8. What is its especial seat, since it appears to be in a certain
sense diffused over the whole body?

9. Concerning the form and composition of the body itself.

10. Sufficient signs by which we may discern what properties the souls
of sinners possess.

11. Similar signs by which we may distinguish the souls of righteous
men, since we cannot see them with our bodily eyes.

12. Concerning the Soul's state after death, and how it will be
affected by the general resurrection.

The treatise ends with a prayer to Christ to preserve the body in good
health, that it may be in tune with the harmony of the soul; to give
reason the ascendancy over the flesh; and to keep the mind in happy
equipoise, neither so strong as to be puffed up with pride, nor so
languid as to fail of its proper powers.

[Sidenote: Cassiodorus retires to the cloister.]

The line of thought indicated by the 'De Animâ' led, in such a country
as Italy, at such a time as the Gothic War, to one inevitable end--the
cloister. It can have surprised none of the friends of Cassiodorus
when the veteran statesman announced his intention of spending the
remainder of his days in monastic retirement. He was now sixty years
of age[73]; his wife, if he had ever married, was probably by this
time dead; and we hear nothing of any children for whose sake he need
have remained longer in the world. The Emperor would probably have