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WHENCE DID MEN OBTAIN THE KNOWLEDGE OF THE EXISTENCE AND.
ESSENCE OF A DEITY?
The Stoics thus define the essence of a god.

It is a spirit intellectual and fiery, which acknowledges no shape, but is continually changed into what it pleases, and assimilates itself to all things.

The knowledge of this deity they first received from the pulchritude of those things which so visibly appeared to us; for they concluded that nothing beauteous could casually or fortuitously be formed, but that it was framed from the art of a great understanding that produced the world.
That the world is very resplendent is made perspicuous from the figure, the color, the magnitude of it, and likewise from the wonderful variety of those stars which adorn this world.

The world is spherical; the orbicular hath the pre-eminence above all other figures, for being round itself it hath its parts like itself.