my works an immortality.

Why do I mention poets? the very mechanics are desirous of fame after
death. Why did Phidias include a likeness of himself in the shield of
Minerva, when he was not allowed to inscribe his name on it? What do our
philosophers think on the subject? do not they put their names to those
very books which they write on the contempt of glory? If, then, universal
consent is the voice of nature, and if it is the general opinion
everywhere, that those who have quitted this life are still interested in
something; we also must subscribe to that opinion. And if we think that
men of the greatest abilities and virtue see most clearly into the power
of nature, because they themselves are her most perfect work; it is very
probable that, as every great man is especially anxious to benefit
posterity, there is something of which he himself will be sensible after
death.

XVI. But as we are led by nature to think there are gods, and as we
discover, by reason, of what description they are, so, by the consent of
all nations, we are induced to believe that our souls survive; but where
their habitation is, and of what character they eventually are, must be
learned from reason. The want of any certain reason on which to argue has
given rise to the idea of the shades below, and to those fears, which you
seem, not without reason, to despise: for as our bodies fall to the
ground, and are covered with earth (_humus_), from whence we derive the
expression to be interred (_humari_), that has occasioned men to imagine
that the dead continue, during the remainder of their existence, under
ground; which opinion has drawn after it many errors, which the poets have
increased; for the theatre, being frequented by a large crowd, among which
are women and children, is wont to be greatly affected on hearing such
pompous verses as these--

Lo! here I am, who scarce could gain this place,
Through stony mountains and a dreary waste;
Through cliffs, whose sharpen'd stones tremendous hung,
Where dreadful darkness spread itself around:

and the error prevailed so much, though indeed at present it seems to me
to be removed, that although men knew that the bodies of the dead had been
burned, yet they conceived such things to be done in the infernal regions
as could not be executed or imagined without a body; for they could not
conceive how disembodied souls could exist; and, therefore, they looked
out for some shape