Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
be self-evident, because long reasoning only serves to confound the
clearest matters; besides, though I might take this method in pleading,
yet I should not make use of it in such a discourse as this, which
requires the nicest distinction. And with regard to your making use of
one eye only when you look on me, there is no reason for it, since
together they have the same view; and since nature, to which you
attribute wisdom, has been pleased to give us two passages by which we
receive light. But the truth is, that it was because you did not think
that the existence of the Gods was so evident as you could wish that
you therefore brought so many proofs. It was sufficient for me to
believe it on the tradition of our ancestors; and since you disregard
authorities, and appeal to reason, permit my reason to defend them
against yours. The proofs on which you found the existence of the Gods
tend only to render a proposition doubtful that, in my opinion, is not
so; I have not only retained in my memory the whole of these proofs,
but even the order in which you proposed them. The first was, that when
we lift up our eyes towards the heavens, we immediately conceive that
there is some divinity that governs those celestial bodies; on which
you quoted this passage--
Look up to the refulgent heaven above,
Which all men call, unanimously, Jove;
intimating that we should invoke that as Jupiter, rather than our
Capitoline Jove[243], or that it is evident to the whole world that
those bodies are Gods which Velleius and many others do not place even
in the rank of animated beings.
Another strong proof, in your opinion, was that the belief of the
existence of the Gods was universal, and that mankind was daily more
and more convinced of it. What! should an affair of such importance be
left to the decision of fools, who, by your sect especially, are called
madmen?
V. But the Gods have appeared to us, as to Posthumius at the Lake
Regillus, and to Vatienus in the Salarian Way: something you mentioned,
too, I know not what, of a battle of the Locrians at Sagra. Do you
believe that the Tyndaridae, as you called them; that is, men sprung
from men, and who were buried in Lacedaemon, as we learn from Homer, who
lived in the next age--do you believe, I say, that they appeared to
Vatienus on the road mounted on white horses, without any servant to
attend them, to tell the victory of the Romans to a country fellow
rather than to M. Cato, who was at that time the chief person of the
senate? Do you take that print of a horse's hoof which is now to be
seen on a stone at Regillus to be made by Castor's horse? Should you
not believe, what is probable, that the souls of eminent men, such as
the Tyndaridae, are divine and immortal, rather than that those bodies
which had been reduced to ashes should mount on horses, and fight in an
army? If you say that was possible, you ought to show how it is so, and
not amuse us with fabulous old women's stories.
Do you take these for fabulous stories? says Balbus. Is not the temple,
built by Posthumius in honor of Castor and Pollux, to be seen in the
Forum? Is not the decree of the senate concerning Vatienus still
subsisting? As to the affair of Sagra, it is a common proverb among the
Greeks; when they would affirm anything strongly, they say "It is as
certain as what passed at Sagra." Ought not such authorities to move
you? You oppose me, replies Cotta, with stories, but I ask reasons of
you[244]. * * *
VI. We are now to speak of predictions. No one can avoid what is to
come, and, indeed, it is commonly useless to know it; for it is a
miserable case to be afflicted to no purpose, and not to have even the
last, the common comfort, hope, which, according to your principles,
none can have; for you say that fate governs all things, and call that
fate which has been true from all eternity. What advantage, then, is
the knowledge of futurity to us, or how does it assist us to guard
against impending evils, since it will come inevitably?
But whence comes that divination? To whom is owing that knowledge from
the entrails of beasts? Who first made observations from the voice of
the crow? Who invented the Lots?[245] Not that I give no credit to
these things, or that I despise Attius Navius's staff, which you
mentioned; but I ought to be informed how these things are understood
by philosophers, especially as the diviners are often wrong in their
conjectures. But physicians, you say, are likewise often mistaken. What
comparison can there be between divination, of the origin of which we
are ignorant, and physic, which proceeds on principles intelligible to
every one? You believe that the Decii,[246] in devoting themselves to
death, appeased the Gods. How great, then, was the iniquity of the Gods
that they could not be appeased but at the price of such noble blood!
That was the stratagem of generals such as the Greeks call [Greek:
strategema], and it was a stratagem worthy such illustrious leaders,
who consulted the public good even at the expense of their lives: they
conceived rightly, what indeed happened, that if the general rode
furiously upon the enemy, the whole army would follow his example. As
to the voice of the Fauns, I never heard it. If you assure me that you
have, I shall believe you, though I really know not what a Faun is.
VII. I do not, then, O Balbus, from anything that you have said,
perceive as yet that it is proved that there are Gods. I believe it,
indeed, but not from any arguments of the Stoics. Cleanthes, you have
said, attributes the idea that men have of the Gods to four causes. In
the first place (as I have already sufficiently mentioned), to a
foreknowledge of future events; secondly, to tempests, and other shocks
of nature; thirdly, to the utility and plenty of things we enjoy;
fourthly, to the invariable order of the stars and the heavens. The
arguments drawn from foreknowledge I have already answered. With regard
to tempests in the air, the sea, and the earth, I own that many people
are affrighted by them, and imagine that the immortal Gods are the
authors of them.
But the question is, not whether there are people who believe that
there are Gods, but whether there are Gods or not. As to the two other
causes of Cleanthes, one of which is derived from the great abundance
of desirable things which we enjoy, the other from the invariable order
of the seasons and the heavens, I shall treat on them when I answer
your discourse concerning the providence of the Gods--a point, Balbus,
upon which you have spoken at great length. I shall likewise defer till
then examining the argument which you attribute to Chrysippus, that "if
there is in nature anything which surpasses the power of man to
produce, there must consequently be some being better than man." I
shall also postpone, till we come to that part of my argument, your
comparison of the world to a fine house, your observations on the
proportion and harmony of the universe, and those smart, short reasons
of Zeno which you quote; and I shall examine at the same time your
reasons drawn from natural philosophy, concerning that fiery force and
that vital heat which you regard as the principle of all things; and I
will investigate, in its proper place, all that you advanced the other
day on the existence of the Gods, and on the sense and understanding
which you attributed to the sun, the moon, and all the stars; and I
shall ask you this question over and over again, By what proofs are you
convinced yourself there are Gods?
VIII. I thought, says Balbus, that I had brought ample proofs to
establish this point. But such is your manner of opposing, that, when
you seem on the point of interrogating me, and when I am preparing to
answer, you suddenly divert the discourse, and give me no opportunity
to reply to you; and thus those most important points concerning
divination and fate are neglected which we Stoics have thoroughly
examined, but which your school has only slightly touched upon. But
they are not thought essential to the question in hand; therefore, if
you think proper, do not confuse them together, that we in this
discussion may come to a clear explanation of the subject of our
present inquiry.
Very well, says Cotta. Since, then, you have divided the whole question
into four parts, and I have said all that I had to say on the first, I
will take the second into consideration; in which, when you attempted
to show what the character of the Gods was, you seemed to me rather to
prove that there are none; for you said that it was the greatest
difficulty to draw our minds from the prepossessions of the eyes; but
that as nothing is more excellent than the Deity, you did not doubt
that the world was God, because there is nothing better in nature than
the world, and so we may reasonably think it animated, or, rather,
perceive it in our minds as clearly as if it were obvious to our eyes.
Now, in what sense do you say there is nothing better than the world?
If you mean that there is nothing more beautiful, I agree with you;
that there is nothing more adapted to our wants, I likewise agree with
you: but if you mean that nothing is wiser than the world, I am by no
means of your opinion. Not that I find it difficult to conceive
anything in my mind independent of my eyes; on the contrary, the more I
separate my mind from my eyes, the less I am able to comprehend your
opinion.
IX. Nothing is better than the world, you say. Nor is there, indeed,
anything on earth better than the city of Rome; do you think,
therefore, that our city has a mind; that it thinks and reasons; or
that this most beautiful city, being void of sense, is not preferable
to an ant, because an ant has sense, understanding, reason, and memory?
You should consider, Balbus, what ought to be allowed you, and not
advance things because they please you.
For that old, concise, and, as it seemed to you, acute syllogism of
Zeno has been all which you have so much enlarged upon in handling this
topic: "That which reasons is superior to that which does not; nothing
is superior to the world; therefore the world reasons." If you would
prove also that the world can very well read a book, follow the example
of Zeno, and say, "That which can read is better than that which
cannot; nothing is better than the world; the world therefore can
read." After the same manner you may prove the world to be an orator, a
mathematician, a musician--that it possesses all sciences, and, in
short, is a philosopher. You have often said that God made all things,
and that no cause can produce an effect unlike itself. From hence it
will follow, not only that the world is animated, and is wise, but also
plays upon the fiddle and the flute, because it produces men who play
on those instruments. Zeno, therefore, the chief of your sect, advances
no argument sufficient to induce us to think that the world reasons,
or, indeed, that it is animated at all, and consequently none to think
it a Deity; though it may be said that there is nothing superior to it,
as there is nothing more beautiful, nothing more useful to us, nothing
more adorned, and nothing more regular in its motions. But if the
world, considered as one great whole, is not God, you should not surely
deify, as you have done, that infinite multitude of stars which only
form a part of it, and which so delight you with the regularity of
their eternal courses; not but that there is something truly wonderful
and incredible in their regularity; but this regularity of motion,
Balbus, may as well be ascribed to a natural as to a divine cause.
X. What can be more regular than the flux and reflux of the Euripus at
Chalcis, the Sicilian sea, and the violence of the ocean in those
parts[247]
where the rapid tide