Note 117 — Chapter III

Pharsalia, ix. 570. We have not been able to refrain from quoting these—as other—well-known verses in the text. They are the highest expression of the Stoic Pantheism. “Virtus” has the appearance of a rhetorical climax; but has it been noticed that the great modern poet of Pantheism—for what else was Wordsworth?—also makes humanity the highest embodiment of that “presence ... Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, And the round ocean and the living air, And the blue sky, and in the mind of man?”