The order was most conspicuous in the movements of the heavenly bodies. It could be expressed by numbers. The philosopher of numbers was the first to give to the world the name _Cosmos_, the “order” as of a marshalled army.[381] The order being capable of being expressed by numbers, partook of the nature of numerical relations. Those relations are not only fixed, but absolutely unalterable. That a certain ratio should be otherwise than what it is, is inconceivable. Hence the same philosopher of numbers who had first conceived of the _Cosmos_, conceived of it also as being “invested with necessity,” and the metaphysicians who followed him framed the formula, “All things are by necessity.”[382] This conception linked itself with an older idea of Greek religion. The length of a man’s life and his measure of endowments had been spoken of as his “share” or “portion.” Sometimes the assigning of this portion to a man was conceived as the work of Zeus or the other gods: sometimes the gods themselves had their portions like men; and very commonly the portion itself was viewed actively, as though it were the activity of a special being. It was sometimes personal, sometimes impersonal: it was, in any case, inevitable.[383] Through its character of inevitableness, it fused with the conception of the unalterableness of physical order. Hence the proposition, “All things are by necessity,” soon came to be otherwise expressed, “All things are by destiny.”[384] Over against the personal might of Zeus there thus came to stand the dark and formless fixity of an impersonal Destiny.[385] The conception was especially elaborated by the Stoics. In the older mythology from which it had sprung, its personifications had been spoken of sometimes as the daughters of Zeus and Themis, and sometimes as the daughters of Night.[386] The former expressed its certainty and perfect order; the other, the darkness of its working. The former element became more prominent. It was an “eternal, continuous and ordered movement.”[387] It was “the linked chain of causes.”[388] The idea of necessity passed into that of intelligent and inherent force: the idea of destiny was transmuted into that of law.