_De Naturâ Deorum_.—Of the various philosophical works of Cicero, the most curious perhaps, and important, is that on the Nature of the Gods. It is addressed to Brutus, and is written in dialogue. This form of composition, besides the advantages already pointed out, is peculiarly fitted for subjects of delicacy and danger, where the author dreads to expose himself to reproach or persecution. On this account chiefly it seems to have been adopted by the disciples of Socrates. That philosopher had fallen a victim to popular fury,—to those imputations of impiety which have so often and so successfully been repeated against philosophers. In the schools of his disciples, a double doctrine seems to have been adopted for the purpose of escaping persecution, and Plato probably considered the form of dialogue as best calculated to secure him from the imputations of his enemies. It was thus, in later times, that Galileo endeavoured to shield himself from the attacks of error and injustice, and imagined, that by presenting his conclusions in the Platonic manner, he would shun the malignant vigilance of the Court of Inquisition(433). In the dialogue _De Naturâ Deorum_, the author presents the doctrines of three of the most distinguished sects among the ancients—the Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Academics—on the important subject of the Nature of the Divine Essence, and of Providence. He introduces three illustrious persons of his country, each elucidating the tenets of the sect that he preferred, and contending for them, doubtless, with the chief arguments which the learning or talents of the author himself could supply. Cicero represents himself as having gone to the house of C. Cotta the Pontifex Maximus, whom he found sitting in his study with C. Velleius, a Senator, who professed the principles of Epicurus, and Q. Lucilius Balbus, a supporter of the doctrines of the Stoics.—“As soon as Cotta saw me, ‘You are come,’ says he, ‘very seasonably, for I have a dispute with Velleius upon an important subject, in which, considering the nature of your studies, it is not improper for you to join.’—‘Indeed,’ said I, ‘I am come very seasonably, as you say, for here are three chiefs of the three principal sects met together.’ ” Cotta himself is a new Academic, and he proceeds to inform Cicero that they were discoursing on the nature of the gods, a topic which had always appeared to him very obscure, and that therefore he had prevailed on Velleius to state the sentiments of Epicurus upon the subject. Velleius is requested to go on with his arguments; and after recapitulating what he had already said, “with the confidence peculiar to his sect, dreading nothing so much as to seem to doubt about anything, he began, as if he had just then descended from the council of the gods(434).”