better to be chosen than an immortality of sin!"[3] He is addressing himself, it is true, to Philosophy; but his Philosophy is here little less than the Wisdom of Scripture:  and the spiritual aspiration is the same—­only uttered under greater difficulties—­as that of the Psalmist when he exclaims, “One day in thy courts is better than a thousand!” We may or may not adopt Erasmus’s view of his inspiration—­or rather, inspiration is a word which has more than one definition, and this would depend upon which definition we take; but we may well sympathise with the old scholar when he says—­“I feel a better man for reading Cicero”.

[Footnote 1:  “Interdum non Paganum philosophum, sed apostolum loqui putes".]

[Footnote 2:  ’The Dream of Scipio’.]

[Footnote 3:  Tusc., v. 2.]

END OF CICERO