But we must survey the poles as powers that give stability to the universe, exciting indeed the whole bulk of it to intelligible love, and impartibly connecting that which is partible, and unitedly and without interval that which is extended by interval. Hence, also, Plato in the Republic, makes the spindle of Lachesis of adamant, indicating, as we have said, their inflexible and untamed power. And we must consider the axis, as that one divinity which collects the centres of the universe, which is connective of the whole world, and motive of the divine circulations; and as that about which wholes dance and are convolved, and as sustaining all heaven, being on this account denominated Atlas, as possessing an immutable and unwearied energy. The word τεταμενον also, or _extended_, used here by Plato, indicates that this one power is Titannic guarding the circulations of wholes. But if, as the divine Jamblichus says, we understand by the pole extended through the universe, the heavens, neither thus shall we wander from the conception of Plato. For, as Plato says in the Cratylus, those who are skilled in astronomy call the heavens the pole, as harmoniously revolving. According to this conception, therefore, you may call heaven the pole extended through the universe, as being incurvated through the whole of itself, in consequence of being without an angle. For after this manner the superficies of a circle is extended. About this, however, earth is conglobed, not locally, but through a desire of becoming assimilated to it, converging to the middle, in order that as heaven is moved about the centre, so she by tending to the centre, may become similar to that which is essentially spherical, being herself as much as possible conglobed. Hence she is compressed about the heaven in such a way as to be wholly extended about it.