De Sacrificiis Abelis Et Caini

but we, since we have the greatest share in what is mortal, and since we are not able to conceive any thing apart from ourselves, and have no power to go beyond or to escape our own calamities, but since we have got into mortality as snails have into their shells, and since we are revolved round and round ourselves in a ball, like so many hedgehogs, and have only the same opinions about the blessed and immortal God which we have about ourselves, avoiding all absurdity of assertion, such for instance as that God has the same form as man, but in reality being guilty of the impiety of attributing [*](The similarity to Horace is here again very remarkable. Horace, speaking of the Parent and Governor of the universe, says— Undo nil majus generatur ipso, Nec viget quicquam simile, aut secundum.—Od. I. xii. 17. ) [*](Numbers xxiii. 19. )

to him that he has the same passions as man;