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the highest reason, inherent in nature, which enjoins what ought to be done and forbids theopposite. When reason is fully formed and completed in the human mind, it, too, is law. Sothey think that law, whose function is to enjoin right action and to forbid wrong-doing, iswisdom…the origin of justice must be derived from law. For law is a force of nature, theintelligence and reason of a wise man, and the criteria of justice and injustice. (I 19-20)Cicero concedes that in their discussion the participants will also have to speak of the law in morecommon terms, as a written code used to control civil matters by enjoining or forbidding certainactions; what the man in the street understands by ‘law’. ‘But’, Cicero continues, ‘in establishing whatjustice is, let us take as our point of departure that highest law which came into being countlesscenturies before any law was written down or any state was even founded’ (I 19). And he is concernedto ‘look to nature for the origins of justice. She must be our constant guide as this discussion unfolds’(I 20). He then asserts that ‘the whole of nature is ruled by the immortal gods, with their force,impetus, plan, power, sway (or whatever other word may express my reason more plainly)’ (I 21), and‘man’ occupies the highest position among created things on account of his reason:The creature of foresight, wisdom, variety, keenness, memory, endowed with reason andjudgement, which we call man, was created by the supreme god to enjoy a remarkable status.Of all the types and species of living creatures he is the only one that participates in reasonand reflection, whereas none of the others do. What is there, I will not say in man, but in thewhole of heaven and earth, more divine than reason (a faculty which, when it has developedand become complete, is rightly called wisdom). (I 22)Cicero’s references to ‘the highest reason, inherent in nature’ that, when ‘fully formed andcompleted in the human mind’ is also ‘law’ (I 19), and to the fact that humans have the capacity toparticipate in reason, and to develop their understanding through the pursuit of virtue to become wise,is highly suggestive of Wordsworth’s understanding of Imagination in The Prelude as:…but another name for absolute strengthAnd clearest insight, amplitude of mind,And Reason in her most exalted mood. (XIII 168-170)And in the lines immediately following this blending of terms, Wordsworth relates ‘we have tracedthe stream / From darkness, and the very place of birth’ - just as Quintus, in De Legibus, had statedthat in the search for the origins of justice, their debate would be concerned with ‘tracing the object ofour search back to its source’ (I 8).Cicero proceeds to set out the ‘first principles’ of his discussion for a further four pages, inwhich he defines a number of key assertions of the Stoic school of philosophy, using their method ofsyllogistic argument:Since, then, there is nothing better than reason, and reason is present in both man and God,there is a primordial partnership in reason between man and God. But those who share reasonalso share right reason: and since that is law, we men must also be thought of as partners withthe gods in law. Furthermore, those who share law share justice. Now those who share allthese things must be regarded as belonging to the same state; and much the more so if they202