THE NATURE OF THE GODS. 227thing and sometimes another), when they represent the di

vine art and workmanship in the human body, are used to describe how very completely each member is formed, not only for convenience, but also for beauty. Therefore, if the human form excels that of all other animal beings, as God himself is an animated being, he must surely be of that form which is the most beautiful. Besides, the Gods are granted to be perfectly happy; and nobody can be happy without virtue, nor can virtue exist where reason is not; and reason can reside in none but the human form; ic Gods, therefore, must be acknowledged to be of hu man form ; yet that form is not body, but something like body ; nor does it contain any blood, but something like blood. Though these distinctions were more acutely de vised and more artfully expressed by Epicurus than any common capacity can comprehend; yet, depending on your understanding, I shall be more brief on the subject than otherwise I should be. Epicurus, who not only dis covered and understood the occult and almost hidden se crets of nature, but explained them with ease, teaches that the power and nature of the Gods is not to be discerned by the senses, but by the mind ; nor are they to be con sidered as bodies of any solidity, or reducible to number, like those things which, because of their firmness, he calls Zrtpipvia ; a but as images, perceived by similitude and transition. As infinite kinds of those images result from innumerable individuals, and centre in the Gods, our minds and understanding are directed towards and fixed with the greatest delight on them, in order to comprehend what that happy and eternal essence is. XIX. Surely the mighty power of the Infinite Being is most worthy our great and earnest contemplation; the nature of which we must necessarily understand to be such that everything in it is made to correspond complete ly to some other answering part. This is called by Epi curus Iffovopia ; that is to say, an equal distribution or even disposition of things. From hence he draws this infer- ivia is the word which Epicurus used to distinguish between those objects which are perceptible to sense, and those which are imper ceptible ; as the essence of the Divine Being, and the various operations

of the divine power.