Let us grasp the idea that there are two commonwealths — the one, a vast and truly common state, which embraces alike gods and men, in which we look neither to this corner of earth nor to that, but measure, the bounds of our citizenship by the path of the sun; the other, the one to which we have been assigned by the accident of birth. This will be the commonwealth of the Athenians or of the Carthaginians, or of any other city that belongs, not to all, but to some particular race of men. Some yield service to both commonwealths at the same time to the greater and to the lesser — some only to the lesser, some only to the greater. This greater commonwealth we are able to serve even in leisure — nay, I am inclined to think, even better in leisure — so that we may inquire what virtue is, and whether it is one or many; whether it is nature or art that makes men good; whether this world, which embraces seas and lands and the things that are contained in the sea and land, is a solitary creation9 or whether God has strewn about many systems10 of the same sort; whether all the matter from which everything is formed is continuous and compact,11 or whether it is disjunctive and a void is intermingled with the solid; what God is — whether he idly gazes upon his handiwork, or directs it; whether he encompasses it without, or pervades the whole of it; whether the world is eternal, or is to be counted among the things that perish and are born only for a time. And what service does he who ponders these things render unto God? He keeps the mighty works of God from being without a witness!