12. And he is not ashamed to add (that he may fully show the indecency of his opinions to those who shall come |123 after him), "Come! if one were to look down from heaven upon the earth, what difference would there seem to be between the doings of us men and those of ants and bees?" Now picture a spectator looking down from heaven, as Celsus supposes, and seeing the doings of men and ants: does he look upon the bodies of men and ants, and not perceive that in men the ruling principle is rational and set in action by reasoning power, and that, on the contrary, in ants the ruling principle is irrational, set in action without the help of reason, by impulse and fancy, along with some secret contrivance of nature? But it is absurd to suppose that any one who saw from heaven what is done upon earth should wish to look upon the bodies of men and ants from such a distance, and not be much more desirous to see the nature of the ruling principles and the source of impulses, whether rational or irrational. And if he once sees the source of all impulses, he will of course see also the difference, and the superiority of man not only to ants but also to elephants. For the spectator from heaven will discover in the irrational creatures, whatever their size, no other principle than, if I may so call it, irrationality; while in the rational creatures he will see reason, the common property of all men, and of beings heavenly and Divine, and perhaps also of the Supreme God Himself; and it is on account of reason that man is said to have been made in the image of God, for reason is the image of the Supreme God Himself.