things to its purpose; its omniscience, which nothing escapes; its justice, which leaves no transgression unpunished and no virtue unrewarded; its goodness, which makes the best provision for all. He rejects, as notions taken from man, not merely the Godhead’s having a body, but likewise all those tales which impute passions, quarrels, crimes of every kind to the gods. He declares them to be exalted above pleasure and displeasure, to be untouched by any evil; and is full of moral indignation at the thought that they allow themselves to be won over, or rather corrupted, by prayers and offerings. Moreover he shows that everything is ordered and ruled by Divine Providence, which extends over the least as well as the greatest, and as regards men is especially convinced that they are a carefully-tended possession of the Godhead, and that all things must issue in good to those who through virtue gain its goodwill. If the unequal and unjust distribution of men’s lot is objected, his reply is, that virtue carries its reward and wickedness its punishment immediately in itself; further, that both are sure of a complete retribution in the after-world, while already in this life as a rule in the end the upright goes not without recognition and thanks, nor the transgressor without universal hate and detestation. As to the general fact that there is evil in the world, it seemed to him so inevitable that it was not requisite expressly to defend the Godhead on that score. All these statements carry us back at last to one and the same point. It is the Idea of the Good by applying which Plato produces so exalted a doctrine of God. In the like spirit he will consider only the moral intention in acts of worship. He alone can please the Godhead who is like it, and he alone is like it who is pious, wise, and just. The gods cannot receive the gifts of the wicked; the virtuous alone have a right to invoke them. God is goodness; and he who bears not the image of that goodness in himself stands in no communion with him.