Diogenes certainly says further of Thales (I. 27), “The world is animated and full of demons,” and Plutarch (De plac. phil. I. 7) says, “He called God the Intelligence (_νοῦς_) of the world.” But all the ancients, and particularly Aristotle, ascribe this expression unanimously to Anaxagoras as the one who first said that the _νοῦς_ is the principle of things. Thus it does not conduce to the further determination of form according to Thales, to find in Cicero (De Nat. Deor. I. 10) this passage: “Thales says that water is the beginning of everything, but God is the Mind which forms all that is, out of water.” Thales may certainly have spoken of God, but Cicero has added the statement that he comprehended him as the _νοῦς_ which formed everything out of water. Tiedmann (vol. I. p. 42) declares the passage to be possibly corrupt, since Cicero later on (c. 11) says of Anaxagoras that “he first maintained the order of things to have been brought about through the infinite power of Mind.” However, the Epicurean, in whose mouth these words are put, speaks “with confidence only fearing that he should appear to have any doubts” (c. 8) both previously and subsequently of other philosophers rather foolishly, so that this description is given merely as a jest. Aristotle understands historic accuracy better, and therefore we must follow him. But to those who make it their business to find everywhere the conception of the creation of the world by God, that passage in Cicero is a great source of delight, and it is a much disputed point whether Thales is to be counted amongst those who accepted the existence of a God. The Theism of Thales is maintained by Plouquet, whilst others would have him to be an atheist or polytheist, because he says that everything is full of demons. However, this question as to whether Thales believed in God does not concern us here, for acceptation, faith, popular religion are not in question; we only have to do with the philosophic determination of absolute existence. And if Thales did speak of God as constituting everything out of this same water, that would not give us any further information about this existence; we should have spoken unphilosophically of Thales because we should have used an empty word without inquiring about its speculative significance. Similarly the word world-soul is useless, because its being is not thereby expressed.