excellency which has not its difficulty? Yet philosophy undertakes to
effect it, provided we admit its superintendence. But enough of this.
The other books, whenever you please, shall be ready for you here or
anywhere else.

* * * * *




BOOK IV.

On other perturbations of the mind.


I. I have often wondered, Brutus, on many occasions, at the ingenuity
and virtues of our countrymen; but nothing has surprised me more than
their development in those studies, which, though they came somewhat
late to us, have been transported into this city from Greece. For the
system of auspices, and religious ceremonies, and courts of justice,
and appeals to the people, the senate, the establishment of an army of
cavalry and infantry, and the whole military discipline, were
instituted as early as the foundation of the city by royal authority,
partly too by laws, not without the assistance of the Gods. Then with
what a surprising and incredible progress did our ancestors advance
towards all kind of excellence, when once the republic was freed from
the regal power! Not that this is a proper occasion to treat of the
manners and customs of our ancestors, or of the discipline and
constitution of the city; for I have elsewhere, particularly in the six
books I wrote on the Republic, given a sufficiently accurate account of