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Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth by Marcus Tullius Cicero
page 33 of 604 (05%)
Of Orcus, the pale regions of the dead.

And does it become a philosopher to boast that he is not afraid of
these things, and that he has discovered them to be false? And from
this we may perceive how acute these men were by nature, who, if they
had been left without any instruction, would have believed in these
things. But now they have certainly made a very fine acquisition in
learning that when the day of their death arrives, they will perish
entirely. And if that really is the case--for I say nothing either
way--what is there agreeable or glorious in it? Not that I see any
reason why the opinion of Pythagoras and Plato may not be true; but
even although Plato were to have assigned no reason for his opinion
(observe how much I esteem the man), the weight of his authority would
have borne me down; but he has brought so many reasons, that he appears
to me to have endeavored to convince others, and certainly to have
convinced himself.

XXII. But there are many who labor on the other side of the question,
and condemn souls to death, as if they were criminals capitally
convicted; nor have they any other reason to allege why the immortality
of the soul appears to them to be incredible, except that they are not
able to conceive what sort of thing the soul can be when disentangled
from the body; just as if they could really form a correct idea as to
what sort of thing it is, even when it is in the body; what its form,
and size, and abode are; so that were they able to have a full view of
all that is now hidden from them in a living body, they have no idea
whether the soul would be discernible by them, or whether it is of so
fine a texture that it would escape their sight. Let those consider
this, who say that they are unable to form any idea of the soul without
the body, and then they will see whether they can form any adequate
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