Cotta—­speaking in behalf of the New Academy—­controverts these views.  Be these your gods, Epicurus, as well say there are no gods at all.  What reverence, what love, or what fear can men have of beings who neither wish them, nor can work them, good or ill?  Is idleness the divinest life?  “Why, ’tis the very heaven of schoolboys; yet the schoolboys, on their holiday, employ themselves in games”.  Nay, he concludes, what the Stoic Posidonius said of your master Epicurus is true—­“He believed there were no gods, and what he said about their nature he said only to avoid popular odium”.  He could not believe that the Deity has the outward shape of a man, without any solid essence; that he has all the members of a man, without the power to use them; that he is a shadowy transparent being, who shows no favour and confers no benefits on any, cares for nothing and does nothing; this is to allow his existence of the gods in word, but to deny it in fact.

Velleius compliments his opponent on his clever argument, but desires that Balbus would state his views upon the question.  The Stoic consents; and, at some length, proceeds to prove (what neither disputant has at all denied) the existence of Divine beings of some kind.  Universal belief, well-authenticated instances of their appearance to men, and of the fulfilment of prophecies and omens, are all evidences of their existence.  He dwells much, too, on the argument from design, of which so much use has been made by modern theologians.  He furnishes Paley with the idea for his well-known illustration of the man who finds a watch; “when we see a dial or a water-clock, we believe that the hour is shown thereon by art, and not by chance".[1] He gives also an illustration from the poet Attius, which from a poetical imagination has since become an historical incident; the shepherds who see the ship Argo approaching take the new monster for a thing of life, as the Mexicans regarded the ships of Cortes.  Much more, he argues, does the harmonious order of the world bespeak an intelligence within.  But his conclusion is that the Universe itself is the Deity; or that the Deity is the animating Spirit of the Universe; and that the popular mythology, which gives one god to the Earth, one to the Sea, one to Fire, and so on, is in fact a distorted version of this truth.  The very form of the universe—­the sphere—­is the most perfect of all forms, and therefore suited to embody the Divine.

[Footnote 1:  De Nat.  Deor. ii. 34.  Paley’s Nat.  Theol. ch. i.]

Then Cotta—­who though, as Pontifex, he is a national priest by vocation, is of that sect in philosophy which makes doubt its creed—­resumes his objections.  He is no better satisfied with the tenets of the Stoics than with those of the Epicureans.  He believes that there are gods; but, coming to the discussion as a dispassionate and philosophical observer, he finds such proofs as are offered of their existence insufficient.  But this third book is fragmentary,