And reason has been given to all persons. [33] M: What comes next, then, is that we have been made by nature to participate in right, one with another, and to share it among all persons. Is it then property or honors or beauty or strength? And among human beings themselves there is no nation either so tame or so wild that it does not know that it should have a god, although it may be ignorant of what sort it ought to have. Those things have been attentively written by many men, and they are lower than what I think is expected of me. Where is sacred friendship if not even the friend himself is loved for himself, with whole heart, as it is said? M: Well, Quintus, from childhood we have learned to name “If he calls into court” and other things of that sort laws. Q: Of course I would gladly listen. All [sorts of] plots are directed against our minds, either by those I just listed, who have taken them when they were delicate and unrefined and who stain and bend them as they want, or by that which occupies a place entangled within our every sensation, pleasure, that imitator of the good and that mother of all bad things. xliii ed. This treatise is therefore to be regarded as a necessary supplement to the former work, and each supports and illustrates the other with surprising force and beauty. And if that is so, honorable and disgraceful things should also be distinguished by nature. [19] And so they think that law is prudence, the effect of which is to order persons to act correctly and to forbid them to transgress. [missing text] Whatever good thing that is praiseworthy necessarily has in itself that for which it is praised; for good itself is not by opinions but by nature. From that time forward it was handed down in turn to their descendants, and it remains among those who reign even now. M: Moreover, shouldn’t a city lacking law be recognized to exist in no place for that very [reason]? [23] Therefore, since nothing is better than reason, and since it [is] in both human being and god, the primary fellowship of human being with god involves reason; and among those who have reason in common, correct reason is also in common. M: You call me to a long conversation, Atticus. Now since god [thus] begot and adorned the human being—that is, he wanted him to have precedence over other things—it is clear (so that not everything must be discussed) that nature itself proceeds further by itself: even with no one teaching it, it has taken its start from those things the characteristics of which it recognized from its first, rudimentary intelligence; it alone strengthens and fully develops reason. Therefore, it has pleased highly educated men to commence with law—probably correctly, provided that, as the same men define it, law is highest reason, implanted in nature, which orders those things that ought to be done and prohibits the opposite. A REVIEW of the HISTORY OF CICERO’S TREATISE ON THE LAWS. When these things have been explained, the source of laws and right can be discovered. / Rudd, WJN. Bury. This alone has taught us, along with all the other things it has taught us, what is most difficult: we should know ourselves. [32] And because of the similarity between honorableness and glory, those who have been honored seem happy while those who are without glory seem wretched. By Francis Barham, Esq. The Greeks know the significance of this, but they do not have a name for it at all. But if anything could differ only a little, the name of friendship would already have passed away. That is far off the mark. Surely we will have no lack of delight as we inquire into one topic after another. It so happens that [text missing] the mother of all good things, wisdom (from the love of which philosophy found its name in a Greek word). But since our entire speech is for the people’s business, sometimes it will be necessary to speak popularly and to call that a law which, when written, consecrates what it wants by either ordering [or forbidding], as the crowd calls it. [27] For the expressive eyes say beyond measure how we have been affected in the mind; and what is called the countenance, which can exist in no animate being besides the human being, indicates character. Now if you do not approve this, I must begin my case from there before anything else. Those who are corrupted by her flatteries do not sufficiently notice what things are good by nature, because they lack this sweetness and itch. Q: Truly well done, brother, and so it ought to happen. 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