the constitution of most vegetables:  or the construction of vegetables is so adjusted as to be suited to the length which the year really has, and unsuited to a duration longer or shorter by any considerable portion.  The vegetable clock-work is so set as to go for a year.”  Ibid. p. 34:  “The terrestrial day, and consequently the length of the cycle of light and darkness, being what it is, we find various parts of the constitution both of animals and vegetables, which have a periodical character in their functions, corresponding to the diurnal succession of external conditions, and we find that the length of the period, as it exists in their constitution, coincides with the length of the natural day.”.  See also how the days alternately respond each to other in due order, in summer increasing, and in winter diminishing; but in spring and autumn granting equal intervals one to another.  And the nights again complete the like courses; so that the Psalmist also says of them, Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night proclaimeth knowledge Ps. xix. 2.  Compare a beautiful passage of Theophilus of Antioch (To Autolycus, vi.)..  For to the heretics who have no ears, they all but cry aloud, and by their good order say, that there is none other God save the Creator who hath set them their bounds, and laid out the order of the Universe Lucretius, V. 1182: “They saw the skies in constant order run, The varied seasons and the circling sun, Apparent rule, with unapparent cause, And thus they sought in gods the source of laws..