Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
superfluous or useless is, not only in a man, but a tree. How
troublesome it is to have a finger too much! And why so? Because
neither use nor ornament requires more than five; but your Deity has
not only a finger more than he wants, but a head, a neck, shoulders,
sides, a paunch, back, hams, hands, feet, thighs, and legs. Are these
parts necessary to immortality? Are they conducive to the existence of
the Deity? Is the face itself of use? One would rather say so of the
brain, the heart, the lights, and the liver; for these are the seats of
life. The features of the face contribute nothing to the preservation
of it.
XXXVI. You censured those who, beholding those excellent and stupendous
works, the world, and its respective parts--the heaven, the earth, the
seas--and the splendor with which they are adorned; who, contemplating
the sun, moon, and stars; and who, observing the maturity and changes
of the seasons, and vicissitudes of times, inferred from thence that
there must be some excellent and eminent essence that originally made,
and still moves, directs, and governs them. Suppose they should mistake
in their conjecture, yet I see what they aim at. But what is that great
and noble work which appears to you to be the effect of a divine mind,
and from which you conclude that there are Gods? "I have," say you, "a
certain information of a Deity imprinted in my mind." Of a bearded
Jupiter, I suppose, and a helmeted Minerva.
But do you really imagine them to be such? How much better are the
notions of the ignorant vulgar, who not only believe the Deities have
members like ours, but that they make use of them; and therefore they
assign them a bow and arrows, a spear, a shield, a trident, and
lightning; and though they do not behold the actions of the Gods, yet
they cannot entertain a thought of a Deity doing nothing. The Egyptians
(so much ridiculed) held no beasts to be sacred, except on account of
some advantage which they had received from them. The ibis, a very
large bird, with strong legs and a horny long beak, destroys a great
number of serpents. These birds keep Egypt from pestilential diseases
by killing and devouring the flying serpents brought from the deserts
of Lybia by the south-west wind, which prevents the mischief that may
attend their biting while alive, or any infection when dead. I could
speak of the advantage of the ichneumon, the crocodile, and the cat;
but I am unwilling to be tedious; yet I will conclude with observing
that the barbarians paid divine honors to beasts because of the
benefits they received from them; whereas your Gods not only confer no
benefit, but are idle, and do no single act of any description
whatever.
XXXVII. "They have nothing to do," your teacher says. Epicurus truly,
like indolent boys, thinks nothing preferable to idleness; yet those
very boys, when they have a holiday, entertain themselves in some
sportive exercise. But we are to suppose the Deity in such an inactive
state that if he should move we may justly fear he would be no longer
happy. This doctrine divests the Gods of motion and operation; besides,
it encourages men to be lazy, as they are by this taught to believe
that the least labor is incompatible even with divine felicity.
But let it be as you would have it, that the Deity is in the form and
image of a man. Where is his abode? Where is his habitation? Where is
the place where he is to be found? What is his course of life? And what
is it that constitutes the happiness which you assert that he enjoys?
For it seems necessary that a being who is to be happy must use and
enjoy what belongs to him. And with regard to place, even those natures
which are inanimate have each their proper stations assigned to them:
so that the earth is the lowest; then water is next above the earth;
the air is above the water; and fire has the highest situation of all
allotted to it. Some creatures inhabit the earth, some the water, and
some, of an amphibious nature, live in both. There are some, also,
which are thought to be born in fire, and which often appear fluttering
in burning furnaces.
In the first place, therefore, I ask you, Where is the habitation of
your Deity? Secondly, What motive is it that stirs him from his place,
supposing he ever moves? And, lastly, since it is peculiar to animated
beings to have an inclination to something that is agreeable to their
several natures, what is it that the Deity affects, and to what purpose
does he exert the motion of his mind and reason? In short, how is he
happy? how eternal? Whichever of these points you touch upon, I am
afraid you will come lamely off. For there is never a proper end to
reasoning which proceeds on a false foundation; for you asserted
likewise that the form of the Deity is perceptible by the mind, but not
by sense; that it is neither solid, nor invariable in number; that it
is to be discerned by similitude and transition, and that a constant
supply of images is perpetually flowing on from innumerable atoms, on
which our minds are intent; so that we from that conclude that divine
nature to be happy and everlasting.
XXXVIII. 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. Such is the privilege which
you have assumed of talking nonsense with impunity. But there is, you
say, a transition of images flowing on in great crowds in such a way
that out of many some one at least must be perceived! I should be
ashamed of my incapacity to understand this if you, who assert it,
could comprehend it yourselves; for how do you prove that these images
are continued in uninterrupted motion? Or, if uninterrupted, still how
do you prove them to be eternal? There is a constant supply, you say,
of innumerable atoms. But must they, for that reason, be all eternal?
To elude this, you have recourse to equilibration (for so, with your
leave, I will call your [Greek: Isonomia]),[100] and say that as there
is a sort of nature mortal, so there must also be a sort which is
immortal. By the same rule, as there are men mortal, there are men
immortal; and as some arise from the earth, some must arise from the
water also; and as there are causes which destroy, there must likewise
be causes which preserve. Be it as you say; but let those causes
preserve which have existence themselves. I cannot conceive these your
Gods to have any. But how does all this face of things arise from
atomic corpuscles? Were there any such atoms (as there are not), they
might perhaps impel one another, and be jumbled together in their
motion; but they could never be able to impart form, or figure, or
color, or animation, so that you by no means demonstrate the
immortality of your Deity.
XL. Let us now inquire into his happiness. It is certain that without
virtue there can be no happiness; but virtue consists in action: now
your Deity does nothing; therefore he is void of virtue, and
consequently cannot be happy. What sort of life does he lead? He has a
constant supply, you say, of good things, without any intermixture of
bad. What are those good things? Sensual pleasures, no doubt; for you
know no delight of the mind but what arises from the body, and returns
to it. I do not suppose, Velleius, that you are like some of the
Epicureans, who are ashamed of those expressions of Epicurus,[101] in
which he openly avows that he has no idea of any good separate from
wanton and obscene pleasures, which, without a blush, he names
distinctly. What food, therefore, what drink, what variety of music or
flowers, what kind of pleasures of touch, what odors, will you offer to
the Gods to fill them with pleasures? The poets indeed provide them
with banquets of nectar and ambrosia, and a Hebe or a Ganymede to serve
up the cup. But what is it, Epicurus, that you do for them? For I do
not see from whence your Deity should have those things, nor how he
could use them. Therefore the nature of man is better constituted for a
happy life than the nature of the Gods, because men enjoy various kinds
of pleasures; but you look on all those pleasures as superficial which
delight the senses only by a titillation, as Epicurus calls it. Where
is to be the end of this trifling? Even Philo, who followed the
Academy, could not bear to hear the soft and luscious delights of the
Epicureans despised; for with his admirable memory he perfectly
remembered and used to repeat many sentences of Epicurus in the very
words in which they were written. He likewise used to quote many, which
were more gross, from Metrodorus, the sage colleague of Epicurus, who
blamed his brother Timocrates because he would not allow that
everything which had any reference to a happy life was to be measured
by the belly; nor has he said this once only, but often. You grant what
I say, I perceive; for you know it to be true. I can produce the books,
if you should deny it; but I am not now reproving you for referring all
things to the standard of pleasure: that is another question. What I am
now showing is, that your Gods are destitute of pleasure; and
therefore, according to your own manner of reasoning, they are not
happy.
XLI. But they are free from pain. Is that sufficient for beings who are
supposed to enjoy all good things and the most supreme felicity? The
Deity, they say, is constantly meditating on his own happiness, for he
has no other idea which can possibly occupy his mind. Consider a