mselves upright and chaste, and free from the slightest contagion of
the body, and had always kept themselves as far as possible at a distance
from it, and whilst on earth, had proposed to themselves as a model the
life of the Gods, found the return to those beings from whom they had come
an easy one." Therefore he argues, that all good and wise men should take
example from the swans, who are considered sacred to Apollo, not without
reason, but particularly because they seem to have received the gift of
divination from him, by which, foreseeing how happy it is to die, they
leave this world with singing and joy. Nor can any one doubt of this,
unless it happens to us who think with care and anxiety about the soul,
(as is often the case with those who look earnestly at the setting sun,)
to lose the sight of it entirely: and so the mind's eye viewing itself,
sometimes grows dull, and for that reason we become remiss in our
contemplation. Thus our reasoning is borne about, harassed with doubts and
anxieties, not knowing how to proceed, but measuring back again those
dangerous tracts which it has passed, like a boat tossed about on the
boundless ocean. But these reflections are of long standing, and borrowed
from the Greeks. But Cato left this world in such a manner, as if he were
delighted that he had found an opportunity of dying; for that God who
presides in us, forbids our departure hence without his leave. But when
God himself has given us a just cause, as formerly he did to Socrates, and
lately to Cato, and often to many others,--in such a case, certainly every
man of sense would gladly exchange this darkness, for that light: not that
he would forcibly break from the chains that held him, for that would be
against the law; but like a man released from prison by a magistrate, or
some lawful authority, so he too would walk away, being released and
discharged by God. For the whole life of a philosopher is, as the same
philosopher says, a meditation on death.

XXXI. For what else is it that we do, when we call off our minds from
pleasure, that is to say, from our attention to the body, from the
managing our domestic estate, which is a sort of handmaid and servant of
the body, or from duties of a public nature, or from all other serious
business whatever? What else is it, I say, that we do, but invite the soul
to reflect on itself? oblige it to converse with itself, and, as far as
possible, break off its acquaintance with the