[139] Cf. DIOG. LAERT. vii. 134 (RITTER and PRELLER, sect. 404).—“God, by transformation of His own essence, makes the world.”—Grant’s _Aristotle_, Essay vi., “_The Ancient Stoics._” Cf. PLUT: _De Stoic. Repugn._ 1053. [140] _De Ε apud Delphos_, 388 F. [141] _Quomodo Adulator_, 78 E. Cf. EUNAPIUS on _Historians of Philosophy_. “No one has written any careful account of the lives of philosophers, among whom we count not only Ammonius, teacher of divinest Plutarch, but also Plutarch himself, the darling and delight of all Philosophy.” Eunapius thinks that the _Parallel Lives_ were Plutarch’s finest work, but adds that “all his writings are thickly sown with original thoughts of his own, as well as with the teachings of his Master.” [142] 393 E. [143] Plutarch elsewhere comments upon the εὑρησιλογία of the Stoics in finding explanations of the various names of the popular Deities (_Quomodo Adolescens_, 31 E). CICERO (_De Natura Deorum_, iii. 24) represents Cotta as charging the Stoics with supporting the crudest superstitions of the popular faith by the skill which they displayed in finding a mysterious significance in the current names and legends:-“Atque hæc quidem et ejusmodi ex vetere Græcia fama collecta sunt; quibus intelligis resistendum esse, ne perturbentur religiones. Vestri autem non modo hæc non repellunt, verum etiam confirmant, interpretando quorsum quidque pertineat.” [144] _Iliad_, xv. 362-4. [145] In another place Plutarch expresses the view that the original Creator of the world bestowed upon the stuff of the phenomenal world a principle of change and movement by which that stuff often dissolves and reshapes itself under the operation of natural causes without the intervention of the original Creator (_De Defectu Orac._, 435-6).