The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations, of M.T. Cicero, With a Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by Cicero
by Marcus Tullius Cicero · English · Gutenberg #29247 · 1,212,055 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: The Academic Questions, Treatise De Finibus, and Tusculan Disputations, of M.T. Cicero, With a Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by Cicero
Author: Marcus Tullius Cicero
Translator: Charles Duke Yonge
Release date: June 26, 2009 [eBook #29247]
Most recently updated: June 20, 2020
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/29247
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ACADEMIC QUESTIONS, TREATISE DE FINIBUS, AND TUSCULAN DISPUTATIONS, OF M.T. CICERO, WITH A SKETCH OF THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS MENTIONED BY CICERO ***
The Academic Questions,
Treatise De Finibus.
and
Tusculan Disputations
Of
M. T. Cicero
With
A Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by Cicero.
Literally Translated by
C. D. Yonge, B.A.
London: George Bell and Sons
York Street
Covent Garden
Printed by William Clowes and Sons,
Stamford Street and Charing Cross.
1875
CONTENTS
A Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by Cicero.
Introduction.
First Book Of The Academic Questions.
Second Book Of The Academic Questions.
A Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
First Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
Second Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
Third Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
Fourth Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
Fifth Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
The Tusculan Disputations.
Introduction.
Book I. On The Contempt Of Death.
Book II. On Bearing Pain.
Book III. On Grief Of Mind.
Book IV. On Other Perturbations Of The Mind.
Book V. Whether Virtue Alone Be Sufficient For A Happy Life.
Footnotes
A SKETCH OF THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS MENTIONED BY CICERO.
In the works translated in the present volume, Cicero makes such constant
references to the doctrines and systems of the ancient Greek Philosophers,
that it seems desirable to give a brief account of the most remarkable of
those mentioned by him; not entering at length into the history of their
lives, but indicating the principal theories which they maintained, and
the main points in which they agreed with, or differed from, each other.
The earliest of them was _Thales_, who was born at Miletus, about 640 B.C.
He was a man of great political sagacity and influence; but we have to
consider him here as the earliest philosopher who appears to have been
convinced of the necessity of scientific proof of whatever was put forward
to be believed, and as the originator of mathematics and geometry. He was
also a great astronomer; for we read in Herodotus (i. 74) that he
predicted the eclipse of the sun which happened in the reign of Alyattes,
king of Lydia, B.C. 609. He asserted that water is the origin of all
things; that everything is produced out of it, and everything is resolved
into it. He also asserted that it is the soul which originates all motion,
so much so, that he attributes a soul to the magnet. Aristotle also
represents him as saying that everything is full of Gods. He does not
appear to have left any written treatises behind him: we are uncertain
when or where he died, but he is said to have lived to a great age—to 78,
or, according to some writers, to 90 years of age.
_Anaximander_, a countryman of Thales, was also born at Miletus, about 30
years later; he is said to have been a pupil of the former, and deserves
especial mention as the oldest philosophical writer among the Greeks. He
did not devote himself to the mathematical studies of Thales, but rather
to speculations concerning the generation and origin of the world; as to
which his opinions are involved in some obscurity. He appears, however, to
have considered that all things were formed of a sort of matter, which he
called τὸ ἄπειρον, or The Infinite; which was something everlasting and
divine, though not invested with any spiritual or intelligent nature. His
own works have not come down to us; but, according to Aristotle, he
considered this “Infinite” as consisting of a mixture of simple,
unchangeable elements, from which all things were produced by the
concurrence of homogeneous particles already existing in it,—a process
which he attributed to the constant conflict between heat and cold, and to
affinities of the particles: in this he was opposed to the doctrine of
Thales, Anaximenes, and Diogenes of Apollonia, who agreed in deriving all
things from a single, not _changeable_, principle.
Anaximander further held that the earth was of a cylindrical form,
suspended in the middle of the universe, and surrounded by water, air, and
fire, like the coats of an onion; but that the interior stratum of fire
was broken up and collected into masses, from which originated the sun,
moon, and stars; which he thought were carried round by the three spheres
in which they were respectively fixed. He believed that the moon had a
light of her own, not a borrowed light; that she was nineteen times as
large as the earth, and the sun twenty-eight. He thought that all animals,
including man, were originally produced in water, and proceeded gradually
to become land animals. According to Diogenes Laertius, he was the
inventor of the gnomon, and of geographical maps; at all events, he was
the first person who introduced the use of the gnomon into Greece. He died
about 547 B.C.
_Anaximenes_ was also a Milesian, and a contemporary of Thales and
Anaximander. We do not exactly know when he was born, or when he died; but
he must have lived to a very great age, for he was in high repute as early
as B.C. 544, and he was the tutor of Anaxagoras, B.C. 480. His theory was,
that air was the first cause of all things, and that the other elements of
the universe were resolvable into it. From this infinite air, he imagined
that all finite things were formed by compression and rarefaction,
produced by motion, which had existed from all eternity; so that the earth
was generated out of condensed air, and the sun and other heavenly bodies
from the earth. He thought also that heat and cold were produced by
different degrees of density of this primal element, air; that the clouds
were formed by the condensing of the air; and that it was the air which
supported the earth, and kept it in its place. Even the human soul he
believed to be, like the body, formed of air. He believed in the eternity
of matter, and denied the existence of anything immaterial.
_Anaxagoras_, who, as has been already stated, was a pupil of Anaximenes,
was born at Clazomenæ, in Ionia, about B.C. 499. He removed to Athens at
the time of the Persian war, where he became intimate with Pericles, who
defended him, though unsuccessfully, when he was prosecuted for impiety:
he was fined five talents, and banished from the city; on which he retired
to Lampsacus, where he died at the age of 72. He differed from his
predecessors of the Ionic School, and sought for a higher cause of all
things than matter: this cause he considered to be νοῦς, _intelligence_,
or _mind_. Not that he thought this νοῦς to be the creator of the world,
but only that principle which arranged it, and gave it motion; for his
idea was, that matter had existed from all eternity, but that, before the
νοῦς arranged it, it was all in a state of chaotic confusion, and full of
an infinite number of homogeneous and heterogeneous parts; then the νοῦς
separated the homogeneous parts from the heterogeneous, and in this manner
the world was produced. This separation, however, he taught, was made in
such a manner that everything contains in itself parts of other things, or
heterogeneous elements; and is what it is only on account of certain
homogeneous parts which constitute its predominant and real character.
_Pythagoras_ was earlier than Anaxagoras, though this latter has been
mentioned before him to avoid breaking the continuity of the Ionic School.
His father’s name was Mnesarchus, and he was born at Samos about 570 B.C.,
though some accounts make him earlier. He is said by some writers to have
been a pupil of Thales, by others of Anaximander, or of Pherecydes of
Scyros. He was a man of great learning, as a geometrician, mathematician,
astronomer, and musician; a great traveller, having visited Egypt and
Babylon, and, according to some accounts, penetrated as far as India.
Many of his peculiar tenets are believed to have been derived from the
Tyrrhenian Pelasgians, with whom he is said to have been connected. His
contemporaries at Crotona in South Italy, where he lived, looked upon him
as a man peculiarly connected with the gods; and some of them even
identified him with the Hyperborean Apollo. He himself is said to have
laid claim to the gifts of divination and prophecy. The religious element
was clearly predominant in his character. Grote says of him, “In his
prominent vocation, analogous to that of Epimenides, Orpheus, or Melampus,
he appears as the revealer of a mode of life calculated to raise his
disciples above the level of mankind, and to recommend them to the favour
of the gods.” (Hist. of Greece, iv. p. 529.)
On his arrival at Crotona, he formed a school, consisting at first of
three hundred of the richest of the citizens, who bound themselves by a
sort of vow to himself and to each other, for the purpose of cultivating
the ascetic observances which he enjoined, and of studying his religious
and philosophical theories. All that took place in this school was kept a
profound secret; and there were gradations among the pupils themselves,
who were not all admitted, or at all events not at first, to a full
acquaintance with their master’s doctrines. They were also required to
submit to a period of probation. The statement of his forbidding his
pupils the use of animal food is denied by many of the best authorities,
and that of his insisting on their maintaining an unbroken silence for
five years, rests on no sufficient authority, and is incredible. It is
beyond our purpose at present to enter into the question of how far the
views of Pythagoras in founding his school or club of three hundred,
tended towards uniting in this body the idea of “at once a philosophical
school, a religious brotherhood, and a political association,” all which
characters the Bishop of St. David’s (Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. p. 148)
thinks were inseparably united in his mind; while Mr. Grote’s view of his
object (Hist. of Greece, vol. iv. p. 544) is very different. In a
political riot at Crotona, a temple, in which many of his disciples were
assembled, was burnt, and they perished, and some say that Pythagoras
himself was among them; though according to other accounts he fled to
Tarentum, and afterwards to Metapontum, where he starved himself to death.
His tomb (see Cic. de Fin. v. 2) was shown at Metapontum down to Cicero’s
time. Soon after his death his school was suppressed, and did not revive,
though the Pythagoreans continued to exist as a sect, the members of which
kept up the religious and scientific pursuits of their founder.
Pythagoras is said to have been the first who assumed the title of
φιλόσοφος; but there is great uncertainty as to the most material of his
philosophical and religious opinions. It is believed that he wrote nothing
himself, and that the earliest Pythagorean treatises were the work of
Philolaus, a contemporary of Socrates. It appears, however, that he
undertook to solve by reference to one single primary principle the
problem of the origin and constitution of the universe. His predilection
for mathematics led him to trace the origin of all things to _number_; for
“in _numbers_ he thought that they perceived many analogies of things that
exist and are produced, more than in fire, earth, or water: as, for
instance, they thought that a certain condition of numbers was justice;
another, soul and intellect, ... And moreover, seeing the conditions and
ratios of what pertains to harmony to consist in numbers, since other
things seemed in their entire nature to be formed in the likeness of
numbers, and in all nature numbers are the first, they supposed the
elements of numbers to be the elements of all things.” (Arist. Met. i. 5.)
Music and harmony too, played almost as important a part in the
Pythagorean system as mathematics, or numbers. His idea appears to be,
that order or harmony of relation is the regulating principle of the whole
universe. He drew out a list of ten pairs of antagonistic elements, and in
the octave and its different harmonic relations, he believed that he found
the ground of the connexion between them. In his system of the universe
_fire_ was the important element, occupying both the centre and the
remotest point of it; and being the vivifying principle of the whole.
Round the central fire the heavenly bodies he believed to move in a
regular circle; furthest off were the fixed stars; and then, in order, the
planets, the moon, the sun, the earth, and what he called ἀντίχθων, a sort
of other half of the earth, which was a distinct body from it, but moving
parallel to it.
The most distant region he called Olympus; the space between the fixed
stars and the moon he called κόσμος; the space between the moon and the
earth οὐρανός. He, or at least his disciples, taught that the earth
revolved on its axis, (though Philolaus taught that its revolutions were
not round its axis but round the central fire). The universe itself they
considered as a large sphere, and the intervals between the heavenly
bodies they thought were determined according to the laws and relations of
musical harmony. And from this theory arose the doctrine of the Music of
the Spheres; as the heavenly bodies in their motion occasioned a sort of
sound depending on their distances and velocities; and as these were
determined by the laws of harmonic intervals, the sounds, or notes, formed
a regular musical scale.
The light and heat of the central fire he believed that we received
through the sun, which he considered a kind of lens: and perfection, he
conceived to exist in direct ratio to the distance from the central fire.
The universe, itself, they looked upon as having subsisted from all
eternity, controlled by an eternal supreme Deity; who established both
limits and infinity; and whom they often speak of as the absolute μονὰς,
or unity. He pervaded (though he was distinct from) and presided over the
universe. Sometimes, too, he is called the absolute _Good_,—while the
origin of evil is attributed not to him, but to matter which prevented him
from conducting everything to the best end.
With respect to man, the doctrine of Pythagoras was that known by the name
of the Metempsychosis,—that the soul after death rested a certain time
till it was purified, and had acquired a forgetfulness of what had
previously happened to it; and then reanimated some other body. The ethics
of the Pythagoreans consisted more in ascetic practice and maxims for the
restraint of the passions, than in any scientific theories. Wisdom they
considered as superior to virtue, as being connected with the
contemplation of the upper and purer regions, while virtue was conversant
only with the sublunary part of the world. Happiness, they thought,
consisted in the science of the perfection of the soul; or in the perfect
science of numbers; and the main object of all the endeavours of man was
to be, to resemble the Deity as far as possible.
_Alcmæon_ of Crotona was a pupil of Pythagoras; but that is all that is
known of his history. He was a great natural philosopher; and is said to
have been the first who introduced the practice of dissection. He is said,
also, to have been the first who wrote on natural philosophy. Aristotle,
however, distinguishes between the principles of Alcmæon and Pythagoras,
though without explaining in what the difference consisted. He asserted
the immortality of the soul, and said that it partook of the divine
nature, because, like the heavenly bodies themselves, it contained in
itself the principle of motion.
_Xenophanes_, the founder of the Eleatic school, was a native of Colophon;
and flourished probably about the time of Pisistratus. Being banished from
his own country, he fled to the Ionian colonies in Sicily, and at last
settled in Elea, or Velia. His writings were chiefly poetical. He was
universally regarded by the ancients as the originator of the doctrine of
the oneness of the universe: he also maintained, it is said, the unity of
the Deity; and also his immortality and eternity; denounced the
transference of him into human form; and reproached Homer and Hesiod for
attributing to him human weaknesses. He represented him as endowed with
unwearied activity, and as the animating power of the universe.
_Heraclitus_ was an Ephesian, and is said to have been a pupil of
Xenophanes, though this statement is much doubted; others call him a pupil
of Hippasus the Pythagorean. He wrote a treatise on Nature; declaring that
the principle of all things was fire, from which he saw the world was
evolved by a natural operation; he further said that this fire was the
human life and soul, and therefore a rational intelligence guiding the
whole universe. In this primary fire he considered that there was a
perpetual longing to manifest itself in different forms: in its perfectly
pure state it is in heaven; but in order to gratify this longing it
descends, gradually losing the rapidity of its motion till it settles in
the earth. The earth, however, is not immovable, but only the slowest of
all moving bodies; while the soul of man, though dwelling in the lowest of
all regions, namely, in the earth, he considered a migrated portion of
fire in its pure state; which, in spite of its descent, had lost none of
its original purity. The _summum bonum_ he considered to be a contented
acquiescence in the decrees of the Deity. None of his writings are extant;
and he does not appear to have had many followers.
_Diogenes_ of Apollonia, (who must not be confounded with his Stoic or
Cynic namesake,) was a pupil of Anaximenes, and wrote a treatise on
Nature, of which Diogenes Laertius gives the following account: “He
maintained that air was the primary element of all things; that there was
an infinite number of worlds and an infinite vacuum; that air condensed
and rarefied produced the different members of the universe; that nothing
was generated from nothing, or resolved into nothing; that the earth was
round, supported in the centre, having received its shape from the
whirling round it of warm vapours, and its concrete nature and hardness
from cold.” He also imputed to air an intellectual energy, though he did
not recognise any difference between mind and matter.
_Parmenides_ was a native of Elea or Velia, and flourished about 460 B.C.,
soon after which time he came to Athens, and became acquainted with
Socrates, who was then very young. Theophrastus and Aristotle speak
doubtfully of his having been a pupil of Xenophanes. Some authors,
however, reckon him as one of the Pythagorean school; Plato and Aristotle
speak of him as the greatest of the Eleatics; and it is said that his
fellow-countrymen bound their magistrates every year to abide by the laws
which he had laid down. He, like Xenophanes, explained his philosophical
tenets in a didactic poem, in which he speaks of two primary forms, one
the fine uniform etherial fire of flame (φλόγος πῦρ), the other the cold
body of night, out of the intermingling of which everything in the world
is formed by the Deity who reigns in the midst. His cosmogony was carried
into minute detail, of which we possess only a few obscure fragments; he
somewhat resembled the Pythagoreans in believing in a spherical system of
the world, surrounded by a circle of pure light; in the centre of which
was the earth; and between the earth and the light was the circle of the
Milky Way, of the morning and evening star, of the sun, the planets, and
the moon. And the differences in perfection of organization, he attributed
to the different proportions in which the primary principles were
intermingled. The ultimate principle of the world was, in his view,
necessity, in which Empedocles appears to have followed him; he seems to
have been the only philosopher who recognised with distinctness and
precision that the Existent, τὸ ὄν, as such, is unconnected with all
separation or juxtaposition, as well as with all succession, all relation
to space or time, all coming into existence, and all change. It is,
however, a mistake to suppose that he recognised it as a Deity.
_Democritus_ was born at Abdera, B.C. 460. His father Hegesistratus had
been so rich as to be able to entertain Xerxes, when on his march against
Greece. He spent his inheritance in travelling into distant countries,
visiting the greater part of Asia, and, according to some authors,
extending his travels as far as India and Æthiopia. Egypt he certainly was
acquainted with. He lived to beyond the age of 100 years, and is said to
have died B.C. 357.
He was a man of vast and varied learning, and a most voluminous author,
though none of his works have come down to us;—in them he carried out the
theory of atoms which he had derived from Leucippus; insisting on the
reality of a vacuum and of motion, which he held was the eternal and
necessary consequence of the original variety of atoms in this vacuum.
These atoms, according to this theory, being in constant motion and
impenetrable, offer resistance to one another, and so create a whirling
motion which gives birth to worlds. Moreover, from this arise combinations
of distinct atoms which become real things and beings. The first cause of
all existence he called _chance_ (τύχη), in opposition to the νοῦς of
Anaxagoras. But Democritus went further; for he directed his
investigations especially to the discovery of causes.
Besides the infinite number of atoms, he likewise supposed the existence
of an infinite number of worlds, each being kept together by a sort of
shell or skin. He derived the four elements from the form, quality, and
proportionate magnitude of the atoms predominating in each; and in
deriving individual things from atoms, he mainly considered the qualities
of warm and cold; the soul he considered as derived from fire atoms; and
he did not consider mind as anything peculiar, or as a power distinct from
the soul or sensuous perception; but he considered knowledge derived from
reason to be a sensuous perception.
In his ethical philosophy, he considered (as we may see from the _de
Finibus_) the acquisition of peace of mind as the end and ultimate object
of all our actions, and as the last and best fruit of philosophical
inquiry. Temperance and moderation in prosperity and adversity were, in
his eyes, the principal means of acquiring this peace of mind. And he
called those men alone pious and beloved by the Gods who hate whatever is
wrong.
_Empedocles_ was a Sicilian, who flourished about the time when
Thrasydæus, the son of Theron, was expelled from Agrigentum, to the
tyranny of which he had succeeded; in which revolution he took an active
part: it is even said that the sovereignty of his native city was offered
to and declined by him.
He was a man of great genius and extensive learning; it is not known whose
pupil he was, nor are any of his disciples mentioned except Gorgias. He
was well versed in the tenets of the Eleatic and Pythagorean schools; but
he did not adopt the fundamental principles of either; though he agreed
with Pythagoras in his belief in the metempsychosis, in the influence of
numbers, and in one or two other points; and with the Eleatics in
disbelieving that anything could be generated out of nothing. Aristotle
speaks of him as very much resembling in his opinions Democritus and
Anaxagoras. He was the first who established the number of four elements,
which had been previously pointed out one by one, partly as fundamental
substances, and partly as transitive changes of things coming into
existence. He first suggested the idea of two opposite directions of the
moving power, an attractive and a repelling one: and he believed that
originally these two coexisted in a state of repose and inactivity. He
also assumed a periodical change of the formation of the world; or
perhaps, like the philosophers of the pure Ionic school, a perpetual
continuance of pure fundamental substances; to which the parts of the
world that are tired of change return, and prepare the formation of the
sphere for the next period of the world. Like the Eleatics, he strove to
purify the notion of the Deity, saying that he, “being a holy infinite
spirit, not encumbered with limbs, passes through the world with rapid
thoughts.” At the same time he speaks of the eternal power of Necessity as
an ancient decree of the Gods, though it is not quite clear what he
understood by this term.
_Diagoras_ was a native of Melos, and a pupil of Democritus, and
flourished about B.C. 435. He is remarkable as having been regarded by all
antiquity as an Atheist. In his youth he had some reputation as a lyric
poet; so that he is sometimes classed with Pindar, Simonides, and
Bacchylides. Aristophanes, in the Clouds, alludes to him where he calls
Socrates “the Melian;” not that he was so, but he means to hint that
Socrates was an atheist as well as the Melian Diagoras. He lived at Athens
for many years till B.C. 411, when he fled from a prosecution instituted
against him for impiety, according to Diodorus, but probably for some
offence of a political nature; perhaps connected with the mutilation of
the Hermæ.
That he was an atheist, however, appears to have been quite untrue. Like
Socrates, he took new and peculiar views respecting the Gods and their
worship; and seems to have ridiculed the honours paid to their statues,
and the common notions which were entertained of their actions and
conduct. (See De Nat. Deor. iii. 37.) He is said also to have attacked
objects held in the greatest veneration at Athens, such as the Eleusinian
Mysteries, and to have dissuaded people from being initiated into them. He
appears also, in his theories on the divine nature, to have substituted in
some degree the active powers of nature for the activity of the Gods. In
his own conduct he was a man of strict morality and virtue. He died at
Corinth before the end of the century.
_Protagoras_ was a native of Abdera; the exact time of his birth is
unknown, but he was a little older than Socrates. He was the first person
who gave himself the title of σοφιστὴς, and taught for pay. He came to
Athens early in life, and gave to the settlers who left it for Thurium,
B.C. 445, a code of laws, or perhaps adapted the old laws of Charondas to
their use. He was a friend of Pericles. After some time he was impeached
for impiety in saying, That respecting the Gods he did not know whether
they existed or not; and banished from Athens (see De Nat. Deor. i. 23).
He was a very prolific author: his most peculiar doctrines excited Plato
to write the Theætetus to oppose them.
His fundamental principle was, that everything is motion, and that that is
the efficient cause of everything; that nothing _exists_, but that
everything is continually _coming into existence_. He divided motion
(besides numerous subordinate divisions) into active and passive; though
he did not consider either of these characteristics as permanent. From the
concurrence of two such motions he taught that sensations and perceptions
arose, according to the rapidity of the motion. Therefore he said that
there is or exists for each individual, only that of which he has a
sensation or perception; and that as sensation, like its objects, is
engaged in a perpetual change of motion, opposite assertions might exist
according to the difference of the perception respecting such object.
Moral worth he attributed to taking pleasure in the beautiful; and virtue
he referred to a certain sense of shame implanted in man by nature; and to
a certain conscious feeling of justice, which secures the bonds of
connexion in private and political life.
_Socrates_, the son of Sophroniscus, a statuary, and Phænarete, a midwife,
was born B.C. 468. He lived all his life at Athens, serving indeed as a
soldier at Potidæa, Amphipolis, and in the battle of Delium; but with
these exceptions he never left the city; where he lived as a teacher of
philosophy; not, however, founding a school or giving lectures, but
frequenting the market-place and all other places of public resort,
talking with every one who chose to address him, and putting questions to
every one of every rank and profession, so that Grote calls him “a public
talker for instruction.” He believed himself to have a special religious
mission from the Gods to bring his countrymen to knowledge and virtue. He
was at last impeached before the legal tribunals, on the ground of
“corrupting the youth of the city, and not worshipping the Gods whom the
city worshipped;” and disdaining to defend himself, or rather making a
justificatory defence of such a character as to exasperate the judges, he
was condemned to death, and executed by having hemlock administered to
him, B.C. 399.
From his disciples Plato and Xenophon we have a very full account of his
habits and doctrines; though it has been much disputed which of the two is
to be considered as giving the most accurate description of his opinions.
As a young man he had been to a certain extent a pupil of Archelaus (the
disciple of Anaxagoras), and derived his fondness for the dialectic style
of argument from Zeno the Eleatic, the favourite Pupil of Parmenides. He
differed, however, from all preceding philosophers in discarding and
excluding wholly from his studies all the abstruse sciences, and limiting
his philosophy to those practical points which could have influence on
human conduct. “He himself was always conversing about the affairs of
men,” is the description given of him by Xenophon. Astronomy he pronounced
to be one of the divine mysteries which it was impossible to understand
and madness to investigate; all that man wanted was to know enough of the
heavenly bodies to serve as an index to the change of seasons and as
guides for voyages, etc.; and that knowledge might, he said, easily be
obtained from pilots and watchmen. Geometry he reduced to its literal
meaning of land-measuring, useful to enable one to act with judgment in
the purchase or sale of land; but he looked with great contempt on the
study of complicated diagrams and mathematical problems. As to general
natural philosophy, he wholly discarded it; asking whether those who
professed to apply themselves to that study knew _human_ affairs so well
as to have time to spare for _divine_; was it that they thought that they
could influence the winds, rain, and seasons, or did they desire nothing
but the gratification of an idle curiosity? Men should recollect how much
the wisest of them who have attempted to prosecute these investigations
differ from one another, and how totally opposite and contradictory their
opinions are.
Socrates, then, looked at all knowledge from the point of view of human
practice. He first, as Cicero says, (Tusc. Dis. v. 4,) “called philosophy
down from heaven and established it in the cities, introduced it even into
private houses, and compelled it to investigate life, and manners, and
what was good and evil among men.” He was the first man who turned his
thoughts and discussions distinctly to the subject of Ethics. Deeply
imbued with sincere religious feeling, and believing himself to be under
the peculiar guidance of the Gods, who at all times admonished him by a
divine warning voice when he was in danger of doing anything unwise,
inexpedient, or improper, he believed that the Gods constantly manifested
their love of and care for all men in the most essential manner, in
replying through oracles, and sending them information by sacrificial
signs or prodigies, in cases of great difficulty; and he had no doubt that
if a man were diligent in learning all that the Gods permitted to be
learnt, and if besides he was assiduous in paying pious court to them and
in soliciting special information by way of prophecy, they would be
gracious to him and signify their purposes to him.
Such then being the capacity of man for wisdom and virtue, his object was
to impart that wisdom to them; and the first step necessary, he considered
to be eradicating one great fault which was a barrier to all improvement.
This fault he described as “the conceit of knowledge without the reality.”
His friend and admirer Chærephon had consulted the oracle at Delphi as to
whether any man was wiser than Socrates; to which the priestess replied
that no other man was wiser. Socrates affirms that he was greatly
disturbed at hearing this declaration from so infallible an authority;
till after conversing with politicians, and orators, and poets, and men of
all classes, he discovered not only that they were destitute of wisdom,
but that they believed themselves to be possessed of it; so that he was
wiser than they, though wholly ignorant, inasmuch as he was conscious of
his own ignorance. He therefore considered his most important duty to be
to convince men of their ignorance, and to excite them to remedy it, as
the indispensable preliminary to virtue; for virtue he defined as doing a
thing well, after having learnt it and practised it by the rational and
proper means; and whoever performed his duties best, whether he was a
ruler of a state or a husbandman, was the best and most useful man and the
most beloved by the Gods.
And if his objects were new, his method was no less so. He was the parent
of dialectics and logic. Aristotle says, “To Socrates we may
unquestionably assign two novelties—inductive discourses, and the
definitions of general terms.” Without any predecessor to copy, Socrates
fell as it were instinctively into that which Aristotle describes as the
double tract of the dialectic process, breaking up the one into the many,
and recombining the many into the one; though the latter or synthetical
process he did not often perform himself, but strove to stimulate his
hearer’s mind so as to enable him to do it for himself.
The fault of the Socratic theory is well remarked by Grote to be, that
while he resolved all virtue into knowledge or wisdom, and all vice into
ignorance or folly, he omitted to notice what is not less essential to
virtue, the proper condition of the passions, desires, &c., and limited
his views too exclusively to the intellect; still while laying down a
theory which is too narrow, he escaped the erroneous consequences of it by
a partial inconsistency. For no one ever insisted more emphatically on the
necessity of control over the passions and appetites, of enforcing good
habits, and on the value of that state of the sentiments and emotions
which such a course tended to form. He constantly pointed out that the
chief pleasures were such as inevitably arise from the performance of
one’s duty, and that as to happiness, a very moderate degree of good
fortune is sufficient as to external things, provided the internal man be
properly disciplined.
Grote remarks further, (and this remark is particularly worth remembering
in the reading of Cicero’s philosophical works,) that “Arcesilaus and the
New Academy thought that they were following the example of Socrates, (and
Cicero appears to have thought so too,) when they reasoned against
everything, and laid it down as a system, that against every affirmative
position an equal force of negative argument could be brought as a
counterpoise: now this view of Socrates is, in my judgment, not only
partial, but incorrect. He entertained no such doubts of the powers of the
mind to attain certainty. About physics he thought man could know nothing;
but respecting the topics which concern man and society, this was the
field which the Gods had expressly assigned, not merely to human practice,
but to human study and knowledge; and he thought that every man, not only
might know these things, but ought to know them; that he could not
possibly act well unless he did know them; and that it was his imperative
duty to learn them as he would learn a profession, otherwise he was
nothing better than a slave, unfit to be trusted as a free and accountable
being. He was possessed by the truly Baconian idea, that the power of
steady moral action depended upon, and was limited by, the rational
comprehension of moral ends and means.”
The system, then, of Socrates was animated by the truest spirit of
positive science, and formed an indispensable precursor to its attainment.
And we may form some estimate of his worth and genius if we recollect,
that while the systems and speculations of other ancient philosophers
serve only as curiosities to make us wonder, or as beacons to warn us into
what absurdities the ablest men may fall, the principles and the system of
Socrates and his followers, and of that school alone, exercise to this day
an important influence on all human argument and speculation.
_Aristippus_ (whom we will consider before Plato, that Aristotle may
follow Plato more immediately) came when a young man to Athens, for the
express purpose of becoming acquainted with Socrates, with whom he
remained almost till his death. He was, however, very different from his
master, being a person of most luxurious and sensual habits. He was also
the first of Socrates’ disciples who took money for teaching. He was the
founder of the Cyrenaic school of philosophy, which followed Socrates in
limiting all philosophical inquiries to ethics; though under this name
they comprehended a more varied range of subjects than Socrates did,
inasmuch as one of the parts into which they divided philosophy, referred
to the feelings; another to causes, which is rather a branch of physics;
and a third to proofs, which is clearly connected with logic.
He pronounced pleasure to be the chief good, and pain the chief evil; but
he denied that either of these was a mere negative inactive state,
considering them, on the contrary, both to be motions of the soul,—pain a
violent, and pleasure a moderate one.
As to actions, he asserted that they were all morally indifferent, that
men should only look to their results, and that law and custom are the
only authorities which make an action either good or bad. Whatever
conduces to pleasure, he thought virtue; in which he agreed with Socrates
that the mind has the principal share.
_Plato_, the greatest of all the disciples of Socrates, was the son of
Ariston and Perictione, and was born probably in the year B.C. 428, and
descended, on the side of his father, from Codrus, and on his mother’s
side related to Solon. At the age of twenty, he became a constant
attendant of Socrates, and lived at Athens till his death. After this
event, in consequence of the unpopularity of the very name of his master,
he retired to Megara, and subsequently to Sicily. He is said also to have
been at some part of his life, after the death of Socrates, a great
traveller. About twelve years after the death of Socrates he returned to
Athens, and began to teach in the Academy, partly by dialogue, and partly,
probably, by connected lectures. He taught gratuitously; and besides
Speusippus, Xenocrates, Aristotle, Heraclides Ponticus, and others, who
were devoted solely to philosophical studies, he is said to have
occasionally numbered Chabrias, Iphicrates, Timotheus, Phocion, Isocrates,
and (by some) Demosthenes among his hearers. He died at a great age, B.C.
347.
His works have come down to us in a more complete form than those of any
other ancient author who was equally voluminous; and from them we get a
clear idea of the principal doctrines which he inculcated on his
followers.
Like Socrates, he was penetrated with the idea, that knowledge and wisdom
were the things most necessary to man, and the greatest goods assigned to
him by God. Wisdom he looked on as the great purifier of the soul; and as
any approach to wisdom presupposes an original communion with _Being_,
properly so called, this communion also presupposes the divine nature, and
consequent immortality of the soul, his doctrine respecting which was of a
much purer and loftier character than the usual theology of the ancients.
Believing that the world also had a soul, he considered the human soul as
similar to it in nature, and free from all liability to death, in spite of
its being bound up with the appetites, in consequence of its connexion
with the body, and as preserving power and consciousness after its
separation from the body. What he believed, however, to be its condition
after death is far less certain, as his ideas on this subject are
expressed in a mythical form.
The chief point, however, to which Plato directed his attention, was
ethics, which, especially in his system, are closely connected with
politics. He devotes the Protagoras, and several shorter dialogues, to
refute the sensual and selfish theories of some of his predecessors, in
order to adopt a more scientific treatment of the subject; and in these
dialogues he urges that neither happiness nor virtue are attainable by the
indulgence of our desires, but that men must bring these into proper
restraint, if they are desirous of either. He supposes an inward harmony,
the preservation of which is pleasure, while its disturbance is pain; and
as pleasure is always dependent on the activity from which it springs, the
more this activity is elevated the purer the pleasure becomes.
Virtue he considered the fitness of the soul for the operations that are
proper to it; and it manifests itself by means of its inward harmony,
beauty, and health. Different phases of virtue are distinguishable so far
as the soul is not pure spirit, but just as the spirit should rule both
the other elements of the soul, so also should wisdom, as the inner
development of the spirit, rule the other virtues.
Politics he considered an inseparable part of ethics, and the state as the
copy of a well-regulated individual life: from the three different
activities of the soul he deduced the three main elements of the state,
likening the working class to the appetitive element of the soul, both of
which equally require to be kept under control; the military order, which
answered, in his idea, to the emotive element, ought to develop itself in
thorough dependence on the reason; and from that the governing order,
answering to the rational faculty, must proceed. The right of passing from
a subordinate to a dominant position must depend on the individual
capacity and ability for raising itself. But from the difficulties of
realizing his theories, he renounces this absolute separation of ranks in
his book on Laws, limits the power of the governors, attempts to reconcile
freedom with unity and reason, and to mingle monarchy with democracy.
With respect to his theology, he appears to have agreed entirely with
Socrates.
_Aristotle_ was born at Stageira, B.C. 384. His father, Nicomachus, was
physician to Amyntas II., king of Macedon. At the age of seventeen he went
to Athens, in hopes to become a pupil of Plato; but Plato was in Sicily,
and did not return for three years, which time Aristotle applied to severe
study, and to cultivating the friendship of Heraclides Ponticus. When
Plato returned, he soon distinguished him above all his other pupils. He
remained at Athens twenty years, maintaining, however, his connexion with
Macedonia; but on the death of Plato, B.C. 347, which happened while
Aristotle was absent in Macedonia on an embassy, he quitted Athens,
thinking, perhaps, that travelling was necessary to complete his
education. After a short period, he accepted an invitation from Philip to
superintend the education of Alexander. He remained in Macedonia till B.C.
335, when he returned to Athens, where he found Xenocrates had succeeded
Speusippus as the head of the Academy. Here the Lyceum was appropriated to
him, in the shady walks (περίπατοι) of which he delivered his lectures to
a number of eminent scholars who flocked around him. From these walks the
name of Peripatetic was given to the School which he subsequently
established. Like several others of the Greek philosophers, he had a
select body of pupils, to whom he delivered his esoteric doctrines; and a
larger, more promiscuous, and less accomplished company, to whom he
delivered his exoteric lectures on less abstruse subjects. When he had
resided thirteen years at Athens, he found himself threatened with a
prosecution for impiety, and fled to Chalcis, in Eubœa, and died soon
after, B.C. 322.
His learning was immense, and his most voluminous writings embraced almost
every subject conceivable; but only a very small portion of them has come
down to us. Cicero, however, alludes to him only as a moral philosopher,
and occasionally as a natural historian; so that it may be sufficient here
for us to confine our view of him to his teaching on the Practical
Sciences; his Ethics, too, being one of his works which has come down to
us entire.
God he considered to be the highest and purest energy of eternal
intellect,—an absolute principle,—the highest reason, the object of whose
thought is himself; expanding and declaring, in a more profound manner,
the νοῦς of Anaxagoras. With respect to man, the object of all action, he
taught, was happiness: and this happiness he defines to be an energy of
the soul (or of life) according to virtue, existing by and for itself.
Virtue, again, he subdivided into moral and intellectual, according to the
distinction between the reasoning faculty and that quality in the soul
which obeys reason. Again, moral virtue is the proper medium between
excess and deficiency, and can only be acquired by practice; intellectual
virtue can be taught; and by the constant practice of moral virtue a man
becomes virtuous, but he can only practise it by a resolute determination
to do so. Virtue, therefore, is defined further as a habit accompanied by,
or arising out of, deliberate choice, and based upon free and conscious
action. From these principles, Aristotle is led to take a wider view of
virtue than other philosophers: he includes friendship under this head, as
one of the very greatest virtues, and a principal means for a steady
continuance in all virtue; and as the unrestricted exercise of each
species of activity directed towards the good, produces a feeling of
pleasure, he considers pleasure as a very powerful means of virtue.
Connected with Aristotle’s system of ethics was his system of politics,
the former being only a part, as it were, of the latter; the former aiming
at the happiness of individuals, the latter at that of communities; so
that the latter is the perfection and completion of the former. For
Aristotle looked upon man as a “political animal”—as a being, that is,
created by nature for the state, and for living in the state; which, as a
totality consisting of organically connected members, is by nature prior
to the individual or the family. The state he looked upon as a whole
consisting of mutually dependent and connected members, with reference as
well to imaginary as to actually existing constitutions. The constitution
is the arrangement of the powers in the state—the soul of the state, as it
were,—according to which the sovereignty is determined. The laws are the
determining principles, according to which the dominant body governs and
restrains those who would, and punishes those who do, transgress them. He
defines three kinds of constitutions, each of them having a corresponding
perversion:—a republic, arising from the principle of equality; this at
times degenerates into democracy; monarchy, and aristocracy, which arise
from principles of inequality, founded on the preponderance of external or
internal strength and wealth, and which are apt to degenerate into tyranny
and oligarchy. The education of youth he considers as a principal concern
of the state, in order that, all the individual citizens being trained to
a virtuous life, virtue may become predominant in all the spheres of
political life; and, accordingly, by means of politics the object is
realized of which ethics are the groundwork, namely, human happiness,
depending on a life in accordance with virtue.
_Heraclides_ Ponticus, as he is usually called, was, as his name denotes,
a native of Pontus. He migrated to Athens, where he became a disciple of
Plato, who, while absent in Sicily, entrusted him with the care of his
school.
_Speusippus_ was the nephew of Plato, and succeeded him as President of
the Academy; but he continued so but a short time, and, within eight years
of the death of Plato, he died at Athens, B.C. 339. He refused to
recognise _the Good_ as the ultimate principle; but, going back to the
older theologians, maintained that the origin of the universe was to be
set down indeed as a cause of the Good and Perfect, but was not the Good
and Perfect itself; for that was the result of generated existence or
development, just as plants are of the seeds. When, with the Pythagoreans,
he reckoned _the One_ in the series of good things, he probably thought of
it only in opposition to _the Manifold_, and wished to point out that it
is from _the One_ that _the Good_ is to be derived. He appears, however,
(see De Nat. Deor. i. 13,) to have attributed vital activity to the
primordial unity, as inseparably belonging to it.
_Theophrastus_ was a native of Eresus, from whence he migrated to Athens,
where he became a follower of Plato, and afterwards of Aristotle, by whom,
when he quitted Athens for Chalcis, he was designated as his successor in
the presidency of the Lyceum; while in this position, he is said to have
had two thousand disciples, and among them the comic poet Menander. When,
B.C. 305, the philosophers were banished from Athens, he also left the
city, but returned the next year on the repeal of the law. He lived to a
great age, though the date of his birth is not certainly known.
He was a very voluminous writer on many subjects, but directed his chief
attention to continuing the researches into natural history which had been
begun by Aristotle. As, however, only a few fragments of his works have
come down to us, and these in a very corrupt state, we know but little
what peculiar views he entertained; though we learn from Cicero (De Inv.
i. 42-50) that he departed a good deal from the doctrines of Aristotle in
his principles of ethics, and also in his metaphysical and theological
speculations; and Cicero (De Nat. Deor. i. 13) complains that he did not
express himself with precision or with consistency about the Deity; and in
other places (Acad. i. 10, Tusc. Quæst. v. 9), that he appeared unable to
comprehend a happiness resting merely on virtue; so that he had attributed
to virtue a rank very inferior to its deserts.
_Xenocrates_ was a native of Chalcedon, born probably B.C. 396. He was a
follower of Plato, and accompanied him to Sicily. After his death, he
betook himself, with Aristotle, to the court of Hermias, tyrant of
Ptarneus, but soon returned to Athens, and became president of the Academy
when Speusippus, through ill health, was forced to abandon that post. He
died B.C. 314.
He was not a man of great genius, but of unwearied industry and the purest
virtue and integrity. None of his works have come down to us; but, from
the notices of other writers, we are acquainted with some of his peculiar
doctrines. He stood at the head of those who, regarding the universe as
imperishable and existing from eternity, looked upon the chronic
succession in the theory of Plato as a form in which to denote the
relations of conceptual succession. He asserted that the soul was a
self-moving member,—called Unity and Duality deities, considering the
former as the first male existence, ruling in heaven, father and Jupiter;
the latter as the female, as the mother of the Gods, and the soul of the
universe, which reigns over the mutable world under heaven. He
approximated to the Pythagoreans in considering Number as the principle of
consciousness, and consequently of knowledge; supplying, however, what was
deficient in the Pythagorean theory by the definition of Plato, that it is
only in as far as number reconciles the opposition between _the same_ and
the different, and can raise itself to independent motion, that it is
soul.
In his ethics he endeavoured to render the Platonic theory more complete,
and to give it a more direct applicability to human life; admitting,
besides the good and the bad, of something which is neither good nor bad,
and some of these intermediate things, such as health, beauty, fame, good
fortune, he would not admit to be absolutely worthless and indifferent. He
maintained, however, in the most decided manner, that virtue is the only
thing valuable in itself, and that the value of everything else is
conditional, (see Cic. de Fin. iv. 18, de Leg. i. 21, Acad. i. 6, Tusc.
Quæst. v. 10-18,) that happiness ought to coincide with the consciousness
of virtue. He did not allow that mere intellectual scientific wisdom was
the only true wisdom to be sought after as such by men: and in one point
he came nearer the precepts of Christianity than any of the ancients, when
he asserted the indispensableness of the morality of the thoughts to
virtue, and declared it to be the same thing, whether a person cast
longing eyes on the possessions of his neighbour, or attempted to possess
himself of them by force.
_Antisthenes_ was older than Plato; though the exact time of his birth is
uncertain: but he fought at the battle of Tanagra, B.C. 420, though then
very young. He became a disciple of Gorgias, and afterwards of Socrates,
at whose death he set up a school in the Cynosarges, a gymnasium for the
use of Athenians born of foreign mothers, near the temple of Hercules,
from which place of assembly his followers were called Cynics. He lived to
a great age, though the year of his death is not known, but he certainly
was alive after the battle of Leuctra, B.C. 371.
In his philosophical system, which was almost confined to ethics, he
appears to have aimed at novelty rather than truth or common sense. He
taught that in all that the wise man does he conforms to perfect virtue,
and that pleasure is so far from being necessary to man, that it is a
positive evil. He is reported also to have gone the length of pronouncing
pain and infamy blessings rather than evils, though when he spoke of
pleasure as worthless, he probably meant that pleasure which arises from
the gratification of sensual or artificial desires; for he praised that
which arises from the intellect, and from friendship. The _summum bonum_
he placed in a life according to virtue.
In a treatise in which he discussed the nature of the Gods he contended
for the unity of the Deity, and asserted that man is unable to know him by
any sensible representation, since he is unlike any being on earth; and
demonstrated the sufficiency of virtue for happiness, by the doctrine that
outward events are regulated by God so as to benefit the wise and good.
_Diogenes_, a native of Sinope in Pontus, who was born B.C. 412, was one
of his few disciples; he came at an early age to Athens, and became
notorious for the most frantic excesses of moroseness and self-denial. On
a voyage to Ægina he was taken by pirates and sold as a slave to Xeniades,
a Corinthian, over whom he acquired great influence, and was made tutor to
his children. His system consisted merely in teaching men to dispense with
even the simplest necessaries of civilized life: and he is said to have
taught that all minds are air, exactly alike, and composed of similar
particles; but that in beasts and in idiots they are hindered from
properly developing themselves by various humors and incapacities of their
bodies. He died B.C. 323, the same year that Epicurus came to Athens.
_Zeno_ was born at Citium, a city of Cyprus; but having been shipwrecked
near Cyprus, he settled in that city, where he devoted himself to severe
study for a great length of time, cultivating, it is said, the
acquaintance of the philosophers of the Megaric school, Diodorus and
Philo, and of the Academics, Xenocrates and Polemo. After he had completed
his studies, he opened a school himself in the porch, adorned with the
paintings of Polygnotus (Στοὰ ποικίλη), from which his followers were
called Stoics. The times of his birth and of his death are not known with
any exactness; but he is said to have reached a great age.
In speaking of the Stoic doctrines, it is not very clear how much of them
proceeded from Zeno himself, and how much from Chrysippus and other
eminent men of the school in subsequent years. In natural philosophy he
considered that there was a primary matter which was never increased or
diminished, and which was the foundation of everything which existed: and
which was brought into existence by the operative power,—that is, by the
Deity. He saw this operative power in fire and in æther as the basis of
all vital activity, (see Cic. Acad. i. 11, ii. 41; de Nat. Deor. ii. 9,
iii. 14,) and he taught that the universe comes into being when the
primary substance passing from fire through the intermediate stage of air
becomes liquefied, and then the thick portion becomes earth, the thinner
portion air, which is again rarefied till it becomes fire. This fire he
conceived to be identical with the Deity, (Cic. de Nat. Deor. ii. 22,) and
to be endowed with consciousness and foresight. At other times he defined
the Deity as that law of nature which ever accomplishes what is right, and
prevents the opposite, and identified it with unconditional necessity. The
soul of man he considered as being of the nature of fire, or of a warm
breath, (Cic. Tusc. Quæst. i. 9; de Nat. Deor. iii. 4,) and therefore as
mortal.
In ethics he agreed with the Cynics in recognising the constitutional
nature of moral obligations, though he differed from them with respect to
things indifferent, and opposed their morose contempt for custom, though
he did not allow that the gratification of mere external wants, or that
external good fortune, had any intrinsic value. He comprised everything
which could make life happy in virtue alone (Cic. Acad. i. 10), and called
it the only good which deserved to be striven after and praised for its
own sake (Cic. de Fin. iii. 6, 8), and taught that the attainment of it
must inevitably produce happiness. But as virtue could, according to his
system, only subsist in conjunction with the perfect dominion of reason,
and vice only in the renunciation of the authority of reason, he inferred
that one good action could not be more virtuous than another, and that a
person who had one virtue had all, and that he who was destitute of one
was destitute of all.
_Cleanthes_ was born at Assos in the Troas, about 300 B.C.; he came to
Athens at an early age, and became the pupil of Zeno, whom at his death he
succeeded in his school. He differed from his master in regarding the soul
as immortal, and approximated to the Cynics in denying that pleasure was
agreeable to nature, or in any respect good. He died of voluntary
starvation at the age of eighty.
_Chrysippus_ was born B.C. 280, at Soli in Cilicia. He came at an early
age to Athens, and became a pupil of Cleanthes; and among the later Stoics
he was more regarded than either Zeno or Cleanthes. He died B.C. 207.
His doctrines do not appear to have differed from those of Zeno; only
that, from feeling the dangerous influence of the Epicurean principles, he
endeavoured to popularize the Stoic ethics.
_Epicurus_ was an Athenian of the Attic demos Gargettus, whence he is
sometimes simply called the Gargettian. He was, however, born at Samos,
B.C. 342, and did not come to Athens till the age of eighteen, when he
found Xenocrates at the head of the Academy, and by some authors is said
to have become his pupil, though he himself would not admit it (Cic. de
Nat. Deor. i. 26). At the outbreak of the Samian war he crossed over to
Colophon, where he collected a school. It is said that the first thing
that excited him to the study of philosophy was the perusal of the works
of Democritus while he resided at Colophon. From thence he went to
Mitylene and Lampsacus, and B.C. 306 he returned to Athens, and finally
established himself as a teacher of philosophy. His own life was that of a
man of simple, pure, and temperate habits. He died of the stone, B.C. 270,
and left Hermarchus of Mitylene as his successor in the management of his
school.
None of his works have come down to us. With regard to his philosophical
system, in spite of his boast of being self-taught and having borrowed
from no one, he clearly derived the chief part of his natural philosophy
from Democritus, and of his moral philosophy from Aristippus and the
Cyrenaics. He considered human happiness the end of all philosophy, and
agreed with the Cyrenaics that pleasure constituted the greatest
happiness; still this theory in his hands acquired a far loftier
character; for pleasure, in his idea, was not a mere momentary and
transitory sensation, but something lasting and imperishable, consisting
in pure mental enjoyments, and in the freedom from pain and any other
influence which could disturb man’s peace of mind. And the _summum bonum_,
according to him, consisted in this peace of mind; which was based upon
correct wisdom (φρόνησις).
In his natural philosophy he embraced the atomic theories of Democritus
and Diagoras, carrying them even further than they themselves had done, to
such a degree that he drew upon himself the reproach of Atheism. He
regarded the Gods themselves as consisting of atoms, and our notions of
them as based upon the images (εἴδωλα) which are reflected from them, and
so pass into our minds. And he believed that they exercised no influence
whatever on the world, or on the actions or fortunes of man.
_Theodorus_ was a native of Cyrene, who flourished about B.C. 320. He was
of the Cyrenaic sect, and the founder of that branch of it which was
called after him, the Theodorean; though we scarcely know in what his
doctrines differed from those of Aristippus, unless they were, if
possible, of a still more lax character. He taught, for instance, that
there was nothing really wrong or disgraceful in theft, adultery, or
sacrilege; but that they were branded by public opinion to restrain fools.
He is also reproved with utter atheism; and Cicero classes him with
Diagoras, as a man who utterly denied the existence of any Gods at all.
_Pyrrho_ was a contemporary of Alexander the Great, whose expedition into
Asia he joined. He appears, as far as his philosophy went, to have been an
universal sceptic. He impeached, however, none of the chief principles of
morality, but, regarding Socrates as his model, directed all his
endeavours towards the production in his pupils of a firm well-regulated
moral character.
_Crantor_ was a native of Soli in Cilicia; we do not know when he was born
or when he died, but he came to Athens before B.C. 315. He was the first
of Plato’s followers who wrote commentaries on the works of his master. He
died of dropsy, and left Arcesilaus his heir.
_Arcesilaus_, or _Arcesilas_, flourished about B.C. 280; he was born at
Pitane, but came to Athens and became the pupil of Theophrastus and of
Crantor, and afterwards of some of the more sceptical philosophers. On the
death of Crantor he succeeded to the chair of the Academy, in the
doctrines of which he made so many innovations that he is called the
founder of the New Academy. What his peculiar views were is, however, a
matter of great uncertainty. Some give him the credit of having restored
the doctrines of Plato in an uncorrupted form; while, according to Cicero,
on the other hand, (Acad. i. 12,) he summed up all his opinions in the
statement that he knew nothing, not even his own ignorance. He, and the
New Academy, do not, however, seem to have doubted the existence of truth
in itself, but only the capacity of man for arriving at the knowledge of
it.
_Carneades_ was born at Cyrene about B.C. 213. He went early to Athens,
and at first attended the lectures of the Stoics; but subsequently
attached himself to the Academy, and succeeded to the chair on the death
of Hegesinus. In the year B.C. 155, he came to Rome on an embassy, but so
offended Cato by speaking one day in praise of justice as a virtue, and
the next day, in answer to all his previous arguments, that he made a
motion in the senate, that he should be ordered to depart from Rome. He
died B.C. 129.
_Philo_ of Larissa, who is often mentioned by Cicero, was his own master,
having removed to Rome after the conquest of Athens by Mithridates, where
he settled as a teacher of philosophy and rhetoric. He would not admit
that there was any difference between the Old and New Academy, in which he
differed from his pupil Antiochus. The exact time of his birth or death is
not known; but he was not living when Cicero composed his Academics. (ii.
6.)
_Antiochus_ of Ascalon has been called by some writers the founder of the
Fifth Academy; he also was a teacher of Cicero during the time he studied
at Athens; he had also a school at Alexandria, and another in Syria, where
he died. He studied under Philo, but was so far from agreeing with him
that he wrote a treatise on purpose to refute what he considered as the
scepticism of the Academics. And undoubtedly the later philosophers of
that school had exaggerated the teaching of Plato, that the senses were
not in all cases trustworthy organs of perception, so as to infer from it
a denial of the certainty of any knowledge whatever. Antiochus professed
that his object was to revive the real doctrines of Plato in opposition to
the modern scepticism of Carneades and Philo. He appears to have
considered himself as an eclectic philosopher, combining the best parts of
the doctrines of the Academic, Peripatetic, and Stoic schools.
_Diodorus_ of Tyre flourished about B.C. 110. He lived at Athens, where he
succeeded Critolaus as the head of the Peripatetic school. Cicero,
however, denies that he was a genuine Peripatetic, and says that his
doctrine that the _summum bonum_ consisted in a combination of virtue with
the absence of pain was an attempt to reconcile the theory of the Stoics
with that of the Epicureans.
_Panætius_ was a native of Rhodes; his exact age is not known, but he was
a contemporary of Scipio Æmilianus, who died B.C. 129. He went to Athens
at an early age, where he is said to have been a pupil of Diogenes of
Babylon and Antipater of Tarsus, and also of Polemo Periegetes. He became
associated with P. Scipio Æmilianus, who valued him highly. The latter
part of his life he spent at Athens, where he had succeeded Antipater as
head of the Stoic school. He was the author of a treatise on “What is
Becoming,” which Cicero professes to have imitated, though carried rather
further, in his De Officiis. He softened down the harsher features of the
Stoic doctrines, approximating them in some degree to the opinions of
Xenocrates, Plato, and Aristotle, and made them attractive by the elegance
of his style; indeed, he modified the principles of the school so much,
that some writers called him a Platonist. In natural philosophy he
abandoned the Stoic doctrine of the conflagration of the world;
endeavoured to simplify the division of the faculties of the soul; and
doubted the reality of the science of divination. In ethics he followed
the method of Aristotle; and, in direct opposition to the earlier Stoics,
vindicated the claim of certain pleasurable sensations to be regarded as
in accordance with nature.
_Polemo_ was a pupil of Xenocrates, and succeeded him as the head of his
school. There is a story that he had been a very dissolute young man, and
that one day, at the head of a band of revellers, he burst into the school
of Xenocrates, when his attention was so arrested by the discourse of the
philosopher, which happened to be on the subject of temperance, that he
tore off his festive garland, remained till the end of the lecture, and
devoted himself to philosophy all the rest of his life. He does not appear
to have varied at all from the doctrines of his master. He died B.C. 273.
_Archytas_ was a native of Tarentum: his age is not quite certain, but he
is believed to have been a contemporary of Plato, and he is even said to
have saved his life by his interest with the tyrant Dionysius. He was a
great general and statesman, as well as a philosopher. In philosophy he
was a Pythagorean; and, like most of that school, a great mathematician;
and applied his favourite science not only to music, but also to
metaphysics. Aristotle is believed to have borrowed from him his System of
Categories.
The limits of this volume forbid more than the preceding very brief sketch
of the chiefs of the ancient philosophy. For a more detailed account the
reader is referred to the Biographical Dictionary edited by Dr. Smith,
from which valuable work much of this sketch has been derived. The account
of Socrates has been principally derived from Mr. Grote’s admirable
history of Greece: in which attention has so successfully been devoted to
the history of philosophy and the sophists, that a correct idea of the
subject can hardly be acquired without a careful study of that work.
It was intended to subjoin a comparison of the systems of the different
sects, but it would take more space than can be spared; and it is moreover
unnecessary, as, the distinctive tenets of each having been explained, the
reader is supplied with sufficient materials to institute such a
comparison for himself. He will not wonder that men without the guidance
of revelation should at times have lost their way in speculations beyond
the reach of human faculties, but will the more admire that genius and
virtue which manifested itself in such men as Socrates, Plato, and Cicero,
for the perpetual enlightenment of the human race.
INTRODUCTION.
The following account of the two Books of the Academics is extracted from
the Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography, edited by Dr. W. Smith:—
“The history of this work, before it finally quitted the hands of its
author, is exceedingly curious and somewhat obscure; but must be clearly
understood before we can explain the relative position of those portions
of it which have been transmitted to modern times. By comparing carefully
a series of letters written to Atticus, in the course of B.C. 45 (Ep. ad
Att. xiii. 32;(1) 12, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 35, 44), we find
that Cicero had drawn up a treatise upon the Academic Philosophy, in the
form of a dialogue between Catulus, Lucullus, and Hortensius; and that it
was comprised in two books, the first bearing the name of Catulus, the
second that of Lucullus. A copy was sent to Atticus; and, soon after it
reached him, two new Introductions were composed, the one in praise of
Catulus, the other in praise of Lucullus. Scarcely had this been done,
when Cicero, from a conviction that Catulus, Lucullus, and Hortensius,
although men of highly cultivated minds, and well acquainted with general
literature, were known to have been little conversant with the subtle
arguments of abstruse philosophy, determined to withdraw them altogether,
and accordingly substituted Cato and Brutus in their place. Immediately
after this change had been introduced, he received a communication from
Atticus, representing that Varro was much offended by being passed over in
the discussion of topics in which he was so deeply versed. Thereupon
Cicero, catching eagerly at the idea thus suggested, resolved to recast
the whole piece, and quickly produced, under the old title, a new and
highly improved edition, divided into four books instead of two,
dedicating the whole to Varro, to whom was assigned the task of defending
the tenets of Antiochus; while Cicero himself undertook to support the
views of Philo, Atticus also taking a share in the conversation.
“But, although these alterations had been effected with extreme rapidity,
the copy originally sent to Atticus had in the meantime been repeatedly
transcribed; hence both editions passed into circulation, and a part of
each has been preserved. One section, containing twelve chapters, is a
short fragment of the second or Varronian edition. The other, containing
forty-nine chapters, is the entire second book of the first edition; to
which is prefixed the new introduction, together with the proper title of
Lucullus. The scene of the _Catulus_ was the villa of that statesman, at
Cumæ; while the _Lucullus_ is supposed to have been held at the mansion of
Hortensius, near Bauli.
“The object proposed was to give an account of the rise and progress of
the Academic Philosophy, to point out the various modifications introduced
by successive professors, and to demonstrate the superiority of the
principles of the New Academy, as taught by Philo, over those of the old,
as advocated by Antiochus.”
FIRST BOOK OF THE ACADEMIC QUESTIONS.
I. When a short time ago my friend Atticus(2) was with me at my villa in
the district of Cumæ, news was sent us by Marcus(3) Varro, that he had
arrived in Rome the day before in the evening, and that if he had not
found himself too tired after his journey he should have proceeded at once
to see us. But when we heard this, we thought that we ought not to suffer
anything to delay our seeing a man so intimately connected with us by an
identity of studies, and by a very long standing intimacy and friendship.
And so we set out at once to go to see him; and when we were no great
distance from his villa we saw him coming towards us; and when we had
embraced him, as the manner of friends is, after some time we accompanied
him back to his villa. And as I was asking a few questions, and inquiring
what was the news at Rome, Never mind those things, said Atticus, which we
can neither inquire about nor hear of without vexation, but ask him rather
whether he has written anything new; for the muse of Varro has been silent
much longer than usual; though I rather suppose he is suppressing for a
time what he has written, than that he has been really idle. You are quite
wrong, said he; for I think it very foolish conduct in a man to write what
he wishes to have concealed. But I have a great work on hand; for I have
been a long time preparing a treatise which I have dedicated to my friend
here, (he meant me,) which is of great importance, and is being polished
up by me with a good deal of care.
I have been waiting to see it a long time, Varro, said I, but still I have
not ventured to ask for it. For I heard from our friend Libo, with whose
zeal you are well acquainted, (for I can never conceal anything of that
kind,) that you have not been slackening in the business, but are
expending a great deal of care on it, and in fact never put it out of your
hands. But it has never hitherto come into my mind to ask you about it;
however now, since I have begun to commit to a durable record those things
which I learnt in your company, and to illustrate in the Latin language
that ancient philosophy which originated with Socrates, I must ask you why
it is that, while you write on so many subjects, you pass over this one,
especially when you yourself are very eminent in it; and when that study,
and indeed the whole subject, is far superior in importance to all other
studies and arts.
II. You are asking me, he replied, about a matter on which I have often
deliberated and frequently revolved in my mind. And, therefore, I will
answer you without any hesitation; still, however, speaking quite
off-hand, because I have, as I said just now, thought over the subject
both deeply and frequently. For as I saw that philosophy had been
explained with great care in the Greek language, I thought that if any of
our countrymen were engrossed by the study of it, who were well versed in
Greek literature, they would be more likely to read Greek treatises than
Latin ones: but that those men who were averse to Greek science and to the
schools of the Greek philosophers would not care the least for such
matters as these, which could not be understood at all without some
acquaintance with Greek literature. And, therefore, I did not choose to
write treatises which unlearned men could not understand, and learned men
would not be at the trouble of reading. And you yourself are aware of
this. For you have learnt that we cannot resemble Amafanius(4) or
Rabirius,(5) who without any art discuss matters which come before the
eyes of every one in plain ordinary language, giving no accurate
definitions, making no divisions, drawing no inferences by well-directed
questions, and who appear to think that there is no such thing as any art
of speaking or disputing. But we, in obedience to the precepts of the
logicians and of orators also, as if they were positive laws, (since our
countrymen consider skill in each of these branches to be a virtue,) are
compelled to use words although they may be new ones; which learned men,
as I have said before, will prefer taking from the Greeks, and which
unlearned men will not receive even from us; so that all our labour may be
undertaken in vain. But now, if I approved of the doctrines of Epicurus,
that is to say, of Democritus, I could write of natural philosophy in as
plain a style as Amafanius. For what is the great difficulty when you have
put an end to all efficient causes, in speaking of the fortuitous
concourse of corpuscules, for this is the name he gives to atoms. You know
our system of natural philosophy, which depends upon the two principles,
the efficient cause, and the subject matter out of which the efficient
cause forms and produces what it does produce. For we must have recourse
to geometry, since, if we do not, in what words will any one be able to
enunciate the principles he wishes, or whom will he be able to cause to
comprehend those assertions about life, and manners, and desiring and
avoiding such and such things?
For those men are so simple as to think the good of a sheep and of a man
the same thing. While you know the character and extent of the accuracy
which philosophers of our school profess. Again, if you follow Zeno, it is
a hard thing to make any one understand what that genuine and simple good
is which cannot be separated from honesty; while Epicurus asserts that he
is wholly unable to comprehend what the character of that good may be
which is unconnected with pleasures which affect the senses. But if we
follow the doctrines of the Old Academy which, as you know, we prefer,
then with what accuracy must we apply ourselves to explain it; with what
shrewdness and even with what obscurity must we argue against the Stoics!
The whole, therefore, of that eagerness for philosophy I claim for myself,
both for the purpose of strengthening my firmness of conduct as far as I
can, and also for the delight of my mind. Nor do I think, as Plato says,
that any more important or more valuable gift has been given to men by the
gods. But I send all my friends who have any zeal for philosophy into
Greece; that is to say, I bid them study the Greek writers, in order to
draw their precepts from the fountain-head, rather than follow little
streams. But those things which no one had previously taught, and which
could not be learnt in any quarter by those who were eager on the subject,
I have laboured as far as I could (for I have no great opinion of anything
which I have done in this line) to explain to our fellow-countrymen. For
this knowledge could not be sought for among the Greeks, nor, after the
death of our friend Lucius Ælius,(6) among the Latins either. And yet in
those old works of ours which we composed in imitation of Menippus,(7) not
translating him, sprinkling a little mirth and sportiveness over the whole
subject, there are many things mingled which are drawn from the most
recondite philosophy, and many points argued according to the rules of
strict logic; but I added these lighter matters in order to make the whole
more easy for people of moderate learning to comprehend, if they were
invited to read those essays by a pleasing style, displayed in panegyrics,
and in the very prefaces of my books of antiquities. And this was my
object in adopting this style, however I may have succeeded in it.
III. The fact, I replied, is just as you say, Varro. For while we were
sojourners, as it were, in our own city, and wandering about like
strangers, your books have conducted us, as it were, home again, so as to
enable us at last to recognise who and where we were. You have discussed
the antiquity of our country, and the variety of dates and chronology
relating to it. You have explained the laws which regulate sacrifices and
priests; you have unfolded the customs of the city both in war and peace;
you have described the various quarters and districts; you have omitted
mentioning none of the names, or kinds, or functions, or causes of divine
or human things; you have thrown a great deal of light on our poets, and
altogether on Latin literature and on Latin expressions; you have yourself
composed a poem of varied beauties, and elegant in almost every point; and
you have in many places touched upon philosophy in a manner sufficient to
excite our curiosity, though inadequate to instruct us.
You allege, indeed, a very plausible reason for this. For, you say, those
who are learned men will prefer reading philosophical treatises in Greek,
and those who are ignorant of Greek will not read them even in Latin.
However, tell me now, do you really agree with your own argument? I would
rather say, those who are unable to read them in the one language will
read them in the other; and even those who can read them in Greek will not
despise their own language. For what reason can be imagined why men
learned in Greek literature should read the Latin poets, and not read the
Latin philosophers? Or again, if Ennius,(8) Pacuvius, Accius, and many
others who have given us, I will not say the exact expressions, but the
meaning of the Greeks, delight their readers; how much more will the
philosophers delight them, if, as the poets have imitated Æschylus,
Sophocles, and Euripides, they in like manner imitate Plato, Aristotle,
and Theophrastus? I see, too, that any orators among us are praised who
imitate Hyperides or Demosthenes.
But I, (for I will speak the plain truth,) as long as ambition and the
pursuit of public honours and the pleading of causes, and not a mere
regard for the republic, but even a certain degree of concern in its
government, entangled me in and hampered me with the numerous duties in
which those occupations involved me; I kept, I say, all these matters to
myself, and brushed them up, when I could, by reading, to prevent their
getting rusty. But now, having been stricken to the ground by a most
severe blow of fortune, and being discharged from all concern in the
republic, I seek a medicine for my sorrow in philosophy, and consider this
study the most honourable pastime for my leisure. For I may look upon it
as most suitable to my age, and most especially consistent with any
memorable exploits which I may have performed, and inferior to no other
occupation in its usefulness for the purpose of educating my
fellow-countrymen. Or even if this be too high a view to take of it, at
all events I see nothing else which I can do. My friend Brutus, indeed, a
man eminent for every kind of virtue, has illustrated philosophy in the
Latin language in such a way that he has left Greece nothing to wish for
on those subjects. And he adopts the same opinions that you do. For he was
for some time a pupil of Aristus, at Athens, whose brother Antiochus was
your own preceptor. And therefore do you also, I entreat you, apply
yourself to this kind of literature.
IV. Then he replied. I will indeed consider of these matters, but only in
your company. But still, said he, what is this which I hear about you
yourself? On what subject? said I. Why, that the old system is deserted by
you, and that you have espoused the principles of the new school. What of
that? said I. Why should Antiochus, my own intimate friend, be more at
liberty to return back again from the new school to the old, than I myself
to migrate to the new from the old? For certainly everything that is most
recent is corrected and amended in the highest degree; although Philo, the
master of Antiochus, a great man, as you yourself consider him, used to
deny in his books that there were two Academies (and we ourselves have
heard him assert the same things in his lectures); and he convicts those
who say that there are, of palpable mistake. It is as you say, said he,
but I do not imagine that you are ignorant of what Antiochus has written
in reply to the arguments of Philo. Certainly, said I, I am not, and I
should like to hear the whole cause of the Old Academy, from which I have
been so long absent, recapitulated by you, if it is not giving you too
much trouble; and let us sit down now, if you have no objection. That will
suit me very well, said he, for I am not at all strong. But let us
consider whether Atticus will be pleased with that compliance of mine,
which I see that you yourself are desirous of. Indeed I shall, said he;
for what could I prefer to being reminded of what I long ago heard from
Antiochus, and seeing at the same time whether those ideas can be
expressed with sufficient suitableness in Latin? So after this preface we
all sat down looking at one another. And Varro began as follows:—
Socrates appears to me, and indeed it is the universal opinion, to have
been the first person who drew philosophy away from matters of an abstruse
character, which had been shrouded in mystery by nature herself, and in
which all the philosophers before his time had been wholly occupied, and
to have diverted it to the objects of ordinary life; directing its
speculations to virtues and vices, and generally to whatever was good or
bad. And he thought that the heavenly bodies were either far out of the
reach of our knowledge, or that, even if we became ever so intimately
acquainted with them, they had no influence on living well. In nearly all
his discourses, which have been reported in great variety and very fully
by those who were his pupils, he argues in such a manner that he affirms
nothing himself, but refutes the assertions of others. He says that he
knows nothing, except that one fact, that he is ignorant; and that he is
superior to others in this particular, that they believe that they do know
what they do not, while he knows this one thing alone, that he knows
nothing. And it is on that account that he imagines he was pronounced by
Apollo the wisest of all men, because this alone is the whole of wisdom,
for a man not to think that he knows what he does not know. And as he was
always saying this, and persisting in the maintenance of this opinion, his
discourse was entirely devoted to the praise of virtue, and to encouraging
all men to the study of virtue; as may be plainly seen in the books of the
disciples of Socrates, and above all in those of Plato. But by the
influence of Plato, a man of vast and varied and eloquent genius, a system
of philosophy was established which was one and identical, though under
two names; the system namely of the Academics and Peripatetics. For these
two schools agreed in reality, and differed only in name. For when Plato
had left Speusippus, his sister’s son, the inheritor as it were of his
philosophy, and also two pupils most eminent for industry and genius,
Xenocrates of Chalcedon, and Aristotle the Stagirite; those who adhered to
Aristotle were called Peripatetics, because they disputed while walking(9)
in the Lyceum. And the others, who according to the fashion of Plato
himself were accustomed to hold their meetings and discussions in the
Academy, which is a second Gymnasium, took their name from the place where
they used to meet. But both these schools, being impregnated with the
copiousness of Plato, arranged a certain definite system of doctrine,
which was itself copious and luxuriant; but abandoned the Socratic plan of
doubting on every subject, and of discussing everything without ever
venturing on the assertion of a positive opinion. And thus there arose
what Socrates would have been far from approving of, a certain art of
philosophy, and methodical arrangement, and division of the school, which
at first, as I have already said, was one under two names. For there was
no real difference between the Peripatetics and the old Academy.
Aristotle, at least such is my opinion, was superior in a certain
luxuriance of genius; but both schools had the same source, and adopted
the same division of things which were to be desired and avoided. But what
am I about? said he, interrupting himself; am I in my senses while I am
explaining these things to you? for although it may not be exactly a case
of the pig teaching Minerva, still it is not very wise of any one to
attempt to impart instruction to that goddess.
V. I entreat you however, said Atticus, I entreat you to go on, Varro. For
I am greatly attached to my own countrymen and to their works; and those
subjects delight me beyond measure when they are treated in Latin, and in
such a manner as you treat them. And what, said I, do you think that I
must feel, who have already engaged to display philosophy to our nation?
Let us then, said he, continue the subject, since it is agreeable to you.
A threefold system of philosophising, then, was already received from
Plato. One, on the subject of life and morals. A second, on nature and
abstruse matters. The third, on discussion, and on what is true or false;
what is right or wrong in a discourse; what is consistent or inconsistent
in forming a decision.
And that first division of the subject, that namely of living well, they
sought in nature herself, and said that it was necessary to obey her; and
that that chief good to which everything was referred was not to be sought
in anything whatever except in nature. And they laid it down that the
crowning point of all desirable things, and the chief good, was to have
received from nature everything which is requisite for the mind, or the
body, or for life. But of the goods of the body, they placed some in the
whole, and others in the parts. Health, strength, and beauty in the whole.
In the parts, soundness of the senses, and a certain excellence of the
individual parts. As in the feet, swiftness; in the hands, strength; in
the voice, clearness; in the tongue, a distinct articulation of words. The
excellences of the mind they considered those which were suitable to the
comprehension of virtue by the disposition. And those they divided under
the separate heads of nature and morals. Quickness in learning and memory
they attributed to nature; each of which was described as a property of
the mind and genius. Under the head of “morals” they classed our studies,
and, I may say, our habits, which they formed, partly by a continuity of
practice, partly by reason. And in these two things was contained
philosophy itself, in which that which is begun and not brought to its
completion, is called a sort of advance towards virtue; but that which is
brought to completion is virtue, being a sort of perfection of nature and
of all things which they place in the mind; the one most excellent thing.
These things then are qualities of the mind.
The third division was that of life. And they said that those things which
had influence in facilitating the practice of virtue were connected with
this division. For virtue is discerned in some good qualities of the mind
and body, which are added not so much to nature as to a happy life. They
thought that a man was as it were a certain part of the state, and of the
whole human race, and that he was connected with other men by a sort of
human society. And this is the way in which they deal with the chief and
natural good. But they think that everything else is connected with it,
either in the way of increasing or of maintaining it; as riches, power,
glory, and influence. And thus a threefold division of goods is inferred
by them.
VI. And these are those three kinds which most people believe the
Peripatetics speak of: and so far they are not wrong; for this division is
the work of that school. But they are mistaken if they think that the
Academicians—those at least who bore this name at that time—are different
from the Peripatetics. The principle, and the chief good asserted by both
appeared to be the same—namely, to attain those things which were in the
first class by nature, and which were intrinsically desirable; the whole
of them, if possible, or, at all events, the most important of them. But
those are the most important which exist in the mind itself, and are
conversant about virtue itself. Therefore, all that ancient philosophy
perceived that a happy life was placed in virtue alone; and yet that it
was not the happiest life possible, unless the good qualities of the body
were added to it, and all the other things which have been already
mentioned, which are serviceable towards acquiring a habit of virtue. From
this definition of theirs, a certain principle of action in life, and of
duty itself, was discovered, which consisted in the preservation of those
things which nature might prescribe. Hence arose the avoidance of sloth,
and contempt of pleasures; from which proceeded the willingness to
encounter many and great labours and pains, for the sake of what was right
and honourable, and of those things which are conformable to the objects
of nature. Hence was generated friendship, and justice, and equity; and
these things were preferred to pleasure and to many of the advantages of
life. This was the system of morals recommended in their school, and the
method and design of that division which I have placed first.
But concerning nature (for that came next), they spoke in such a manner
that they divided it into two parts,—making one efficient, and the other
lending itself, as it were, to the first, as subject matter to be worked
upon. For that part which was efficient they thought there was power; and
in that which was made something by it they thought there was some matter;
and something of both in each. For they considered that matter itself
could have no cohesion, unless it were held together by some power; and
that power could have none without some matter to work upon; for that is
nothing which is not necessarily somewhere. But that which exists from a
combination of the two they called at once body, and a sort of quality, as
it were. For you will give me leave, in speaking of subjects which have
not previously been in fashion, to use at times words which have never
been heard of (which, indeed, is no more than the Greeks themselves do,
who have been long in the habit of discussing these subjects).
VII. To be sure we will, said Atticus. Moreover, you may even use Greek
words when you wish, if by chance you should be at a loss for Latin ones.
You are very kind; but I will endeavour to express myself in Latin, except
in the case of such words as these—_philosophia_, _rhetorica_, _physica_,
or _dialectica_, which, like many others, fashion already sanctions, as if
they were Latin. I therefore have called those things _qualitates_
(qualities), which the Greeks call ποιότητες—a word which, even among the
Greeks, is not one in ordinary use, but is confined to philosophers. And
the same rule applies to many other expressions. As for the Dialecticians,
they have no terms in common use: they use technical terms entirely. And
the case is the same with nearly every art; for men must either invent new
names for new things, or else borrow them from other subjects. And if the
Greeks do this, who have now been engaged in such matters for so many
ages, how much more ought this licence to be allowed to us, who are now
endeavouring to deal with these subjects for the first time? But, said I,
O Varro, it appears to me that you will deserve well of your
fellow-countrymen, if you enrich them, not only with an abundance of new
things, as you have done, but also of words. We will venture, then, said
he, to employ new terms, if it be necessary, armed with your authority and
sanction.
Of these qualities, then, said he, some are principal ones, and others
arise out of them. The principal ones are of one character and simple; but
those which arise out of them are various, and, as it were, multiform.
Therefore, air (we use the Greek word ἀὴρ as Latin), fire, water, and
earth are principal ones; and out of them there arise the forms of living
creatures, and of those things which are produced out of the earth.
Therefore, those first are called principles and (to translate the Greek
word) elements: from which air and fire have the power of movement and
efficiency: the other divisions—I mean, water and the earth—have the power
of receiving, and, as it were, of suffering. The fifth class, from which
the stars and winds were formed, Aristotle considered to be a separate
essence, and different from those four which I have mentioned above.
But they think that there is placed under all of these a certain matter
without any form, and destitute of all quality (for we may as well, by
constant use, make this word more usual and notorious), from which all
things are sketched out and made; which can receive everything in its
entirety, and can be changed in every manner and in every part. And also
that it perishes, not so as to become nothing, but so as to be dissolved
with its component parts, which again are able to be cut up and divided,
_ad infinitum_; since there is absolutely nothing in the whole nature of
things which cannot be divided: and those things which are moved, are all
moved at intervals, which intervals again are capable of being infinitely
divided. And, since that power which we have called quality is moved in
this way, and is agitated in every direction, they think also that the
whole of matter is itself entirely changed, and so that those things are
produced which they call qualities, from which the world is made, in
universal nature, cohering together and connected with all its divisions;
and, out of the world, there is no such thing as any portion of matter or
any body.
And they say that the parts of the world are all the things which exist in
it, and which are maintained by sentient nature; in which perfect reason
is placed, which is also everlasting: for that there is nothing more
powerful which can be the cause of its dissolution. And this power they
call the soul of the world, and also its intellect and perfect wisdom. And
they call it God, a providence watching over everything subject to its
dominion, and, above all, over the heavenly bodies; and, next to them,
over those things on earth which concern men: which also they sometimes
call necessity, because nothing can be done in a manner different from
that in which it has been arranged by it in a destined (if I may so say)
and inevitable continuation of eternal order. Sometimes, too, they call it
fortune, because it brings about many unforeseen things, which have never
been expected by us, on account of the obscurity of their causes, and our
ignorance of them.
VIII. The third part of philosophy, which is next in order, being
conversant about reason and discussion, was thus handled by both schools.
They said that, although it originated in the senses, still the power of
judging of the truth was not in the senses. They insisted upon it that
intellect was the judge of things. They thought that the only thing
deserving of belief, because it alone discerned that which was always
simple and uniform, and which perceived its real character. This they call
_idea_, having already received this name from Plato; and we properly
entitle it _species_.
But they thought that all the senses were dull and slow, and that they did
not by any means perceive those things which appeared subjected to the
senses; which were either so small as to be unable to come under the
notice of sense, or so moveable and rapid that none of them was ever one
consistent thing, nor even the same thing, because everything was in a
continual state of transition and disappearance. And therefore they called
all this division of things one resting wholly on opinion. But they
thought that science had no existence anywhere except in the notions and
reasonings of the mind; on which account they approved of the definitions
of things, and employed them on everything which was brought under
discussion. The explanation of words also was approved of—that is to say,
the explanation of the cause why everything was named as it was; and that
they called etymology. Afterwards they used arguments, and, as it were,
marks of things, for the proof and conclusion of what they wished to have
explained; in which the whole system of dialectics—that is to say, of an
oration brought to its conclusion by ratiocination, was handed down. And
to this there was added, as a kind of second part, the oratorical power of
speaking, which consists in developing a continued discourse, composed in
a manner adapted to produce conviction.
IX. This was the first philosophy handed down to them by Plato. And if you
like I will explain to you those discussions which have originated in it.
Indeed, said I, we shall be glad if you will; and I can answer for Atticus
as well as for myself. You are quite right, said he; for the doctrine both
of the Peripatetics and of the old Academy is most admirably explained.
Aristotle, then, was the first to undermine the doctrine of species, which
I have just now mentioned, and which Plato had embraced in a wonderful
manner; so that he even affirmed that there was something divine in it.
But Theophrastus, a man of very delightful eloquence, and of such purity
of morals that his probity and integrity were notorious to all men, broke
down more vigorously still the authority of the old school; for he
stripped virtue of its beauty, and made it powerless, by denying that to
live happily depended solely on it. For Strato, his pupil, although a man
of brilliant abilities, must still be excluded entirely from that school;
for, having deserted that most indispensable part of philosophy which is
placed in virtue and morals, and having devoted himself wholly to the
investigation of nature, he by that very conduct departs as widely as
possible from his companions. But Speusippus and Xenocrates, who were the
earliest supporters of the system and authority of Plato,—and, after them,
Polemo and Crates, and at the same time Crantor,—being all collected
together in the Academy, diligently maintained those doctrines which they
had received from their predecessors. Zeno and Arcesilas had been diligent
attenders on Polemo; but Zeno, who preceded Arcesilas in point of time,
and argued with more subtilty, and was a man of the greatest acuteness,
attempted to correct the system of that school. And, if you like, I will
explain to you the way in which he set about that correction, as Antiochus
used to explain it. Indeed, said I, I shall be very glad to hear you do
so; and you see that Pomponius intimates the same wish.
X. Zeno, then, was not at all a man like Theophrastus, to cut through the
sinews of virtue; but, on the other hand, he was one who placed everything
which could have any effect in producing a happy life in virtue alone, and
who reckoned nothing else a good at all, and who called that honourable
which was single in its nature, and the sole and only good. But as for all
other things, although they were neither good nor bad, he divided them,
calling some according to, and others contrary to nature. There were
others which he looked upon as placed between these two classes, and which
he called intermediate. Those which were according to nature, he taught
his disciples, deserved to be taken, and to be considered worthy of a
certain esteem. To those which were contrary to nature, he assigned a
contrary character; and those of the intermediate class he left as
neutrals, and attributed to them no importance whatever. But of those
which he said ought to be taken, he considered some worthy of a higher
estimation and others of a less. Those which were worthy of a higher
esteem, he called _preferred_; those which were only worthy of a lower
degree, he called _rejected_. And as he had altered all these things, not
so much in fact as in name, so too he defined some actions as
intermediate, lying between good deeds and sins, between duty and a
violation of duty;—classing things done rightly as good actions, and
things done wrongly (that is to say, sins) as bad actions. And several
duties, whether discharged or neglected, he considered of an intermediate
character, as I have already said. And whereas his predecessors had not
placed every virtue in reason, but had said that some virtues were
perfected by nature, or by habit, he placed them all in reason; and while
they thought that those kinds of virtues which I have mentioned above
could be separated, he asserted that that could not be done in any manner,
and affirmed that not only the practice of virtue (which was the doctrine
of his predecessors), but the very disposition to it, was intrinsically
beautiful; and that virtue could not possibly be present to any one
without his continually practising it.
And while they did not entirely remove all perturbation of mind from man,
(for they admitted that man did by nature grieve, and desire, and fear,
and become elated by joy,) but only contracted it, and reduced it to
narrow bounds; he maintained that the wise man was wholly free from all
these diseases as they might be called. And as the ancients said that
those perturbations were natural, and devoid of reason, and placed desire
in one part of the mind and reason in another, he did not agree with them
either; for he thought that all perturbations were voluntary, and were
admitted by the judgment of the opinion, and that a certain unrestrained
intemperance was the mother of all of them. And this is nearly what he
laid down about morals.
XI. But about natures he held these opinions. In the first place, he did
not connect this fifth nature, out of which his predecessors thought that
sense and intellect were produced, with those four principles of things.
For he laid it down that fire is that nature which produces everything,
and intellect, and sense. But he differed from them again, inasmuch as he
thought it absolutely impossible for anything to be produced from that
nature which was destitute of body; which was the character attributed by
Xenocrates and his predecessors to the mind, and he would not allow that
that which produced anything, or which was produced by anything, could
possibly be anything except body.
But he made a great many alterations in that third part of his philosophy,
in which, first of all, he said some new things of the senses themselves:
which he considered to be united by some impulse as it were, acting upon
them from without, which he called φαντασία, and which we may term
_perception_. And let us recollect this word, for we shall have frequent
occasion to employ it in the remainder of our discourse; but to these
things which are perceived, and as it were accepted by the senses, he adds
the assent of the mind, which he considers to be placed in ourselves and
voluntary. He did not give credit to everything which is perceived, but
only to those which contain some especial character of those things which
are seen; but he pronounced what was seen, when it was discerned on
account of its own power, _comprehensible_—will you allow me this word?
Certainly, said Atticus, for how else are you to express καταληπτός? But
after it had been received and approved, then he called it
_comprehension_, resembling those things which are taken up
(_prehenduntur_) in the hand; from which verb also he derived this noun,
though no one else had ever used this verb with reference to such matters;
and he also used many new words, for he was speaking of new things. But
that which was comprehended by sense he called _felt_ (_sensum_,) and if
it was so comprehended that it could not be eradicated by reason, he
called it knowledge; otherwise he called it ignorance: from which also was
engendered opinion, which was weak, and compatible with what was false or
unknown. But between knowledge and ignorance he placed that comprehension
which I have spoken of, and reckoned it neither among what was right or
what was wrong, but said that it alone deserved to be trusted.
And from this he attributed credit also to the senses, because, as I have
said above, comprehension made by the senses appeared to him to be true
and trustworthy. Not because it comprehended all that existed in a thing,
but because it left out nothing which could affect it, and because nature
had given it to us to be as it were a rule of knowledge, and a principle
from which subsequently all notions of things might be impressed on our
minds, from which not only principles, but some broader paths to the
discovery of reason are found out. But error, and rashness, and ignorance,
and opinion, and suspicion, and in a word everything which was
inconsistent with a firm and consistent assent, he discarded from virtue
and wisdom. And it is in these things that nearly all the disagreement
between Zeno and his predecessors, and all his alteration of their system
consists.
XII. And when he had spoken thus—You have, said I, O Varro, explained the
principles both of the Old Academy and of the Stoics with brevity, but
also with great clearness. But I think it to be true, as Antiochus, a
great friend of mine, used to assert, that it is to be considered rather
as a corrected edition of the Old Academy, than as any new sect. Then
Varro replied—It is your part now, who revolt from the principles of the
ancients, and who approve of the innovations which have been made by
Arcesilas, to explain what that division of the two schools which he made
was, and why he made it; so that we may see whether that revolt of his was
justifiable. Then I replied—Arcesilas, as we understand, directed all his
attacks against Zeno, not out of obstinacy or any desire of gaining the
victory, as it appears to me, but by reason of the obscurity of those
things which had brought Socrates to the confession of ignorance, and even
before Socrates, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and nearly all the
ancients; who asserted that nothing could be ascertained, or perceived, or
known: that the senses of man were narrow, his mind feeble, the course of
his life short, and that truth, as Democritus said, was sunk in the deep;
that everything depended on opinions and established customs; that nothing
was left to truth. They said in short, that everything was enveloped in
darkness; therefore Arcesilas asserted that there was nothing which could
be known, not even that very piece of knowledge which Socrates had left
himself. Thus he thought that everything lay hid in secret, and that there
was nothing which could be discerned or understood; for which reasons it
was not right for any one to profess or affirm anything, or sanction
anything by his assent, but men ought always to restrain their rashness
and to keep it in check so as to guard it against every fall. For rashness
would be very remarkable when anything unknown or false was approved of;
and nothing could be more discreditable than for a man’s assent and
approbation to precede his knowledge and perception of a fact. And he used
to act consistently with these principles, so as to pass most of his days
in arguing against every one’s opinion, in order that when equally
important reasons were found for both sides of the same question, the
judgment might more naturally be suspended, and prevented from giving
assent to either.
This they call the New Academy, which however appears to me to be the old
one, if, at least, we reckon Plato as one of that Old Academy. For in his
books nothing is affirmed positively, and many arguments are allowed on
both sides of a question; everything is investigated, and nothing positive
affirmed. Still let the school whose principles I have explained, be
called the Old Academy, and this other the New; which, having continued to
the time of Carneades, who was the fourth in succession after Arcesilas,
continued in the same principles and system as Arcesilas. But Carneades,
being a man ignorant of no part of philosophy, and, as I have learnt from
those who had been his pupils, and particularly from Zeno the Epicurean,
who, though he greatly differed from him in opinion, still admired him
above all other men, was also a person of incredible abilities...
_The rest of this Book is lost._
SECOND BOOK OF THE ACADEMIC QUESTIONS.
I. Lucius Lucullus was a man of great genius, and very much devoted to the
study of the most important arts; every branch of liberal learning worthy
of a man of high birth, was thoroughly understood by him; but at the time
when he might have made the greatest figure in the forum, he was wholly
removed from all participation in the business of the city. For while he
was very young, he, uniting with his brother, a man of equal sense of duty
and diligence with himself, followed up the quarrel(10) bequeathed to him
by his father to his own exceeding credit; afterwards having gone as
quæstor into Asia, he there governed the province for many years with
great reputation. Subsequently he was made ædile in his absence, and
immediately after that he was elected prætor; for his services had been
rewarded by an express law authorizing his election at a period earlier
than usual. After that he was sent into Africa; from thence he proceeded
to the consulship, the duties of which he discharged in such a manner,
that every one admired his diligence, and recognised his genius.
Afterwards he was sent by the Senate to conduct the war against
Mithridates, and there he not only surpassed the universal expectation
which every one had formed of his valour, but even the glory of his
predecessors. And that was the more admirable in him, because great skill
as a general was not very much looked for in one who had spent his youth
in the occupations of the forum, and the duration of his quæstorship in
peace in Asia, while Murena was carrying on the war in Pontus. But the
incredible greatness of his genius did not require the aid of experience,
which can never be taught by precepts. Therefore, having devoted the whole
time occupied in his march and his voyage, partly to making inquiries of
those who were skilful in such matters, and partly in reading the accounts
of great achievements, he arrived in Asia a perfect general, though he had
left Rome entirely ignorant of military affairs. For he had an almost
divine memory for facts, though Hortensius had a better one for words. But
as in performing great deeds, facts are of more consequence than words,
this memory of his was the more serviceable of the two; and they say, that
the same quality was conspicuous in Themistocles, whom we consider beyond
all comparison the first man in Greece. And a story is told of him, that,
when some one promised to teach him the art of memory, which was then
beginning to be cultivated, he answered, that he should much prefer
learning to forget; I suppose, because everything which he had either
heard or seen stuck in his memory.
Lucullus having this great genius, added to it that study which
Themistocles had despised: therefore, as we write down in letters what we
wish to commit to monuments, he, in like manner, had the facts engraved in
his mind. Therefore, he was a general of such perfect skill in every kind
of war, in battles, and sieges, and naval fights, and in the whole
equipment and management of war, that that king, the greatest that has
ever lived since the time of Alexander, confessed, that he considered him
a greater general than any one of whom he had ever read. He also displayed
such great prudence in arranging and regulating the affairs of the
different cities, and such great justice too, that to this very day, Asia
is preserved by the careful maintenance of the regulations, and by
following as it were in the footsteps of Lucullus. But although it was
greatly to the advantage of the republic, still that great virtue and
genius was kept abroad at a distance from the eyes both of the forum and
the senate-house, for a longer time than I could have wished. Moreover,
when he had returned victorious from the war against Mithridates, owing to
the calumnies of his adversaries, he did not celebrate his triumph till
three years later than he ought to have done. For I may almost say, that I
myself when consul led into the city the chariot of that most illustrious
man, and I might enlarge upon the great advantage that his counsel and
authority were to me, in the most critical circumstances, if it were not
that to do so would compel me to speak of myself, which at this moment is
not necessary. Therefore, I will rather deprive him of the testimony due
to him, than mix it up now with a commendation of myself.
II. But as for those exploits of Lucullus, which were entitled to be
celebrated by the praises of the nation, they have been extolled both in
Greek and Latin writings. For those outward exploits of his are known to
us in common with the multitude; but his interior excellences (if I may so
call them) we and a few of his friends have learnt from himself. For
Lucullus used to apply himself to every kind of literature, and especially
to philosophy, with greater eagerness than those who were not acquainted
with him believed. And he did so, not only at his first entrance into
life, but also when he was proquæstor, as he was for several years, and
even during the time of war itself, a time when men are usually so fully
occupied with their military business, that very little leisure is left to
the general, even in his own tent. And as of all the philosophers of that
day, Antiochus, who had been a pupil of Philo, was thought to excel in
genius and learning, he kept him about him while he was quæstor, and some
years afterwards when he was general. And as he had that extraordinary
memory which I have mentioned already, by hearing frequently of things, he
arrived at a thorough acquaintance with them; as he recollected everything
that he had heard of only once. And he was wonderfully delighted in the
reading books of which he heard any one speak.
And I sometimes fear lest I may even diminish the glory of such characters
as his, even while wishing to enhance it; for there are many people who
are altogether averse to Greek literature, still more who have a dislike
to philosophy, and men in general, even though they do not positively
disapprove of them, still think the discussion of such matters not
altogether suitable for the chiefs of the state. But I, having heard that
Marcus Cato learnt Greek in his old age, and learning from history that
Panætius was above all other men the chosen companion of Publius
Africanus, in that noble embassy which he was employed on before he
entered on the censorship, think I have no need of any other instance to
justify his study of Greek literature or of philosophy.
It remains for me to reply to those men who disapprove of such dignified
characters being mixed up in discussions of this sort; as if the meetings
of illustrious men were bound to be passed in silence, or their
conversation to be confined to jesting, and all the topics to be drawn
from trifling subjects. In truth, if in any one of my writings I have
given philosophy its due praise, then surely its discussion is thoroughly
worthy of every excellent and honourable man; nor is anything else
necessary to be taken care of by us, whom the Roman people has placed in
our present rank, except that we do not devote to our private pursuits,
the time which ought to be bestowed on the affairs of the public. But if,
while we are bound to discharge our duties, we still not only never omit
to give our assistance in all public meetings, but never even write a
single word unconnected with the forum, who then will blame our leisure,
because even in that moment we are unwilling to allow ourselves to grow
rusty and stupid, but take pains rather to benefit as many people as
possible?
And I think, that not only is the glory of those men not diminished, but
that it is even increased by our adding to their popular and notorious
praises these also which are less known and less spoken of. Some people
also deny that those men who are introduced in our writings as disputants
had any knowledge of those affairs which are the subjects of discussion.
But they appear to me to be showing their envy, not only of the living but
also of the dead.
III. There remains one class of critics who disapprove of the general
principles of the Academy. Which we should be more concerned at if any one
approved of any school of philosophy except that which he himself
followed. But we, since we are in the habit of arguing against every one
who appears to himself to know anything, cannot object to others also
dissenting from us. Although our side of the question is an easier one,
since we wish to discover the truth without any dispute, and we seek for
that with the greatest anxiety and diligence. For although all knowledge
is beset with many difficulties, and there is that obscurity in the things
themselves and that infirmity in our own judgment, that it is not without
reason that the most learned and ancient philosophers have distrusted
their power of discovering what they wished; yet they have not been
deficient in any respect, nor do we allow ourselves to abandon the pursuit
of truth through fatigue; nor have our discussions ever any other object
except that of, by arguing on each side, eliciting, and as it were,
squeezing out something which may either be the truth itself, or may at
least come as near as possible to it. Nor is there any difference between
us and those people who fancy that they know something, except that they
do not doubt at all that those doctrines which they uphold are the truth,
while we account many things as probable which we can adopt as our belief,
but can hardly positively affirm.
And in this we are more free and unfettered than they are, because our
power of judging is unimpeached, and because we are not compelled by any
necessity to defend theories which are laid upon as injunctions, and, if I
may say so, as commands. For in the first place, those of the other
schools have been bound hand and foot before they were able to judge what
was best; and, secondly, before their age or their understanding had come
to maturity, they have either followed the opinion of some friend, or been
charmed by the eloquence of some one who was the first arguer whom they
ever heard, and so have been led to form a judgment on what they did not
understand, and now they cling to whatever school they were, as it were,
dashed against in a tempest, like sailors clinging to a rock. For as to
their statement that they are wholly trusting to one whom they judge to
have been a wise man, I should approve of that if that were a point which
they, while ignorant and unlearned, were able to judge of, (for to decide
who is a wise man appears to me most especially the task of one who is
himself wise.) But they have either formed their opinion as well as they
could from a hearing of all the circumstances, and also from a knowledge
of the opinions of philosophers of all the other schools; or else, having
heard the matter mentioned once, they have surrendered themselves to the
guidance of some one individual. But, I know not how it is, most people
prefer being in error, and defending with the utmost pugnacity that
opinion which they have taken a fancy to, to inquiring without any
obstinacy what is said with the greatest consistency.
And these subjects were very frequently and very copiously discussed by us
at other times, and once also in the villa of Hortensius, which is at
Bauli, when Catulus, and Lucullus, and I myself had arrived there the day
after we had been staying with Catulus. And we had come thither rather
early in the day, because we had intended, if the wind was fair, to set
sail, Lucullus for his villa near Naples, and I myself towards mine, in
the district of Pompeii. When, therefore, we had had a short conversation
on the terrace, we sat down where we were.
IV. Then Catulus said,—Although what we were inquiring into yesterday was
almost wholly explained in such a manner that nearly the whole question
appears to have been discussed, still I long to hear what you promised to
tell us, Lucullus, as being what you had learnt from Antiochus. I, indeed,
said Hortensius, did more than I intended, for the whole matter ought to
have been left untouched for Lucullus, and indeed, perhaps it was: for I
only said such things as occurred to me at the moment; but I hope to hear
something more recondite from Lucullus.
Lucullus rejoined, I am not much troubled, Hortensius, at your
expectation, although there is nothing so unfavourable for those who wish
to give pleasure; but still, as I am not very anxious about how far I can
prove to your satisfaction the arguments which I advance, I am the less
disturbed. For the arguments which I am going to repeat are not my own,
nor such that, if they are incorrect, I should not prefer being defeated
to gaining the victory; but, in truth, as the case stands at present,
although the doctrines of my school were somewhat shaken in yesterday’s
discussion, still they do seem to me to be wholly true. I will therefore
argue as Antiochus used to argue; for the subject is one with which I am
well acquainted. For I used to listen to his lectures with a mind quite
unengaged, and with great pleasure, and, moreover, he frequently discussed
the same subject over again; so that you have some grounds for expecting
more from me than you had from Hortensius a little while ago. When he had
begun in this manner we prepared to listen with great attention.
And he spoke thus:—When I was at Alexandria, as proquæstor, Antiochus was
with me, and before my arrival, Heraclitus, of Tyre, a friend of
Antiochus, had already settled in Alexandria, a man who had been for many
years a pupil of Clitomachus and of Philo, and who had a great and
deserved reputation in that school, which having been almost utterly
discarded, is now coming again into fashion; and I used often to hear
Antiochus arguing with him; but they both conducted their discussions with
great gentleness. And just at that time those two books of Philo which
were yesterday mentioned by Catulus had been brought to Alexandria, and
had for the first time come under the notice of Antiochus; and he, though
naturally a man of the mildest disposition, (nor indeed was it possible
for any one to be more peaceable than he was,) was nevertheless a little
provoked. I was surprised, for I had never seen him so before: but he,
appealing to the recollection of Heraclitus, began to inquire of him
whether he had seen those works of Philo, or whether he had heard the
doctrines contained in them, either from Philo or from any one else of the
Academic school? And he said that he had not; however, he recognised the
style of Philo, nor, indeed, could there be any doubt about it; for some
friends of mine, men of great learning, Publius and Caius Setilius, and
Tetrilius Rogus were present, who said that they heard Philo advance such
operations at Rome; and who said that they had written out those two books
from his dictation. Then Antiochus repeated what Catulus mentioned
yesterday, as having been said to Philo by his father, and many other
things besides; nor did he forbear even to publish a book against his own
master, which is called “Sosus.”
I therefore, then, as I was much interested in hearing Heraclitus arguing
against Antiochus, and Antiochus against the Academicians, paid great
attention to Antiochus, in order to learn the whole matter from him.
Accordingly, for many days, collecting together Heraclitus and several
learned men, and among them Aristus, the brother of Antiochus, and also
Ariston and Dion, men whom he considered only second to his brother in
genius, we devoted a great deal of time to that single discussion.
But we must pass over that part of it which was bestowed on refuting the
doctrines of Philo; for he is a less formidable adversary, who altogether
denies that the Academicians advance those arguments which were maintained
yesterday. For although he is quite wrong as to the fact, still he is a
less invincible adversary. Let us speak of Arcesilas and Carneades.
V. And having said this, he began again:—You appear to me, in the first
place, (and he addressed me by name,) when you speak of the old natural
philosophers, to do the same thing that seditious citizens are in the
habit of doing when they bring forward some illustrious men of the
ancients, who they say were friends of the people, in the hope of being
themselves considered like them. They go back to Publius Valerius, who was
consul the first year after the expulsion of the kings. They enumerate all
the other men who have passed laws for the advantage of the people
concerning appeals when they were consuls; and then they come down to
these better known men, Caius Flaminius, who, as tribune of the people,
passed an Agrarian law some years before the second Punic war, against the
will of the senate, and who was afterwards twice elected consul; to Lucius
Cassius and Quintus Pompeius; they are also in the habit of classing
Publius Africanus in the same list; and they assert that those two
brothers of infinite wisdom and exceeding glory, Publius Crassus and
Publius Scævola, were the advisers of Tiberius Gracchus, in the matter of
the laws which he proposed; the one, indeed, as we see, openly; the other,
as we suspect, in a more concealed manner. They add also Caius Marius; and
with respect to him they speak truly enough: then, having recounted the
names of so many illustrious men, they say that they are acting up to
their principles.
In like manner, you, when you are seeking to overturn a well-established
system of philosophy, in the same way as those men endeavoured to overturn
the republic, bring forward the names of Empedocles, Anaxagoras,
Democritus, Parmenides, Xenophanes, and even Plato and Socrates. But
Saturninus, (that I may name my own enemy rather than any one else,) had
nothing in him resembling those ancient men; nor are the ungrounded
accusations of Arcesilas to be compared to the modesty of Democritus. And
yet those natural philosophers, though very seldom, when they have any
very great difficulty, make loud and violent outcries, as if under the
influence of some great excitement, Empedocles, indeed, does so to such a
degree, that he appears to me at times to be mad, crying out that all
things are hidden, that we feel nothing, see nothing, and cannot find out
the true character of anything whatever. But for the most part all those
men appear to me to affirm some things rather too positively, and to
profess that they know more than they really do know. But if they then
hesitated while discussing new subjects, like children lately born, are we
for that reason to think that nothing has been explained in so many ages
by the greatest genius and the most untiring industry? May we not say
that, after the establishment of some wise and important schools of
philosophy, then, as Tiberius Gracchus arose in an excellent constitution,
for the purpose of throwing everything into confusion, so Arcesilas rose
up to overturn the established philosophy, and to shelter himself under
the authority of those men who asserted that nothing could be known or
perceived; in which number we ought not to include Plato or Socrates; the
one because he left behind him a most perfect school, namely, the
Peripatetics and Academics, differing in name, but agreeing in all
substantial matters: and from whom the Stoics themselves differ in words
rather than in opinions. But Socrates, who always disparaged himself in
arguing, attributed more knowledge to those whom he wished to refute. So,
as he was speaking differently from what he really thought, he was fond of
using that kind of dissimulation which the Greeks call εἰρωνεία; which
Fannius says Africanus also was in the habit of indulging in, and that
that ought not be considered a bad habit in him, as it was a favourite
practice of Socrates.
VI. But, however, we will allow, if you like, that all those things were
unknown to the ancients:—was nothing effected then, by their being
thoroughly investigated, after that Arcesilas, disparaging Zeno, (for that
is supposed to have been his object,) as discovering nothing new, but only
correcting previous changes of names, while seeking to upset his
definitions, had attempted to envelop the clearest possible matters in
darkness? And his system, which was at first not at all approved of,
although it was illustrated both by acute genius and by an admirable
wittiness of language, was in the next generation adopted by no one but
Lacydes; but subsequently it was perfected by Carneades, who was the
fourth in succession from Arcesilas; for he was the pupil of Hegesinus,
who had been the pupil of Evander, the disciple of Lacydes, and Lacydes
himself had been the pupil of Arcesilas; but Carneades maintained it for a
long time, for he lived ninety years; and those who had been his pupils
had a very high reputation, of whom Clitomachus displayed the most
industry, as the number of books which he composed testifies; nor was
there less brilliancy of genius in him than there was of eloquence in
Charmadas, or of sweetness in Melanthius of Rhodes. But Metrodorus of
Stratonice was thought to be the one who had the most thorough
understanding of Carneades. And your friend Philo attended the lectures of
Clitomachus for many years; but as long as Philo was alive the Academy was
never in want of a head.
But the business that we now propose to ourselves, of arguing against the
Academicians, appears to some philosophers, and those, too, men of no
ordinary calibre, to be a thing that ought not to be done at all; and they
think that there is no sense at all in, and no method of disputing with
men who approve of nothing; and they blame Antipater, the Stoic, who was
very fond of doing so, and say that there is no need of laying down exact
definitions of what knowledge is, or perception, or, if we want to render
word for word, comprehension, which they call κατάληψις; and they say that
those who wish to persuade men that there is anything which can be
comprehended and perceived, are acting ignorantly; because there is
nothing clearer than ἐνάργεια, as the Greeks call it, and which we may
call perspicuity, or evidentness if you like,—coining words, if you will
permit us to do so, that this fellow (meaning me) may not think that he is
the only person to whom such liberties are permitted. Still they thought
that no discourse could be found which should be more intelligible than
evidentness itself; and they thought that there was no need of defining
things which were so clear.
But others declared that they would never be the first to speak in behalf
of this evidentness; but they thought that a reply ought to be made to
those arguments which were advanced against it, to prevent any one being
deceived by them. There are also many men who do not disapprove of the
definitions of the evident things themselves, and who think the subject
one worthy of being inquired into, and the men worthy of being argued
with.
But Philo, while he raises some new questions, because he was scarcely
able to withstand the things which were said against the obstinacy of the
Academicians, speaks falsely, without disguise, as he was reproached for
doing by the elder Catulus; and also, as Antiochus told him, falls into
the very trap of which he was afraid. For as he asserted that there was
nothing which could be comprehended, (for that is what we conceive to be
meant by ἀκατάληπτος,) if that was, as Zeno defined it, such a perception,
(for we have already spent time enough yesterday in beating out a word for
φαντασία,) then a perception was extracted and produced out of that from
which it originated, such as could be produced from that from which it did
not originate. And we say that this matter was most excellently defined by
Zeno; for how can anything be comprehended, so that you may feel
absolutely sure that it has been perceived and known, which is of such a
character that it is even possible that it may be false? Now when Philo
upsets and denies this, he takes away also all distinction between what is
known and unknown; from which it follows that nothing can be comprehended;
and so, without intending it, he is brought back to the point he least
intended. Wherefore, all this discourse against the Academy is undertaken
by us in order that we may retain that definition which Philo wished to
overturn; and unless we succeed in that, we grant that nothing can be
perceived.
VII. Let us begin then with the senses—the judgments of which are so clear
and certain, that if an option were given to our nature, and if some god
were to ask of it whether it is content with its own unimpaired and
uncorrupted senses, or whether it desires something better, I do not see
what more it could ask for. Nor while speaking on this topic need you wait
while I reply to the illustration drawn from a bent oar, or the neck of a
dove; for I am not a man to say that everything which seems is exactly of
that character of which it seems to be. Epicurus may deal with this idea,
and with many others; but in my opinion there is the very greatest truth
in the senses, if they are in sound and healthy order, and if everything
is removed which could impede or hinder them. Therefore we often wish the
light to be changed, or the situation of those things which we are looking
at; and we either narrow or enlarge distances; and we do many things until
our sight causes us to feel confidence in our judgment. And the same thing
takes place with respect to sounds, and smell, and taste, so that there is
not one of us who, in each one of his senses, requires a more acute
judgment as to each sort of thing.
But when practice and skill are added, so that one’s eyes are charmed by a
picture, and one’s ears by songs, who is there who can fail to see what
great power there is in the senses? How many things do painters see in
shadows and in projections which we do not see? How many beauties which
escape us in music are perceived by those who are practised in that kind
of accomplishment? men who, at the first note of the flute-player,
say,—That is the Antiope, or the Andromache, when we have not even a
suspicion of it. There is no need for me to speak of the faculties of
taste or smell; organs in which there is a degree of intelligence, however
faulty it may be. Why should I speak of touch, and of that kind of touch
which philosophers call the inner one, I mean the touch of pleasure or
pain? in which alone the Cyrenaics think that there is any judgment of the
truth, because pleasure or pain are felt. Can any one then say that there
is no difference between a man who is in pain and a man who is in
pleasure? or can any one think that a man who entertains this opinion is
not flagrantly mad?
But such as those things are which we say are perceived by the senses,
such also are those things which are said to be perceived, not by the
senses themselves, but by the senses after a fashion; as these things—that
is white, this is sweet, that is tuneful, this is fragrant, that is rough.
We have these ideas already comprehended by the mind, not by the senses.
Again, this is a house, that is a dog. Then the rest of the series
follows, connecting the more important links; such as these, which
embrace, as it were, the full comprehension of things;—If he is a man, he
is a mortal animal partaking of reason:—from which class of arguments the
notions of things are impressed upon us, without which nothing can be
understood, nor inquired into, nor discussed. But if those notions were
false, (for you seemed to me to translate ἔννοιαι _notions_,) if, I say,
they were false, or impressed, or perceptions of such a kind as not to be
able to be distinguished from false ones; then I should like to know how
we were to use them? and how we were to see what was consistent with each
thing and what was inconsistent with it? Certainly no room at all is here
left for memory, which of all qualities is the one that most completely
contains, not only philosophy, but the whole practice of life, and all the
arts. For what memory can there be of what is false? or what does any one
remember which he does not comprehend and hold in his mind? And what art
can there be except that which consists not of one, nor of two, but of
many perceptions of the mind? and if you take these away, how are you to
distinguish the artist from the ignorant man? For we must not say at
random that this man is an artist, and deny that that man is; but we must
only do so when we see that the one retains the things which he has
perceived and comprehended, and that the other does not. And as some arts
are of that kind that one can only see the fact in one’s mind, others such
that one can design and effect something, how can a geometrician perceive
those things which have no existence, or which cannot be distinguished
from what is false? or how can he who plays on the lyre complete his
rhythm, and finish verses? And the same will be the case with respect to
similar arts, whose whole work consists in acting and in effecting
something. For what is there that can be effected by art, unless the man
who exercises the art has many perceptions?
VIII. And most especially does the knowledge of virtues confirm the
assertion that many things can be perceived and comprehended. And in those
things alone do we say that science exists; which we consider to be not a
mere comprehension of things, but one that is firm and unchangeable; and
we consider it also to be wisdom, the art of living which, by itself,
derives consistency from itself. But if that consistency has no perception
or knowledge about it, then I ask whence it has originated and how? I ask
also, why that good man who has made up his mind to endure every kind of
torture, to be torn by intolerable pain, rather than to betray his duty or
his faith, has imposed on himself such bitter conditions, when he has
nothing comprehended, perceived, known, or established, to lead him to
think that he is bound to do so? It cannot, then, by any possibility be
the case that any one should estimate equity and good faith so highly as
to shrink from no punishment for the sake of preserving them, unless he
has assented to those facts which cannot be false. But as to wisdom
itself, if it be ignorant of its own character, and if it does not know
whether it be wisdom or not, in the first place, how is it to obtain its
name of wisdom? Secondly, how will it venture to undertake any exploit, or
to perform it with confidence, when it has nothing certain to follow? But
when it doubts what is the chief and highest good, being ignorant to what
everything is referred, how can it be wisdom?
And that also is manifest, that it is necessary that there should be laid
down in the first place a principle which wisdom may follow when it begins
to act; and that principle must be adapted to nature. For otherwise, the
desire, (for that is how I translate ὁρμὴ,) by which we are impelled to
act, and by which we desire what has been seen, cannot be set in motion.
But that which sets anything in motion must first be seen and trusted,
which cannot be the case if that which is seen cannot be distinguished
from what is false. But how can the mind be moved to desire anything, if
it cannot be perceived whether that which is seen is adapted to nature or
inconsistent with it?
And again, if it does not occur to a man’s mind what his duty is, he will
actually never do anything, he will never be excited to any action, he
will never be moved. But if he ever is about to do anything, then it is
necessary that that which occurs to him must appear to him to be true.
What! But if those things are true, is the whole of reason, which is, as
it were, the light and illumination of life, put an end to? And still will
you persist in that wrong-headedness? For it is reason which has brought
men the beginning of inquiry, which has perfected virtue, after reason
herself had been confirmed by inquiry. But inquiry is the desire of
knowledge; and the end of inquiry is discovery. But no one can discover
what is false; nor can those things which continue uncertain be
discovered. But when those things which have, as it were, been under a
veil, are laid open, then they are said to be discovered; and so reason
contains the beginning of inquiry, and the end of perceiving and
comprehending. Therefore the conclusion of an argument, which in Greek is
called ἀπόδειξις, is thus defined:—Reason, which leads one from facts
which are perceived, to that which was not perceived.
IX. But if all things which are seen were of that sort that those men say
they are, so that they either could possibly be false, or that no
discernment could distinguish whether they were false or not, then how
could we say that any one had either formed any conclusion, or discovered
anything? Or what trust could be placed in an argument when brought to a
conclusion? And what end will philosophy itself have, which is bound to
proceed according to reason? And what will become of wisdom? which ought
not to doubt about its own character, nor about its decrees, which
philosophers call δόγματα; none of which can be betrayed without
wickedness. For when a decree is betrayed, the law of truth and right is
betrayed too. From which fault betrayals of friendships and of republics
often originate. It cannot, therefore be doubted, that no rule of wisdom
can possibly be false; and it ought not to be enough for the wise man that
it is not false, but it ought also to be steady, durable, and lasting;
such as no arguments can shake. But none can either be, or appear such,
according to the principle of those men who deny that those perceptions in
which all rules originate are in any respect different from false ones;
and from this assertion arose the demand which was repeated by Hortensius,
that you would at least allow that the fact that nothing can be perceived
has been perceived by the wise man. But when Antipater made the same
demand, and argued that it was unavoidable that the man who affirmed that
nothing could be perceived should nevertheless admit that this one thing
could be perceived,—namely, that nothing else could,—Carneades resisted
him with great shrewdness. For he said that this admission was so far from
being consistent with the doctrine asserted, that it was above all others
incompatible with it: for that a man who denied that there was anything
which could be perceived excepted nothing. And so it followed of
necessity, that even that very thing which was not excepted, could not be
comprehended and perceived in any possible manner.
Antiochus, on this topic, seems to press his antagonist more closely. For
since the Academicians adopted that rule, (for you understand that I am
translating by this word what they call δόγμα,) that nothing can be
perceived, he urged that they ought not to waver in their rule as in other
matters, especially as the whole of their philosophy consisted in it: for
that the fixing of what is true and false, known and unknown, is the
supreme law of all philosophy. And since they adopted this principle, and
wished to teach what ought to be received by each individual, and what
rejected, undoubtedly, said he, they ought to perceive this very thing
from which the whole judgment of what is true and false arises. He urged,
in short, that there were these two principal objects in philosophy, the
knowledge of truth, and the attainment of the chief good; and that a man
could not be wise who was ignorant of either the beginning of knowledge,
or of the end of desire, so as not to know either where to start from, or
whither to seek to arrive at. But that to feel in doubt on these points,
and not to have such confidence respecting them as to be unable to be
shaken, is utterly incompatible with wisdom.
In this manner, therefore, it was more fitting to demand of them that they
should at least admit that this fact was perceived, namely, that nothing
could be perceived. But enough, I imagine, has been said of the
inconsistency of their whole opinion, if, indeed, you can say that a man
who approves of nothing has any opinion at all.
X. The next point for discussion is one which is copious enough, but
rather abstruse; for it touches in some points on natural philosophy, so
that I am afraid that I may be giving the man who will reply to me too
much liberty and licence. For what can I think that he will do about
abstruse and obscure matters, who seeks to deprive us of all light? But
one might argue with great refinement the question,—with how much
artificial skill, as it were, nature has made, first of all, every animal;
secondly, man most especially;—how great the power of the senses is; in
what manner things seen first affect us; then, how the desires, moved by
these things, followed; and, lastly, in what manner we direct our senses
to the perception of things. For the mind itself, which is the source of
the senses, and which itself is sense, has a natural power, which it
directs towards those things by which it is moved. Therefore it seizes on
other things which are seen in such a manner as to use them at once;
others it stores up; and from these memory arises: but all other things it
arranges by similitudes, from which notions of things are engendered;
which the Greeks call, at one time ἔννοιαι, and at another προλήψεις. And
when to this there is added reason and the conclusion of the argument, and
a multitude of countless circumstances, then the perception of all those
things is manifest, and the same reason, being made perfect by these
steps, arrives at wisdom.
As, therefore, the mind of man is admirably calculated for the science of
things and the consistency of life, it embraces knowledge most especially.
And it loves that κατάληψις, (which we, as I have said, will call
_comprehension_, translating the word literally,) for its own sake, (for
there is nothing more sweet than the light of truth,) and also because of
its use; on which account also it uses the senses, and creates arts, which
are, as it were, second senses; and it strengthens philosophy itself to
such a degree that it creates virtue, to which single thing all life is
subordinate. Therefore, those men who affirm that nothing can be
comprehended, take away by their assertion all these instruments or
ornaments of life; or rather, I should say, utterly overturn the whole of
life, and deprive the animal itself of mind (_animo_), so that it is
difficult to speak of their rashness as the merits of the case require.
Nor can I sufficiently make out what their ideas or intentions really are.
For sometimes, when we address them with this argument,—that if the
doctrines which we are upholding are not true, then everything must be
uncertain: they reply,—Well, what is that to us? is that our fault? blame
nature, who, as Democritus says, has buried truth deep in the bottom of
the sea.
But others defend themselves more elegantly, who complain also that we
accuse them of calling everything uncertain; and they endeavour to explain
how much difference there is between what is uncertain and what cannot be
perceived, and to make a distinction between them. Let us, then, now deal
with those who draw this distinction, and let us abandon, as incurable and
desperate, those who say that everything is as uncertain as whether the
number of the stars be odd or even. For they contend, (and I noticed that
you were especially moved by this,) that there is something probable, and,
as I may say, likely; and that they adopt that likelihood as a rule in
steering their course of life, and in making inquiries and conducting
discussions.
XI. But what rule can there be, if we have no notion whatever of true or
false, because it is impossible to distinguish one from the other? For, if
we have such a notion, then there must be a difference between what is
true and what is false, as there is between what is right and what is
wrong. If there is no difference, then there is no rule; nor can a man to
whom what is true and what is false appear under one common aspect, have
any means of judging of, or any mark at all by which he can know the
truth. For when they say, that they take away nothing but the idea of
anything being able to appear in such a manner that it cannot possibly
appear false in the same manner but that they admit everything else, they
are acting childishly. For though they have taken away that by which
everything is judged of, they deny that they take away the rest; just as
if a person were to deprive a man of his eyes, and then say that he has
not taken away from him those things which can be seen. For just as those
things are known by the eyes, so are the other things known by the
perceptions; but by a mark belonging peculiarly to truth, and not common
to what is true and false.
Wherefore, whether you bring forward a perception which is merely
probable, or one which is at once probable and free from all hindrance, as
Carneades contended, or anything else that you may follow, you will still
have to return to that perception of which we are treating. But in it, if
there be but one common characteristic of what is false and true, there
will be no judgment possible, because nothing peculiar can be noted in one
sign common to two things: but if there be no such community, then I have
got what I want; for I am seeking what appears to me to be so true, that
it cannot possibly appear false.
They are equally mistaken when, being convicted and overpowered by the
force of truth, they wish to distinguish between what is evident and what
is perceived, and endeavour to prove that there is something
evident,—being a truth impressed on the mind and intellect,—and yet that
it cannot be perceived and comprehended. For how can you say distinctly
that anything is white, when it may happen that that which is black may
appear white? Or how are we to call those things evident, or to say that
they are impressed faithfully on the mind, when it is uncertain whether it
is really moved or only in an illusory manner? And so there is neither
colour, nor body, nor truth, nor argument, nor sense, nor anything certain
left us. And, owing to this, it frequently happens that, whatever they
say, they are asked by some people,—Do you, then, perceive that? But they
who put this question to them are laughed at by them; for they do not
press them hard enough so as to prove that no one can insist upon any
point, or make any positive assertion, without some certain and peculiar
mark to distinguish that thing which each individual says that he is
persuaded of.
What, then, is this probability of yours? For if that which occurs to
every one, and which, at its first look, as it were, appears probable, is
asserted positively, what can be more trifling? But if your philosophers
say that they, after a certain degree of circumspection and careful
consideration, adopt what they have seen as such, still they will not be
able to escape from us. First of all, because credit is equally taken from
all these things which are seen, but between which there is no difference;
secondly, when they say that it can happen to a wise man, that after he
has done everything, and exercised the most diligent circumspection, there
may still be something which appears probable, and which yet is very far
removed from being true,—how can they then trust themselves, even if they
(to use their own expression) approach truth for the most part, or even if
they come as near to it as possible? For, in order to trust themselves,
the distinctive mark of truth ought to be thoroughly known to them; and if
that be obscure or concealed, what truth is there which they can seem to
themselves to arrive at? And what can be so absurd a thing to say as,—This
indeed is a sign of that thing, or a proof of it, and on that account I
follow it; but it is possible that that which is indicated may either be
false, or may actually have no existence at all?
XII. However, we have said enough about perception. For if any one wishes
to invalidate what has been said, truth will easily defend itself, even if
we are absent.
These things, then, which have now been explained, being sufficiently
understood, we will proceed to say a little on the subject of assent and
approbation, which the Greeks call συγκατάθεσις. Not that the subject
itself is not an extensive one, but because the foundations have been
already laid a little while ago. For when we were explaining what power
there was in the senses, this point was at the same time established, that
many things were comprehended and perceived by the senses, which is a
thing which cannot take place without assent. Secondly, as this is the
principal difference between an inanimate and an animated being, that the
inanimate being does nothing, but the animated one does something (for it
is impossible even to imagine what kind of animal that can be which does
nothing)—either sense must be taken from it, or else assent (which is
wholly in our own power) must be given. But mind is in some degree denied
to those beings whom they will not allow either to feel or to assent. For
as it is inevitable that one scale of a balance must be depressed when a
weight is put in it, so the mind, too, must yield to what is evident; for
just as it is impossible for any animal to forbear discerning what is
manifestly suited to its nature (the Greeks call that οἰκεῖον), so it is
equally impossible for it to withhold its assent to a manifest fact which
is brought under its notice.
Although, if those principles which we have been maintaining are true,
there is no advantage whatever in discussing assent. For he who perceives
anything, assents immediately. But these inferences also follow,—that
memory can have no existence without assent, no more can notions of things
or arts. And what is most important of all is, that, although some things
may be in our power, yet they will not be in the power of that man who
assents to nothing. Where, then, is virtue, if nothing depends on
ourselves? But it is above all things absurd that vices should be in the
power of the agents, and that no one should do wrong except by deliberate
consent to do so, and yet that this should not be the case with virtue;
all the consistency and firmness of which depends on the things to which
it has assented, and which it has approved. And altogether it is necessary
that something should be perceived before we act, and before we assent to
what is perceived; wherefore, he who denies the existence of perception or
assent, puts an end to all action in life.
XIII. Now let us examine the arguments which are commonly advanced by this
school in opposition to these principles. But, first of all, you have it
in your power to become acquainted with what I may call the foundations of
their system. They then, first of all, compound a sort of art of those
things which we call perceptions, and define their power and kinds; and at
the same time they explain what the character of that thing which can be
perceived and comprehended is, in the very same words as the Stoics. In
the next place, they explain those two principles, which contain, as it
were, the whole of this question; and which appear in such a manner that
even others may appear in the same, nor is there any difference between
them, so that it is impossible that some of them should be perceived, and
that others should not be perceived; but that it makes no difference, not
only if they are in every part of the same character, but even if they
cannot be distinguished.
And when these principles are laid down, then these men comprehend the
whole cause in the conclusion of one argument. But this conclusion, thus
compounded, runs in this way: “Of the things which are seen, some are true
and some are false; and what is false cannot be perceived, but that which
appears to be true is all of such a character that a thing of the same
sort may seem to be also false. And as to those things which are perceived
being of such a sort that there is no difference between them, it cannot
possibly happen that some of them can be perceived, and that others
cannot; there is, then, nothing seen which can really be perceived.”
But of the axioms which they assume, in order to draw the conclusions
which they desire, they think that two ought to be granted to them; for no
one objects to them. They are these: “That those perceptions which are
false, cannot really be perceived;” and the second is—“Of those
perceptions between which there is no difference, it is impossible that
some should be of such a character that they can be perceived, and others
of such a character that they cannot.”
But their other propositions they defend by numerous and varied arguments,
and they likewise are two in number. One is—“Of those things which appear,
some are true and others false;” the other is—“Every perception which
originates in the truth, is of such a character as it might be of, though
originating in what is false.” And these two propositions they do not pass
by, but they expand in such a manner as to show no slight degree of care
and diligence. For they divide them into parts, and those also large
parts; first of all into the senses, then into those things which are
derived from the senses, and from universal custom, the authority of which
they wish to invalidate. Then they come to the point of laying it down
that nothing can be perceived even by reason and conjecture. And these
universal propositions they cut up into more minute parts. For as in our
yesterday’s discussion you saw that they acted with respect to the senses,
so do they also act with respect to everything else. And in each separate
thing which they divide into the most minute parts, they wish to make out
that all these true perceptions have often false ones added to them, which
are in no respect different from the true ones; and that, as they are of
such a character, nothing can be comprehended.
XIV. Now all this subtlety I consider indeed thoroughly worthy of
philosophy, but still wholly unconnected with the case which they advocate
who argue thus. For definitions, and divisions, and a discourse which
employs these ornaments, and also similarities and dissimilarities, and
the subtle and fine-drawn distinctions between them, belong to men who are
confident that those arguments which they are upholding are true, and
firm, and certain; and not to men who assert loudly that those things are
no more true than false. For what would they do if, after they had defined
anything, some one were to ask them whether that definition could be
transferred to something else? If they said it could, then what reason
could they give why it should be a true definition? If they said no,—then
it must be confessed, since that definition of what is true cannot be
transferred to what is false, that that which is explained by that
definition can be perceived; which is the last thing they mean.
The same thing may be said on every article of the division. For if they
say that they see clearly the things about which they are arguing, and
they cannot be hindered by any similarity of appearance, then they will
confess that they are able to comprehend those things. But if they affirm
that true perceptions cannot be distinguished from false ones, how can
they go any further? For the same objections will be made to them which
have been made already; for an argument cannot be concluded, unless the
premises which are taken to deduce the conclusion from are so established
that nothing of the same kind can be false.
Therefore, if reason, relying on things comprehended and perceived, and
advancing in reliance on them, establishes the point that nothing can be
comprehended, what can be found which can be more inconsistent with
itself? And as the very nature of an accurate discourse professes that it
will develop something which is not apparent, and that, in order the more
easily to succeed in its object, it will employ the senses and those
things which are evident, what sort of discourse is that which is uttered
by those men who insist upon it that everything has not so much an
existence as a mere appearance?
But they are convicted most of all when they assume, as consistent with
each other, these two propositions which are so utterly incompatible:
first of all,—That there are some false perceptions;—and in asserting this
they declare also that there are some which are true: and secondly, they
add at the same time,—That there is no difference between true perceptions
and false ones. But you assumed the first proposition as if there were
some difference; and so the latter proposition is inconsistent with the
former, and the former with the latter.
But let us proceed further, and act so as in no respect to seem to be
flattering ourselves; and let us follow up what is said by them, in such a
manner as to allow nothing to be passed over.
In the first place, then, that evidentness which we have mentioned has
sufficiently great power of itself to point out to us the things which are
just as they are. But still, in order that we may remain with firmness and
constancy in our trust in what is evident, we have need of a greater
degree of either skill or diligence, in order not, by some sort of
juggling or trick, to be driven away from those things which are clear of
themselves. For Epicurus, who wished to remedy those errors, which seem to
perplex one’s knowledge of the truth, and who said that it was the duty of
a wise man to separate opinion from evident knowledge, did no good at all;
for he did not in the least remove the errors of opinion itself.
XV. Wherefore, as there are two causes which oppose what is manifest and
evident, it is necessary also to provide oneself with an equal number of
aids. For this is the first obstacle, that men do not sufficiently exert
and fix their minds upon those things which are evident, so as to be able
to understand how great the light is with which they are surrounded. The
second is, that some men, being deluded and deceived by fallacious and
captious interrogatories, when they cannot clear them up, abandon the
truth. It is right, therefore, for us to have those answers ready which
may be given in defence of the evidentness of a thing,—and we have already
spoken of them,—and to be armed, in order to be able to encounter the
questions of those people, and to scatter their captious objections to the
winds: and this is what I propose to do next.
I will, therefore, explain their arguments one by one; since even they
themselves are in the habit of speaking in a sufficiently lucid manner.
In the first place, they endeavour to show that many things can appear to
exist, which in reality have no existence; when minds are moved to no
purpose by things which do not exist, in the same manner as by things that
do. For when you say (say they) that some visions are sent by God, as
those, for instance, which are seen during sleep, and those also which are
revealed by oracles, and auspices, and the entrails of victims, (for they
say that the Stoics, against whom they are arguing, admit all these
things,) they ask how God can make those things probable which appear to
be false; and how it is that He cannot make those appear so which plainly
come as near as possible to truth? Or if He can likewise make those appear
probable, why He cannot make the others appear so too, which are only with
great difficulty distinguished from them? And if He can make these appear
so, then why He cannot also make those things appear so which are
absolutely different in no respect whatever?
In the next place, since the mind is moved by itself,—as those things
which we picture to ourselves in thought, and those which present
themselves to the sight of madmen or sleeping men declare,—is it not, say
they, probable that the mind is also moved in such a manner, that not only
it does not distinguish between the perceptions, as to whether they be
true or false, but that there really is no difference between them? As,
for instance, if any men of their own accord trembled and grew pale, on
account of some agitation of mind, or because some terrible object came
upon them from without, there would be no means of distinguishing one
trembling and paleness from the other, nor indeed would there be any
difference between the external and internal alarm which caused them.
Lastly, if no perceptions are probable which are false, then we must seek
for other principles; but if they are probable, then why may not one say
the same of such as are not easily distinguished from one another? Why not
also of such as have actually no difference at all between them?
Especially when you yourselves say that the wise man when enraged
withholds himself from all assent, because there is no distinction between
his perceptions which is visible to him.
XVI. Now on all these empty perceptions Antiochus brought forward a great
many arguments, and one whole day was occupied in the discussion of this
subject. But I do not think that I ought to adopt the same course, but
merely to give the heads of what he said.
And in the first place, they are blameable in this, that they use a most
captious kind of interrogation. And the system of adding or taking away,
step by step, minute items from a proposition, is a kind of argument very
little to be approved of in philosophy. They call it sorites,(11) when
they make up a heap by adding grain after grain; a very vicious and
captious style of arguing. For you mount up in this way:—If a vision is
brought by God before a man asleep of such a nature as to be probable
(_probabile_), why may not one also be brought of such a nature as to be
very like truth (_verisimile_)? If so, then why may not one be brought
which can hardly be distinguished from truth? If so, then why may there
not be one which cannot be distinguished at all? If so, then why may there
not be such that there is actually no difference between them?—If you come
to this point because I have granted you all the previous propositions, it
will be my fault; but if you advance thither of your own accord, it will
be yours. For who will grant to you either that God can do everything, or
that even if He could He would act in that manner? And how do you assume
that if one thing may be like another, it follows that it may also be
difficult to distinguish between them? And then, that one cannot
distinguish between them at all? And lastly, that they are identical? So
that if wolves are like dogs, you will come at last to asserting that they
are the same animals. And indeed there are some things not honourable,
which are like things that are honourable; some things not good, like
those that are good; some things proceeding on no system, like others
which are regulated by system. Why then do we hesitate to affirm that
there is no difference between all these things? Do we not even see that
they are inconsistent? For there is nothing that can be transferred from
its own genus to another. But if such a conclusion did follow, as that
there was no difference between perceptions of different genera, but that
some could be found which were both in their own genus and in one which
did not belong to them, how could that be possible?
There is then one means of getting rid of all unreal perceptions, whether
they be formed in the ideas, which we grant to be usually the case, or
whether they be owing to idleness, or to wine, or to madness. For we say
that clearness, which we ought to hold with the greatest tenacity, is
absent from all visions of that kind. For who is there who, when he
imagines something and pictures it to himself in his thoughts, does not,
as soon as he has stirred up himself, and recovered himself, feel how much
difference there is between what is evident and what is unreal? The case
of dreams is the same. Do you think that Ennius, when he had been walking
in his garden with Sergius Galba, his neighbour, said to himself,—I have
seemed to myself to be walking with Galba? But when he had a dream, he
related it in this way,—
The poet Homer seem’d to stand before me.
And again in his Epicharmus he says—
For I seem’d to be dreaming, and laid in the tomb.
Therefore, as soon as we are awakened, we despise those things which we
have seen, and do not regard them as we do the things which we have done
in the forum.
XVII. But while these visions are being beheld, they assume the same
appearance as those things which we see while awake. There is a good deal
of real difference between them; but we may pass over that. For what we
assert is, that there is not the same power or soundness in people when
asleep that there is in them while waking, either in intellect or in
sensation. What even drunken men do, they do not do with the same
deliberate approbation as sober men. They doubt, they hesitate, they check
themselves at times, and give but a feeble assent to what they see or
agree too. And when they have slept off their drunkenness, then they
understand how unreal their perceptions were. And the same thing is the
case with madmen; that when their madness is beginning, they both feel and
say that something appears to them to exist that has no real existence.
And when their frenzy abates, they feel and speak like Alcmæon;—
But now my heart does not agree
With that which with my eyes I see.
But even in madness the wise man puts restraint upon himself, so far as
not to approve of what is false as if it were true. And he does so often
at other times, if there is by chance any heaviness or slowness in his
senses, or if those things which are seen by him are rather obscure, or if
he is prevented from thoroughly examining them by the shortness of the
time. Although the whole of this fact, that the wise man sometimes
suspends his assent, makes against you. For if there were no difference
between his perceptions, he would either suspend it always or never.
But from the whole character of this discussion we may see the worthless
nature of the argument of those men who wish to throw everything into
confusion. We want judgment, marked with gravity, consistency, firmness,
and wisdom: and we use the examples of men dreaming, mad, or drunk. I
press this point, that in all this discussion we are speaking with great
inconsistency. For we should not bring forward men sunk in wine or sleep,
or deprived of sense, in such an absurd manner as at one time to say there
is a difference between the perceptions of men awake and sober and
sensible, and those of men in a different condition, and at other times
that there was no difference at all.
They do not even perceive that by this kind of argument they are making
out everything to be uncertain, which they do not wish to do. I call that
uncertain which the Greeks call ἄδηλον. For if the fact be that there is
no difference between the appearance that a thing presents to a madman and
to a person in his senses, then who can feel quite sure of his own sanity?
And to wish to produce such an effect as that is a proof of no ordinary
madness. But they follow up in a childish manner the likenesses of twins,
or of impressions of rings. For who of us denies that there are such
things as likenesses, when they are visible in numbers of things? But if
the fact of many things being like many other things is sufficient to take
away knowledge, why are you not content with that, especially as we admit
it? And why do you rather insist upon that assertion which the nature of
things will not suffer, that everything is not in its own kind of that
character of which it really is? and that there is a conformity without
any difference whatever in two or more things; so that eggs are entirely
like eggs, and bees like bees? What then are you contending for? or what
do you seek to gain by talking about twins? For it is granted that they
are alike; and you might be content with that. But you try to make them
out to be actually the same, and not merely alike; and that is quite
impossible.
Then you have recourse to those natural philosophers who are so greatly
ridiculed in the Academy, but whom you will not even now desist from
quoting. And you tell us that Democritus says that there are a countless
number of worlds, and that there are some which are not only so like one
another, but so completely and absolutely equal in every point, that there
is no difference whatever between them, and that they are quite
innumerable; and so also are men. Then you require that, if the world be
so entirely equal to another world that there is absolutely not the
slightest difference between them, we should grant to you that in this
world of ours also there must be something exactly equal to something
else, so that there is no difference whatever or distinction between them.
For why, you will say, since there not only can be, but actually are
innumerable Quinti Lutatii Catuli formed out of those atoms, from which
Democritus affirms that everything is produced, in all the other worlds,
which are likewise innumerable,—why may not there be a second Catulus
formed in this identical world of ours, since it is of such a size as we
see it?
XVIII. First of all I reply, that you are bringing me to the arguments of
Democritus, with whom I do not agree. And I will the more readily refute
them, on account of that doctrine which is laid down very clearly by the
more refined natural philosophers, that everything has its own separate
property. For grant that those ancient Servilii who were twins were as
much alike as they are said to have been, do you think that that would
have made them the same? They were not distinguished from one another out
of doors, but they were at home. They were not distinguished from one
another by strangers, but they were by their own family. Do we not see
that this is frequently the case, that those people whom we should never
have expected to be able to know from one another, we do by practice
distinguish so easily that they do not appear to be even in the least
alike?
Here, however, you may struggle; I will not oppose you. Moreover, I will
grant that that very wise man who is the subject of all this discussion,
when things like one another come under his notice, in which he has not
remarked any special character, will withhold his assent, and will never
agree to any perception which is not of such a character as a false
perception can never assume. But with respect to all other things he has a
certain art by which he can distinguish what is true from what is false;
and with respect to those similitudes he must apply the test of
experience. As a mother distinguishes between twins by the constant
practice of her eyes, so you too will distinguish when you have become
accustomed to it. Do you not see that it has become a perfect proverb that
one egg is like another? and yet we are told that at Delos (when it was a
flourishing island) there were many people who used to keep large numbers
of hens for the sake of profit; and that they, when they had looked upon
an egg, could tell which hen had laid it. Nor does that fact make against
our argument; for it is sufficient for us to be able to distinguish
between the eggs. For it is impossible for one to assent to the
proposition that this thing is that thing more, than by admitting that
there is actually no difference at all between the two. For I have laid it
down as a rule, to consider all perceptions true which are of such a
character as those which are false cannot be. And from this I may not
depart one finger’s breadth, as they say, lest I should throw everything
into confusion. For not only the knowledge of what is true and false, but
their whole nature too, will be destroyed if there is no difference
between one and the other. And that must be very absurd which you
sometimes are in the habit of saying, when perceptions are imprinted on
the mind, that what you say is, not that there is no difference between
the impressions, but only that there is none between certain appearances
and forms which they assume. As if perceptions were not judged of by their
appearance, which can deserve or obtain no credit if the mark by which we
are to distinguish truth from falsehood be taken away.
But that is a monstrous absurdity of yours, when you say that you follow
what is probable when you are not hindered by anything from doing so. In
the first place, how can you avoid being hindered, when what is false does
not differ from what is true? Secondly, what judgment can be formed of
what is true, when what is true is undistinguishable from what is false?
From these facts there springs unavoidably ἐποχὴ, that is to say, a
suspension of assent: for which Arcesilas is more consistent, if at least
the opinions which some people entertain of Carneades are correct. For if
nothing can be perceived, as they both agree in thinking, then all assent
is taken away. For what is so childish as to talk of approving of what is
not known? But even yesterday we heard that Carneades was in the habit, at
times, of descending to say that a wise man would be guided by opinion,
that is to say, would do wrong. To me, indeed, it is not so certain that
there is anything which can be comprehended, a question which I have now
spent too much time in discussing, as that a wise man is never guided by
opinion, that is to say, never assents to anything which is either false
or unknown.
There remains this other statement of theirs, that for the sake of
discovering the truth, one ought to speak against every side, and in
favour of every side. I wish then to see what they have discovered. We are
not in the habit, says he, of showing that. What then is the object of all
this mystery? or why do you conceal your opinion as something
discreditable? In order, says he, that those who hear us may be influenced
by reason rather than led by authority. What if they are influenced by
both? would there be any harm in that? However, they do not conceal one of
their theories, namely, that there is nothing which can be conceived. Is
authority no hindrance to entertaining this opinion? It seems to me to be
a great one. For who would ever have embraced so openly and undisguisedly
such perverse and false principles, if there had not been such great
richness of ideas and power of eloquence in Arcesilas, and, in a still
greater degree, in Carneades?
XIX. These are nearly the arguments which Antiochus used to urge at
Alexandria, and many years afterwards, with much more positiveness too, in
Syria, when he was there with me, a little before he died. But, as my case
is now established, I will not hesitate to warn you, as you are my dearest
friend, (he was addressing me,) and one a good deal younger than myself.
Will you, then, after having extolled philosophy with such panegyrics, and
provoked our friend Hortensius, who disagrees with us, now follow that
philosophy which confounds what is true with what is false, deprives us of
all judgment, strips us of the power of approval, and robs us of all our
senses? Even the Cimmerians, to whom some god, or nature, or the foulness
of the country that they inhabited, had denied the light of the sun, had
still some fires which they were permitted to avail themselves of as if
they were light. But those men whom you approve of, after having enveloped
us in such darkness, have not left us a single spark to enable us to look
around by. And if we follow them, we become bound with such chains that we
cannot move. For when assent is taken away, they take away at the same
time all motion of our minds, and all our power of action; which not only
cannot be done rightly, but which cannot possibly be done at all. Beware,
also, lest you become the only person who is not allowed to uphold that
opinion. Will you, when you have explained the most secret matters and
brought them to light, and said on your oath that you have discovered
them, (which, indeed, I could swear to also, since I learnt them from
you,)—will you, I say, assert that there is nothing which can be known,
comprehended, or perceived? Beware, I entreat you, lest the authority of
those most beautiful actions be diminished by your own conduct.
And having said this he stopped. But Hortensius, admiring all he said very
greatly, (so much, indeed, that all the time that Lucullus was speaking he
kept lifting up his hands; and it was no wonder, for I do not believe that
an argument had ever been conducted against the Academy with more
acuteness,) began to exhort me, either jestingly or seriously, (for that
was a point that I was not quite sure about,) to abandon my opinions.
Then, said Catulus, if the discourse of Lucullus has had such influence
over you,—and it has been a wonderful exhibition of memory, accuracy, and
ingenuity,—I have nothing to say; nor do I think it my duty to try and
deter you from changing opinion if you choose. But I should not think it
well for you to be influenced merely by his authority. For he was all but
warning you, said he, jestingly, to take care that no worthless tribune of
the people, of whom you know what a number there will always be, seize
upon you, and ask of you in the public assembly how you are consistent
with yourself, when at one time you assert that nothing certain can be
discovered, and at another time affirm that you yourself have discovered
something. I entreat you, do not let him terrify you. But I would rather
have you disagree with him on the merits of the case itself. But if you
give in to him, I shall not be greatly surprised; for I recollect that
Antiochus himself, after he had entertained such opinions for many years,
abandoned them as soon as he thought it desirable. When Catulus had said
this, they all began to fix their eyes on me.
XX. Then I, being no less agitated than I usually am when pleading
important causes, began to speak something after this fashion:—
The discourse of Lucullus, O Catulus, on the matter itself, moved me a
good deal, being the discourse of a learned and ingenious and quick-witted
man, and of one who passes over nothing which can be said for his side;
but still I am not afraid but that I may be able to answer him. But no
doubt such authority as his would have influenced me a good deal, if you
had not opposed your own to it, which is of equal weight. I will
endeavour, therefore, to reply to him after I have said a few words in
defence of my own reputation, as it were.
If it is by any desire of display, or any zeal for contentious disputes,
that I have been chiefly led to rank myself as an adherent of this school
of philosophy, I should think not only my folly, but also my disposition
and nature deserving of severe censure; for if obstinacy is found fault
with in the most trifling matters, and if also calumny is repressed,
should I choose to contend with others in a quarrelsome manner about the
general condition and conduct of my whole life, or to deceive others and
also my own self? Therefore, if I did not think it foolish in such a
discussion to do what, when one is discussing affairs of state, is
sometimes done, I would swear by Jupiter and my household gods, that I am
inflamed with a desire of discovering the truth, and that I do truly feel
what I say. For how can I avoid wishing to discover the truth, when I
rejoice if I have discovered anything resembling the truth? But although I
consider to see the truth a most beautiful thing, so also do I think it a
most disgraceful one to approve of what is false as if it were true. Not,
indeed, that I am myself a man who never approve of anything false, who
never give assent to any such thing, and am never guided by opinion; but
we are speaking of a wise man. But I myself am very apt to adopt opinions,
for I am not a wise man, and I direct my thoughts, steering not to that
little Cynosura,
The nightly star, which shining not in vain,
Guides the Phœnician sailor o’er the main,
as Aratus says;—and those mariners steer in a more direct course because
they keep looking at the constellation,
Which in its inner course and orbit brief
Surely revolves;—
but looking rather towards Helice, and the bright north star, that is to
say, to these reasons of a more expansive kind, not polished away to a
point; and therefore I roam and wander about in a freer course. However,
the question, as I said just now, is not about myself, but about a wise
man. For when these perceptions have made a violent impression on the
intellect and senses, I admit them, and sometimes I even assent to them,
but still I do not perceive them: for I do not think that anything can be
perceived. I am not a wise man, therefore I submit to perceptions and
cannot resist them: but Arcesilas, being on this point in agreement with
Zeno, thinks that this is the most important part of the power of a wise
man, that he can guard against being entangled, and provide against being
deceived. For there is nothing more incompatible with the idea which we
have of the gravity of a wise man than error, levity, and temerity. Why,
then, need I speak of the firmness of a wise man? whom even you too,
Lucullus, admit to be never guided by mere opinion. And since this is
sanctioned by you, (if I am dealing irregularly with you at this moment, I
will soon return to the proper order of your arguments,) just consider
what force this first conclusion has.
XXI. If the wise man ever assents to anything, he will likewise sometimes
form opinions: but he never will form opinions: therefore he will never
assent to anything. This conclusion was approved of by Arcesilas, for it
confirmed both his first and second proposition. But Carneades sometimes
granted that minor premiss, that the wise man did at times assent: then it
followed that he also was at times guided by opinion; which you will not
allow; and you are right, as it seems to me: but the first proposition,
that the wise man, if he expresses assent, must also be guided by opinion,
is denied by the Stoics and their follower on this point, Antiochus.
For they say that they can distinguish what is false from what is true,
and what cannot be perceived from what can. But, in the first place, even
if anything can be perceived, still the very custom of expressing assent
appears to us to be perilous and unsure. Wherefore, as it is plain that is
so faulty a proceeding, to assent to anything that is either false or
unknown, all assent must rather be removed, lest it should rush on into
difficulties if it proceeds rashly. For what is false is so much akin to
what is true, and the things which cannot be perceived to those which can,
(if, indeed, there are any such, for we shall examine that point
presently,) that a wise man ought not to trust himself in such a hazardous
position.
But if I assume that there is actually nothing which can be perceived, and
if I also take what you grant me, that a wise man is never guided by
opinion, then the consequence will be that the wise man will restrain all
assent on his part; so that you must consider whether you would rather
have it so, or let the wise man sometimes form opinions. You do not
approve of either, you will say. Let us, then, endeavour to prove that
nothing can be perceived; for that is what the whole controversy turns
upon.
XXII. But first I must say a few words to Antiochus; who under Philo
learnt this very doctrine which I am now defending, for such a length of
time, that it is certain that no one was ever longer studying it; and who
wrote on these subjects with the greatest acuteness, and who yet attacked
it in his old age with no less energy than he had defended it in his
youth. Although therefore he may have been a shrewd arguer, as indeed he
was, still his authority is diminished by his inconsistency. For what day,
I should like to know, will ever dawn, which shall reveal to him that
distinctive characteristic of what is true and what is false, of which for
so many years he denied the existence? Has he devised anything new? He
says the same that the Stoics say. Does he repent of having held such an
opinion? Why did he not cross over to some other school, and especially to
the Stoics? for this disagreement with the Academy was peculiarly theirs.
What? did he repent of Mnesarchus or Dardanus, who at that time were the
chiefs of the Stoics at Athens? He never deserted Philo till after the
time when he himself began to have pupils.
But from whence was the Old Academy on a sudden recalled? He appears to
have wished to preserve the dignity of the name, after he had given up the
reality; which however some people said, that he did from a view to his
own glory, and that he even hoped that those who followed him might be
called Antiochians. But to me it seems, that he could not stand that
concourse of all the philosophers. In truth, there are among them all,
some common principles on the other points; but this doctrine is peculiar
to the Academicians, and not one of the other philosophers approves of it.
Therefore, he quitted it; and, like those men who, where the new shops
stand, cannot bear the sun, so he, when he was hot, took refuge under the
shade of the Old Academicians, as those men do under the shade of the old
shops near the pillar of Mænius. There was also an argument which he was
in the habit of employing, when he used to maintain that nothing could be
perceived; namely, asking whether Dionysius of Heraclea had comprehended
the doctrine which he had espoused for many years, because he was guided
by that certain characteristic, and whether he believed the doctrine of
his master Zeno, that whatever was honourable was the only good; or,
whether he adopted the assertion which he defended subsequently, that the
name of honourableness is a mere phantom, and that pleasure is the chief
good: for from this change of opinion on his part he wished to prove, that
nothing can be so stamped on our minds by the truth, that it cannot also
be impressed on them in the same manner by falsehood; and so he took care
that others should derive from his own conduct the same argument which he
himself had derived from Dionysius.
XXIII. But we will argue this point more at length another time; at
present we will turn what has been said, Lucullus, to you. And in the
first place, let us examine the assertion which you made at the beginning,
and see what sort of assertion it is; namely, that we spoke of the ancient
philosophers in a manner similar to that in which seditious men were in
the habit of speaking of illustrious men, who were however friends of the
people. These men do not indeed pursue good objects, but still wish to be
considered to resemble good men; but we say that we hold those opinions,
which you yourselves confess to have been entertained by the most
illustrious philosophers. Anaxagoras said, that snow was black: would you
endure me if I were to say the same? You would not bear even for me to
express a doubt on the subject. But who is this man? is he a Sophist? for
by that name were those men called, who used to philosophize for the sake
of display or of profit. The glory of the gravity and genius of that man
was great. Why should I speak of Democritus? Who is there whom we can
compare with him for the greatness, not merely of his genius, but also of
his spirit? a man who dared to begin thus: “I am going to speak of
everything.” He excepts nothing, so as not to profess a knowledge of it.
For indeed, what could there possibly be beyond everything? Who can avoid
placing this philosopher before Cleanthes, or Chrysippus, or all the rest
of his successors? men who, when compared with him, appear to me to be in
the fifth class.
But he does not say this, which we, who do not deny that there is some
truth, declare cannot be perceived: he absolutely denies that there is any
truth. He says that the senses are not merely dim, but utterly dark; for
that is what Metrodorus of Chios, who was one of his greatest admirers,
says of them, at the beginning of his book on Nature. “I deny,” says he,
“that we know whether we know anything or whether we know nothing; I say
that we do not even know what is ignorance and knowledge; and that we have
no knowledge whether anything exists or whether nothing does.”
Empedocles appears to you to be mad; but to me he seems to utter words
very worthy of the subjects of which he speaks. Does he then blind us, or
deprive us of our senses, if he thinks that there is but little power in
them to judge of those things which are brought under their notice?
Parmenides and Xenophanes blame, as if they were angry with them, though
in no very poetical verses, the arrogance of those people who, though
nothing can be known, venture to say that they know something. And you
said that Socrates and Plato were distinct from these men. Why so? Are
there any men of whom we can speak more certainly? I indeed seem to myself
to have lived with these men; so many of their discourses have been
reported, from which one cannot possibly doubt that Socrates thought that
nothing could be known. He excepted one thing only, asserting that he did
know that he knew nothing; but he made no other exception. What shall I
say of Plato? who certainly would never have followed up these doctrines
in so many books if he had not approved of them; for there was no object
in going on with the irony of the other, especially when it was so
unceasing.
XXIV. Do I not seem to you, not, like Saturninus, to be content with
naming illustrious men, but also sometimes even to imitate them, though
never unless they are really eminent and noble? And I might have opposed
to you men who are annoying to you, but yet disputants of great accuracy;
Stilpo, Diodorus, and Alexinus: men who indulged in far-fetched and
pointed sophisms; for that was the name given usually to fallacious
conclusions. But why need I enumerate them, when I have Chrysippus, who is
considered to be the great support of the portico of the Stoics? How many
of the arguments against the sens
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