How to Think about God

This and the next book are the latest issues in the excellent classical series by Princeton, with the original language on the left and translation on the right. This first one represents the new popularity of Stoicism and its influence with the balance between materialism and the world seen as a living whole. There is no doubt from the text on the nature of the gods that they were an absolute presupposition of Cicero's thought, but perhaps the important point is the necessity of harmony and order in relation to the ruling principle inferred by rational argument from reflection on the nature of the human mind. The second essay is on the dream of Scipio about the afterlife, again reflecting the spirit of the age with reference to escaping the chains of the body as if from prison - we are currently the guardians of our bodies in this philosophy. A further theme, also reflected in the next book, is the importance of virtue in itself and in relation to immortality.