On Divination and On the Laws (Yonge Treatises of Cicero)

than folly? Besides, there are many inconveniences in life which the wise can learn’ to think lightly of, by dwelling rather on the advantages which they receive; but which fools are unable to avoid when they are coming, or to bear when they are come. _ X&X. They who affirm the world to be an animated and intelligent being, have by no means discovered the nature of the mind, nor are able to conceive in what form that essence can exist ; but of that I shall speak more hereafter. At present, I must express my surprise at the weakness of those, who endeavour to make it out to be not only animated and immortal, but likewise happy, and round, because Plato says that is the most beautiful form; whereas I think a cylinder, a square, a cone, or a pyramid, more beautiful. But what life do they attribute to that round Deity? ‘Truly it isa being whirled about with a celerity to which nothing can be even conceived by the imagination as equal; nor can I imagine how a settled mind and happy life can consist in such motion, the least degree of which would be troublesome to us. Why therefore should it not be considered troublesome also to the Deity? For the earth itself, as it is part of the world, is part also of the Deity. We see vast tracts of land barren and uninhabitable ; some, because they are scorched by the too near approach of the sun ; others, because they are bound up with frost and snow, through the great distance which the sun is from them. Therefore, if the world is a Deity, as these are parts of the world, some of the Deity’s limbs must be said to be scorched, and some frozen.