BOOK II. IV. I2-V. 15 



and who is the ruler not only of the seasons and of the 

 lands, but even of the stars themselves and of the 

 heaven. Taking into account all that he effeets, we 

 must beheve him to be the soul, or more precisely 

 the mind, of the whole world, the supreme ruHng 

 principle and divinity of nature. He furnishes the 

 world with Hght and removes darkness, he obscures 

 and he illumines the rest of the stars, he regulates 

 in accord with nature's precedent the changes of the 

 seasons and the continuous re-birth of the year, he 

 dissipates the gloom of heaven and even calms the 

 storm-clouds of the mind of man, he lends his light 

 to the rest of the stars also ; he is glorious and pre- 

 eminent, all-seeing and even all-hearing — this I 

 observe that Honier the prince of Uteratm-e held to 

 be true in the case of the sun alone. 



V. For this reason I deem it a mark of human Thedivint 

 weakness to seek to discover the shape and form of ^c^u^J"' 

 God. Wlioever God is — provided there is a God '^ — 

 and in whatever region he is, he consists wholly of 

 sense, sight and hearing, whoUy of soul, whoUy of 

 mind, wholly of himself. To beUeve in gods without 

 number, and gods corresponding to men's vices as 

 well as to their virtues, Uke the Goddesses of Modesty, 

 Concord, Intelhgence, Hope, Honour, Mercy and 

 Faith — or else, as Democritus held,'' only two, 

 Punishment and Reward, reaches an even greater 

 height of folly. Frail, toihng mortahty, remembering 

 its own weakness, has divided such deities into groups, 

 so as to worship in sections, each the deity he is 

 most in need of. Consequently different races have 

 different names for the deities,*^ and we find countless 

 deities in the same races, even those of the lower 



• Or, altering the text, ' have diiferent deities.' 



179 



