heavenly and divine original, and eternal in principle. Grod and
the human soul must be of the same spiritual texture, and there-
fore after death we ourselves shall be also either gods or at least
their associates.^

As Cicero, then, while accepting from Plato the eternal du-
ration of the soul, thought himself obliged to its eternal pre-
existence along with it ; he also took advantage of the Platonic
proof derived from the spontaneity of the sou?s motion. But as
he drew out this proof, starting from the position that the soul
had the principle of its own movement within itself, he was
driven to regard man's soul as a being existing independently
from eternity, and subsisting by its own strength, which it was
impossible to distinguish in substance from the deity. Thus he
was bound to take the soul for an emanation from the divine
spirit ;* and though he could not go the whole length of Euripides
and say it was God, he still thought and called it divine ; Ood,
as he thought, being either air or fire, the spirit of man should
be of the same consistence.' With a rapturous eloquence he re-
signs himself to the confident expectation of the glorious day on
which he was to join the divine society and communion of souls,
and be delivered from this bustle and turmoil here, adding, " If
I err in holding the souls of men to be immortal, I do so gladly ;
nor while life lasts will I suffer this error, in which I delight, to
be torn from me. If we are not immortal, then it is desirable for
man that he should be extinguished at his hour of departure.'^
The doubt betrayed in these words came out more clearly in his
letters, where, to console himself and others, he does not rely
on immortality, but insensibility ;* "if there is nothing good in
death, at least there is no eviL^'^ He himself both felt and said
that his ailments, invariably drawn from the subtle, airy, fiery,
or ethereal nature of the soul, produced but a certain amount of
probability. He was a total stranger to all moral grounds. 