His levity and cunning had outlived his courage, his love of country and stern endurance. The college at Alexandria was the source of all light and learning, and the doctrines of that celebrated school, like a subtle fluid, pervaded all classes of men. It was here that Plato took lessons which led him to explore the mysterious nature of the Deity, and expose to the eyes of mortals the nature of the divine persons who regulated the affairs of the universe. In his imagination he populated Heaven, and divided among the different deities the share of each in the government of the world. According to Plato there was one God who was superessential, and in him was blended or united all that was powerful and good. This he called the _One_, or the first principle of things. Proculus, of the same school, says the _One_ is the God of all gods, the Unity of the unities, the Holy among the holies. Plato compares him with the sun. For as the sun by his light not only confers the power of being seen on visible objects, but is likewise the cause of their generation, nutriment, and increase, so the good of the One, through superessential light, imparts being and power. As a consequence, both Plato and Pythagoras conclude that the immediate issue of this ineffable Cause must be gods, and each must partake of the same nature and have a superessential existence. That "everything in nature which is the result of progression exists in a mysterious unity and similitude with its first cause. They are superessential, and differ in no respect from the highest good. From the supereminent Cause, as from an exalted place of survey, we may contemplate the divine unities, that is, the gods, flowing in admirable and ineffable order, and at the same time abiding in profound union with each other, and with their Cause."