=242.= The ‘gods,’ according to the Stoics, form a ‘natura,’ a department of the universe, a category including one or more individuals. Hence the title of Cicero’s work, ‘de natura deorum’; that is, ‘of the class of beings called gods.’ Each department of philosophy, according to the Stoic interpretation, brings us in the end into touch with this world of deities. In dialectics we are led up to the supreme Reason, the Logos or Word, whose divine being permeates the universe[3]. Metaphysics point us to Body in the purest form[4]; to Spirit which reaches from end to end of the universe[5]; to a first Cause, a Cause of causes, the initial link in the unending chain of events[6]. If we look to the elements in their unceasing interchange, we find deity in all things that shift and suffer metamorphosis, in water, in earth, and in air[7]; how much more then in fire, which in one aspect is the purest of the elements, and in another is the creative rational substance from which the whole universe issues[8]? God is indeed the universe, and all that is in it, though not in the pantheistic sense that he is evenly diffused throughout all things[9]. Look towards this earth, which lies at the centre of the world-order; even in its most repulsive contents, in its grossest matter, there is deity[10]. Lift up your eyes to the heavens; God is the all-encircling sea of fire called Aether[11]; he is sun[12] and stars[13]. Consider the universe in its history; God is its creator[14], its ruler, its upholder[15]. Analyze it; he is its soul[16], its mind[17]. Strain your sight to perceive the meaning of all things: he is fate[18]; he is nature[19]; he is providence; he is necessity[20]. And if we look forward to the problems of politics and ethics, we must say that God is the Universal Law that calls for the reverence of gods and men as a community[21], and equally demands, under the name of conscience, the unhesitating obedience of the individual[22]. Lastly, in the history of mankind, in its great men and useful discoveries, the Stoic masters recognised the element of divinity[23]. In the language of to-day, God is the pole in which all the parallels of human inquiry merge, the _x_ of the problem of the universe, the unknown that is known in his works. [Sidenote: Unity of God.]