And now, among the different sentiments of the philosophers concerning the consequences of our final dissolution, may I not venture to declare my own? and the rather, as the nearer death advances towards me, the more clearly I seem to discern its real nature.
I am well convinced, then, that my dear departed friends, your two illustrious fathers, are so far from having ceased to live, that the state they now enjoy can alone with propriety be called life. The soul, during her confinement within this prison of the body, is doomed by fate to undergo a severe penance; for her native seat is in heaven, and it is with reluctance that she is forced down from those celestial mansions into these lower regions, where all is foreign and repugnant to her divine nature. But the gods, I am persuaded, have thus widely disseminated immortal spirits, and clothed them with human bodies, that there might be a race of intelligent creatures, not only to have dominion over this, our earth, but to contemplate the host of heaven, and imitate in their moral conduct the same beautiful order and uniformity so conspicuous in those splendid orbs. This opinion I am induced to embrace, not only as agreeable to the best deductions of reason, but in just deference, also, to the authority of the noblest and most distinguished philosophers. And I am further confirmed in my belief of the soul's immortality by the discourse which Socrates—whom the oracle of Apollo pronounced to be the wisest of men—held upon this subject just before his death. In a word, when I consider the faculties with which the human mind is endued; its amazing celerity; its wonderful power in recollecting past events, and sagacity in discerning future; together with its numberless discoveries in the several arts and sciences, I feel a conscious conviction that this active, comprehensive principle can not possibly be of a mortal nature. And as this unceasing activity of the soul derives its energy from its own intrinsic and essential powers, without receiving it from any foreign or external impulse, it necessarily follows (as it is absurd to suppose the soul would desert itself) that this activity must continue forever. But farther; as the soul is evidently a simple, uncompounded substance, without any dissimilar parts or heterogeneous mixture, it can not, therefore, be divided; consequently, it can not perish. I might add, that the facility and expedition with which youth are taught to acquire numberless very difficult arts, is a strong presumption that the soul possessed a considerable portion of knowledge before it entered into the human form, and that what seems to be received from instruction is, in fact, no other than a reminiscence or recollection of its former ideas. This, at least, is the opinion of Plato.
JULIUS CAESAR.
Julius Cæsar was born on the 12th of July, 100 B.C. As to his intellectual character, Cæsar was gifted by nature with the most varied talents, and was distinguished by an extraordinary genius, and by attainments in very diversified pursuits. He was, at one and the same time, a general, a statesman, a lawgiver, a jurist, an orator, a poet, an historian, a philologer, a mathematician, and an architect. He seemed equally fitted to excel in all, and has given proofs that he would surpass most men in any subject to which he should devote the energies of his great mind; and Middleton says he was the only man in Rome capable of rivaling Cicero as an orator. During his whole busy life he found time for literary pursuits, and always took pleasure in the society and conversation of men of learning.
Cæsar wrote many works on different subjects, but they are now all lost but his "Commentaries." These relate the history of the first seven years of the Gallic War in seven books, and the Civil War down to the commencement of the Alexandrine in three books. The purity of his Latin, and the clearness and beauty of his style have rendered his "Commentaries" a most popular and desirable text book for students of the Latin language.
A most important change was introduced by him in the reformation of the calendar, which was not only of vast importance to his country and to the civilized world, but its benefits have extended to the present day. What consummate folly, then, to say nothing of the wickedness, was displayed by the conspirators who put him to death; for instead of the wise, the noble, the magnanimous, they exalted to supreme power one of the basest men in all Rome—Augustus, who, as one of the second Triumvirate, consented to the murder of his intimate and noble friend, Cicero.
