is this sound so strong and so sweet that fills my ears?" "This," he
replied, "is the melody which, at intervals unequal, yet differing in
exact proportions, is made by the impulse and motion of the spheres
themselves, which, softening shriller by deeper tones, produce a
diversity of regular harmonies. Nor can such vast movements be urged on
in silence; and by the order of nature the shriller notes sound from one
extreme of the universe, the deeper from the other. Thus yonder supreme
celestial sphere with its clustered stars, as it revolves more rapidly,
moves with a shrill and quick strain; this lower sphere of the moon
sends forth deeper notes; while the earth, the ninth sphere, remaining
motionless, [Footnote: Therefore without sound.] always stands fixed in
the lowest place, occupying the centre of the universe. But these eight
revolutions, of which two, those of Mercury and Venus, are in unison,
make seven distinct tones, with measured intervals between, and almost
all things are arranged in sevens. [Footnote: Latin, _qui numerus_ (that
is, _septem_) _rerum omnium fere nodus est_. Literally, "which number is
the knot of almost everything." The more intelligible form in which I
have rendered these words seems to me to convey their true meaning, and
my belief to that effect is confirmed by reading what several
commentators say about the passage.] Skilled men, copying this harmony
with strings and voice, have opened for themselves a way back to this
place, as have others who with excelling genius have cultivated divine
sciences in human life. But the ears of men are deafened by being filled
with this melody; nor is there in you mortals a duller sense than that
of hearing. As where the Nile at the Falls of Catadupa pours down from
the loftiest mountains, the people who live hard by lack the sense of
hearing because of the loudness of the cataract, so this harmony of the
whole universe in its intensely rapid movement is so loud that men's
ears cannot take it in, even as you cannot look directly at the sun, and
the keenness and visual power of the eye are overwhelmed by its rays."
While I marvelled at these things, I ever and anon cast my eyes again
upon the earth.
6. Then Africanus said: "I perceive that you are now fixing your eyes on
the abode and home of men, and if it seems to you small, as it really
is, then look always at these heavenly things, and despise those
earthly. For what reputation from the speech of men, or what fame worth
seeking, can you obtain? You see that the inhabited places of the earth
are scattered and of small extent, that in the spots [Footnote: Latin,
_maculis_,--a figure so bold in Cicero's time as to need an apology for
its use, but now employed with no consciousness of its being otherwise
than strictly literal.]--so to speak--where men dwell there are vast
solitary tracts interposed, and that those who live on the earth are not
only so separated that no communication can pass from place to place,
but stand, in part at an oblique angle, in part at a right angle with
you, in part even in an opposite direction; [Footnote: It hardly needs
to be said, that the reference here is to the convex surface of the
earth, on which those remote from one another may hold all the various
angles to each other that are borne by the spokes of a wheel.] and from
these you certainly can anticipate no fame.
"You perceive also that this same earth is girded and surrounded by
belts, two of which--the farthest from each other, and each resting at
one extremity on the very pole of the heavens--you see entirely
frost-bound; while the middle and largest of them burns under the sun's
intensest heat. Two of them are habitable, of which the southern, whose
inhabitants are your antipodes, bears no relation to your people; and
see how small a part they occupy in this other northern zone, in which
you dwell. For all of the earth with which you have any concern--narrow
at the north and south, broader in its central portion--is a mere little
island, surrounded by that sea which you on earth call the Atlantic, the
Great Sea, the Ocean, while yet, with such a name, you see how small it
is. To speak only of these cultivated and well-known regions, could your
name even cross this Caucasus which you have in view, or swim beyond
that Ganges? Who, in what other lands may lie in the extreme east or
west, or under northern or southern skies, will ever hear your name? All
these cut off, you surely see within what narrow bounds your fame can
seek to spread. Then, too, as regards the very persons who tell of your
renown, how long will they speak of it?
7. "But even if successive generations should desire to transmit the
praise of every one of us from father to son in unbroken succession, yet
because of devastations by flood and fire, which will of necessity take
place at a determined time, we must fail of attaining not only eternal
fame, but even that of very long duration. Now of what concern is it
that those who shall be born hereafter should speak of you, when you
were spoken of by none who were born before you, who were not fewer, and
certainly were better men?--especially, too, when among those who might
hear our names there is not one that can retain the memories of a single
year. Men, indeed, ordinarily measure the year only by the return of the
sun, that is, one star, to its place; but when all the stars, after long
intervals, shall resume their original places in the heavens, then that
completed revolution may be truly called a year. As of old the sun
seemed to be eclipsed and blotted out when the soul of Romulus entered
these temples, so when the sun shall be again eclipsed in the same part
of his course, and at the same period of the year and day, with all the
constellations and stars recalled to the point from which they started
on their revolutions, then count the year as brought to a close.
[Footnote: The Stoics maintained that the visible universe would last
through such a cycle as is here described, which in their conjectural
astronomy comprehended many thousands of years, and then would be
consumed by fire, or somehow be reduced to chaos, and a new universe
take its place.] But be assured that the twentieth part of this year has
not yet come round.
"Therefore, should you renounce the hope of returning to this place in
which are all things that great and excellent men can desire, of what
worth is that human glory which can scarcely extend to a small part of a
single year? If, then, you shall determine to look high up, and to
behold continuously this dwelling and eternal home, you will neither
give yourself to the flattery of the people, nor place your hope of
well-being on rewards that man can bestow. Let Virtue herself by her own
charms draw you to true honor. What others may say of you, regard as
their concern, not yours. They will doubtless talk about you, but all
that they say is confined within the narrow limits of the regions which
you now see; nor did such speech as to any one ever last on into
eternity,--it is buried with those who die, and lost in oblivion for
those who may come afterward."
8. When he had spoken thus, I said, "O Africanus, if indeed for those
who have deserved well of their country there is, as it were, an open
road by which they may enter heaven, though from boyhood treading in my
father's steps and yours, I have done no discredit to your fame, I yet
shall now strive to that end with a more watchful diligence." And he
replied: "Strive [Footnote: Or, you will strive indeed.] indeed, and
bear this in mind, that it is not you that are mortal, but your body
only. Nor is it you whom this outward form makes manifest; but every
man's mind is he,--not the bodily shape which can be pointed at by the
finger. Know also that you are a god, if he indeed is a god who lives,
who perceives, who remembers, who foresees, who governs and restrains
and moves the body over which he is made ruler even as the Supreme God
holds the universe under his sway; and in truth as the eternal God
himself moves the universe which is mortal in every part, so does the
everlasting soul move the corruptible body.
"That, indeed, which is in perpetual movement is eternal; but that
which, while imparting motion to some other substance, derives its own
movement from some other source, must of necessity cease to live when it
ceases to move. Then that alone which is the cause of its own motion,
because it is never deserted by itself, never has its movement
suspended. But for other substances that are moved this is the source,
the first cause, [Footnote: Latin, _principium_.] of movement. But the
first cause has no origin; for all things spring from the first cause:
itself, from nothing. That indeed would not be a first cause which
derived its beginning from anything else; and if it has no beginning, it
never ceases to be. For the first cause, if extinct, will neither itself
be born again from aught else, nor will it create aught else from
itself, if indeed all things must of necessity originate from the first
cause. Thus it is that the first cause of motion is derived from that
which is in its nature self-moving; but this can neither be born nor
die. Were it to die, the whole heaven would of necessity collapse, and
all nature would stand still, nor could it find any force which could be
set in movement anew from a primitive impulse. [Footnote: From a first
cause; the first cause, by hypothesis, having ceased to be.]
9. "Since, then, that which is the source of its own movement is
manifestly eternal, who is there that can deny that this nature has been
given to the soul? For whatever is moved by external impulse is
soulless; [Footnote: Latin, _inanimum._] but whatever has a soul
[Footnote: Latin, _animal._ My renderings of _inanimum_ and _animal_
here, if not justified by any parallel instances (and I know not whether
they are), are required by the obvious meaning of the sentence.] is
stirred to action by movement inward and its own; for this is the
peculiar nature and virtue of the soul. Moreover, if it is this alone of
all things that is the source of its own movement, it certainly did not
begin to be, and is eternal. "This soul I bid you to exercise in the
best pursuits, and the best are your cares for your country's safety, by
which if your soul be kept in constant action and exercise, it will have
the more rapid flight to this its abode and home. This end it will
attain the more readily, if, while it shall be shut up in the body, it
shall peer forth, and, contemplating those things that are beyond,
abstract itself as far as possible from the body. For the souls of those
who have surrendered themselves to the pleasures of the body, have
yielded themselves to their service, and, obeying them under the impulse
of sensual lusts, have transgressed the laws of gods and men, when they
pass out of their bodies are tossed to and fro around the earth, nor
return to this place till they have wandered in banishment for many
ages."
He departed; I awoke from sleep.