"Cedant arma togas; concedat laurea linguae."

But the thing said was thoroughly good, and the better because the
opinion was addressed to men among whom the glory of arms was still
in ascendant over the achievements of intellectual enterprise. The
greatest men have been those who have stepped out from the mass, and
gone beyond their time--seeing things, with eyesight almost divine,
which have hitherto been hidden from the crowd. Such was Columbus when
he made his way across the Western Ocean; such were Galileo and Bacon;
such was Pythagoras, if the ideas we have of him be at all true. Such
also was Cicero. It is not given to the age in which such men live
to know them. Could their age even recognize them, they would not
overstep their age as they do. Looking back at him now, we can see
how like a Christian was the man--so like, that in essentials we can
hardly see the difference. He could love another as himself--as nearly
as a man may do; and he taught such love as a doctrine.[28]

He believed in the existence of one supreme God.[29] He believed
that man would rise again and live forever in some heaven.[30] I am
conscious that I cannot much promote this view of Cicero's character
by quoting isolated passages from his works--words which taken alone
may be interpreted in one sense or another, and which should be read,
each with its context, before their due meaning can be understood. But
I may perhaps succeed in explaining to a reader what it is that I hope
to do in the following pages, and why it is that I undertake a work
which must be laborious, and for which many will think that there is
no remaining need.

I would not have it thought that, because I have so spoken of Cicero's