BOOK III.

I. When Balbus had ended this discourse, then Cotta, with a smile,

rejoined, You direct me too late which side to defend; for during the

course of your argument I was revolving in my mind what objections to

make to what you were saying, not so much for the sake of opposition,

as of obliging you to explain what I did not perfectly comprehend; and

as every one may use his own judgment, it is scarcely possible for me

to think in every instance exactly what you wish.

You have no idea, O Cotta, said Velleius, how impatient I am to hear

what you have to say. For since our friend Balbus was highly delighted

with your discourse against Epicurus, I ought in my turn to be

solicitous to hear what you can say against the Stoics; and I therefore

will give you my best attention, for I believe you are, as usual, well

prepared for the engagement.

I wish, by Hercules! I were, replies Cotta; for it is more difficult to

dispute with Lucilius than it was with you. Why so? says Velleius.

Because, replies Cotta, your Epicurus, in my opinion, does not contend

strongly for the Gods: he only, for the sake of avoiding any

unpopularity or punishment, is afraid to deny their existence; for when

he asserts that the Gods are wholly inactive and regardless of

everything, and that they have limbs like ours, but make no use of

them, he seems to jest with us, and to think it sufficient if he allows

that there are beings of any kind happy and eternal. But with regard to

Balbus, I suppose you observed how many things were said by him, which,

however false they may be, yet have a perfect coherence and connection;

therefore, my design, as I said, in opposing him, is not so much to

confute his principles as to induce him to explain what I do not

clearly understand: for which reason, Balbus, I will give you the

choice, either to answer me every particular as I go on, or permit me

to proceed without interruption. If you want any explanation, replies

Balbus, I would rather you would propose your doubts singly; but if

your intention is rather to confute me than to seek instruction for

yourself, it shall be as you please; I will either answer you

immediately on every point, or stay till you have finished your

discourse.

II. Very well, says Cotta; then let us proceed as our conversation

shall direct. But before I enter on the subject, I have a word to say

concerning myself; for I am greatly influenced by your authority, and

your exhortation at the conclusion of your discourse, when you desired

me to remember that I was Cotta and Pontifex; by which I presume you

intimated that I should defend the sacred rites and religion and

ceremonies which we received from our ancestors. Most undoubtedly I

always have, and always shall defend them, nor shall the arguments

either of the learned or unlearned ever remove the opinions which I

have imbibed from them concerning the worship of the immortal Gods. In

matters of religion I submit to the rules of the high-priests, T.

Coruncanius, P. Scipio, and P. Scævola; not to the sentiments of Zeno,

Cleanthes, or Chrysippus; and I pay a greater regard to what C. Lælius,

one of our augurs and wise men, has written concerning religion, in

that noble oration of his, than to the most eminent of the Stoics: and

as the whole religion of the Romans at first consisted in sacrifices

and divination by birds, to which have since been added predictions, if

the interpreters[242] of the Sibylline oracle or the aruspices have

foretold any event from portents and prodigies, I have ever thought

that there was no point of all these holy things which deserved to be

despised. I have been even persuaded that Romulus, by instituting

divination, and Numa, by establishing sacrifices, laid the foundation

of Rome, which undoubtedly would never have risen to such a height of

grandeur if the Gods had not been made propitious by this worship.

These, Balbus, are my sentiments both as a priest and as Cotta. But you

must bring me to your opinion by the force of your reason: for I have a

right to demand from you, as a philosopher, a reason for the religion

which you would have me embrace. But I must believe the religion of our

ancestors without any proof.

III. What proof, says Balbus, do you require of me? You have proposed,

says Cotta, four articles. First of all, you undertook to prove that

there "are Gods;" secondly, "of what kind and character they are;"

thirdly, that "the universe is governed by them;" lastly, that "they

provide for the welfare of mankind in particular." Thus, if I remember

rightly, you divided your discourse. Exactly so, replies Balbus; but

let us see what you require.

Let us examine, says Cotta, every proposition. The first one--that

there are Gods--is never contested but by the most impious of men; nay,

though it can never be rooted out of my mind, yet I believe it on the

authority of our ancestors, and not on the proofs which you have

brought. Why do you expect a proof from me, says Balbus, if you

thoroughly believe it? Because, says Cotta, I come to this discussion

as if I had never thought of the Gods, or heard anything concerning

them. Take me as a disciple wholly ignorant and unbiassed, and prove to

me all the points which I ask.

Begin, then, replies Balbus. I would first know, says Cotta, why you

have been so long in proving the existence of the Gods, which you said

was a point so very evident to all, that there was no need of any

proof? In that, answers Balbus, I have followed your example, whom I

have often observed, when pleading in the Forum, to load the judge with

all the arguments which the nature of your cause would permit. This

also is the practice of philosophers, and I have a right to follow it.

Besides, you may as well ask me why I look upon you with two eyes,

since I can see you with one.

IV. You shall judge, then, yourself, says Cotta, if this is a very just

comparison; for, when I plead, I do not dwell upon any point agreed to

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 Tyndaridæ, as you called them; that is, men sprung

from men, and who were buried in Lacedæmon, 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 Tyndaridæ, 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:

stratêgêma], 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

Does Europe from the Libyan coast divide?

The same appears on the Spanish and British coasts. Must we conclude

that some Deity appoints and directs these ebbings and flowings to

certain fixed times? Consider, I pray, if everything which is regular

in its motion is deemed divine, whether it will not follow that tertian

and quartan agues must likewise be so, as their returns have the

greatest regularity. These effects are to be explained by reason; but,

because you are unable to assign any, you have recourse to a Deity as

your last refuge.

The arguments of Chrysippus appeared to you of great weight; a man

undoubtedly of great quickness and subtlety (I call those quick who

have a sprightly turn of thought, and those subtle whose minds are

seasoned by use as their hands are by labor): "If," says he, "there is

anything which is beyond the power of man to produce, the being who

produces it is better than man. Man is unable to make what is in the

world; the being, therefore, that could do it is superior to man. What

being is there but a God superior to man? Therefore there is a God."

These arguments are founded on the same erroneous principles as Zeno's,

for he does not define what is meant by being better or more excellent,

or distinguish between an intelligent cause and a natural cause.

Chrysippus adds, "If there are no Gods, there is nothing better than

man; but we cannot, without the highest arrogance, have this idea of

ourselves." Let us grant that it is arrogance in man to think himself

better than the world; but to comprehend that he has understanding and

reason, and that in Orion and Canicula there is neither, is no

arrogance, but an indication of good sense. "Since we suppose,"

continues he, "when we see a beautiful house, that it was built for the

master, and not for mice, we should likewise judge that the world is

the mansion of the Gods." Yes, if I believed that the Gods built the

world; but not if, as I believe, and intend to prove, it is the work of

nature.

XI. Socrates, in Xenophon, asks, "Whence had man his understanding, if

there was none in the world?" And I ask, Whence had we speech, harmony,

singing; unless we think it is the sun conversing with the moon when

she approaches near it, or that the world forms an harmonious concert,

as Pythagoras imagines? This, Balbus, is the effect of nature; not of

that nature which proceeds artificially, as Zeno says, and the

character of which I shall presently examine into, but a nature which,

by its own proper motions and mutations, modifies everything.

For I readily agree to what you said about the harmony and general

agreement of nature, which you pronounced to be firmly bound and united

together, as it were, by ties of blood; but I do not approve of what

you added, that "it could not possibly be so, unless it were so united

by one divine spirit." On the contrary, the whole subsists by the power

of nature, independently of the Gods, and there is a kind of sympathy

(as the Greeks call it) which joins together all the parts of the

universe; and the greater that is in its own power, the less is it

necessary to have recourse to a divine intelligence.

XII. But how will you get rid of the objections which Carneades made?

"If," says he, "there is no body immortal, there is none eternal; but

there is no body immortal, nor even indivisible, or that cannot be

separated and disunited; and as every animal is in its nature passive,

so there is not one which is not subject to the impressions of

extraneous bodies; none, that is to say, which can avoid the necessity

of enduring and suffering: and if every animal is mortal, there is none

immortal; so, likewise, if every animal may be cut up and divided,

there is none indivisible, none eternal, but all are liable to be

affected by, and compelled to submit to, external power. Every animal,

therefore, is necessarily mortal, dissoluble, and divisible."

For as there is no wax, no silver, no brass which cannot be converted

into something else, whatever is composed of wax, or silver, or brass

may cease to be what it is. By the same reason, if all the elements are

mutable, every body is mutable.

Now, according to your doctrine, all the elements are mutable; all

bodies, therefore, are mutable. But if there were any body immortal,

then all bodies would not be mutable. Every body, then, is mortal; for

every body is either water, air, fire, or earth, or composed of the

four elements together, or of some of them. Now, there is not one of

all these elements that does not perish; for earthly bodies are

fragile: water is so soft that the least shock will separate its parts,

and fire and air yield to the least impulse, and are subject to

dissolution; besides, any of these elements perish when converted into

another nature, as when water is formed from earth, the air from water,

and the sky from air, and when they change in the same manner back

again. Therefore, if there is nothing but what is perishable in the

composition of all animals, there is no animal eternal.

XIII. But, not to insist on these arguments, there is no animal to be

found that had not a beginning, and will not have an end; for every

animal being sensitive, they are consequently all sensible of cold and

heat, sweet and bitter; nor can they have pleasing sensations without

being subject to the contrary. As, therefore, they receive pleasure,

they likewise receive pain; and whatever being is subject to pain must

necessarily be subject to death. It must be allowed, therefore, that

every animal is mortal.

Besides, a being that is not sensible of pleasure or pain cannot have

the essence of an animal; if, then, on the one hand, every animal must

be sensible of pleasure and pain, and if, on the other, every being

that has these sensations cannot be immortal, we may conclude that as

there is no animal insensible, there is none immortal. Besides, there

is no animal without inclination and aversion--an inclination to that

which is agreeable to nature, and an aversion to the contrary: there

are in the case of every animal some things which they covet, and

others they reject. What they reject are repugnant to their nature, and

consequently would destroy them. Every animal, therefore, is inevitably

subject to be destroyed. There are innumerable arguments to prove that

whatever is sensitive is perishable; for cold, heat, pleasure, pain,

and all that affects the sense, when they become excessive, cause

destruction. Since, then, there is no animal that is not sensitive,

there is none immortal.

XIV. The substance of an animal is either simple or compound; simple,

if it is composed only of earth, of fire, of air, or of water (and of

such a sort of being we can form no idea); compound, if it is formed of

different elements, which have each their proper situation, and have a

natural tendency to it--this element tending towards the highest parts,

that towards the lowest, and another towards the middle. This

conjunction may for some time subsist, but not forever; for every

element must return to its first situation. No animal, therefore, is

eternal.

But your school, Balbus, allows fire only to be the sole active

principle; an opinion which I believe you derive from Heraclitus, whom

some men understand in one sense, some in another: but since he seems

unwilling to be understood, we will pass him by. You Stoics, then, say

that fire is the universal principle of all things; that all living

bodies cease to live on the extinction of that heat; and that

throughout all nature whatever is sensible of that heat lives and

flourishes. Now, I cannot conceive that bodies should perish for want

of heat, rather than for want of moisture or air, especially as they

even die through excess of heat; so that the life of animals does not

depend more on fire than on the other elements.

However, air and water have this quality in common with fire and heat.

But let us see to what this tends. If I am not mistaken, you believe

that in all nature there is nothing but fire, which is self-animated.

Why fire rather than air, of which the life of animals consists, and

which is called from thence _anima_,[248] the soul? But how is it that

you take it for granted that life is nothing but fire? It seems more

probable that it is a compound of fire and air. But if fire is

self-animated, unmixed with any other element, it must be sensitive,

because it renders our bodies sensitive; and the same objection which I

just now made will arise, that whatever is sensitive must necessarily

be susceptible of pleasure and pain, and whatever is sensible of pain

is likewise subject to the approach of death; therefore you cannot

prove fire to be eternal.

You Stoics hold that all fire has need of nourishment, without which it

cannot possibly subsist; that the sun, moon, and all the stars are fed

either with fresh or salt waters; and the reason that Cleanthes gives

why the sun is retrograde, and does not go beyond the tropics in the

summer or winter, is that he may not be too far from his sustenance.

This I shall fully examine hereafter; but at present we may conclude

that whatever may cease to be cannot of its own nature be eternal; that

if fire wants sustenance, it will cease to be, and that, therefore,

fire is not of its own nature eternal.

XV. After all, what kind of a Deity must that be who is not graced with

one single virtue, if we should succeed in forming this idea of such a

one? Must we not attribute prudence to a Deity? a virtue which consists

in the knowledge of things good, bad, and indifferent. Yet what need

has a being for the discernment of good and ill who neither has nor can

have any ill? Of what use is reason to him? of what use is

understanding? We men, indeed, find them useful to aid us in finding

out things which are obscure by those which are clear to us; but

nothing can be obscure to a Deity. As to justice, which gives to every

one his own, it is not the concern of the Gods; since that virtue,

according to your doctrine, received its birth from men and from civil

society. Temperance consists in abstinence from corporeal pleasures,

and if such abstinence hath a place in heaven, so also must the

pleasures abstained from. Lastly, if fortitude is ascribed to the

Deity, how does it appear? In afflictions, in labor, in danger? None of

these things can affect a God. How, then, can we conceive this to be a

Deity that makes no use of reason, and is not endowed with any virtue?

However, when I consider what is advanced by the Stoics, my contempt

for the ignorant multitude vanishes. For these are their divinities.

The Syrians worshipped a fish. The Egyptians consecrated beasts of

almost every kind. The Greeks deified many men; as Alabandus[249] at

Alabandæ, Tenes at Tenedos; and all Greece pay divine honors to

Leucothea (who was before called Ino), to her son Palæmon, to Hercules,

to Æsculapius, and to the Tyndaridæ; our own people to Romulus, and to

many others, who, as citizens newly admitted into the ancient body,

they imagine have been received into heaven.

These are the Gods of the illiterate.

XVI. What are the notions of you philosophers? In what respect are they

superior to these ideas? I shall pass them over; for they are certainly

very admirable. Let the world, then, be a Deity, for that, I conceive,

is what you mean by

The refulgent heaven above,

Which all men call, unanimously, Jove.

But why are we to add many more Gods? What a multitude of them there

is! At least, it seems so to me; for every constellation, according to

you, is a Deity: to some you give the name of beasts, as the goat, the

scorpion, the bull, the lion; to others the names of inanimate things,

as the ship, the altar, the crown.

But supposing these were to be allowed, how can the rest be granted, or

even so much as understood? When we call corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus,

we make use of the common manner of speaking; but do you think any one

so mad as to believe that his food is a Deity? With regard to those

who, you say, from having been men became Gods, I should be very

willing to learn of you, either how it was possible formerly, or, if it

had ever been, why is it not so now? I do not conceive, as things are

at present, how Hercules,

Burn'd with fiery torches on Mount Oeta,

as Accius says, should rise, with the flames,

To the eternal mansions of his father.

Besides, Homer also says that Ulysses[250] met him in the shades below,

among the other dead.

But yet I should be glad to know which Hercules we should chiefly

worship; for they who have searched into those histories, which are but

little known, tell us of several. The most ancient is he who fought

with Apollo about the Tripos of Delphi, and is son of Jupiter and

Lisyto; and of the most ancient Jupiters too, for we find many Jupiters

also in the Grecian chronicles. The second is the Egyptian Hercules,

and is believed to be the son of Nilus, and to be the author of the

Phrygian characters. The third, to whom they offered sacrifices, is one

of the Idæi Dactyli.[251] The fourth is the son of Jupiter and Asteria,

the sister of Latona, chiefly honored by the Tyrians, who pretend that

Carthago[252] is his daughter. The fifth, called Belus, is worshipped

in India. The sixth is the son of Alcmena by Jupiter; but by the third

Jupiter, for there are many Jupiters, as you shall soon see.

XVII. Since this examination has led me so far, I will convince you

that in matters of religion I have learned more from the pontifical

rites, the customs of our ancestors, and the vessels of Numa,[253]

which Lælius mentions in his little Golden Oration, than from all the

learning of the Stoics; for tell me, if I were a disciple of your

school, what answer could I make to these questions? If there are Gods,

are nymphs also Goddesses? If they are Goddesses, are Pans and Satyrs

in the same rank? But they are not; consequently, nymphs are not

Goddesses. Yet they have temples publicly dedicated to them. What do

you conclude from thence? Others who have temples are not therefore

Gods. But let us go on. You call Jupiter and Neptune Gods; their

brother Pluto, then, is one; and if so, those rivers also are Deities

which they say flow in the infernal regions--Acheron, Cocytus,

Pyriphlegethon; Charon also, and Cerberus, are Gods; but that cannot be

allowed; nor can Pluto be placed among the Deities. What, then, will

you say of his brothers?

Thus reasons Carneades; not with any design to destroy the existence of

the Gods (for what would less become a philosopher?), but to convince

us that on that matter the Stoics have said nothing plausible. If,

then, Jupiter and Neptune are Gods, adds he, can that divinity be

denied to their father Saturn, who is principally worshipped throughout

the West? If Saturn is a God, then must his father, Coelus, be one too,

and so must the parents of Coelus, which are the Sky and Day, as also

their brothers and sisters, which by ancient genealogists are thus

named: Love, Deceit, Fear, Labor, Envy, Fate, Old Age, Death, Darkness,

Misery, Lamentation, Favor, Fraud, Obstinacy, the Destinies, the

Hesperides, and Dreams; all which are the offspring of Erebus and

Night. These monstrous Deities, therefore, must be received, or else

those from whom they sprung must be disallowed.

XVIII. If you say that Apollo, Vulcan, Mercury, and the rest of that

sort are Gods, can you doubt the divinity of Hercules and Æsculapius,

Bacchus, Castor and Pollux? These are worshipped as much as those, and

even more in some places. Therefore they must be numbered among the

Gods, though on the mother's side they are only of mortal race.

Aristæus, who is said to have been the son of Apollo, and to have found

out the art of making oil from the olive; Theseus, the son of Neptune;

and the rest whose fathers were Deities, shall they not be placed in

the number of the Gods? But what think you of those whose mothers were

Goddesses? They surely have a better title to divinity; for, in the

civil law, as he is a freeman who is born of a freewoman, so, in the

law of nature, he whose mother is a Goddess must be a God. The isle

Astypalæa religiously honor Achilles; and if he is a Deity, Orpheus and

Rhesus are so, who were born of one of the Muses; unless, perhaps,

there may be a privilege belonging to sea marriages which land

marriages have not. Orpheus and Rhesus are nowhere worshipped; and if

they are therefore not Gods, because they are nowhere worshipped as

such, how can the others be Deities? You, Balbus, seemed to agree with

me that the honors which they received were not from their being

regarded as immortals, but as men richly endued with virtue.

But if you think Latona a Goddess, how can you avoid admitting Hecate

to be one also, who was the daughter of Asteria, Latona's sister?

Certainly she is one, if we may judge by the altars erected to her in

Greece. And if Hecate is a Goddess, how can you refuse that rank to the

Eumenides? for they also have a temple at Athens, and, if I understand

right, the Romans have consecrated a grove to them. The Furies, too,

whom we look upon as the inspectors into and scourges of impiety, I

suppose, must have their divinity too. As you hold that there is some

divinity presides over every human affair, there is one who presides

over the travail of matrons, whose name, _Natio_, is derived _a

nascentibus_, from nativities, and to whom we used to sacrifice in our

processions in the fields of Ardæa; but if she is a Deity, we must

likewise acknowledge all those you mentioned, Honor, Faith, Intellect,

Concord; by the same rule also, Hope, Juno, Moneta,[254] and every idle

phantom, every child of our imagination, are Deities. But as this

consequence is quite inadmissible, do not you either defend the cause

from which it flows.

XIX. What say you to this? If these are Deities, which we worship and

regard as such, why are not Serapis and Isis[255] placed in the same

rank? And if they are admitted, what reason have we to reject the Gods

of the barbarians? Thus we should deify oxen, horses, the ibis, hawks,

asps, crocodiles, fishes, dogs, wolves, cats, and many other beasts. If

we go back to the source of this superstition, we must equally condemn

all the Deities from which they proceed. Shall Ino, whom the Greeks

call Leucothea, and we Matuta, be reputed a Goddess, because she was

the daughter of Cadmus, and shall that title be refused to Circe and

Pasiphae,[256] who had the sun for their father, and Perseis, daughter

of the Ocean, for their mother? It is true, Circe has divine honors

paid her by our colony of Circæum; therefore you call her a Goddess;

but what will you say of Medea, the granddaughter of the Sun and the

Ocean, and daughter of Æetes and Idyia? What will you say of her

brother Absyrtus, whom Pacuvius calls Ægialeus, though the other name

is more frequent in the writings of the ancients? If you did not deify

one as well as the other, what will become of Ino? for all these

Deities have the same origin.

Shall Amphiaraus and Tryphonius be called Gods? Our publicans, when

some lands in Boeotia were exempted from the tax, as belonging to the

immortal Gods, denied that any were immortal who had been men. But if

you deify these, Erechtheus surely is a God, whose temple and priest we

have seen at Athens. And can you, then, refuse to acknowledge also

Codrus, and many others who shed their blood for the preservation of

their country? And if it is not allowable to consider all these men as

Gods, then, certainly, probabilities are not in favor of our

acknowledging the _Divinity_ of those previously mentioned beings from

whom these have proceeded.

It is easy to observe, likewise, that if in many countries people have

paid divine honors to the memory of those who have signalized their

courage, it was done in order to animate others to practise virtue, and

to expose themselves the more willingly to dangers in their country's

cause. From this motive the Athenians have deified Erechtheus and his

daughters, and have erected also a temple, called Leocorion, to the

daughters of Leus.[257] Alabandus is more honored in the city which he

founded than any of the more illustrious Deities; from thence

Stratonicus had a pleasant turn--as he had many--when he was troubled

with an impertinent fellow who insisted that Alabandus was a God, but

that Hercules was not; "Very well," says he, "then let the anger of

Alabandus fall upon me, and that of Hercules upon you."

XX. Do you not consider, Balbus, to what lengths your arguments for the

divinity of the heaven and the stars will carry you? You deify the sun

and the moon, which the Greeks take to be Apollo and Diana. If the moon

is a Deity, the morning-star, the other planets, and all the fixed

stars are also Deities; and why shall not the rainbow be placed in that

number? for it is so wonderfully beautiful that it is justly said to be

the daughter of Thaumas.[258] But if you deify the rainbow, what regard

will you pay to the clouds? for the colors which appear in the bow are

only formed of the clouds, one of which is said to have brought forth

the Centaurs; and if you deify the clouds, you cannot pay less regard

to the seasons, which the Roman people have really consecrated.

Tempests, showers, storms, and whirlwinds must then be Deities. It is

certain, at least, that our captains used to sacrifice a victim to the

waves before they embarked on any voyage.

As you deify the earth under the name of Ceres,[259] because, as you

said, she bears fruits (_a gerendo_), and the ocean under that of

Neptune, rivers and fountains have the same right. Thus we see that

Maso, the conqueror of Corsica, dedicated a temple to a fountain, and

the names of the Tiber, Spino, Almo, Nodinus, and other neighboring

rivers are in the prayers[260] of the augurs. Therefore, either the

number of such Deities will be infinite, or we must admit none of them,

and wholly disapprove of such an endless series of superstition.

XXI. None of all these assertions, then, are to be admitted. I must

proceed now, Balbus, to answer those who say that, with regard to those

deified mortals, so religiously and devoutly reverenced, the public

opinion should have the force of reality. To begin, then: they who are

called theologists say that there are three Jupiters; the first and

second of whom were born in Arcadia; one of whom was the son of Æther,

and father of Proserpine and Bacchus; the other the son of Coelus, and

father of Minerva, who is called the Goddess and inventress of war; the

third one born of Saturn in the isle of Crete,[261] where his sepulchre

is shown. The sons of Jupiter ([Greek: Dioskouroi]) also, among the

Greeks, have many names; first, the three who at Athens have the title

of Anactes,[262] Tritopatreus, Eubuleus, and Dionysus, sons of the most

ancient king Jupiter and Proserpine; the next are Castor and Pollux,

sons of the third Jupiter and Leda; and, lastly, three others, by some

called Alco,[263] Melampus, and Tmolus, sons of Atreus, the son of

Pelops.

As to the Muses, there were at first four--Thelxiope, Aoede, Arche, and

Melete--daughters of the second Jupiter; afterward there were nine,

daughters of the third Jupiter and Mnemosyne; there were also nine

others, having the same appellations, born of Pierus and Antiopa, by

the poets usually called Pierides and Pieriæ. Though _Sol_ (the sun) is

so called, you say, because he is _solus_ (single); yet how many suns

do theologists mention? There is one, the son of Jupiter and grandson

of Æther; another, the son of Hyperion; a third, who, the Egyptians

say, was of the city Heliopolis, sprung from Vulcan, the son of Nilus;

a fourth is said to have been born at Rhodes of Acantho, in the times

of the heroes, and was the grandfather of Jalysus, Camirus, and Lindus;

a fifth, of whom, it is pretended, Aretes and Circe were born at

Colchis.

XXII. There are likewise several Vulcans. The first (who had of Minerva

that Apollo whom the ancient historians call the tutelary God of

Athens) was the son of Coelus; the second, whom the Egyptians call

Opas,[264] and whom they looked upon as the protector of Egypt, is the

son of Nilus; the third, who is said to have been the master of the

forges at Lemnos, was the son of the third Jupiter and of Juno; the

fourth, who possessed the islands near Sicily called Vulcaniæ,[265] was

the son of Menalius. One Mercury had Coelus for his father and Dies for

his mother; another, who is said to dwell in a cavern, and is the same

as Trophonius, is the son of Valens and Phoronis. A third, of whom, and

of Penelope, Pan was the offspring, is the son of the third Jupiter and

Maia. A fourth, whom the Egyptians think it a crime to name, is the son

of Nilus. A fifth, whom we call, in their language, Thoth, as with them

the first month of the year is called, is he whom the people of

Pheneum[266] worship, and who is said to have killed Argus, to have

fled for it into Egypt, and to have given laws and learning to the

Egyptians. The first of the Æsculapii, the God of Arcadia, who is said

to have invented the probe and to have been the first person who taught

men to use bandages for wounds, is the son of Apollo. The second, who

was killed with thunder, and is said to be buried in Cynosura,[267] is

the brother of the second Mercury. The third, who is said to have found

out the art of purging the stomach, and of drawing teeth, is the son of

Arsippus and Arsinoe; and in Arcadia there is shown his tomb, and the

wood which is consecrated to him, near the river Lusium.

XXIII. I have already spoken of the most ancient of the Apollos, who is

the son of Vulcan, and tutelar God of Athens. There is another, son of

Corybas, and native of Crete, for which island he is said to have

contended with Jupiter himself. A third, who came from the regions of

the Hyperborei[268] to Delphi, is the son of the third Jupiter and of

Latona. A fourth was of Arcadia, whom the Arcadians called Nomio,[269]

because they regarded him as their legislator. There are likewise many

Dianas. The first, who is thought to be the mother of the winged Cupid,

is the daughter of Jupiter and Proserpine. The second, who is more

known, is daughter of the third Jupiter and of Latona. The third, whom

the Greeks often call by her father's name, is the daughter of

Upis[270] and Glauce. There are many also of the Dionysi. The first was

the son of Jupiter and Proserpine. The second, who is said to have

killed Nysa, was the son of Nilus. The third, who reigned in Asia, and

for whom the Sabazia[271] were instituted, was the son of Caprius. The

fourth, for whom they celebrate the Orphic festivals, sprung from

Jupiter and Luna. The fifth, who is supposed to have instituted the

Trieterides, was the son of Nysus and Thyone.

The first Venus, who has a temple at Elis, was the daughter of Coelus

and Dies. The second arose out of the froth of the sea, and became, by

Mercury, the mother of the second Cupid. The third, the daughter of

Jupiter and Diana, was married to Vulcan, but is said to have had

Anteros by Mars. The fourth was a Syrian, born of Tyro, who is called

Astarte, and is said to have been married to Adonis. I have already

mentioned one Minerva, mother of Apollo. Another, who is worshipped at

Sais, a city in Egypt, sprung from Nilus. The third, whom I have also

mentioned, was daughter of Jupiter. The fourth, sprung from Jupiter and

Coryphe, the daughter of the Ocean; the Arcadians call her Coria, and

make her the inventress of chariots. A fifth, whom they paint with

wings at her heels, was daughter of Pallas, and is said to have killed

her father for endeavoring to violate her chastity. The first Cupid is

said to be the son of Mercury and the first Diana; the second, of

Mercury and the second Venus; the third, who is the same as Anteros, of

Mars and the third Venus.

All these opinions arise from old stories that were spread in Greece;

the belief in which, Balbus, you well know, ought to be stopped, lest

religion should suffer. But you Stoics, so far from refuting them, even

give them authority by the mysterious sense which you pretend to find

in them. Can you, then, think, after this plain refutation, that there

is need to employ more subtle reasonings? But to return from this

digression.

XXIV. We see that the mind, faith, hope, virtue, honor, victory,

health, concord, and things of such kind, are purely natural, and have

nothing of divinity in them; for either they are inherent in us, as the

mind, faith, hope, virtue, and concord are; or else they are to be

desired, as honor, health, and victory. I know indeed that they are

useful to us, and see that statues have been religiously erected for

them; but as to their divinity, I shall begin to believe it when you

have proved it for certain. Of this kind I may particularly mention

Fortune, which is allowed to be ever inseparable from inconstancy and

temerity, which are certainly qualities unworthy of a divine being.

But what delight do you take in the explication of fables, and in the

etymology of names?--that Coelus was castrated by his son, and that

Saturn was bound in chains by his son! By your defence of these and

such like fictions you would make the authors of them appear not only

not to be madmen, but to have been even very wise. But the pains which

you take with your etymologies deserve our pity. That Saturn is so

called because _se saturat annis_, he is full of years; Mavors, Mars,

because _magna vortit_, he brings about mighty changes; Minerva,

because _minuit_, she diminishes, or because _minatur_, she threatens;

Venus, because _venit ad omnia_, she comes to all; Ceres, _a gerendo_,

from bearing. How dangerous is this method! for there are many names

would puzzle you. From what would you derive Vejupiter and Vulcan?

Though, indeed, if you can derive Neptune _a nando_, from swimming, in

which you seem to me to flounder about yourself more than Neptune, you

may easily find the origin of all names, since it is founded only upon

the conformity of some one letter. Zeno first, and after him Cleanthes

and Chrysippus, are put to the unnecessary trouble of explaining mere

fables, and giving reasons for the several appellations of every Deity;

which is really owning that those whom we call Gods are not the

representations of deities, but natural things, and that to judge

otherwise is an error.

XXV. Yet this error has so much prevailed that even pernicious things

have not only the title of divinity ascribed to them, but have also

sacrifices offered to them; for Fever has a temple on the Palatine

hill, and Orbona another near that of the Lares, and we see on the

Esquiline hill an altar consecrated to Ill-fortune. Let all such errors

be banished from philosophy, if we would advance, in our dispute

concerning the immortal Gods, nothing unworthy of immortal beings. I

know myself what I ought to believe; which is far different from what

you have said. You take Neptune for an intelligence pervading the sea.

You have the same opinion of Ceres with regard to the earth. I cannot,

I own, find out, or in the least conjecture, what that intelligence of

the sea or the earth is. To learn, therefore, the existence of the

Gods, and of what description and character they are, I must apply

elsewhere, not to the Stoics.

Let us proceed to the two other parts of our dispute: first, "whether

there is a divine providence which governs the world;" and lastly,

"whether that providence particularly regards mankind;" for these are

the remaining propositions of your discourse; and I think that, if you

approve of it, we should examine these more accurately. With all my

heart, says Velleius, for I readily agree to what you have hitherto

said, and expect still greater things from you.

I am unwilling to interrupt you, says Balbus to Cotta, but we shall

take another opportunity, and I shall effectually convince you.

But[272] * * *

XXVI.

Shall I adore, and bend the suppliant knee,

Who scorn their power and doubt their deity?

Does not Niobe here seem to reason, and by that reasoning to bring all

her misfortunes upon herself? But what a subtle expression is the

following!

On strength of will alone depends success;

a maxim capable of leading us into all that is bad.

Though I'm confined, his malice yet is vain,

His tortured heart shall answer pain for pain;

His ruin soothe my soul with soft content,

Lighten my chains, and welcome banishment!

This, now, is reason; that reason which you say the divine goodness has

denied to the brute creation, kindly to bestow it on men alone. How

great, how immense the favor! Observe the same Medea flying from her

father and her country:

The guilty wretch from her pursuer flies.

By her own hands the young Absyrtus slain,

His mangled limbs she scatters o'er the plain,

That the fond sire might sink beneath his woe,

And she to parricide her safety owe.

Reflection, as well as wickedness, must have been necessary to the

preparation of such a fact; and did he too, who prepared that fatal

repast for his brother, do it without reflection?

Revenge as great as Atreus' injury

Shall sink his soul and crown his misery.

XXVII. Did not Thyestes himself, not content with having defiled his

brother's bed (of which Atreus with great justice thus complains,

When faithless comforts, in the lewd embrace,

With vile adultery stain a royal race,

The blood thus mix'd in fouler currents flows,

Taints the rich soil, and breeds unnumber'd woes)--

did he not, I say, by that adultery, aim at the possession of the

crown? Atreus thus continues:

A lamb, fair gift of heaven, with golden fleece,

Promised in vain to fix my crown in peace;

But base Thyestes, eager for the prey,

Crept to my bed, and stole the gem away.

Do you not perceive that Thyestes must have had a share of reason

proportionable to the greatness of his crimes--such crimes as are not

only represented to us on the stage, but such as we see committed, nay,

often exceeded, in the common course of life? The private houses of

individual citizens, the public courts, the senate, the camp, our

allies, our provinces, all agree that reason is the author of all the

ill, as well as of all the good, which is done; that it makes few act

well, and that but seldom, but many act ill, and that frequently; and

that, in short, the Gods would have shown greater benevolence in

denying us any reason at all than in sending us that which is

accompanied with so much mischief; for as wine is seldom wholesome, but

often hurtful in diseases, we think it more prudent to deny it to the

patient than to run the risk of so uncertain a remedy; so I do not know

whether it would not be better for mankind to be deprived of wit,

thought, and penetration, or what we call reason, since it is a thing

pernicious to many and very useful to few, than to have it bestowed

upon them with so much liberality and in such abundance. But if the

divine will has really consulted the good of man in this gift of

reason, the good of those men only was consulted on whom a

well-regulated one is bestowed: how few those are, if any, is very

apparent. We cannot admit, therefore, that the Gods consulted the good

of a few only; the conclusion must be that they consulted the good of

none.

XXVIII. You answer that the ill use which a great part of mankind make

of reason no more takes away the goodness of the Gods, who bestow it as

a present of the greatest benefit to them, than the ill use which

children make of their patrimony diminishes the obligation which they

have to their parents for it. We grant you this; but where is the

similitude? It was far from Deianira's design to injure Hercules when

she made him a present of the shirt dipped in the blood of the

Centaurs. Nor was it a regard to the welfare of Jason of Pheræ that

influenced the man who with his sword opened his imposthume, which the

physicians had in vain attempted to cure. For it has often happened

that people have served a man whom they intended to injure, and have

injured one whom they designed to serve; so that the effect of the gift

is by no means always a proof of the intention of the giver; neither

does the benefit which may accrue from it prove that it came from the

hands of a benefactor. For, in short, what debauchery, what avarice,

what crime among men is there which does not owe its birth to thought

and reflection, that is, to reason? For all opinion is reason: right

reason, if men's thoughts are conformable to truth; wrong reason, if

they are not. The Gods only give us the mere faculty of reason, if we

have any; the use or abuse of it depends entirely upon ourselves; so

that the comparison is not just between the present of reason given us

by the Gods, and a patrimony left to a son by his father; for, after

all, if the injury of mankind had been the end proposed by the Gods,

what could they have given them more pernicious than reason? for what

seed could there be of injustice, intemperance, and cowardice, if

reason were not laid as the foundation of these vices?

XXIX. I mentioned just now Medea and Atreus, persons celebrated in

heroic poems, who had used this reason only for the contrivance and

practice of the most flagitious crimes; but even the trifling

characters which appear in comedies supply us with the like instances

of this reasoning faculty; for example, does not he, in the Eunuch,

reason with some subtlety?--

What, then, must I resolve upon?

She turn'd me out-of-doors; she sends for me back again;

Shall I go? no, not if she were to beg it of me.

Another, in the Twins, making no scruple of opposing a received maxim,

after the manner of the Academics, asserts that when a man is in love

and in want, it is pleasant

To have a father covetous, crabbed, and passionate,

Who has no love or affection for his children.

This unaccountable opinion he strengthens thus:

You may defraud him of his profits, or forge letters in his name,

Or fright him by your servant into compliance;

And what you take from such an old hunks,

How much more pleasantly do you spend it!

On the contrary, he says that an easy, generous father is an

inconvenience to a son in love; for, says he,

I can't tell how to abuse so good, so prudent a parent,

Who always foreruns my desires, and meets me purse in hand,

To support me in my pleasures: this easy goodness and generosity

Quite defeat all my frauds, tricks, and stratagems.[273]

What are these frauds, tricks, and stratagems but the effects of

reason? O excellent gift of the Gods! Without this Phormio could not

have said,

Find me out the old man: I have something hatching for him in my head.

XXX. But let us pass from the stage to the bar. The prætor[274] takes

his seat. To judge whom? The man who set fire to our archives. How

secretly was that villany conducted! Q. Sosius, an illustrious Roman

knight, of the Picene field,[275] confessed the fact. Who else is to be

tried? He who forged the public registers--Alenus, an artful fellow,

who counterfeited the handwriting of the six officers.[276] Let us call

to mind other trials: that on the subject of the gold of Tolosa, or the

conspiracy of Jugurtha. Let us trace back the informations laid against

Tubulus for bribery in his judicial office; and, since that, the

proceedings of the tribune Peduceus concerning the incest of the

vestals. Let us reflect upon the trials which daily happen for

assassinations, poisonings, embezzlement of public money, frauds in

wills, against which we have a new law; then that action against the

advisers or assisters of any theft; the many laws concerning frauds in

guardianship, breaches of trust in partnerships and commissions in

trade, and other violations of faith in buying, selling, borrowing, or

lending; the public decree on a private affair by the Lætorian

Law;[277] and, lastly, that scourge of all dishonesty, the law against

fraud, proposed by our friend Aquillius; that sort of fraud, he says,

by which one thing is pretended and another done. Can we, then, think

that this plentiful fountain of evil sprung from the immortal Gods? If

they have given reason to man, they have likewise given him subtlety,

for subtlety is only a deceitful manner of applying reason to do

mischief. To them likewise we must owe deceit, and every other crime,

which, without the help of reason, would neither have been thought of

nor committed. As the old woman wished

That to the fir which on Mount Pelion grew

The axe had ne'er been laid,[278]

so we should wish that the Gods had never bestowed this ability on man,

the abuse of which is so general that the small number of those who

make a good use of it are often oppressed by those who make a bad use

of it; so that it seems to be given rather to help vice than to promote

virtue among us.

XXXI. This, you insist on it, is the fault of man, and not of the Gods.

But should we not laugh at a physician or pilot, though they are weak

mortals, if they were to lay the blame of their ill success on the

violence of the disease or the fury of the tempest? Had there not been

danger, we should say, who would have applied to you? This reasoning

has still greater force against the Deity. The fault, you say, is in

man, if he commits crimes. But why was not man endued with a reason

incapable of producing any crimes? How could the Gods err? When we

leave our effects to our children, it is in hopes that they may be well

bestowed; in which we may be deceived, but how can the Deity be

deceived? As Phoebus when he trusted his chariot to his son Phaëthon,

or as Neptune when he indulged his son Theseus in granting him three

wishes, the consequence of which was the destruction of Hippolitus?

These are poetical fictions; but truth, and not fables, ought to

proceed from philosophers. Yet if those poetical Deities had foreseen

that their indulgence would have proved fatal to their sons, they must

have been thought blamable for it.

Aristo of Chios used often to say that the philosophers do hurt to such

of their disciples as take their good doctrine in a wrong sense; thus

the lectures of Aristippus might produce debauchees, and those of Zeno

pedants. If this be true, it were better that philosophers should be

silent than that their disciples should be corrupted by a

misapprehension of their master's meaning; so if reason, which was

bestowed on mankind by the Gods with a good design, tends only to make

men more subtle and fraudulent, it had been better for them never to

have received it. There could be no excuse for a physician who

prescribes wine to a patient, knowing that he will drink it and

immediately expire. Your Providence is no less blamable in giving

reason to man, who, it foresaw, would make a bad use of it. Will you

say that it did not foresee it? Nothing could please me more than such

an acknowledgment. But you dare not. I know what a sublime idea you

entertain of her.

XXXII. But to conclude. If folly, by the unanimous consent of

philosophers, is allowed to be the greatest of all evils, and if no one

ever attained to true wisdom, we, whom they say the immortal Gods take

care of, are consequently in a state of the utmost misery. For that

nobody is well, or that nobody can be well, is in effect the same

thing; and, in my opinion, that no man is truly wise, or that no man

can be truly wise, is likewise the same thing. But I will insist no

further on so self-evident a point. Telamon in one verse decides the

question. If, says he, there is a Divine Providence,

Good men would be happy, bad men miserable.

But it is not so. If the Gods had regarded mankind, they should have

made them all virtuous; but if they did not regard the welfare of all

mankind, at least they ought to have provided for the happiness of the

virtuous. Why, therefore, was the Carthaginian in Spain suffered to

destroy those best and bravest men, the two Scipios? Why did

Maximus[279] lose his son, the consul? Why did Hannibal kill Marcellus?

Why did Cannæ deprive us of Paulus? Why was the body of Regulus

delivered up to the cruelty of the Carthaginians? Why was not Africanus

protected from violence in his own house? To these, and many more

ancient instances, let us add some of later date. Why is Rutilius, my

uncle, a man of the greatest virtue and learning, now in banishment?

Why was my own friend and companion Drusus assassinated in his own

house? Why was Scævola, the high-priest, that pattern of moderation and

prudence, massacred before the statue of Vesta? Why, before that, were

so many illustrious citizens put to death by Cinna? Why had Marius, the

most perfidious of men, the power to cause the death of Catulus, a man

of the greatest dignity? But there would be no end of enumerating

examples of good men made miserable and wicked men prosperous. Why did

that Marius live to an old age, and die so happily at his own house in

his seventh consulship? Why was that inhuman wretch Cinna permitted to

enjoy so long a reign?

XXXIII. He, indeed, met with deserved punishment at last. But would it

not have been better that these inhumanities had been prevented than

that the author of them should be punished afterward? Varius, a most

impious wretch, was tortured and put to death. If this was his

punishment for the murdering Drusus by the sword, and Metellus by

poison, would it not have been better to have preserved their lives

than to have their deaths avenged on Varius? Dionysius was thirty-eight

years a tyrant over the most opulent and flourishing city; and, before

him, how many years did Pisistratus tyrannize in the very flower of

Greece! Phalaris and Apollodorus met with the fate they deserved, but

not till after they had tortured and put to death multitudes. Many

robbers have been executed; but the number of those who have suffered

for their crimes is short of those whom they have robbed and murdered.

Anaxarchus,[280] a scholar of Democritus, was cut to pieces by command

of the tyrant of Cyprus; and Zeno of Elea[281] ended his life in

tortures. What shall I say of Socrates,[282] whose death, as often as I

read of it in Plato, draws fresh tears from my eyes? If, therefore, the

Gods really see everything that happens to men, you must acknowledge

they make no distinction between the good and the bad.

XXXIV. Diogenes the Cynic used to say of Harpalus, one of the most

fortunate villains of his time, that the constant prosperity of such a

man was a kind of witness against the Gods. Dionysius, of whom we have

before spoken, after he had pillaged the temple of Proserpine at

Locris, set sail for Syracuse, and, having a fair wind during his

voyage, said, with a smile, "See, my friends, what favorable winds the

immortal Gods bestow upon church-robbers." Encouraged by this

prosperous event, he proceeded in his impiety. When he landed at

Peloponnesus, he went into the temple of Jupiter Olympius, and disrobed

his statue of a golden mantle of great weight, an ornament which the

tyrant Gelo[283] had given out of the spoils of the Carthaginians, and

at the same time, in a jesting manner, he said "that a golden mantle

was too heavy in summer and too cold in winter;" and then, throwing a

woollen cloak over the statue, added, "This will serve for all

seasons." At another time, he ordered the golden beard of Æsculapius of

Epidaurus to be taken away, saying that "it was absurd for the son to

have a beard, when his father had none." He likewise robbed the temples

of the silver tables, which, according to the ancient custom of Greece,

bore this inscription, "To the good Gods," saying "he was willing to

make use of their goodness;" and, without the least scruple, took away

the little golden emblems of victory, the cups and coronets, which were

in the stretched-out hands of the statues, saying "he did not take, but

receive them; for it would be folly not to accept good things from the

Gods, to whom we are constantly praying for favors, when they stretch

out their hands towards us." And, last of all, all the things which he

had thus pillaged from the temples were, by his order, brought to the

market-place and sold by the common crier; and, after he had received

the money for them, he commanded every purchaser to restore what he had

bought, within a limited time, to the temples from whence they came.

Thus to his impiety towards the Gods he added injustice to man.

XXXV. Yet neither did Olympian Jove strike him with his thunder, nor

did Æsculapius cause him to die by tedious diseases and a lingering

death. He died in his bed, had funeral honors[284] paid to him, and

left his power, which he had wickedly obtained, as a just and lawful

inheritance to his son.

It is not without concern that I maintain a doctrine which seems to

authorize evil, and which might probably give a sanction to it, if

conscience, without any divine assistance, did not point out, in the

clearest manner, the difference between virtue and vice. Without

conscience man is contemptible. For as no family or state can be

supposed to be formed with any reason or discipline if there are no

rewards for good actions nor punishment for crimes, so we cannot

believe that a Divine Providence regulates the world if there is no

distinction between the honest and the wicked.

But the Gods, you say, neglect trifling things: the little fields or

vineyards of particular men are not worthy their attention; and if

blasts or hail destroy their product, Jupiter does not regard it, nor

do kings extend their care to the lower offices of government. This

argument might have some weight if, in bringing Rutilius as an

instance, I had only complained of the loss of his farm at Formiæ; but

I spoke of a personal misfortune, his banishment.[285]

XXXVI. All men agree that external benefits, such as vineyards, corn,

olives, plenty of fruit and grain, and, in short, every convenience and

property of life, are derived from the Gods; and, indeed, with reason,

since by our virtue we claim applause, and in virtue we justly glory,

which we could have no right to do if it was the gift of the Gods, and

not a personal merit. When we are honored with new dignities, or

blessed with increase of riches; when we are favored by fortune beyond

our expectation, or luckily delivered from any approaching evil, we

return thanks for it to the Gods, and assume no praise to ourselves.

But who ever thanked the Gods that he was a good man? We thank them,

indeed, for riches, health, and honor. For these we invoke the all-good

and all-powerful Jupiter; but not for wisdom, temperance, and justice.

No one ever offered a tenth of his estate to Hercules to be made wise.

It is reported, indeed, of Pythagoras that he sacrificed an ox to the

Muses upon having made some new discovery in geometry;[286] but, for my

part, I cannot believe it, because he refused to sacrifice even to

Apollo at Delos, lest he should defile the altar with blood. But to

return. It is universally agreed that good fortune we must ask of the

Gods, but wisdom must arise from ourselves; and though temples have

been consecrated to the Mind, to Virtue, and to Faith, yet that does

not contradict their being inherent in us. In regard to hope, safety,

assistance, and victory, we must rely upon the Gods for them; from

whence it follows, as Diogenes said, that the prosperity of the wicked

destroys the idea of a Divine Providence.

XXXVII. But good men have sometimes success. They have so; but we

cannot, with any show of reason, attribute that success to the Gods.

Diagoras, who is called the atheist, being at Samothrace, one of his

friends showed him several pictures[287] of people who had endured very

dangerous storms; "See," says he, "you who deny a providence, how many

have been saved by their prayers to the Gods." "Ay," says Diagoras, "I

see those who were saved, but where are those painted who were

shipwrecked?" At another time, he himself was in a storm, when the

sailors, being greatly alarmed, told him they justly deserved that

misfortune for admitting him into their ship; when he, pointing to

others under the like distress, asked them "if they believed Diagoras

was also aboard those ships?" In short, with regard to good or bad

fortune, it matters not what you are, or how you have lived. The Gods,

like kings, regard not everything. What similitude is there between

them? If kings neglect anything, want of knowledge may be pleaded in

their defence; but ignorance cannot be brought as an excuse for the

Gods.

XXXVIII. Your manner of justifying them is somewhat extraordinary, when

you say that if a wicked man dies without suffering for his crimes, the

Gods inflict a punishment on his children, his children's children, and

all his posterity. O wonderful equity of the Gods! What city would

endure the maker of a law which should condemn a son or a grandson for

a crime committed by the father or the grandfather?

Shall Tantalus' unhappy offspring know

No end, no close, of this long scene of woe?

When will the dire reward of guilt be o'er,

And Myrtilus demand revenge no more?[288]

Whether the poets have corrupted the Stoics, or the Stoics given

authority to the poets, I cannot easily determine. Both alike are to be

condemned. If those persons whose names have been branded in the

satires of Hipponax or Archilochus[289] were driven to despair, it did

not proceed from the Gods, but had its origin in their own minds. When

we see Ægistus and Paris lost in the heat of an impure passion, why are

we to attribute it to a Deity, when the crime, as it were, speaks for

itself? I believe that those who recover from illness are more indebted

to the care of Hippocrates than to the power of Æsculapius; that Sparta

received her laws from Lycurgus[290] rather than from Apollo; that

those eyes of the maritime coast, Corinth and Carthage, were plucked

out, the one by Critolaus, the other by Hasdrubal, without the

assistance of any divine anger, since you yourselves confess that a

Deity cannot possibly be angry on any provocation.

XXXIX. But could not the Deity have assisted and preserved those

eminent cities? Undoubtedly he could; for, according to your doctrine,

his power is infinite, and without the least labor; and as nothing but

the will is necessary to the motion of our bodies, so the divine will

of the Gods, with the like ease, can create, move, and change all

things. This you hold, not from a mere phantom of superstition, but on

natural and settled principles of reason; for matter, you say, of which

all things are composed and consist, is susceptible of all forms and

changes, and there is nothing which cannot be, or cease to be, in an

instant; and that Divine Providence has the command and disposal of

this universal matter, and consequently can, in any part of the

universe, do whatever she pleases: from whence I conclude that this

Providence either knows not the extent of her power, or neglects human

affairs, or cannot judge what is best for us. Providence, you say, does

not extend her care to particular men; there is no wonder in that,

since she does not extend it to cities, or even to nations, or people.

If, therefore, she neglects whole nations, is it not very probable that

she neglects all mankind? But how can you assert that the Gods do not

enter into all the little circumstances of life, and yet hold that they

distribute dreams among men? Since you believe in dreams, it is your

part to solve this difficulty. Besides, you say we ought to call upon

the Gods. Those who call upon the Gods are individuals. Divine

Providence, therefore, regards individuals, which consequently proves

that they are more at leisure than you imagine. Let us suppose the

Divine Providence to be greatly busied; that it causes the revolutions

of the heavens, supports the earth, and rules the seas; why does it

suffer so many Gods to be unemployed? Why is not the superintendence of

human affairs given to some of those idle Deities which you say are

innumerable?

This is the purport of what I had to say concerning "the Nature of the

Gods;" not with a design to destroy their existence, but merely to show

what an obscure point it is, and with what difficulties an explanation

of it is attended.

XL. Balbus, observing that Cotta had finished his discourse--You have

been very severe, says he, against a Divine Providence, a doctrine

established by the Stoics with piety and wisdom; but, as it grows too

late, I shall defer my answer to another day. Our argument is of the

greatest importance; it concerns our altars,[291] our hearths, our

temples, nay, even the walls of our city, which you priests hold

sacred; you, who by religion defend Rome better than she is defended by

her ramparts. This is a cause which, while I have life, I think I

cannot abandon without impiety.

There is nothing, replied Cotta, which I desire more than to be

confuted. I have not pretended to decide this point, but to give you my

private sentiments upon it; and am very sensible of your great

superiority in argument. No doubt of it, says Velleius; we have much to

fear from one who believes that our dreams are sent from Jupiter,

which, though they are of little weight, are yet of more importance

than the discourse of the Stoics concerning the nature of the Gods. The

conversation ended here, and we parted. Velleius judged that the

arguments of Cotta were truest; but those of Balbus seemed to me to

have the greater probability.[292]

ON THE COMMONWEALTH.

* * * * *

PREFACE BY THE EDITOR.

This work was one of Cicero's earlier treatises, though one of those

which was most admired by his contemporaries, and one of which he

himself was most proud. It was composed 54 B.C. It was originally in

two books: then it was altered and enlarged into nine, and finally

reduced to six. With the exception of the dream of Scipio, in the last

book, the whole treatise was lost till the year 1822, when the

librarian of the Vatican discovered a portion of them among the

palimpsests in that library. What he discovered is translated here; but

it is in a most imperfect and mutilated state.

The form selected was that of a dialogue, in imitation of those of

Plato; and the several conferences were supposed to have taken place

during the Latin holidays, 129 B.C., in the consulship of Caius

Sempronius, Tuditanus, and Marcus Aquilius. The speakers are Scipio

Africanus the younger, in whose garden the scene is laid; Caius Lælius;

Lucius Furius Philus; Marcus Manilius; Spurius Mummius, the brother of

the taker of Corinth, a Stoic; Quintus Ælius Tubero, a nephew of

Africanus; Publius Rutilius Rufus; Quintus Mucius Scævola, the tutor of

Cicero; and Caius Fannius, who was absent, however, on the second day

of the conference.

In the first book, the first thirty-three pages are wanting, and there

are chasms amounting to thirty-eight pages more. In this book Scipio

asserts the superiority of an active over a speculative career; and

after analyzing and comparing the monarchical, aristocratic, and

democratic forms of government, gives a preference to the first;

although his idea of a perfect constitution would be one compounded of

three kinds in due proportion.

There are a few chasms in the earlier part of the second book, and the

latter part of it is wholly lost. In it Scipio was led on to give an

account of the rise and progress of the Roman Constitution, from which

he passed on to the examination of the great moral obligations which

are the foundations of all political union.

Of the remaining books we have only a few disjointed fragments, with

the exception, as has been before mentioned, of the dream of Scipio in

the sixth.

* * * * *

INTRODUCTION TO THE FIRST BOOK,

BY THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATOR.

Cicero introduces his subject by showing that men were not born

for the mere abstract study of philosophy, but that the study

of philosophic truth should always be made as practical as

possible, and applicable to the great interests of

philanthropy and patriotism. Cicero endeavors to show the

benefit of mingling the contemplative or philosophic with the

political and active life, according to that maxim of

Plato--"Happy is the nation whose philosophers are kings, and

whose kings are philosophers."

This kind of introduction was the more necessary because many

of the ancient philosophers, too warmly attached to

transcendental metaphysics and sequestered speculations, had

affirmed that true philosophers ought not to interest

themselves in the management of public affairs. Thus, as M.

Villemain observes, it was a maxim of the Epicureans,

"Sapiens ne accedat ad rempublicam" (Let no wise man meddle

in politics). The Pythagoreans had enforced the same

principle with more gravity. Aristotle examines the question

on both sides, and concludes in favor of active life. Among

Aristotle's disciples, a writer, singularly elegant and pure,

had maintained the pre-eminence of the contemplative life

over the political or active one, in a work which Cicero

cites with admiration, and to which he seems to have applied

for relief whenever he felt harassed and discouraged in

public business. But here this great man was interested by

the subject he discusses, and by the whole course of his

experience and conduct, to refute the dogmas of that

pusillanimous sophistry and selfish indulgence by bringing

forward the most glorious examples and achievements of

patriotism. In this strain he had doubtless commenced his

exordium, and in this strain we find him continuing it at the

point in which the palimpsest becomes legible. He then

proceeds to introduce his illustrious interlocutors, and

leads them at first to discourse on the astronomical laws

that regulate the revolutions of our planet. From this, by a

very graceful and beautiful transition, he passes on to the

consideration of the best forms of political constitutions

that had prevailed in different nations, and those modes of

government which had produced the greatest benefits in the

commonwealths of antiquity.

This first book is, in fact, a splendid epitome of the

political science of the age of Cicero, and probably the most

eloquent plea in favor of mixed monarchy to be found in all

literature.

* * * * *