V. When my first transports subsided, and I regained the liberty of
speech, I addressed my father thus: Thou best and most venerable of
parents, since this, as I am informed by Africanus, is the only
substantial life, why do I linger on earth, and not rather haste to
come hither where you are?

That, replied he, is impossible: unless that God, whose temple is all
that vast expanse you behold, shall free you from the fetters of the
body, you can have no admission into this place. Mankind have received
their being on this very condition, that they should labor for the
preservation of that globe which is situated, as you see, in the midst
of this temple, and is called earth.

Men are likewise endowed with a soul, which is a portion of the eternal
fires which you call stars and constellations; and which, being round,
spherical bodies, animated by divine intelligences, perform their
cycles and revolutions with amazing rapidity. It is your duty,
therefore, my Publius, and that of all who have any veneration for the
Gods, to preserve this wonderful union of soul and body; nor without
the express command of Him who gave you a soul should the least thought
be entertained of quitting human life, lest you seem to desert the post
assigned you by God himself.

But rather follow the examples of your grandfather here, and of me,
your father, in paying a strict regard to justice and piety; which is
due in a great degree to parents and relations, but most of all to our
country. Such a life as this is the true way to heaven, and to the
company of those, who, after having lived on earth and escaped from the
body, inhabit the place which you now behold.

XVI. This was the shining circle, or zone, whose remarkable brightness
distinguishes it among the constellations, and which, after the Greeks,
you call the Milky Way.

From thence, as I took a view of the universe, everything appeared
beautiful and admirable; for there those stars are to be seen that are
never visible from our globe, and everything appears of such magnitude
as we could not have imagined. The least of all the stars was that
removed farthest from heaven, and situated next to the earth; I mean
our moon, which shines with a borrowed light. Now, the globes of the
stars far surpass the magnitude of our earth, which at that distance
appeared so exceedingly small that I could not but be sensibly affected
on seeing our whole empire no larger than if we touched the earth, as
i