What, in the name of those Deities concerning whom we are now disputing, is the meaning of all this?
For if they exist only in thought, and have no solidity nor substance, what difference can there be between thinking of a Hippocentaur and thinking of a Deity?
Other philosophers call every such conformation of the mind a vain motion; but you term it "the approach and entrance of images into the mind." Thus, when I imagine that I behold T.Gracchus haranguing the people in the Capitol, and collecting their suffrages concerning M.Octavius, I call that a vain motion of the mind: but you affirm that the images of Gracchus and Octavius are present, which are only conveyed to my mind when they have arrived at the Capitol.

The case is the same, you say, in regard to the Deity, with the frequent representation of which the mind is so affected that from thence it may be clearly understood that the Gods[98] are happy and eternal.
Let it be granted that there are images by which the mind is affected, yet it is only a certain form that occurs; and why must that form be pronounced happy?
why eternal?
But what are those images you talk of, or whence do they proceed?
This loose manner of arguing is taken from Democritus; but he is reproved by many people for it; nor can you derive any conclusions from it: the whole system is weak and imperfect.
For what can be more improbable than that the images of Homer, Archilochus, Romulus, Numa, Pythagoras, and Plato should come into my mind, and yet not in the form in which they existed?
How, therefore, can they be those persons?
And whose images are they?
Aristotle tells us that there never was such a person as Orpheus the poet;[99] and it is said that the verse called Orphic verse was the invention of Cercops, a Pythagorean; yet Orpheus, that is to say, the image of him, as you will have it, often runs in my head.

What is the reason that I entertain one idea of the figure of the same person, and you another?
Why do we image to ourselves such things as never had any existence, and which never can have, such as Scyllas and Chimaeras?
Why do we frame ideas of men, countries, and cities which we never saw?
How is it that the very first moment that I choose I can form representations of them in my mind?
How is it that they come to me, even in my sleep, without being called or sought after?
XXXIX.

The whole affair, Velleius, is ridiculous.

You do not impose images on our eyes only, but on our minds.