ve his
own real views on the subject, we cannot be so certain. The course of
argument employed on both sides would rather lead to the conclusion that
the writer's opinion was very much that which Johnson delivered as to the
reality of ghosts--"All argument is against it, but all belief is for it".

[Footnote 1: There is a third treatise, 'De Fato', apparently a
continuation of the series, of which only a portion has reached us. It is
a discussion of the difficult questions of Fate and Free-will.]

With regard to the great questions of the soul's immortality, and a state
of future rewards and punishments, it would be quite possible to gather
from Cicero's writings passages expressive of entirely contradictory
views. The bent of his mind, as has been sufficiently shown, was towards
doubt, and still more towards discussion; and possibly his opinions were
not so entirely in a state of flux as the remains of his writings seem to
show. In a future state of some kind he must certainly have believed--that
is, with such belief as he would have considered the subject-matter to
admit of--as a strong probability. In a speculative fragment which has
come down to us, known as 'Scipio's Dream', we seem to have the creed of
the man rather than the speculations of the philosopher. Scipio Africanus
the elder appears in a dream to the younger who bore his name (his
grandson by adoption). He shows him a vision of heaven; bids him listen
to the music of the spheres, which, as they move in their order, "by a
modulation of high and low sounds", give forth that harmony which men have
in some poor sort reduced to notation. He bids him look down upon the
earth, contracted to a mere speck in the distance, and draws a lesson of
the poverty of all mere earthly fame and glory. "For all those who have
preserved, or aided, or benefited their country, there is a fixed and
definite place in heaven, where they shall be happy in the enjoyment of
everlasting life". But "the souls of those who have given themselves up to
the pleasures of sense, and made themselves, as it were, the servants of
these,--who at the bidding of the lusts which wait upon pleasure have
violated the laws of gods and men,--they, when they escape from the body,
flit still around the earth, and never attain to these abodes but after
many ages of wandering". We may gather that his creed admitted a Valhalla
for the hero and the patriot, and a long process of expiation for the
wicked.