Cicero's Tusculan Disputations
highest, and being carried with a more rapid velocity, moves with a
shrill and acute sound; whereas that of the moon, being the lowest,
moves with a very flat one. As to the earth, which makes the ninth
sphere, it remains immovably fixed in the middle or lowest part of the
universe. But those eight revolving circles, in which both Mercury and
Venus are moved with the same celerity, give out sounds that are
divided by seven distinct intervals, which is generally the regulating
number of all things.
This celestial harmony has been imitated by learned musicians both on
stringed instruments and with the voice, whereby they have opened to
themselves a way to return to the celestial regions, as have likewise
many others who have employed their sublime genius while on earth in
cultivating the divine sciences.
By the amazing noise of this sound the ears of mankind have been in
some degree deafened; and indeed hearing is the dullest of all the
human senses. Thus, the people who dwell near the cataracts of the
Nile, which are called Catadupa[348], are, by the excessive roar which
that river makes in precipitating itself from those lofty mountains,
entirely deprived of the sense of hearing. And so inconceivably great
is this sound which is produced by the rapid motion of the whole
universe, that the human ear is no more capable of receiving it than
the eye is able to look steadfastly and directly on the sun, whose
beams easily dazzle the strongest sight.
While I was busied in admiring the scene of wonders, I could not help
casting my eyes every now and then on the earth.
XIX. On which Africanus said, I perceive that you are still employed in
contemplating the seat and residence of mankind. But if it appears to
you so small, as in fact it really is, despise its vanities, and fix
your attention forever on these heavenly objects. Is it possible that
you should attain any human applause or glory that is worth the
contending for? The earth, you see, is peopled but in a very few
places, and those, too, of small extent; and they appear like so many
little spots of green scattered through vast, uncultivated deserts. And
those who inhabit the earth are not only so remote from each other as
to be cut off from all mutual correspondence, but their situation being
in oblique or contrary parts of the globe, or perhaps in those
diametrically opposite to yours, all expectation of universal fame must
fall to the ground.
XX. You may likewise observe that the same globe of the earth is girt
and surrounded with certain zones, whereof those two that are most
remote from each other, and lie under the opposite poles of heaven, are
congealed with frost; but that one in the middle, which is far the
largest, is scorched with the intense heat of the sun. The other two
are habitable, one towards the south, the inhabitants of which are your
antipodes, with whom you have no connection; the other, towards the
north, is that which you inhabit, whereof a very small part, as you may
see, falls to your share. For the whole extent of what you see is, as
it were, but a little island, narrow at both ends and wide in the
middle, which is surrounded by the sea which on earth you call the
great Atlantic Ocean, and which, notwithstanding this magnificent name,
you see is very insignificant. And even in these cultivated and
well-known countries, has yours, or any of our names, ever passed the
heights of the Caucasus or the currents of the Ganges? In what other
parts to the north or the south, or where the sun rises and sets, will
your names ever be heard? And if we leave these out of the question,
how small a space is there left for your glory to spread itself abroad;
and how long will it remain in the memory of those whose minds are now
full of it?
XXI. Besides all this, if the progeny of any future generation should
wish to transmit to their posterity the praises of any one of us which
they have heard from their forefathers, yet the deluges and combustions
of the earth, which must necessarily happen at their destined periods,
will prevent our obtaining, not only an eternal, but even a durable
glory. And, after all, what does it signify whether those who shall
hereafter be born talk of you, when those who have lived before you,
whose number was perhaps not less, and whose merit certainly greater,
were not so much as acquainted with your name?
XXII. Especially since not one of those who shall hear of us is able to
retain in his memory the transactions of a single year. The bulk of
mankind, indeed, measure their year by the return of the sun, which is
only one star. But when all the stars shall have returned to the place
whence they set out, and after long periods shall again exhibit the
same aspect of the whole heavens, that is what ought properly to be
called the revolution of a year, though I scarcely dare attempt to
enumerate the vast multitude of ages contained in it. For as the sun in
old time was eclipsed, and seemed to be extinguished, at the time when
the soul of Romulus penetrated into these eternal mansions, so, when
all the constellations and stars shall revert to their primary
position, and the sun shall at the same point and time be again
eclipsed, then you may consider that the grand year is completed. Be
assured, however, that the twentieth part of it is not yet elapsed.
XXIII. Wherefore, if you have no hopes of returning to this place where
great and good men enjoy all that their souls can wish for, of what
value, pray, is all that human glory, which can hardly endure for a
small portion of one year?
If, then, you wish to elevate your views to the contemplation of this
eternal seat of splendor, you will not be satisfied with the praises of
your fellow-mortals, nor with any human rewards that your exploits can
obtain; but Virtue herself must point out to you the true and only
object worthy of your pursuit. Leave to others to speak of you as they
may, for speak they will. Their discourses will be confined to the
narrow limits of the countries you see, nor will their duration be very
extensive; for they will perish like those who utter them, and will be
no more remembered by their posterity.
XXIV. When he had ceased to speak in this manner, I said, O Africanus,
if indeed the door of heaven is open to those who have deserved well of
their country, although, indeed, from my childhood I have always
followed yours and my father's steps, and have not neglected to imitate
your glory, still, I will from henceforth strive to follow them more
closely.
Follow them, then, said he, and consider your body only, not yourself,
as mortal. For it is not your outward form which constitutes your
being, but your mind; not that substance which is palpable to the
senses, but your spiritual nature. _Know, then, that you are a
God_--for a God it must be, which flourishes, and feels, and
recollects, and foresees, and governs, regulates and moves the body
over which it is set, as the Supreme Ruler does the world which is
subject to him. For as that Eternal Being moves whatever is mortal in
this world, so the immortal mind of man moves the frail body with which
it is connected.
XXV. For whatever is always moving must be eternal; but that which
derives its motion from a power which is foreign to itself, when that
motion ceases must itself lose its animation.
That alone, then, which moves itself can never cease to be moved,
because it can never desert itself. Moreover, it must be the source,
and origin, and principle of motion in all the rest. There can be
nothing prior to a principle, for all things must originate from it;
and it cannot itself derive its existence from any other source, for if
it did it would no longer be a principle. And if it had no beginning,
it can have no end; for a beginning that is put an end to will neither
be renewed by any other cause, nor will it produce anything else of
itself. All things, therefore, must originate from one source. Thus it
follows that motion must have its source in something which is moved by
itself, and which can neither have a beginning nor an end. Otherwise
all the heavens and all nature must perish, for it is impossible that
they can of themselves acquire any power of producing motion in
themselves.
XXVI. As, therefore, it is plain that what is moved by itself must be
eternal, who will deny that this is the general condition and nature of
minds? For as everything is inanimate which is moved by an impulse
exterior to itself, so what is animated is moved by an interior impulse
of its own; for this is the peculiar nature and power of mind. And if
that alone has the power of self-motion, it can neither have had a
beginning, nor can it have an end.
Do you, therefore, exercise this mind of yours in the best pursuits.
And the best pursuits are those which consist in promoting the good of
your country. Such employments will speed the flight of your mind to
this its proper abode; and its flight will be still more rapid, if,
even while it is enclosed in the body, it will look abroad, and
disengage itself as much as possible from its bodily dwelling, by the
contemplation of things which are external to itself.
This it should do to the utmost of its power. For the minds of those
who have given themselves up to the pleasures of the body, paying, as
it were, a servile obedience to their lustful impulses, have violated
the laws of God and man; and therefore, when they are separated from
their bodies, flutter continually round the earth on which they lived,
and are not allowed to return to this celestial region till they have
been purified by the revolution of many ages.
Thus saying, he vanished, and I awoke from my dream.
A FRAGMENT.
And although it is most desirable that fortune should remain forever in
the most brilliant possible condition, nevertheless, the equability of
life excites less interest than those changeable conditions wherein
prosperity suddenly revives out of the most desperate and ruinous
circumstances.
THE END.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Archilochus was a native of Paros, and flourished about 714-676
B.C. His poems were chiefly Iambics of bitter satire. Horace speaks of
him as the inventor of Iambics, and calls himself his pupil.
Parios ego primus Iambos
Ostendi Latio, numeros animosque secutus
Archilochi, non res et agentia verba Lycamben.
Epist. I. xix. 25.
And in another place he says,
Archilochum proprio rabies armavit Iambo--A.P. 74.
[2] This was Livius Andronicus: he is supposed to have been a native of
Tarentum, and he was made prisoner by the Romans, during their wars in
Southern Italy; owing to which he became the slave of M. Livius
Salinator. He wrote both comedies and tragedies, of which Cicero
(Brutus 18) speaks very contemptuously, as "Livianae fabulae non satis
dignae quae iterum legantur"--not worth reading a second time. He also
wrote a Latin Odyssey, and some hymns, and died probably about 221 B.C.
[3] C. Fabius, surnamed Pictor, painted the temple of Salus, which the
dictator C. Junius Brutus Bubulus dedicated 302 B.C. The temple was
destroyed by fire in the reign of Claudius. The painting is highly
praised by Dionysius, xvi. 6.
[4] For an account of the ancient Greek philosophers, see the sketch at
the end of the Disputations.
[5] Isocrates was born at Athens 436 B.C. He was a pupil of Gorgias,
Prodicus, and Socrates. He opened a school of rhetoric, at Athens, with
great success. He died by his own hand at the age of ninety-eight.
[6] So Horace joins these two classes as inventors of all kinds of
improbable fictions:
Pictoribus atque poetis
Quidlibet audendi semper fuit aequa potestas.--A. P. 9.