Asclepius

whose species are scattered through the whole earth. Heaven is full of God. But above the earth, kinds dwell up to the place of the species, whose species are immortal for all things. For the species of the kind is a part, like man is a part of humanity, which follows the quality of its kind internally; from which it is brought about that although all kinds are immortal, the species are not all immortal. For the divine kinds, both it and the species are immortal. The kinds of the rest, of which the unity is kinds, although they die through species, they preserve the renewed form of being born. Therefore the species are mortal, as a man is mortal, [but] humanity is immortal. However, the species of all kinds are informed by two kinds: certain that were made before, and certain that are almost from these. But those which were, either by the gods or by the demons or by the humans: all are species in the likeness of their kinds. For it is impossible for bodies to be formed without the divine hand, [or] to figure the species without the help of demons, for they cannot instruct and be cultivated without humans. In all, therefore, flowing down from their kind of demons, they are in the common form of the species; coming to other species, [having] divine primacy and companionship, holding those things for the gods. But those which the species of demons, by the quality of their own imitation, preserve as their own: these are called demons of human rational souls. Such is [the state] of humans or greater; for in the unformed and varied imitation of human species, and that itself from the aforementioned companionship coming from above, with the multitude of other species, and almost by the variations, they make whole humans; for which reason, and because they approach near the gods who have a mind joined to the gods by divine religion.