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| Chapter LXVIII
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Chapter
LXVIII.
Celsus, however, says that it is only “the
course of mortal things which, according to the appointed
cycles, must always be the same in the past, present, and
future;” whereas the majority of the Stoics maintain that this is
the case not only with the course of mortal, but also with that of
immortal things, and of those whom they regard as gods. For after
the conflagration of the world,3971
which has
taken place countless times in the past, and will happen countless
times in the future, there has been, and will be, the same arrangement
of all things from the beginning to the end. The Stoics, indeed,
in endeavouring to parry, I don’t know how, the objections raised
to their views, allege that as cycle after cycle returns, all men will
be altogether unchanged3972
from those who
lived in former cycles; so that Socrates will not live again, but one
altogether like to Socrates, who will marry a wife exactly like
Xanthippe, and will be accused by men exactly like Anytus and
Melitus. I do not understand, however, how the world is to be
always the same, and one individual not different from another, and yet
the things in it not the same, though exactly alike. But the main
argument in answer to the statements of Celsus and of the Stoics will be more appropriately
investigated elsewhere, since on the present occasion it is not
consistent with the purpose we have in view to expatiate on these
points.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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