Xenophanes takes his point of departure, not from Thales or Anaximander, but from the same ancient theogonies which they had forsaken. But he follows a very different road. The most prominent feature in his poems (so far as they remain), is the directness and asperity with which he attacks the received opinions respecting the Gods--and the poets Hesiod and Homer, the popular exponents of those opinions. Xenophanes not only condemns these poets for having ascribed to the Gods discreditable exploits, but even calls in question the existence of the Gods, and ridicules the anthropomorphic conception which pervaded the Hellenic faith. "If horses or lions could paint, they would delineate their Gods in form like themselves. The Ethiopians conceive their Gods as black, the Thracians conceive theirs as fair and with reddish hair."[48] Dissatisfied with much of the customary worship and festivals, Xenophanes repudiated divination** altogether, and condemned the extravagant respect shown to victors in Olympic contests,[49] not less than the lugubrious ceremonies in honour of Leukothea. He discountenanced all Theogony, or assertion of the birth of Gods, as impious, and as inconsistent with the prominent attribute of immortality ascribed to them.[50] He maintained that there was but one God, identical with, or a personification of, the whole Uranus. "The whole Kosmos, or the whole God, sees, hears, and thinks." The divine nature (he said) did not admit of the conception of separate persons one governing the other, or of want and imperfection in any way.[51] [Footnote 48: Xenophanis Fragm. 5-6-7, p. 39 seq. ed. Karsten; Clemens Alexandr. Strom. v. p. 601; vii. p. 711.] [Footnote 49: Xenophan. Fragm. 19, p. 60, ed. Karsten; Cicero, Divinat. i. 3, 5.] [Footnote 50: Xenophanis Fragment. 34-35, p. 85, ed. Karsten; Aristotel. Rhetoric. ii. 23; Metaphys. A. 5, p. 986, b. 19.] [Footnote 51: Xenoph. Frag. 1-2, p. 35. [Greek: Ou)=los o(ra=|, ou)=los de\ noei=, ou)=los de t' a)kou/ei.] Plutarch ap. Eusebium, Præp. Evang. i. 8; Diogen. Laert. ix. 19.] [Side-note: His doctrine of Pankosmism, or Pantheism--The whole Kosmos is Ens Unum or God--[Greek: E(\n kai\ Pa=n]. Non-Ens inadmissible.]