With this the dialectic reasoning of the Eleatics is closely connected in respect that they have also proved that nothing can originate or pass away. This deduction is to be found in Aristotle’s work, De Xenophane, Zenone et Gorgia, c. 3. “It is impossible, he says,[49] that if anything is, it arises (and he even applies this to the Godhead); for it must arise either from the like or from the unlike. But both are equally impossible: for it is no more probable that the like should be engendered from the like, than that it should engender it, for the like must have determinations identical with one another.” In acknowledging similarity, the distinction between begetting and begotten falls away. “Just as little can unlike arise from unlike, for if from the weaker the stronger takes its rise; or from the smaller, the greater; or from the worse, the better: or if, conversely, the worse proceeds from the better, non-being would result from Being: this is impossible, and thus God is eternal.” The same thing has been expressed as Pantheism or Spinozaism, which rests on the proposition _ex nihilo fit nihil_. The unity of God is further proved by Xenophanes: “If God is the mightiest, He must be One; for were He two or more, He would not have dominion over the others, but, not having dominion over the others, He could not be God. Thus were there several, they would be relatively more powerful or weaker, and thus they would not be gods, for God’s nature is to have nothing mightier than He. Were they equal, God would no longer possess the quality of being the mightiest, for the like is neither worse nor better than the like”—or it does not differ therefrom. “Hence if God is, and is such as this, He is only one; He could not, were there several, do what He willed. Since He is one, He is everywhere alike. He hears, sees and has also the other senses everywhere, for were this not the case, the parts of God would be one more powerful than the other, which is impossible. Since God is everywhere alike, He has a spherical form, for He is not here thus and elsewhere different, but is everywhere the same. Since He is eternal and one and spherical in form, He is neither unlimited nor limited. To be unlimited is non-being; for that has neither middle, beginning, end, nor part; and what is unlimited corresponds to this description. But whatever non-being is, Being is not. Mutual limitation would take place if there were several, but since there is only One, it is not limited. The one does not move itself, nor is it unmoved; to be unmoved is non-being, for to it none other comes, nor does it go into another; but to be moved must mean to be several, for one must move into another. Thus the One neither rests nor is it moved, for it is neither non-being nor is it many. In all this God is thus indicated; He is eternal and One, like Himself and spherical, neither unlimited nor limited, neither at rest nor moved.”