The five days debate at Cicero's house in Tusculum between master and sophister.

SECT. XVII. That it is more likely they ascend.

BUT I return to the Ancients; they were hardly wont to give any reason of their Opinion, un∣less in matters demonstrable by Lines and Num∣bers. Plato is reported to have travelled into Italy, that he might be acquainted with the Pythagoreans; and when he was there, to have had intimacy with Architas and Timaeus, so that he became ex∣pert in all the Pythogorean Learning; and was the first that not only held the same concerning the Immortality of the Soul, as Pythagoras did; but further brought his reason to prove it; which rea∣son, unless you otherwise require, let us blanch, and so abandon this whole hope of Immorta∣lity.

S.

Do you offer, now you have rais'd my ex∣pectations to the heighth, to disappoint me? had rather, I assure you, be mistaken with Plato, whom I know how much you magnifie, and am wont, upon your Commendation, to admire, than to be of their opinion in the right.

M.

Bravely resolv'd! for I my self could be contented with so good Company, to be in the wrong. Do we then question this, as many other passages? although there be least ground to doubt this; Mathematicians perswade us, that the

Earth, situated in the middle of the Universe, bear∣eth the proportion of a Point, which they call the Center, in comparison with the vast Orb of the Starry Heavens: and further, that such is the na∣ture of the four Elements, that their Motions are divided by opposite terms; so that terrene and humid Bodies of their own bent and sway, tend perpendicularly to the Earth and Sea; the two remaining parts, the one of Fire, the other of Air, as the former by their heaviness, sink down into the middle of the World; so these sore up at right Angles to the heavenly Regions; whether it be their own nature to aspire upward; (c) or that the lighter parts are naturally lifted up by the des∣cent of the more heavy. These things being on all hands agreed, it ought to be alike evident that Souls, when they depart the Body, whether they be of a spiritous or fiery substance, mount towards Heaven; but if the Soul be a number, which is said with more subtlety than plainness; or if it be of that fifth Nature, which however nameless, is not so very difficult to be understood; then are they much more abstract from matter, and of greater purity, and will consequently ascend to the greatest distance from the Earth. Now some of these Natures the Soul must needs be of; not to fancy so quick and sprightly an Intelligence, lying plung'd in the Heart, or Brains, or after Empedocles, in the Blood.

(c) Or that the lighter parts are naturally lifted up by the descent of the heavier.] The opinion that Gravity and Le∣vity are not positive but comparative, thought to be Mo∣dern, and Cartesian, appears to have been ancient.