God is a thing more common and obvious, and is
a mechanic fire which every way spreads itself to produce the world; it
contains in itself all seminal virtues, and by this means all things by
a fatal necessity were produced. This spirit, passing through the whole
world, received different names from the mutations in the matter through
which it ran in its journey. God therefore is the world, the stars, the
earth, and (highest of all) the mind in the heavens. In the judgment of
Epicurus all the gods are anthropomorphites, or have the shape of men;
but they are perceptible only by reason, for their nature admits of no
other manner of being apprehended, their parts being so small and fine
that they give no corporeal representations. The same Epicurus asserts
that there are four other natural beings which are immortal: of this
sort are atoms, the vacuum, the infinite, and the similar parts; and
these last are called Homoeomeries and likewise elements.

CHAPTER VIII. OF THOSE THAT ARE CALLED GENIUSES AND HEROES

Having treated of the essence of the deities in a just order, it follows
that we discourse of daemons and heroes. Thales, Pythagoras, Plato, and
the Stoics do conclude that daemons are essences endowed with souls;
that the heroes are the souls separated from their bodies, some are
good, some are bad; the good are those whose souls are good, the evil
those whose souls are wicked. All this is rejected by Epicurus.

CHAPTER IX. OF MATTER.

Matter is that first being which is substrate for generation,
corruption, and all other alterations.

The disciples of Thales and Pythagoras, with the Stoics, are of opinion
that matter is changeable, mutable, convertible, and sliding through all
things.

The followers of Democritus aver that the vacuum, the atom, and the
incorporeal substance are the first beings, and not obnoxious to
passions.

Aristotle and Plato affirm that matter is of that species which is
corporeal, void of any form, species, figure, and quality, but apt to
receive all forms, that she may be the nurse, the mother, and origin of
all other beings. But they that do say that water, earth, air, and
fire are matter do likewise say that matter cannot be without form, but
conclude it is a body; but they that say that individual particles and
atoms are matter do say that matter is without form.

CHAPTER X. OF IDEAS.

An idea is a being incorporeal, not subsisting by itself, but gives
figure unto sh