=214.= The view that ‘God made the world’ is that of the theology which was now everywhere becoming popular; and it is usually associated, even when expounded by Stoic teachers, with dualistic views. Before the creation there existed a chaos, matter without shape, dark and damp[132]; the Deity formed a plan, and brought life order and light into the mass: from ‘chaos’ it became ‘cosmos’[133]. This deity is the same that is commonly named Ζεύς[134] or Jove, and is called the ‘father of gods and men.’ The universe so created was at first happy and innocent, as is expressed in the tradition of the Golden Age. Men lived together in societies, willingly obeying the wisest and strongest of their number[135]; none were tempted to wrong their neighbours. They dwelt in natural grottos or in the stems of trees, and obtained nourishment from tame animals and wild fruits. Little by little they made progress in the arts, and learnt to build, to bake, and to make use of metals. These views were especially developed by Posidonius, who believed that in the Mysians of his day, who lived on milk and honey, and abstained from flesh-meat, he could still trace the manners of this happy epoch[136]. It seems probable that it was from Posidonius, rather than from the Pythagoreans, that Varro derived his picture of the Golden Age, which has become familiar to us in turn through the version given by Ovid in his _Metamorphoses_[137]. [Sidenote: Older stoic theory.] =215.= These conceptions however are only familiar in the later forms of Stoicism. The teaching of the founders of Stoicism is on this matter monistic, and is based upon the teaching of Heraclitus that the world was in the beginning a creative fire, which was alike the creator and the material of creation. The process of creation (διακόσμησις) may be regarded as identical with that of the mutation of the elements on the downward path[138]; with the special note that when the stage of water is reached[139] the deity assumes the shape of the seed Logos (σπερματικὸς λόγος)[140], and begets in the first instance the four elements[141]; then, from a combination of these, trees and animals and all other things after their kind[142]. Yet even this statement is simplified if we regard the original fire as itself containing the seed Logoi of all things that are to be created[143]. To this is to be added that all this is well ordered, as in a duly constituted state[144]. From this point of view the Cosmos is a Cosmopolis, and we reach the border of the investigations which deal with the moral government of the universe, and the political organization of mankind. [Sidenote: Summary.]