s why he is said to have been found by the river
Gallus. For Gallus signifies the Galaxy, or Milky Way, the point at
which body subject to passion begins.[204:1] Now as the primary gods
make perfect the secondary, the Mother loves Attis and gives him
celestial powers. That is what the cap means. Attis loves a nymph: the
nymphs preside over generation, since all that is generated is fluid.
But since the process of generation must be stopped somewhere, and not
allowed to generate something worse than the worst, the Creator who
makes these things casts away his generative powers into the creation
and is joined to the gods again. Now these things never happened, but
always are. And Mind sees all things at once, but Reason (or Speech)
expresses some first and others after. Thus, as the myth is in accord
with the Cosmos, we for that reason keep a festival imitating the
Cosmos, for how could we attain higher order?

And at first we ourselves, having fallen from heaven and living with the
Nymph, are in despondency, and abstain from corn and all rich and
unclean food, for both are hostile to the soul. Then comes the cutting
of the tree and the fast, as though we also were cutting off the further
process of generation. After that the feeding on milk, as though we were
being born again; after which come rejoicings and garlands and, as it
were, a return up to the Gods.

The season of the ritual is evidence to the truth of these explanations.
The rites are performed about the Vernal Equinox, when the fruits of the
earth are ceasing to be produced, and day is becoming longer than night,
which applies well to Spirits rising higher. (At least, the other
equinox is in mythology the time of the Rape of Kore, which is the
descent of the souls.)

May these explanations of the myths find favour in the eyes of the Gods
themselves and the souls of those who wrote the myths.

V. _On the First Cause._

Next in order comes knowledge of the First Cause and the subsequent
orders of the gods, then the nature of the world, the essence of
intellect and of soul, then Providence, Fate, and Fortune, then to see
Virtue and Vice and the various forms of social constitution good and
bad that are formed from them, and from what possible source Evil came
into the world.

Each of these subjects needs many long discussions; but there is perhaps
no harm in stating them briefly, so that a disciple may not be
completely ignorant about them.

It is prop