all ear, all thought." It is he "who, without trouble,
by his thought governs all things." But it would be a mistake to
suppose that Xenophanes thought of this God as a being external to the
world, governing it from the outside, as a general governs his
soldiers. On the contrary, Xenophanes identified God with the world.
The world is God, a sentient being, though without organs of sense.
Looking out into the wide heavens, he said, "The One is God."
[Footnote 4] The thought of Xenophanes is therefore more properly
described as pantheism than as monotheism. God is unchangeable,
immutable, undivided, unmoved, passionless, undisturbed. Xenophanes
appears, thus, rather as a religious reformer than as a philosopher.
Nevertheless, inasmuch as he was the first to enunciate the
proposition "All is one," he takes his place in philosophy. It was
upon this thought that Parmenides built the foundations of the Eleatic
philosophy.

[Footnote 4: Aristotle, _Metaphysics_, Book I. chapter v.]

Certain other opinions of Xenophanes have been preserved. He observed
fossils, and found shells inland, and the forms of fish and sea-weed
embedded in the rocks in the quarries of Syracuse and elsewhere. From
these he concluded that the earth had risen out of the sea and would
again partially sink into it. Then the human race would be destroyed.
But the earth would again rise from the sea and the human race would
again [43] be renewed. He believed that the sun and stars were burning
masses of vapour. The sun, he thought, does not revolve round the
earth. It goes on in a straight line, and disappears in the remote
distance in the evening. It is not the same sun which rises the next
morning. Every day a new sun is formed out of the vapours of the sea.
This idea is connected with his general attitude towards the popular
religion. His motive was to show that the sun and stars are not divine
beings, but like other beings, ephemeral. Xenophanes also ridiculed
the Pythagoreans, especially their doctrine of re-incarnation.

Parmenides

Parmenides was born about 514 B.C. at Elea. Not much is known of his
life. He was in his early youth a Pythagorean, but recanted that
philosophy and formulated a philosophy of his own. He was greatly
revered in antiquity both for the depth of his intellect, and the
sublimity and nobility of his character. Plato refers to him always
with reverence. His philosophy is comprised in a philosophic didactic
poem which is