 Scipio, even though he will take the lead role in the discussion of political theory, fulsomely praises the more abstract kinds of study directed at the celestial realm (1.26–28); but he is persuaded by Laelius, another participant, that it is of greater importance now to address terrestrial issues, particularly regarding the best form of government (1.30–34). The debate that Cicero lays out about the investigation of the human versus the divine realm makes the case for the study of both as having value, and intriguingly leaves open the question of the relation between the two: Scipio speaks of how the Earth pales into insignificance beside the heavens, and asserts that there is a universal natural law that has authority over any civil law, so that what has ultimate moral weight is the decree of the wise person who understands the natural law, rather than that of the Roman people (1.27). Similar principles are laid down at 3.33, anticipating the fuller discussion in the Laws. These are pronouncements with a strongly Stoic flavour; and when another participant, Philus, speaks of the Stoic notion that gods and humans share the whole universe as their homeland, he suggests that for that reason cosmology might be relevant to politics in any case (1.19).