Let us in the next place direct our attention to that great mundane divinity the earth, and consider what it is, whence it proceeds, and how it is said by Plato in the Timæus to be our nurse, and the most ancient and first of the Gods within the heavens, deriving our information about this Goddess also from Proclus, (in Tim. p. 280). Earth then proceeds primarily from the intelligible earth which comprehends all the intelligible orders of the Gods, and is eternally established in the father.[121] It also proceeds from the intellectual Earth which is co-arranged with Heaven, and all the productions of which it receives. For being analogous to these, it also abides perpetually as in the centre of the heavens, and being contained, on all sides by them, is full of generative power, and demiurgic perfection. The true earth, therefore, is neither this corporeal-formed and gross bulk; for it will not be the most ancient of the Gods from its bulk, nor the first of the Gods that are arranged within the heavens; nor is it the soul of this body; for it would not be, as Plato says it is, extended about the pole of the universe, since not the soul, but the body of the earth is a thing of this kind; but if it be necessary to speak what is most true concerning it, it is an animal consisting of a divine soul, and a living body. Hence the whole is, as Plato says, an animal. For there are in it an immaterial and separate intellect; a divine soul dancing round this intellect; an etherial body proximately suspended from its informing soul; and in the last place, this visible bulk, which is on all sides inspired with life by the vehicle[122] of this soul, with which also being filled, it generates and nourishes all-various animals. For some animals[123] are rooted in it, but others about it. And this likewise, Aristotle perceiving, was ashamed not to give to the earth a natural life. For whence is it that plants while they remain in the earth live, but when divulsed from it die, unless this earthly mass was full of life? It is necessary, also, to assume universally, that wholes are animated prior to parts. For it would be ridiculous that man indeed should participate of a rational soul and of intellect, but that no soul should be assigned to the earth and the air, supernally riding in [as it were] and governing the elements, and preserving them in their proper boundaries. For wholes, as Theophrastus says, would have less authority than parts, and perpetual than corruptible natures, if they were destitute of soul. Hence, it is necessary to grant that a soul and an intellect are in the earth; the former causing it to be prolific, but the latter connectedly-containing it in the middle of the universe.