Similarly, after condemning the attempt of philosophers to please the rulers of the earth, he said, “I know whom I must needs please, and submit to, and obey—God and _those next to Him_.” But then he continued in the singular (“_He_ made me at one with myself” and so on). And I think I may safely say that I never heard him allow his ideal philosopher or Cynic to address God in the plural with “ye” or “you.” It was always “thou,” as in the utterance I quoted above—“Thine were they all and thou gavest them to me.” Well, then, whom did he mean by “those next to” God? I think he referred to certain guardian angels—“daemons” he called them, and so will I, spelling it thus, so as to distinguish it from “demon” meaning “devil”—one of whom (he said) was allotted by God to each human being. This, according to Epictetus, did not exclude the general inspection of mankind by God Himself: “To each He has assigned a Guardian, the Daemon of each mortal, to be his guard and keeper, sleepless and undeceivable. Therefore, whenever you shut your doors and make darkness in the house, remember never to say that you are alone. For you are not alone. God is in the house, and your Daemon is in the house. And what need have these of light to see what you are doing?” This guardian Daemon, or daemonic Guardian, was said by some of our fellow-scholars to be the portion of the divine Logos within us, in virtue of which our Teacher distinguished men from beasts. Notably did he once make this distinction—in answer to some imaginary questioner, who was supposed to class man with irrational animals because he is subject to animal necessities. “Cattle,” replied Epictetus, “are works of God, but not preeminent, and certainly not parts of God; but thou”—turning to the supposed opponent—“art a fragment broken off from God; thou hast in thyself a part of Him. Why then ignore thy noble birth? Why dost thou not recognise whence thou hast come? Wilt thou not remember, in the moment of eating, what a Being thou art—thou that eatest—what a Being it is that thou feedest? Wilt thou not recognise what it is that employs thy senses and thy faculties? Knowest thou not that thou art feeding God, yea, taking God with thee to the gymnasium? God, God dost thou carry about, thou miserable creature, and thou knowest it not!”