them all. It is smooth and has no organ all round because it has no need of organs. Moreover, the universe remains imperishable because it is not dissolved into the Deity.» And the creation as a whole _ is caused by God, because it is the nature of the good to be beneficent,° and the creation of the universe has the highest good for its cause. For the most beautiful of created things is due to the best of intelligible causes 4; so that, as God is of this nature, and the universe resembles the best in its perfect beauty, it will not be in the likeness of anything created, but only of God. The universe is composed of fire, water, air and earth; of fire in order to be-visible; of earth in order to be solid; of water and air in order to be proportional.’ For the powers represented by solids _ are connected by two mean proportionals in a way to secure the complete unity of the whole. And the universe was made of all the elements in order to be complete and indestructible. Time was created as an image of eternity. And while the latter remains for ever at rest, time consists in the motion of the universe. For night and day and month and the like are all parts of time ; for which reason, apart from the nature of the universe, time has no existence. But so soon as the universe is fashioned time exists. And the sun and moon and planets were created