roof of all is, that nature herself gives a silent
judgment in favour of the immortality of the soul, inasmuch as all are
anxious, and that to a great degree, about the things which concern
futurity;--

One plants what future ages shall enjoy,

as Statius saith in his Synephebi. What is his object in doing so, except
that he is interested in posterity? Shall the industrious husbandman,
then, plant trees the fruit of which he shall never see? and shall not the
great man found laws, institutions, and a republic? What does the
procreation of children imply--and our care to continue our names--and our
adoptions--and our scrupulous exactness in drawing up wills--and the
inscriptions on monuments, and panegyrics, but that our thoughts run on
futurity? There is no doubt but a judgment may be formed of nature in
general, from looking at each nature in its most perfect specimens; and
what is a more perfect specimen of a man, than those are who look on
themselves as born for the assistance, the protection, and the
preservation of others? Hercules has gone to heaven; he never would have
gone thither, had he not, whilst amongst men, made that road for himself.
These things are of old date, and have, besides, the sanction of universal
religion.

XV. What will you say? what do you imagine that so many and such great men
of our republic, who have sacrificed their lives for its good, expected?
Do you believe that they thought that their names should not continue
beyond their lives? None ever encountered death for their country, but
under a firm persuasion of immortality! Themistocles might have lived at
his ease; so might Epaminondas; and, not to look abroad and amongst the
ancients for instances, so might I myself. But, somehow or other, there
clings to our minds a certain presage of future ages; and this both exists
most firmly and appears most clearly, in men of the loftiest genius and
greatest souls. Take away this, and who would be so mad as to spend his
life amidst toils and dangers? I speak of those in power. What are the
poet's views but to be ennobled after death? What else is the object of
these lines--

Behold old Ennius here, who erst
Thy fathers' great exploits rehearsed?

He is challenging the reward of glory from those men whose ancestors he
himself had ennobled by his poetry. And in the same spirit he says in
another passage--

Let none with tears my funeral grace, for I
Claim from