ing can be
farther removed from that idea than the gods of which he tells us,
either in the first book, in which the gods of Epicurus are set forth;
in the second, in which the Stoics are defended; or the third, in which
the gods, in accordance with the Academy, are maintained; not but that,
either for the one or for the other, the man who speaks up for that sect
does not say the best that is to be said. Velleius is eloquent for the
Epicureans, Balbus for the Stoics, and Cotta for the Academy. And in
that which each says there is to be found a germ of truth--though indeed
Cicero makes his Epicurean as absurd as he well can do. But he does not
leave a trace behind of that belief in another man's belief which an
energetic preacher is sure to create. The language is excellent, the
stories are charming, the arguments as used against each other are
courteous, clever, and such that on the spur of the moment a man cannot
very well reply to them; but they leave on the mind of the reader a sad
feeling of the lack of reality.

In the beginning he again repeats his reasons for writing on such
subjects so late in life. "Being sick with ease, and having found the
condition of the Republic to be such that it has to be ruled by one man.
I have thought it good, for the sake of the Republic, to write about
philosophy in a language that shall be understood by all our citizens,
believing it to be a matter of great import to the glory of the State
that things of such weight should be set forth in the Latin
tongue;"[293] not that the philosophy should be set forth, but what the
different teachers said about it. His definition of eternity--or rather
the want of definition--is singular: "There has been from all time an
eternity which no measurement of time can describe. Its duration cannot
be understood--that there should have been a time before time
existed."[294] Then there comes an idea of the Godhead, escaping from
him in the midst of his philosophy, modern, human, and truly Ciceronian:
"Lo, it comes to pass that this god, of whom we are sure in our minds,
and of whom we hold the very footprints on our souls, can never appear
to us."[295]

By-and-by we come to a passage in which we cannot but imagine that
Cicero does express something of the feeling of his heart, as for a
moment he seems to lose his courtesy in abusing the Epicureans:
"Therefore do not waste your salt, of which your people are much in
want, in laughing at us. Indeed, if