Concerning the Nature of Good, Against the Manichæans 8
8 From the Corruption and Destruction of Inferior Things is the Beauty of the Universe PL 42, 554
But the rest of things that are made of nothing, which are assuredly inferior to the rational soul, can be neither blessed nor miserable. But because in proportion to their fashion and appearance are things themselves good, nor could there be good things in a less or the least degree except from God, they are so ordered that the more infirm yield to the firmer, the weaker to the stronger, the more impotent to the more powerful; and so earthly things harmonize with celestial, as being subject to the things that are pre-eminent. But to things falling away, and succeeding, a certain temporal beauty in its kind belongs, so that neither those things that die, or cease to be what they were, degrade or disturb the fashion and appearance and order of the universal creation; as a speech well composed is assuredly beautiful, although in it syllables and all sounds rush past as it were in being born and in dying.
Ex rerum inferiorum corruptione ac interitu pulchritudo universi. Caetera vero quae sunt facta de nihilo, quae utique inferiora sunt quam spiritus rationalis, nec beata possunt esse, nec misera. Sed quia pro modo et specie sua etiam ipsa bona sunt, nec esse quamvis minora et minima bona, nisi a summo bono Deo potuerunt, sic ordinata sunt, ut cedant infirmiora firmioribus, et invalidiora fortioribus, et impotentiora potentioribus, atque ita coelestibus terrena concordent tanquam praecellentibus subdita. Fit autem decedentibus et succedentibus rebus temporalis quaedam in suo genere pulchritudo, ut nec ipsa quae moriuntur, vel quod erant esse desinunt, turpent aut turbent modum et speciem et ordinem universae creaturae: sicut sermo bene compositus utique pulcher est, quamvis in eo syllabae atque omnes soni tanquam nascendo et moriendo transcurrant.