224 THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS. CHAP. XII. 



figure, yet susceptible of receiving every form ; it 

 is divisible also about bodies, and is of the nature 

 of Different. They also call matter, ' Place, and 

 Situation.' These two, therefore, are contrary 

 principles : Idea or Form is of the nature of male 

 and father ; but Matter, of tlie nature of female 

 and mother ; and things which are of the third 

 nature, are the offspring of the two. Since then 

 there are three natures, they are comprehended in 

 three different ways ; Idea, which is the object of 

 science, by Intellect ; Matter, which is not pro- 

 perly an object of comprehension, but only of 

 analogy, by a spurious kind of reasoning ; but 

 things compounded of the two are the objects of 

 sensation and opinion, or appearance. Tiierefore, 

 before the heaven was made, there existed in 

 reality, Idea and IMatter, and God, the dcmiurgus 

 of the better nature : and since the nature of 

 Elder (continuance) is more worthy than that of 

 Younger (novelty), and order than of disorder ; 

 God in his Goodness, seeing that Matter was 

 continually receiving form, and changing in an 

 omnifarious and disordered manner, undertook to 

 reduce it to order, and put a stop to its indefinite 

 changes, by circumscribing it with a determinate 

 figure ; that there might be corresponding dis- 

 tinctions of bodies, and that it might not be subject 

 to continual variations of its own accord. Tiiere- 

 fore he fabricated this world out of all the matter, 

 and constituted it the boundary of essential na- 

 ture, comprising all things within itself, one, only- 

 begotten, perfect, with a soul and intellect (for an 



