nd a name,
some idea of the Reason in the universe;[782] and the same use might
just as well, perhaps even better, be made of the great deity of the
Capitoline temple, whom his people recognised as the open heaven with
all its manifestations, the celestial representative of good faith and
righteous dealing, and the special protector of the destinies of Rome
and her empire.

The second thought which lies at the base of the religion or theology of
Stoicism, is this: that Man himself, alone in all the Universe, shares
with God the full possession of Reason. In other words, Man alone,
besides God, is strictly individual, self-conscious, capable of
realising an end and of working towards it; he is so utterly different
from the animals, so far above them (or if we call him an animal, he is,
in Cicero's language,[783] _animal providum, sagax, multiplex, acutum,
memor, plenum rationis et consilii_), that he must surely be of the same
nature as God. And this is what, in strict conformity with all Stoic
teaching, Cicero in this same passage expressly says--man is _generatus
a deo_. So too in the famous hymn of Cleanthes,[784] quoted by St. Paul
at Athens ("For we are also his offspring,"):--

Chiefest glory of deathless Gods, Almighty for ever,
Sovereign of Nature that rulest by law, what name shall
we give thee?
Blessed be Thou, for on Thee should call all things that are mortal.
For that we are Thy offspring: nay, all that in myriad motion
Lives for its day on the earth bears one impress, Thy likeness,
upon it;
Wherefore my song is of Thee, and I hymn Thy power for ever.

In these splendid lines it is plain that not Man only is thought of, but
all living things, animals included with Man; and this is in accordance
with the true Stoic Pantheism. But none the less on this account did
the Stoics believe Man to be the one living thing in the universe
comparable with God, and capable of communion with him by virtue of the
possession of Reason. As Cicero says, a few lines farther on in the work
I am quoting, "virtus eadem in homine ac deo est, neque ullo alio
ingenio praeterea." And since every creature seeks to maintain and
augment its own being, to bring it to perfection, to express it fully,
by an innate law of its nature, Man being endowed with Reason above all
other creatures, strives, or should strive, to bring himself to a
perfect expression, by identifying himself with the divine principle
which he sh