Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
as that? And, again, how are we to conceive how much it is able to
contain? Shall we imagine the soul to receive impressions like wax, and
memory to be marks of the impressions made on the soul? What are the
characters of the words, what of the facts themselves? and what, again,
is that prodigious greatness which can give rise to impressions of so
many things? What, lastly, is that power which investigates secret
things, and is called invention and contrivance? Does that man seem to
be compounded of this earthly, mortal, and perishing nature who first
invented names for everything; which, if you will believe Pythagoras,
is the highest pitch of wisdom? or he who collected the dispersed
inhabitants of the world, and united them in the bonds of social life?
or he who confined the sounds of the voice, which used to seem
infinite, to the marks of a few letters? or he who first observed the
courses of the planets, their progressive motions, their laws? These
were all great men. But they were greater still who invented food, and
raiment, and houses; who introduced civilization among us, and armed us
against the wild beasts; by whom we were made sociable and polished,
and so proceeded from the necessaries of life to its embellishments.
For we have provided great entertainments for the ears by inventing and
modulating the variety and nature of sounds; we have learned to survey
the stars, not only those that are fixed, but also those which are
improperly called wandering; and the man who has acquainted himself
with all their revolutions and motions is fairly considered to have a
soul resembling the soul of that Being who has created those stars in
the heavens: for when Archimedes described in a sphere the motions of
the moon, sun, and five planets, he did the very same thing as Plato's
God, in his Timaeus, who made the world, causing one revolution to
adjust motions differing as much as possible in their slowness and
velocity. Now, allowing that what we see in the world could not be
effected without a God, Archimedes could not have imitated the same
motions in his sphere without a divine soul.
XXVI. To me, indeed, it appears that even those studies which are more
common and in greater esteem are not without some divine energy: so
that I do not consider that a poet can produce a serious and sublime
poem without some divine impulse working on his mind; nor do I think
that eloquence, abounding with sonorous words and fruitful sentences,
can flow thus without something beyond mere human power. But as to
philosophy, that is the parent of all the arts: what can we call that
but, as Plato says, a gift, or, as I express it, an invention, of the
Gods? This it was which first taught us the worship of the Gods; and
then led us on to justice, which arises from the human race being
formed into society; and after that it imbued us with modesty and
elevation of soul. This it was which dispersed darkness from our souls,
as it is dispelled from our eyes, enabling us to see all things that
are above or below, the beginning, end, and middle of everything. I am
convinced entirely that that which could effect so many and such great
things must be a divine power. For what is memory of words and
circumstances? What, too, is invention? Surely they are things than
which nothing greater can be conceived in a God! For I do not imagine
the Gods to be delighted with nectar and ambrosia, or with Juventas
presenting them with a cup; nor do I put any faith in Homer, who says
that Ganymede was carried away by the Gods on account of his beauty, in
order to give Jupiter his wine. Too weak reasons for doing Laomedon
such injury! These were mere inventions of Homer, who gave his Gods the
imperfections of men. I would rather that he had given men the
perfections of the Gods! those perfections, I mean, of uninterrupted
health, wisdom, invention, memory. Therefore the soul (which is, as I
say, divine) is, as Euripides more boldly expresses it, a God. And
thus, if the divinity be air or fire, the soul of man is the same; for
as that celestial nature has nothing earthly or humid about it, in like
manner the soul of man is also free from both these qualities: but if
it is of that fifth kind of nature, first introduced by Aristotle, then
both Gods and souls are of the same.
XXVII. As this is my opinion, I have explained it in these very words,
in my book on Consolation.[19] The origin of the soul of man is not to
be found upon earth, for there is nothing in the soul of a mixed or
concrete nature, or that has any appearance of being formed or made out
of the earth; nothing even humid, or airy, or fiery. For what is there
in natures of that kind which has the power of memory, understanding,
or thought? which can recollect the past, foresee the future, and
comprehend the present? for these capabilities are confined to divine
beings; nor can we discover any source from which men could derive
them, but from God. There is therefore a peculiar nature and power in
the soul, distinct from those natures which are more known and familiar
to us. Whatever, then, that is which thinks, and which has
understanding, and volition, and a principle of life, is heavenly and
divine, and on that account must necessarily be eternal; nor can God
himself, who is known to us, be conceived to be anything else except a
soul free and unembarrassed, distinct from all mortal concretion,
acquainted with everything, and giving motion to everything, and itself
endued with perpetual motion.
XXVIII. Of this kind and nature is the intellect of man. Where, then,
is this intellect seated, and of what character is it? where is your
own, and what is its character? Are you able to tell? If I have not
faculties for knowing all that I could desire to know, will you not
even allow me to make use of those which I have? The soul has not
sufficient capacity to comprehend itself; yet, the soul, like the eye,
though it has no distinct view of itself, sees other things: it does
not see (which is of least consequence) its own shape; perhaps not,
though it possibly may; but we will pass that by: but it certainly sees
that it has vigor, sagacity, memory, motion, and velocity; these are
all great, divine, eternal properties. What its appearance is, or where
it dwells, it is not necessary even to inquire. As when we behold,
first of all, the beauty and brilliant appearance of the heavens;
secondly, the vast velocity of its revolutions, beyond power of our
imagination to conceive; then the vicissitudes of nights and days, the
fourfold division of the seasons, so well adapted to the ripening of
the fruits of the earth, and the temperature of our bodies: and after
that we look up to the sun, the moderator and governor of all these
things; and view the moon, by the increase and decrease of its light,
marking, as it were, and appointing our holy days; and see the five
planets, borne on in the same circle, divided into twelve parts,
preserving the same course with the greatest regularity, but with
utterly dissimilar motions among themselves; and the nightly appearance
of the heaven, adorned on all sides with stars; then, the globe of the
earth, raised above the sea, and placed in the centre of the universe,
inhabited and cultivated in its two opposite extremities, one of which,
the place of our habitation, is situated towards the north pole, under
the seven stars:
Where the cold northern blasts, with horrid sound,
Harden to ice the snowy cover'd ground;
the other, towards the south pole, is unknown to us, but is called by
the Greeks [Greek: antichthona]: the other parts are uncultivated,
because they are either frozen with cold, or burned up with heat; but
where we dwell, it never fails, in its season,
To yield a placid sky, to bid the trees
Assume the lively verdure of their leaves:
The vine to bud, and, joyful, in its shoots,
Foretell the approaching vintage of its fruits:
The ripen'd corn to sing, while all around
Full riv'lets glide; and flowers deck the ground:
then the multitude of cattle, fit part for food, part for tilling the
ground, others for carrying us, or for clothing us; and man himself,
made, as it were, on purpose to contemplate the heavens and the Gods,
and to pay adoration to them: lastly, the whole earth, and wide
extending seas, given to man's use. When we view these and numberless
other things, can we doubt that they have some being who presides over
them, or has made them (if, indeed, they have been made, as is the
opinion of Plato, or if, as Aristotle thinks, they are eternal), or who
at all events is the regulator of so immense a fabric and so great a
blessing to men? Thus, though you see not the soul of man, as you see
not the Deity, yet, as by the contemplation of his works you are led to
acknowledge a God, so you must own the divine power of the soul, from
its remembering things, from its invention, from the quickness of its
motion, and from all the beauty of virtue. Where, then, is it seated,
you will say?
XXIX. In my opinion, it is seated in the head, and I can bring you
reasons for my adopting that opinion. At present, let the soul reside
where it will, you certainly have one in you. Should you ask what its
nature is? It has one peculiarly its own; but admitting it to consist
of fire, or air, it does not affect the present question. Only observe
this, that as you are convinced there is a God, though you are ignorant
where he resides, and what shape he is of; in like manner you ought to
feel assured that you have a soul, though you cannot satisfy yourself
of the place of its residence, nor its form. In our knowledge of the
soul, unless we are grossly ignorant of natural philosophy, we cannot
but be satisfied that it has nothing but what is simple, unmixed,
uncompounded, and single; and if this is admitted, then it cannot be
separated, nor divided, nor dispersed, nor parted, and therefore it
cannot perish; for to perish implies a parting-asunder, a division, a
disunion, of those parts which, while it subsisted, were held together
by some band. And it was because he was influenced by these and similar
reasons that Socrates neither looked out for anybody to plead for him
when he was accused, nor begged any favor from his judges, but
maintained a manly freedom, which was the effect not of pride, but of
the true greatness of his soul; and on the last day of his life he held
a long discourse on this subject; and a few days before, when he might
have been easily freed from his confinement, he refused to be so; and
when he had almost actually hold of that deadly cup, he spoke with the
air of a man not forced to die, but ascending into heaven.
XXX. For so indeed he thought himself, and thus he spoke: "That there
were two ways, and that the souls of men, at their departure from the
body, took different roads; for those which were polluted with vices
that are common to men, and which had given themselves up entirely to
unclean desires, and had become so blinded by them as to have
habituated themselves to all manner of debauchery and profligacy, or to
have laid detestable schemes for the ruin of their country, took a road
wide of that which led to the assembly of the Gods; but they who had
preserved themselves upright and chaste, and free from the slightest
contagion of the body, and had always kept themselves as far as
possible at a distance from it, and while on earth had proposed to
themselves as a model the life of the Gods, found the return to those
beings from whom they had come an easy one." Therefore, he argues, that
all good and wise men should take example from the swans, who are
considered sacred to Apollo, not without reason, but particularly
because they seem to have received the gift of divination from him, by