A Pagan's Faith in Immortality
Illustration★★★When I consider the wonderful activity of the mind, so great a memory of what is past, and such a capacity of penetrating into the future; when I behold such a number of arts and sciences, and such a multitude of discoveries thence arising: I believe and am firmly persuaded that a nature which contains so many things within itself cannot be mortal . . . . But if I err in believing that the souls of men are immortal, I willingly err; nor while I live would I wish to have this delightful error extorted from me; and if after death I shall feel nothing, as some minute philosophers think, I am not afraid lest dead philosophers should laugh at me for the error.
— CicERO
Cicero.
The point
Cicero argues from the mind's remarkable powers of memory and foresight that the human soul must be immortal, and says he would rather hold this 'delightful error,' if error it be, than have it taken from him.