These poets, however, speak thus only because they think of the rulers of the world as changing; for those of them who combine two characters in that they do not use mythical language throughout, eg Pherecydes and some others, make the original generating agent the Best, and so do the Magi, and some of the later sages also, eg Empedocles and Anaxagoras, of whom one made friendship an element, and the other made thought a principle.