Moreover, the reasoning soul penetrates the whole Cosmos as well as the surrounding void, learning its shape, extending itself into the infinity of the ages, embracing and understanding the cyclic rebirth of the universe. It perceives that those who come after us will see nothing new and that those who came before did not see anything more; but that, in a sense, the man of forty, if he has any real understanding at all, has seen all that has happened and all that will happen within the pattern that shapes all things.
