OF SCIPIO

...must necessarily come to a stop original: "sistat"; completing the sentence from the previous page: "what is moved by an external force must necessarily stop when the force ends.", and can find no force which might be moved by an initial impulse. Since, therefore, it is evident that what is moved by its own self is eternal, who is there who would deny that this nature has been granted to souls? For everything that is shaken by an external pulse is inanimate. But that which is an animal animal original: "animal"; in Latin, this literally means "a thing possessed of 'anima' or soul," referring to any living, breathing being. is moved by an internal motion of its own. For this is the proper nature and power of the soul. If the soul is the only thing among all others that moves itself, then it was certainly never born and is eternal. Exercise this soul in the best of pursuits.

The best cares are those for the safety of the fatherland original: "salute patriae"; for a Roman like Cicero, the highest moral duty was service to the state.; the soul, agitated and exercised by these, will fly more swiftly to this seat and its own home. And it will do this more quickly if, even then while it is still shut up in the body, it reaches outward and, contemplating those things which are outside, abstracts itself as much as possible from the physical form. For the souls of those who have surrendered themselves to the pleasures of the body and have offered themselves as their servants, as it were, and who—by the impulse of lusts obedient to those pleasures—have