"Philosophy, guide of life, explorer of virtue and expeller of vice, without you, what could have become not only of me but of the life of man altogether?  You have given birth to cities, you have scattered human beings into the bonds of social life....You have been the teacher of morality and order. To you I fly for refuge, from you I look for aid, to you I entrust myself, as once in large measure, so now wholly and entirely.  Moreover, one day spent according to your precepts is to be preferred to an eternity of error.  Whose help should we use rather than yours, you who have freely granted us quietude of life and have destroyed the terror of death."