Farther still, we may survey the analogy which earth has to the intellectual earth. For as the latter comprehends and gives subsistence to perfective, guardian, and Titannic orders of Gods, of which the Orphic theologies are full, so likewise the former possesses various powers. And as a nurse indeed she imitates the perfective order, according to which the Athenians also are accustomed to call her κουροτροφος, or _the nourisher of youth_, and ανησιδωρα, or _scattering gifts_, as producing and nourishing plants and animals. But as a guard she imitates the guardian, and as conglobed about the pole which is extended (τεταμενη) through the universe, the _Titannic_ order. Since, however, the intellectual earth prior to other divinities generated Aigle and the Hesperian Erithya, thus also our earth is the fabricator of day and night. And the analogy of the latter to the former is evident. In the last place, Proclus adds, if also you are willing after another manner to understand that she is the first and most ancient of the Gods, as deriving her subsistence from the first and most ancient causes, this reason also will be attended with probability, since first causes proceed by their energies to the utmost extent of things; and besides this, the last of things frequently preserve the analogy of such as are first, as possessing their order from them alone. Hence, every way the assertion of Plato is true, whether you are willing to look to the bulk of the earth, or to the powers which she contains. And thus much from Proclus, concerning that great mundane divinity, the earth, who in the language of Theophrastus[127] is the common Vesta of Gods and men; and on whose fertile surface reclining, says he, as on the soft bosom of a mother or a nurse, we ought to celebrate her divinity with hymns, and incline to her with filial affection, as to the source of our existence. CHAPTER XXIV.