Academica
Academica
Headnote
The Academica belongs to the extraordinary outpouring of philosophical writing with which Cicero filled the year 45 BC — the months after the death of his daughter Tullia, and under the dictatorship of Caesar, when the Forum was closed to him and he turned the whole force of his mind to giving Rome a philosophy in its own language. Its subject is the theory of knowledge: whether anything can be known at all, what the criterion of truth might be, and how the schools descended from Plato divided over the question. The work has come down to us only in ruins. Cicero wrote it first in two books, the Catulus and the Lucullus; then, at Varro’s wish and through Atticus’s brokering, he recast it on a larger scale in four, with Varro himself as the chief speaker. Of the first edition only the second book, the Lucullus, survives; of the second only the opening book printed here, the dialogue men call “the Varro,” which breaks off in mid-sentence at the portrait of Carneades.
The setting is Cicero’s villa near Cumae, where Varro — the most learned of the Romans, whose antiquarian labours had, as Cicero tells him, restored to his countrymen the knowledge of who and where they were — has come to call, with Atticus making the third. Pressed to say why, for all his learning, he has never written philosophy in Latin, Varro answers that the educated will read the Greeks and the unlearned will read nothing; Cicero presses back, and the frame becomes the occasion for the doctrine. Varro expounds the teaching of the Old Academy and the Peripatetics as a single inheritance — the threefold division of philosophy into ethics, natural philosophy, and logic, the account of matter and quality, the criterion lodged in the trained senses — the synthesis Cicero had learned at Athens from Antiochus of Ascalon. Then Cicero takes up the sceptical reply of the New Academy: that Arcesilas, confronting the same darkness that had driven Socrates and the older natural philosophers to confess their ignorance, denied that anything could be grasped, and held that the wise man’s part is to withhold assent and rein in the recklessness that approves what it has not understood.
Much of the work’s interest is in watching Cicero forge a Latin philosophical vocabulary as he goes: coining qualitas for the Greek poiotes, weighing species against the Platonic idea, trying visum and comprehendibile for the Stoic terms of perception and proposing them, half-apologetically, to be “worn smooth” by use until they sit easily in the language. What survives is a torso, and a difficult one — the technical heart of the epistemology lies partly in the lost Lucullus — but even the fragment shows the design entire: a Roman, writing in Roman words, setting the two great answers of the Greek schools side by side and declining, as a man of the New Academy must, to pronounce between them with more certainty than the matter allows.
Lately at my place near Cumae, while my friend Atticus was with me, word was brought to us by M. Varro that he had arrived from Rome the evening before, and that, had he not been worn out by the journey, he would have come straight on to us. When we heard this, we judged that no delay should be allowed to keep us from seeing a man bound to us both by the same pursuits and by an old friendship; and so we set out at once to go to him. We were only a little way from his villa when we saw the man himself coming toward us; and embracing him, as is the way of friends — for it had been a long enough interval … — we brought him back to his own villa.
In Cumano nuper cum mecum Atticus noster esset, nuntiatum est nobis a M. Varrone venisse eum Roma pridie vesperi et, nisi de via fessus esset, continuo ad nos venturum fuisse. quod cum audissemus, nullam moram interponendam putavimus quin videremus hominem nobiscum et studiis eisdem et vetustate amicitiae coniunctum; itaque confestim ad eum ire perreximus. paulumque cum ab eius villa abessemus, ipsum ad nos venientem vidimus; atque illum complexi, ut mos amicorum est (satis enim longo intervallo * * * ), ad suam villam reduximus.
Here a few words at first, and those while we were asking whether there happened to be any news from Rome. Then Atticus said, ’Drop those matters, which we can neither inquire about nor hear of without distress, I beg you, and ask rather whether there is any news from the man himself. The Muses of Varro have been silent longer than they used to be; and yet I judge that he is not idling but concealing what he writes.’ ’Not at all,’ said he; ’for I count it the mark of an undisciplined man to write what he wishes kept hidden. But I have a great work in hand, one I began long ago; for it is to this very man here’ — he meant me — ’that I have addressed certain pieces, which are indeed substantial, and are being polished by me to a finer finish.’
hic pauca primo, atque ea percunctantibus nobis ecquid forte Roma novi. Tum Atticus Omitte ista quae nec percunctari nec audire sine molestia possumus quaeso inquit et quaere potius ecquid ipse novi. silent enim diutius Musae Varronis quam solebant, nec tamen istum cessare sed celare quae scribat existimo. Minime vero inquit ille; intemperantis enim arbitror esse scribere quod occultari velit; sed habeo magnum opus in manibus, quae iam pridem; ad hunc enim ipsum (me autem dicebat) quaedam institui, quae et sunt magna sane et limantur a me politius.
And I said, ’Those works of yours, Varro, I have long been awaiting, yet I do not dare demand them; for I have heard from our friend Libo, whose enthusiasm you know — nothing of that kind can be hidden from us — that you are not laying them aside but handling them with greater care and never putting them out of your hands. But this other thing it never came into my mind to ask of you before now. Yet now, after I have set about committing to writing the very studies I learned alongside you, and illuminating in Latin letters that ancient philosophy which sprang from Socrates, I ask what the reason is that, while you write much, you pass over this kind of writing — especially since you yourself excel in it, and since this pursuit, this whole subject, far outstrips all other pursuits and arts.’
Et ego Ista quidem inquam Varro iam diu expectans non audeo tamen flagitare; audivi enim e Libone nostro, cuius nosti studium (nihil enim eius modi celare possumus), non te ea intermittere sed accuratius tractare nec de manibus umquam deponere. illud autem mihi ante hoc tempus numquam in mentem venit a te requirere. sed nunc postea quam sum ingressus res eas quas tecum simul didici mandare monumentis philosophiamque veterem illam a Socrate ortam Latinis litteris illustrare, quaero quid sit cur cum multa scribas genus hoc praetermittas, praesertim cum et ipse in eo excellas et id studium totaque ea res longe ceteris et studiis et artibus antecedat.
Then he said: ’You ask of me a matter I have often deliberated and much turned over. And so I shall answer without hesitation, but shall say what is ready to hand for me, since, as I said, I have thought much and long about this very thing. For when I saw philosophy set out most carefully in Greek letters, I judged that any of our own men who were gripped by zeal for it would, if they were schooled in Greek learning, read the Greek rather than ours, and that if they shrank from the arts and disciplines of the Greeks, they would not care even for these, which cannot be understood without Greek learning. And so I was unwilling to write what neither the unlearned could understand nor the learned care to read.
Tum ille: ’Rem a me saepe deliberatam et multum agitatam requiris. itaque non haesitans respondebo, sed ea dicam quae mihi sunt in promptu, quod ista ipsa de re multum ut dixi et diu cogitavi. nam cum philosophiam viderem diligentissime Graecis litteris explicatam, existimavi si qui de nostris eius studio tenerentur, si essent Graecis doctrinis eruditi, Graeca potius quam nostra lecturos, sin a Graecorum artibus et disciplinis abhorrerent, ne haec quidem curaturos, quae sine eruditione Graeca intellegi non possunt. itaque ea nolui scribere quae nec indocti intellegere possent nec docti legere curarent.
You see these things yourself; for you have learned that we cannot be like Amafinius or Rabirius, who, with no method applied, dispute in common speech about matters set before the eyes, define nothing, divide nothing, frame nothing by fitting interrogation, and in the end think there is no art at all, neither of speaking nor of reasoning. We, on the other hand, obeying the precepts of the logicians and of the orators too — since our school holds each faculty to be a virtue — are compelled to use even new words, which the learned, as I said, will prefer to seek from the Greeks, while the unlearned will not accept them even from us, so that all the labour is undertaken in vain.
Vides autem eadem ipse; didicisti enim non posse nos Amafinii aut Rabirii similes esse, qui nulla arte adhibita de rebus ante oculos positis vulgari sermone disputant, nihil definiunt nihil partiuntur nihil apta interrogatione concludunt, nullam denique artem esse nec dicendi nec disserendi putant; nos autem praeceptis dialecticorum et oratorum etiam, quoniam utramque vim virtutem esse nostri putant, sic parentes ut legibus verbis quoque novis cogimur uti, quae docti ut dixi a Graecis petere malent, indocti ne a nobis quidem accipient, ut frustra omnis suscipiatur labor.
As for natural philosophy, then, if I approved of Epicurus, that is, of Democritus, I could write as plainly as Amafinius. For what is the great difficulty, once you have done away with the causes that produce things, in talking about the chance collision of little bodies — for so he calls the atoms? You know our natural philosophy: since it is held together by an active cause and by matter, the matter which that active cause shapes and forms, geometry too must be brought in; and with what words could anyone set this forth, or whom could anyone bring to understand it? These matters of life and conduct, and of things to be sought and shunned, those men treat simply — for they hold the good of a beast and of a man to be the same; but among our own you are not unaware how great and of what kind the subtlety is.
Iam vero physica, si Epicurum id est si Democritum probarem, possem scribere ita plane ut Amafinius. quid est enim magnum, cum causas rerum efficientium sustuleris, de corpusculorum (ita enim appellat atomos) concursione fortuita loqui? nostra tu physica nosti; quae cum contineantur ex effectione et ex materia ea quam fingit et format effectio, adhibenda etiam geometria est; quam quibusnam quisquam enuntiare verbis aut quem ad intellegendum poterit adducere? Haec ipsa de vita et moribus et de expetendis fugiendisque rebus illi simpliciter, pecudis enim et hominis idem bonum esse censent; apud nostros autem non ignoras quae sit et quanta subtilitas.
For if you follow Zeno, it is a great task to bring anyone to understand what that true and unmixed good is which cannot be severed from honour — a good which Epicurus says he cannot so much as conceive of, what its nature might be, apart from the pleasures that stir the senses; but if we are to pursue the Old Academy, which, as you know, I approve, how acutely it will have to be expounded by us, how subtly, how darkly even must we argue against the Stoics. That whole study of philosophy, then, I take upon myself, both for the steadiness of my life so far as I can, and for the delight of my mind; and I judge that no gift greater or better has been given to man by the gods, as it stands in Plato.
sive enim Zenonem sequare, magnum est efficere ut quis intellegat quid sit illud verum et simplex bonum quod non possit ab honestate seiungi (quod bonum quale sit negat omnino Epicurus se sine voluptatibus sensum moventibus ne suspicari quidem ); si vero Academiam veterem persequemur, quam nos ut scis probamus, quam erit illa acute explicanda nobis, quam argute quam obscure etiam contra Stoicos disserendum. Totum igitur illud philosophiae studium mihi quidem ipse sumo et ad vitae constantiam quantum possum et ad delectationem animi, nec ullum arbitror, ut apud Platonem est, maius aut melius a diis datum munus homini;
But my friends in whom the zeal is present I send to Greece — that is, I bid them go to the Greeks — so that they may draw from the springs rather than chase after the rivulets. As for the things that no one had yet taught, and from which the eager could find no source of knowledge, these, so far as I could — for I am no great admirer of anything of my own — I have made known to our countrymen; for they could not be sought from the Greeks, and, since the death of our friend L. Aelius, not even from the Latins. And yet in those old works of mine, which, imitating Menippus and not translating him, I sprinkled with a certain gaiety, much is mixed in from the depths of philosophy, much said in the manner of the logicians, which, that the less learned might more easily understand it, I made inviting to read by a kind of pleasantness; and in my eulogies, in these very prefaces to the antiquities, I wished to write after the manner of philosophy — if only I have succeeded.’
sed meos amicos in quibus est studium in Graeciam mitto id est ad Graecos ire iubeo, ut ex [a] fontibus potius hauriant quam rivulos consectentur. quae autem nemo adhuc docuerat nec erat unde studiosi scire possent, ea quantum potui (nihil enim magnopere meorum miror) feci ut essent nota nostris; a Graecis enim peti non poterant ac post L. Aelii nostri occasum ne a Latinis quidem. et tamen in illis veteribus nostris, quae Menippum imitati non interpretati quadam hilaritate conspersimus, multa admixta ex intima philosophia, multa dicta dialectice, quae quo facilius minus docti intellegerent, iucunditate quadam ad legendum invitati; in laudationibus, in his ipsis antiquitatum prooemiis philosophiae more scribere voluimus, si modo consecuti sumus.’
Then I said, ’There is something in that, Varro. For when we were strangers and wanderers in our own city, like guests, your books led us, as it were, home, so that at last we could recognize who and where we were. You it was who laid open the age of our country, the divisions of its eras, the laws of its sacred rites and of its priests, its discipline at home and in war, the seats of its regions and places, the names, kinds, functions, and causes of all things divine and human; you have brought a great light, too, to our poets and to Latin letters and words altogether, and you yourself have made a varied and elegant poem in nearly every measure, and you have begun philosophy in many places — enough to spur, too little to instruct.
Tum ego Sunt inquam “ista Varro. nam nos in nostra urbe peregrinantis errantisque tamquam hospites tui libri quasi domum deduxerunt, ut possemus aliquando qui et ubi essemus agnoscere. tu aetatem patriae tu descriptiones temporum, tu sacrorum iura tu sacerdotum, tu domesticam tu bellicam disciplinam, tu sedum regionum locorum tu omnium divinarum humanarumque rerum nomina genera officia causas aperuisti; plurimum quidem poetis nostris omninoque Latinis et litteris luminis et verbis attulisti atque ipse varium et elegans omni fere numero poema fecisti, philosophiamque multis locis inchoasti, ad impellendum satis, ad edocendum parum.
You offer, indeed, a plausible reason: that either the learned will prefer to read the Greek, or that those who do not know the Greek will not even read these works of yours. But you do not really make it good to me; on the contrary, both those who cannot read the Greek will read these, and those who can read the Greek will not despise their own. For what reason is there that men schooled in Greek letters should read the Latin poets but not the philosophers? Is it because Ennius, Pacuvius, Accius, and many others give delight, men who rendered not the words but the force of the Greek poets — how much more will the philosophers delight, if, as those poets imitated Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, so these imitate Plato, Aristotle, Theophrastus? Orators, certainly, I see are praised if any of our own have imitated Hyperides or Demosthenes.
Causam autem probabilem tu quidem affers: aut enim Graeca legere malent qui erunt eruditi, aut ne haec quidem qui illa nescient. sed eam mihi non sane probas; immo vero et haec qui illa non poterunt, et qui Graeca poterunt non contemnent sua. quid enim causae est cur poetas Latinos Graecis litteris eruditi legant, philosophos non legant? an quia delectat Ennius Pacuvius Accius multi alii, qui non verba sed vim Graecorum expresserunt poetarum—quanto magis philosophi delectabunt, si ut illi Aeschylum Sophoclem Euripidem sic hi Platonem imitentur Aristotelem Theophrastum. oratores quidem laudari video si qui e nostris Hyperidem sint aut Demosthenem imitati.
For my part, Varro — for I shall speak as the matter stands — so long as ambition, so long as honours, so long as cases, so long as not only care for the commonwealth but a certain administration of it, held me entangled and bound fast by many duties, I kept these studies shut up within my mind, and renewed them by reading when I could, that they might not grow stale. But now, struck by the gravest wound of fortune, and freed from the management of the commonwealth, I seek from philosophy a medicine for my grief, and I judge this the most honourable diversion of my leisure. For either this is most fitting to my time of life, or it is above all in keeping with whatever deeds I have done worthy of praise, or there is nothing more useful for the educating of our fellow citizens, or, if these things are not so, I see nothing else that I could do.
Ego autem Varro (dicam enim ut res est), dum me ambitio dum honores dum causae, dum rei publicae non solum cura sed quaedam etiam procuratio multis officiis implicatum et constrictum tenebat, animo haec inclusa habebam et ne obsolescerent renovabam cum licebat legendo; nunc vero et fortunae gravissimo percussus vulnere et administratione rei publicae liberatus doloris medicinam a philosophia peto et otii oblectationem hanc honestissimam iudico. aut enim huic aetati hoc maxime aptum est, aut his rebus si quas dignas laude gessimus hoc in primis consentaneum, aut etiam ad nostros cives erudiendos nihil utilius, aut si haec ita non sunt nihil aliud video quod agere possimus.
Our friend Brutus, indeed, outstanding in every kind of praise, pursues philosophy in Latin letters so well that you would feel no want of the Greek on the same subjects; and he follows the very view that you do, for he heard Aristus at Athens for some time, whose brother Antiochus you heard. For which reason, give yourself, I beg, to this kind of writing too.’
Brutus quidem noster excellens omni genere laudis sic philosophiam Latinis litteris persequitur nihil ut isdem de rebus Graeca desideres; et eandem quidem sententiam sequitur quam tu, nam Aristum Athenis audivit aliquamdiu, cuius tu fratrem Antiochum. quam ob rem da quaeso te huic etiam generi litterarum.”
Then he said: ’That, indeed, I shall consider — and not, to be sure, without you. But what is this I hear about you yourself?’ ’About what?’ I said. ’That you have abandoned the Old Academy,’ he said, ’and now take up the New.’ ’Why, then,’ I said, ’should it have been more permissible for our friend Antiochus to move back from the new house into the old, than for us to move into the new from the old? For surely it is always the most recent things that are most corrected and amended. And yet Philo, the teacher of Antiochus — a great man, as you yourself reckon — used to deny in his books, as we also heard from his own lips face to face, that there were two Academies, and refuted the error of those who thought so.’ ’It is as you say,’ he said; ’but I do not suppose you are unaware of what Antiochus wrote against Philo.’
Tum ille: ’Istuc quidem considerabo, nec vero sine te. sed de te ipso quid est’ inquit quod audio? Quanam inquam de re? Relictam a te veterem Academiam inquit, tractari autem novam. Quid ergo inquam Antiocho id magis licuerit nostro familiari, remigrare in domum veterem e nova, quam nobis in novam e vetere? certe enim recentissima quaeque sunt correcta et emendata maxime. quamquam Antiochi magister Philo, magnus vir ut tu existimas ipse, †negaret in libris, quod coram etiam ex ipso audiebamus, duas Academias esse, erroremque eorum qui ita putarent coarguit. Est inquit ut dicis; sed ignorare te non arbitror quae contra Philonis Antiochus scripserit.
’On the contrary,’ I said, ’I should be glad to have both that and the whole Old Academy, from which I have been absent so long, renewed for me by you, if it is no trouble — and at the same time, if you please, let us sit down.’ ’By all means as to that,’ he said, ’for I am rather frail. But let us see whether Atticus too is content that I should do what I see you wish.’ ’For my part, I am,’ he said; ’for what could I more desire than to call back to memory the things I heard from Antiochus long ago, and at the same time to see whether they can be put into Latin with sufficient ease?’ When this had been said, we all sat down within view of one another.
Immo vero et ista et totam veterem Academiam, a qua absum tam diu, renovari a te nisi molestum est velim, et simul adsidamus inquam si videtur. Sane istuc quidem inquit, sum enim admodum infirmus. sed videamus idemne Attico placeat fieri a me quod te velle video. Mihi vero ille; quid est enim quod malim quam ex Antiocho iam pridem audita recordari et simul videre satisne ea commode dici possint Latine? Quae cum essent dicta, in conspectu consedimus omnes.
Then Varro began thus: ’Socrates, it seems to me — and this is agreed among all — was the first to call philosophy away from things hidden and wrapped up in nature herself, with which all the philosophers before him had been occupied, and to bring it down to common life, so that it should inquire about virtues and about vices and, in a word, about good things and bad; while as for the heavenly bodies, he judged that either they lie beyond our knowledge, or, even if they were known to the fullest, they would still contribute nothing to living well.
Tum Varro ita exorsus est: ’Socrates mihi videtur, id quod constat inter omnes, primus a rebus occultis et ab ipsa natura involutis, in quibus omnes ante eum philosophi occupati fuerunt, avocavisse philosophiam et ad vitam communem adduxisse, ut de virtutibus et de vitiis omninoque de bonis rebus et malis quaereret, caelestia autem vel procul esse a nostra cognitione censeret vel, si maxime cognita essent, nihil tamen ad bene vivendum.
In nearly all the conversations that have been written out, variously and copiously, by those who heard him, he argues in such a way that he affirms nothing himself but refutes others, says that he knows nothing except that one thing itself, and that in this he surpasses the rest: that they suppose they know the things they do not know, while he alone knows this one thing — that he knows nothing; and that for this reason he believes he was pronounced by Apollo the wisest of all men, because this was the one wisdom belonging to a human being, not to suppose one knows what one does not know. When he said these things steadily and remained firm in that conviction, his whole discourse was spent on praising virtue and on exhorting men to the pursuit of virtue — as can be understood from the books of the Socratics, and most of all of Plato.
hic in omnibus fere sermonibus, qui ab is qui illum audierunt perscripti varie copioseque sunt, ita disputat ut nihil affirmet ipse refellat alios, nihil se scire dicat nisi id ipsum, eoque praestare ceteris, quod illi quae nesciant scire se putent, ipse se nihil scire id unum sciat, ob eamque rem se arbitrari ab Apolline omnium sapientissimum esse dictum, quod haec esset una hominis sapientia, non arbitrari sese scire quod nesciat. quae cum diceret constanter et in ea sententia permaneret, omnis eius oratio tantum in virtute laudanda et in hominibus ad virtutis studium cohortandis consumebatur, ut e Socraticorum libris maximeque Platonis intellegi potest.
But by the authority of Plato, who was varied and many-sided and copious, a single, consistent form of philosophy was established under two names, that of the Academics and that of the Peripatetics, who, agreeing in substance, differed in their names. For when Plato had left Speusippus, his sister’s son, as the heir, so to speak, of his philosophy, but also left two men of the most outstanding zeal and learning, Xenocrates of Chalcedon and Aristotle of Stagira — those who were with Aristotle were called Peripatetics, because they used to debate while walking about in the Lyceum, whereas the others, because by Plato’s institution they were accustomed to hold their gatherings and conversations in the Academy, which is another gymnasium, took their name from the name of the place. But both groups, filled full with Plato’s abundance, framed a certain settled formula of doctrine — and that one full and well-stocked — while they abandoned the old Socratic practice of disputing about all things in doubt and with no affirmation admitted. So there came about — what Socrates least of all approved — a certain art of philosophy, an ordering of subjects, and a systematic plan of doctrine.
Platonis autem auctoritate, qui varius et multiplex et copiosus fuit, una et consentiens duobus vocabulis philosophiae forma instituta est Academicorum et Peripateticorum, qui rebus congruentes nominibus differebant. nam cum Speusippum sororis filium Plato philosophiae quasi heredem reliquisset, duo autem praestantissimo studio atque doctrina, Xenocratem Calchedonium et Aristotelem Stagiritem, qui erant cum Aristotele Peripatetici dicti sunt, quia disputabant inambulantes in Lycio, illi autem, quia Platonis instituto in Academia, quod est alterum gymnasium, coetus erant et sermones habere soliti, e loci vocabulo nomen habuerunt. sed utrique Platonis ubertate completi certam quandam disciplinae formulam composuerunt et eam quidem plenam ac refertam, illam autem Socraticam dubitanter de omnibus rebus et nulla affirmatione adhibita consuetudinem disserendi reliquerunt. ita facta est, quod minime Socrates probabat, ars quaedam philosophiae et rerum ordo et descriptio disciplinae.
This, as I said, was at first one under two names; for there was no difference between the Peripatetics and that Old Academy. By a certain abundance of genius Aristotle excelled, as it seems to me at least; but the source was the same for both, and the same was their partition of things to be sought and things to be shunned. But what am I doing,’ he said, ’or am I in my senses, to be teaching you these things? For though it is not, as they say, the pig teaching Minerva, still whoever teaches Minerva does it ineptly.’ Then Atticus said: ’But do go on, Varro; for I dearly love what is ours and our own people, and these things delight me when they are said in Latin, and in that manner.’ ’And what of me,’ I said, ’who think that I shall now have to display philosophy to our people, since I have already professed it?’
Quae quidem erat primo duobus ut dixi nominibus una; nihil enim inter Peripateticos et illam veterem Academiam differebat. abundantia quadam ingenii praestabat, ut mihi quidem videtur, Aristoteles, sed idem fons erat utrisque et eadem rerum expetendarum fugiendarumque partitio. Sed quid ago’ inquit aut sumne sanus qui haec vos doceo? nam etsi non sus Minervam ut aiunt, tamen inepte quisquis Minervam docet. Tum Atticus Tu vero inquit perge Varro; valde enim amo nostra atque nostros, meque ista delectant cum Latine dicuntur et isto modo. Quid me inquam putas, qui philosophiam iam professus sim populo nostro me exhibiturum.
’Let us go on, then,’ he said, ’since it is agreed. There was, accordingly, a threefold method of philosophizing, already received from Plato: one concerning life and conduct, a second concerning nature and things hidden, a third concerning argument and the judging of what is true, what false, what correct in speech and what faulty, what consistent and what contradictory. And first, that part of living well they drew from nature, and said that nature must be obeyed, and that the highest good, to which all things are referred, must be sought in nothing else than in nature; and they laid down that the limit of things to be desired and the end of goods was to have attained all that comes from nature in mind, in body, and in life. Of the body, they held that some goods lie in the whole, others in the parts: health, strength, and beauty in the whole; and in the parts, unimpaired senses and some excellence of the several parts, as swiftness in the feet, power in the hands, clearness in the voice, and in the tongue too a distinct impression of the words;
Pergamus igitur inquit, ’quoniam placet. Fuit ergo iam accepta a Platone philosophandi ratio triplex, una de vita et moribus, altera de natura et rebus occultis, tertia de disserendo et quid verum quid falsum quid rectum in oratione pravumve quid consentiens quid repugnet iudicando. Ac primum illam partem bene vivendi a natura petebant eique parendum esse dicebant, neque ulla alia in re nisi in natura quaerendum esse illud summum bonum quo omnia referrentur, constituebantque extremum esse rerum expetendarum et finem bonorum adeptum esse omnia e natura et animo et corpore et vita. corporis autem alia ponebant esse in toto alia in partibus, valetudinem vires pulchritudinem in toto, in partibus autem sensus integros et praestantiam aliquam partium singularum, ut in pedibus celeritatem, vim in manibus, claritatem in voce, in lingua etiam explanatam vocum impressionem;
while of the mind, they held that the things suited to grasping virtue lay in our natural gifts, and these they divided into nature and conduct. To nature they assigned quickness in learning and memory, each of which is proper to the mind and to natural endowment; while of conduct they held there were pursuits and, as it were, habit, which they shaped partly by steady exercise, partly by reason — and in these lay philosophy itself. In philosophy, what has been begun but not completed is called a certain progress toward virtue, while what has been completed is virtue itself, the perfection, so to speak, of nature, and the one best thing of all those they place in our minds.
animi autem quae essent ad comprehendendam ingeniis virtutem idonea, eaque ab his in naturam et mores dividebantur. naturae celeritatem ad discendum et memoriam dabant, quorum utrumque mentis esset proprium et ingenii; morum autem putabant studia esse et quasi consuetudinem, quam partim assiduitate exercitationis partim ratione formabant, in quibus erat ipsa philosophia; in qua quod inchoatum est neque absolutum progressio quaedam ad virtutem appellatur, quod autem absolutum, id est virtus, quasi perfectio naturae omniumque rerum quas in animis ponunt una res optima.
These, then, belong to the mind; but to life — for that was the third part — they said there were attached those things that bore upon the exercise of virtue. Now virtue is discerned in the goods of the mind and in those of the body, and in certain things attached not so much to nature as to the happy life. For they held that a human being is, as it were, a kind of part of a community and of the whole human race, and that he is bound up with other human beings by a certain human fellowship. And concerning the highest and natural good they argue thus; but the rest they hold to bear upon this — either upon increasing it or upon keeping it — such as riches, resources, glory, and favour. So a threefold account of goods is introduced by them,
ergo haec animorum; vitae autem (id enim erat tertium) adiuncta esse dicebant quae ad virtutis usum valerent. Iam virtus in animi bonis et in corporis cernitur et in quibusdam quae non tam naturae quam beatae vitae adiuncta sunt. hominem enim esse censebant quasi partem quandam civitatis et universi generis humani, eumque esse coniunctum cum hominibus humana quadam societate. ac de summo quidem atque naturali bono sic agunt; cetera autem pertinere ad id putant aut adaugendum aut ad tenendum, ut divitias ut opes ut gloriam ut gratiam. Ita tripertita ab his inducitur ratio bonorum,
and these are those three kinds which most people suppose the Peripatetics propound. In this they are not mistaken; for this partition is indeed theirs. But this is imprudent: if they suppose that those then called Academics were one set of men and the Peripatetics another. This account was common to both, and to both this seemed the end of goods — to attain the things that are first in nature and that are to be sought for their own sakes, either all of them or the greatest; and the greatest are those that have to do with the mind itself and with virtue itself. And so all that ancient philosophy held that the happy life is placed in virtue alone — yet not the happiest, unless there be joined to it as well the goods of the body and the rest that were mentioned above as suited to the exercise of virtue.
atque haec illa sunt tria genera quae putant plerique Peripateticos dicere. id quidem non falso; est enim haec partitio illorum; illud imprudenter, si alios esse Academicos qui tum appellarentur alios Peripateticos arbitrantur. communis haec ratio, et utrisque hic bonorum finis videbatur, adipisci quae essent prima in natura quaeque ipsa per sese expetenda aut omnia aut maxima; ea sunt autem maxima, quae in ipso animo atque in ipsa virtute versantur. itaque omnis illa antiqua philosophia sensit in una virtute esse positam beatam vitam, nec tamen beatissimam nisi adiungerentur etiam corporis et cetera quae supra dicta sunt ad virtutis usum idonea.
From this scheme there was also discovered some starting-point for acting in life, and for duty itself, which lay in the preservation of oneself and in the desire for those things that nature prescribes. From this were begotten a flight from sloth and a contempt for pleasures, and from this the taking up of labours and pains, many and great, for the sake of the right and the honourable and of those things that accord with the prescription of nature; from this too there arose friendship and justice and fairness, and these were preferred both to pleasures and to many advantages of life. Such, then, among them was the framing of conduct, and such the form and scheme of that part which I placed first.
Ex hac descriptione agendi quoque aliquid in vita et officii ipsius initium reperiebatur, quod erat in conservatione sui et in appetitione earum rerum quas natura praescriberet. hinc gignebatur fuga desidiae voluptatumque contemptio, ex quo laborum dolorumque susceptio multorum magnorum que recti honestique causa et earum rerum quae erant congruentes cum praescriptione naturae; unde et amicitia exsistebat et iustitia atque aequitas, eaeque et voluptatibus et multis vitae commodis anteponebantur. Haec quidem fuit apud eos morum institutio et eius partis quam primam posui forma atque descriptio.
But concerning nature — for that came next — they spoke in such a way as to divide it into two things: one the agent, the other, as it were, that which offers itself to this and out of which something is produced. In that which acts they held that there was force; in that which is acted upon, only a certain matter; yet in each, both — for matter itself could not have held together if it were contained by no force, nor force without some matter, since there is nothing that is not compelled to be somewhere. But that which arises out of both, this they now called body and, as it were, a certain quality poiotes — for you will surely grant, in matters out of the ordinary, that we should use words sometimes unheard-of, as the Greeks themselves do, by whom these subjects have long been handled.’
De natura autem (id enim sequebatur) ita dicebant ut eam dividerent in res duas, ut altera esset efficiens, altera autem quasi huic se praebens, eaque efficeretur aliquid. in eo quod efficeret vim esse censebant, in eo autem quod efficeretur tantum modo materiam quandam; in utroque tamen utrumque: neque enim materiam ipsam cohaerere potuisse si nulla vi contineretur, neque vim sine aliqua materia; nihil est enim quod non alicubi esse cogatur. sed quod ex utroque, id iam corpus et quasi qualitatem quandam nominabant—dabitis enim profecto ut in rebus inusitatis, quod Graeci ipsi faciunt a quibus haec iam diu tractantur, utamur verbis interdum inauditis.’
’By all means,’ said Atticus; ’and indeed you will be free to use Greek whenever you like, if the Latin should happen to fail you.’ ’You are kind to say so; but I shall strive to speak Latin, except in words of this kind — so that I may call something "philosophy" or "rhetoric" or "physics" or "dialectic," words which, like many others, custom now employs as Latin. And so I have called "qualities" what the Greeks call poiotetes, a term which even among the Greeks belongs not to common speech but to the philosophers — as is the case with many words. The terms of the dialecticians, however, are not public property at all; they use their own. And this is something nearly all the arts have in common: either new names must be made for new things, or names must be transferred from other things. And if the Greeks do this, who have now been engaged in these matters for so many centuries, how much more must it be allowed to us, who are now attempting to handle these things for the first time?’
Nos vero inquit Atticus; quin etiam Graecis licebit utare cum voles, si te Latina forte deficient. Bene sane facis; sed enitar ut Latine loquar, nisi in huiusce modi verbis ut philosophiam aut rhetoricam aut physicam aut dialecticam appellem, quibus ut aliis multis consuetudo iam utitur pro Latinis. qualitates igitur appellavi quas poio/thtas Graeci vocant, quod ipsum apud Graecos non est vulgi verbum sed philosophorum, atque id in multis; dialecticorum vero verba nulla sunt publica, suis utuntur. et id quidem commune omnium fere est artium; aut enim nova sunt rerum novarum facienda nomina aut ex aliis transferenda. quod si Graeci faciunt qui in his rebus tot iam saecla versantur, quanto id nobis magis concedendum est, qui haec nunc primum tractare conamur.
’You will, I think, deserve well of your fellow citizens, Varro,’ I said, ’if you enrich them not only with a store of subject matter — as you have done — but with a store of words as well.’ ’We shall venture, then, to use new words on your authority,’ he said, ’if it should prove necessary. Of these qualities, then, some are primary and some derived from these. The primary ones are of a single kind and simple; those derived from them are various and, as it were, manifold. And so air (this too we use as a Latin word) and fire and water and earth are primary; but derived from these are the forms of living creatures and of those things that are brought forth from the earth. Therefore those primary things are called the beginnings — or, to render it from the Greek, the elements. Of these, air and fire have the power of moving and of producing, while the remaining parts — I mean water and earth — have the power of receiving and, as it were, of undergoing. A fifth kind, out of which came the stars and the minds, Aristotle held to be something distinct and unlike the four I named above.
’Tu vero’ inquam Varro bene etiam meriturus mihi videris de tuis civibus, si eos non modo copia rerum auxeris, ut effecisti, sed etiam verborum. Audebimus ergo inquit ’novis verbis uti te auctore, si necesse erit. —earum igitur qualitatum sunt aliae principes aliae ex his ortae. principes sunt unius modi et simplices; ex his autem ortae variae sunt et quasi multiformes. itaque aer (hoc quoque utimur enim pro Latino) et ignis et aqua et terra prima sunt; ex his autem ortae animantium formae earumque rerum quae gignuntur e terra. ergo illa initia et ut e Graeco vertam elementa dicuntur; e quibus aer et ignis movendi vim habent et efficiendi, reliquae partes accipiendi et quasi patiendi, aquam dico et terram. quintum genus, e quo essent astra mentesque, singulare eorumque quattuor quae supra dixi dissimile Aristoteles quoddam esse rebatur.
But they suppose that underlying all things is a certain matter, without any form of its own and lacking all that quality (let us make this word more familiar and more worn by using it), out of which all things are shaped and produced — a matter able to receive all things entirely, and to be changed in every way and through every part, and thereby even to perish, not into nothing but into its own parts, which can be cut and divided without limit, since there is nothing whatever in the nature of things so small that it cannot be divided. And all the things that are moved, they hold, are moved by intervals, and these intervals likewise can be divided without limit.
Sed subiectam putant omnibus sine ulla specie atque carentem omni illa qualitate (faciamus enim tractando usitatius hoc verbum et tritius) materiam quandam, ex qua omnia expressa atque effecta sint, quae tota omnia accipere possit omnibusque modis mutari atque ex omni parte eoque etiam interire, non in nihilum sed in suas partes, quae infinite secari ac dividi possint, cum sit nihil omnino in rerum natura minimum quod dividi nequeat. quae autem moveantur omnia intervallis moveri, quae intervalla item infinite dividi possint.
And since that force which we called quality is moved in this way, and since it is turned back and forth in this manner, they suppose that the matter itself is wholly transformed throughout, and that those things are produced which they call qualified bodies; out of which, in a whole nature cohering and continuous with all its parts, a single world has been produced, outside of which there is no portion of matter and no body. And the parts of the world, they say, are all the things contained within it, which are held together by a sentient nature, in which a perfected reason is present — a reason that is everlasting and the same (for there is nothing more powerful by which it could be destroyed);
et cum ita moveatur illa vis quam qualitatem esse diximus, et cum sic ultro citroque versetur, et materiam ipsam totam penitus commutari putant et illa effici quae appellant qualia; e quibus in omni natura cohaerente et continuata cum omnibus suis partibus unum effectum esse mundum, extra quem nulla pars materiae sit nullumque corpus. Partis autem esse mundi omnia quae insint in eo, quae natura sentiente teneantur, in qua ratio perfecta insit, quae sit eadem sempiterna (nihil enim valentius esse a quo intereat);
and this force, they say, is the soul of the world, and the same is mind and perfected wisdom, which they call god, and a kind of providence, presiding over all the things that are subject to it, caring above all for the things of heaven, and then on earth for those things that concern human beings. This same force they sometimes call necessity, because nothing can come about otherwise than has been ordained by it; sometimes … as it were a fated and unchangeable continuity of an everlasting order; and at times indeed they call it fortune, because it brings about many things unforeseen and unexpected by us, on account of the obscurity and our own ignorance of causes.
quam vim animum esse dicunt mundi, eandemque esse mentem sapientiamque perfectam, quem deum appellant, omniumque rerum quae sunt ei subiectae quasi prudentiam quandam procurantem caelestia maxime, deinde in terris ea quae pertineant ad homines; quam interdum eandem necessitatem appellant, quia nihil aliter possit atque ab ea constitutum sit, inter dum * * * quasi fatalem et immutabilem continuationem ordinis sempiterni, non numquam quidem eandem fortunam, quod efficiat multa improvisa et necopinata nobis propter obscuritatem ignorationemque causarum.
The third part of philosophy, then, which lay in reason and in argument, was handled by both schools as follows. Although knowledge took its rise from the senses, still the judgment of truth did not lie in the senses. They held that the mind is the judge of things; they reckoned it alone fit to be trusted, because it alone discerns that which is always simple and of a single kind and just such as it is (this they called the idea, so named already by Plato; we may rightly call it the "form").
Tertia deinde philosophiae pars, quae erat in ratione et in disserendo, sic tractabatur ab utrisque. Quamquam oriretur a sensibus tamen non esse iudicium veritatis in sensibus. mentem volebant rerum esse iudicem, solam censebant idoneam cui crederetur, quia sola cerneret id quod semper esset simplex et unius modi et tale quale esset (hanc illi i)de/an appellabant, iam a Platone ita nominatam, nos recte speciem possumus dicere).
But all the senses they reckoned dull and slow, incapable in any way of perceiving those things that seemed to be subject to the senses, because these were either so small that they could not fall under sense, or so mobile and so driven that nothing was ever single and constant, nor even the same as itself, since all things were continually slipping and flowing away. And so this whole region of things they called the realm of opinion;
sensus autem omnis hebetes et tardos esse arbitrabantur nec percipere ullo modo res eas quae subiectae sensibus viderentur, quod essent aut ita parvae ut sub sensum cadere non possent, aut ita mobiles et concitatae ut nihil umquam unum esset et constans, ne idem quidem, quia continenter laberentur et fluerent omnia. itaque hanc omnem partem rerum opinabilem appellabant;
but knowledge, they held, lay nowhere except in the conceptions and reasonings of the mind. For this reason they approved of definitions of things and applied them to everything that came under dispute; the explanation of words too was approved — that is, the account of why each thing was named as it was, which they called etymologia. Afterwards they used certain arguments and, as it were, marks of things to guide them in proving and in concluding what they wished to make plain. Under this head was set out the whole discipline of dialectic — that is, of speech bound tight by reasoning; and to it, as if from the other side, was joined the orator’s power of speaking, the unfolder of continuous discourse fitted to persuasion.
scientiam autem nusquam esse censebant nisi in animi notionibus atque rationibus. qua de causa definitiones rerum probabant et has ad omnia de quibus disceptabatur adhibebant; verborum etiam explicatio probabatur, id est qua de causa quaeque essent ita nominata, quam e)tumologi/an appellabant; post argumentis quibusdam et quasi rerum notis ducibus utebantur ad probandum et ad concludendum id quod explanari volebant. in qua tradebatur omnis dialecticae disciplina id est orationis ratione conclusae; huic quasi ex altera parte oratoria vis dicendi adhibebatur, explicatrix orationis perpetuae ad persuadendum accommodatae.
This was their first scheme, handed down from Plato; and if you wish, I will set out what dismantlings of it I have learned.’ ’We do indeed wish it,’ I said, ’and let me answer for Atticus as well.’ ’And rightly do you answer,’ he said; ’for the authority of the Peripatetics and of the Old Academy is splendidly set forth. Aristotle, then, was the first to shake those forms of which I spoke a little while ago — forms which Plato had embraced so marvellously that he declared there was something divine in them. Theophrastus, moreover, a man both pleasant in his style and so disposed in character that he carries before him a certain uprightness and nobility, broke even more violently, in a manner of speaking, the authority of the old teaching; for he stripped virtue of its proper splendour and made it feeble, when he denied that the happy life rests on virtue alone.
Haec forma erat illis prima, a Platone tradita; cuius quas acceperim dissupationes si vultis exponam.’ Nos vero volumus inquam, ut pro Attico etiam respondeam. Et recte quidem inquit respondes; praeclare enim explicatur Peripateticorum et Academiae veteris auctoritas. “Aristoteles igitur primus species quas paulo ante dixi labefactavit, quas mirifice Plato erat amplexatus, ut in iis quiddam divinum esse diceret. Theophrastus autem, vir et oratione suavis et ita moratus ut prae se probitatem quandam et ingenuitatem ferat, vehementius etiam fregit quodam modo auctoritatem veteris disciplinae; spoliavit enim virtutem suo decore imbecillamque reddidit, quod negavit in ea sola positum esse beate vivere.
For Strato, his pupil, though he was a man of sharp intellect, must nonetheless be removed altogether from that school; for though he abandoned the most necessary part of philosophy, which lies in virtue and in conduct, and gave himself wholly to the investigation of nature, even in that very field he diverged in much from his own people. Speusippus, on the other hand, and Xenocrates, who were the first to take up Plato’s method and authority, and after them Polemo and Crates, and along with them Crantor, gathered together in the Academy, carefully guarded what they had received from their predecessors. Now Zeno and Arcesilas had been constant hearers of Polemo.
Nam Strato eius auditor quamquam fuit acri ingenio tamen ab ea disciplina omnino semovendus est; qui cum maxime necessariam partem philosophiae, quae posita est in virtute et in moribus, reliquisset totumque se ad investigationem naturae contulisset, in ea ipsa plurimum dissedit a suis. Speusippus autem et Xenocrates, qui primi Platonis rationem auctoritatemque susceperant, et post eos Polemo et Crates unaque Crantor in Academia congregati diligenter ea quae a superioribus acceperant tuebantur. Iam Polemonem audiverant assidue Zeno et Arcesilas.
But Zeno, since he was older than Arcesilas and argued with great subtlety and reasoned with great acuteness, attempted to reform the teaching. This reform too I will set out, if it seems good, just as Antiochus used to do.’ ’It does seem good to me,’ I said, ’as you see Pomponius indicating likewise.’ ’Zeno, then, was by no means a man who, like Theophrastus, cut the sinews of virtue; on the contrary, he placed in virtue alone everything that pertains to the happy life, and counted nothing else among goods, and called that the honourable which was a kind of simple and single and sole good.
sed Zeno, cum Arcesilam anteiret aetate valdeque subtiliter dissereret et peracute moveretur, corrigere conatus est disciplinam. eam quoque si videtur correctionem explicabo, sicut solebat Antiochus.” Mihi vero inquam videtur, quod vides idem significare Pomponium. ’Zeno igitur nullo modo is erat qui ut Theophrastus nervos virtutis inciderit, sed contra qui omnia quae que ad beatam vitam pertinerent in una virtute poneret nec quicquam aliud numeraret in bonis idque appellaret honestum quod esset simplex quoddam et solum et unum bonum.
As for the rest, however, though they were neither good things nor bad, he held nonetheless that some were in keeping with nature, others contrary to nature; and between these very ones he reckoned still others, set in between and intermediate. Those that were in keeping with nature, he taught, were to be taken up and held worthy of a certain valuation, and their contraries the reverse; while the intermediates he left in neither class, holding that in them there lay no weight whatever.
cetera autem etsi nec bona nec mala essent tamen alia secundum naturam dicebat alia naturae esse contraria; his ipsis alia interiecta et media numerabat. quae autem secundum naturam essent ea sumenda et quadam aestimatione dignanda docebat, contraque contraria; neutra autem in mediis relinquebat, in quibus ponebat nihil omnino esse momenti.
But of the things to be taken up, some were to be valued more highly, others less. Those of higher value he called “preferred,” those of lower value “rejected.” And just as here he had changed the terms rather than the substance, so between the right act and the wrong, he placed certain things midway between duty and the breach of duty, setting right acts alone among good actions and crooked ones—that is, wrongs—among bad; but duties either kept or neglected he counted, as I said, as intermediate.
sed quae essent sumenda, ex iis alia pluris esse aestimanda alia minoris. quae pluris ea praeposita appellabat, reiecta autem quae minoris. Atque ut haec non tam rebus quam vocabulis commutaverat, sic inter recte factum atque peccatum officium et contra officium media locabat quaedam, recte facta sola in bonis actionibus ponens, prave id est peccata in malis; officia autem conservata praetermissaque media putabat ut dixi.
And whereas his predecessors had said that not all virtue lies in reason, but that certain virtues are brought to completion, as it were, by nature or by habit, he placed every virtue in reason. And whereas they thought that the several kinds of virtue I mentioned above could be held apart, he argued that this could in no way be done, and that not the exercise of virtue alone, as the older men held, but the very disposition itself, in and of itself, was a thing of splendour; and yet that virtue could not be present in anyone without his always making use of it. And whereas they did not strip emotional disturbance from man, but said that to feel grief, to feel desire, to dread, and to be carried away by gladness all belong to nature—though they would contract these and draw them down into narrow bounds—he held that the wise man should be wholly free of them, as of so many diseases.
cumque superiores non omnem virtutem in ratione esse dicerent sed quasdam virtutes quasi natura aut more perfectas, hic omnis in ratione ponebat. cumque illi ea genera virtutum quae supra dixi seiungi posse arbitrarentur, hic nec id ullo modo fieri posse disserebat, nec virtutis usum modo ut superiores sed ipsum habitum per se esse praeclarum, nec tamen virtutem cuiquam adesse quin ea semper uteretur. cumque perturbationem animi illi ex homine non tollerent naturaque et condolescere et concupiscere et extimescere et efferri laetitia dicerent, sed ea contraherent in angustumque deducerent, hic omnibus his quasi morbis voluit carere sapientem.
And whereas the ancients said that these disturbances are natural and devoid of reason, and lodged desire in one part of the soul and reason in another, he did not assent even to this; for he held that the disturbances are voluntary, taken on by a judgment of opinion, and he reckoned the mother of all disturbances to be a certain unbridled lack of restraint. So much, more or less, for ethics. On the subject of nature he held views as follows. First, of those four primary elements of things he did not bring in this fifth nature, out of which his predecessors believed that sensation and mind were produced; for he laid it down that fire is the very nature that begets each thing, mind and the senses included. He differed from them on this point too, that he held it utterly impossible for anything to be produced by that which is without body—of which kind Xenocrates, and his predecessors before him, had declared the soul to be—and that neither what produces something nor what is produced can be other than body.
cumque eas perturbationes antiqui naturales esse dicerent et rationis expertes aliaque in parte animi cupiditatem alia rationem collocarent, ne his quidem assentiebatur; nam et perturbationes voluntarias esse putabat opinionisque iudicio suscipi et omnium perturbationum matrem esse arbitrabatur immoderatam quandam intemperantiam. Haec fere de moribus. De naturis autem sic sentiebat, primum ut in quattuor initiis rerum illis quintam hanc naturam, ex qua superiores sensus et mentem effici rebantur, non adhiberet; statuebat enim ignem esse ipsam naturam quae quidque gigneret et mentem atque sensus. discrepabat etiam ab isdem, quod nullo modo arbitrabatur quicquam effici posse ab ea quae expers esset corporis, cuius generis Xenocrates et superiores etiam animum esse dixerant, nec vero aut quod efficeret aliquid aut quod efficeretur posse esse non corpus.
But it was in that third part of philosophy that he changed the most. Here, to begin with, he said certain new things about the senses themselves, which he held to be coupled with a kind of impact, so to speak, offered from outside—what he calls a “presentation” phantasia, and what we may call an “impression” (and let us wear this word smooth, for it will have to be used rather often in the rest of the discussion). But to these things that are presented, and as it were received by the senses, he joins an assent of the mind, which he holds to lie within us and to be a matter of the will.
Plurima autem in illa tertia philosophiae parte mutavit. in qua primum de sensibus ipsis quaedam dixit nova, quos iunctos esse censuit e quadam quasi impulsione oblata extrinsecus, quam ille fantasi/an, nos visum appellemus licet, et teramus hoc quidem verbum, erit enim utendum in reliquo sermone saepius— sed ad haec quae visa sunt et quasi accepta sensibus assensionem adiungit animorum, quam esse vult in nobis positam et voluntariam.
Not to all impressions did he attach belief, but only to those that possessed a distinctive declaration of their own about the things presented; and that impression, when it was discerned in and of itself, was “graspable”—will you put up with this? ‘Indeed we will,’ he said; ‘for in what other way could you render katalēmpton?’—but when it had now been received and approved, he called it a “grasp,” like things taken hold of by the hand; and from this he had even drawn the word, since before him no one had used that term in such a matter, and he used a great many new words besides (for what he was saying was new). What had been grasped by sensation he called “sensation” itself; and if it had been grasped in such a way that it could not be dislodged by reasoning, he named it “knowledge,” but otherwise “ignorance”; out of which there arose also “opinion,” which is feeble and shares in what is false and ungrasped.
visis non omnibus adiungebat fidem sed is solum quae propriam quandam haberent declarationem earum rerum quae viderentur; id autem visum cum ipsum per se cerneretur, comprehendibile—feretis haec? ’ ATT. nos vero inquit; quonam enim alio modo katalhmpto diceres? — “sed cum acceptum iam et approbatum esset, comprehensionem appellabat, similem is rebus quae manu prenderentur; ex quo etiam nomen hoc duxerat at, cum eo verbo antea nemo tali in re usus esset, plurimisque idem novis verbis (nova enim dicebat) usus est. Quod autem erat sensu comprensum id ipsum sensum appellabat, et si ita erat comprensum ut convelli ratione non posset scientiam, sin aliter inscientiam nominabat; ex qua existebat etiam opinio, quae esset imbecilla et cum falso incognitoque communis.
But between knowledge and ignorance he set that “grasp” I have spoken of, and he counted it neither among right things nor among wrong, but said that it alone is to be trusted. From this he attributed belief to the senses as well, since, as I said above, a grasp made by the senses seemed to him both true and trustworthy—not because it grasped everything that was in the object, but because it left out nothing that could fall within its reach; and because nature had given it as a kind of standard of knowledge and a starting point of itself, from which, afterward, notions of things might be imprinted on the mind; and from these notions are found not only first principles but certain broader roads as well toward the discovery of truth by reason. Error, recklessness, ignorance, opining, suspicion—everything, in a word, that is foreign to firm and steadfast assent—he removed from virtue and wisdom. And it is in these matters, more or less, that the whole of Zeno’s alteration and his dissent from his predecessors consists.”
sed inter scientiam et inscientiam comprehensionem illam quam dixi collocabat, eamque neque in rectis neque in pravis numerabat, sed soli credendum esse dicebat. E quo sensibus etiam fidem tribuebat, quod ut supra dixi comprehensio facta sensibus et vera esse illi et fidelis videbatur, non quod omnia quae essent in re comprehenderet, sed quia nihil quod cadere in eam posset relinqueret, quodque natura quasi normam scientiae et principium sui dedisset unde postea notiones rerum in animis imprimerentur; e quibus non principia solum sed latiores quaedam ad rationem inveniendam viae reperiuntur. errorem autem et temeritatem et ignorantiam et opinationem et suspicionem et uno nomine omnia quae essent aliena firmae et constantis assensionis a virtute sapientiaque removebat. Atque in his fere commutatio constitit omnis dissensioque Zenonis a superioribus.”
When he had said this, ‘It has been set out very briefly indeed, Varro,’ I said, ‘and not in the least obscurely—both the system of the old Academy and that of the Stoics. And I think the truth is, as my friend Antiochus held, that this is to be reckoned a correction of the old Academy rather than any new school.’ Then Varro said: ‘It is now your part—you who break away from the system of the ancients and approve the innovations Arcesilas made—to teach what the rift was, and on what grounds it was made, so that we may see whether that defection of yours is justified enough.’
Quae cum dixisset et, Breviter sane minimeque obscure exposita est inquam a te Varro et veteris Academiae ratio et Stoicorum. horum esse autem arbitror, ut Antiocho nostro familiari placebat, correctionem veteris Academiae potius quam aliquam novam disciplinam putandam. Tum Varro Tuae sunt nunc partes inquit qui ab antiquorum ratione desciscis et ea quae ab Arcesila novata sunt probas, docere quod et qua de causa discidium factum sit, ut videamus satisne ista sit iusta defectio.
Then I said: ‘It was with Zeno, as we are told, that Arcesilas set up his whole contest—not, as it seems to me at least, out of obstinacy or a passion for winning, but because of the obscurity of those very things that had brought Socrates to a confession of ignorance, and, even before Socrates, Democritus, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, and nearly all the ancients—men who declared that nothing can be known, nothing perceived, nothing understood; that the senses are narrow, the mind feeble, the courses of life short; that truth, as Democritus put it, lies sunk in the depths; that everything is held fast by opinions and conventions, that nothing is left to truth; and, in short, that everything lies wrapped in darkness.
Tum ego Cum Zenone inquam “ut accepimus Arcesilas sibi omne certamen instituit, non pertinacia aut studio vincendi ut quidem mihi videtur, sed earum rerum obscuritate, quae ad confessionem ignorationis adduxerant Socratem et vel ut iam ante Socratem Democritum Anaxagoram Empedoclem omnes paene veteres, qui nihil cognosci nihil percipi nihil sciri posse dixerunt, angustos sensus imbecillos animos brevia curricula vitae et ut Democritus in profundo veritatem esse demersam, opinionibus et institutis omnia teneri, nihil veritati relinqui, deinceps omnia tenebris circumfusa esse dixerunt.
And so Arcesilas denied that there was anything that could be known—not even that one thing which Socrates had left himself, the knowing that he knew nothing. So thoroughly did he judge that all things lie hidden in concealment, and that there is nothing that can be discerned or understood; and that for these reasons no one ought to profess or affirm anything, or to approve it by assent, but should always rein himself in and hold his recklessness back from every slip—a recklessness that becomes glaring whenever something false or ungrasped is approved, and that there is nothing more shameful than to let assent and approval run ahead of grasping and perception. And he acted consistently with this principle, so that, by arguing against the views of all men, he drew most of them away from their own: so that, when in one and the same question equal weights of reasoning were found on opposing sides, assent might more easily be withheld from either side.
itaque Arcesilas negabat esse quicquam quod sciri posset, ne illud quidem ipsum quod Socrates sibi reliquisset, ut nihil scire se sciret; sic omnia latere censebat in occulto neque esse quicquam quod cerni aut intellegi posset; quibus de causis nihil oportere neque profiteri neque affirmare quemquam neque assensione approbare, cohibereque semper et ab omni lapsu continere temeritatem, quae tum esset insignis cum aut falsa aut incognita res approbaretur, neque hoc quicquam esse turpius quam cognitioni et perceptioni assensionem approbationemque praecurrere. huic rationi quod erat consentaneum faciebat, ut contra omnium sententias disserens de sua plerosque deduceret, ut cum in eadem re paria contrariis in partibus momenta rationum invenirentur facilius ab utraque parte assensio sustineretur.
This is what they call the New Academy, though to me it seems old, if indeed we count Plato as belonging to that old one—Plato, in whose books nothing is affirmed, much is argued on both sides, everything is inquired into, nothing certain is stated. But let it be so: let the one you have set out be called old, and this one new. It was carried down as far as Carneades, who was fourth from Arcesilas, and it abode in that same system of Arcesilas. Now Carneades was ignorant of no part of philosophy, and, as I have learned from those who had heard him and above all from the Epicurean Zeno—who, though he differed from him profoundly, nonetheless admired this one man beyond all others—was a man of a certain incredible power and … And what is Mnesarchus so vexed about, why does Antipater cross swords with Carneades through volume after volume? …
Hanc Academiam novam appellant, quae mihi vetus videtur, si quidem Platonem ex illa vetere numeramus, cuius in libris nihil affirmatur et in utramque partem multa disseruntur, de omnibus quaeritur nihil certi dicitur—sed tamen illa quam exposuisti vetus, haec nova nominetur. quae usque ad Carneadem perducta, qui quartus ab Arcesila fuit, in eadem Arcesilae ratione permansit. Carneades autem nullius philosophiae partis ignarus et, ut cognovi ex is qui illum audierant maximeque ex Epicureo Zenone, qui cum ab eo plurimum dissentiret unum tamen praeter ceteros mirabatur, incredibili quadam fuit facultate et to ” quid autem stomachatur Mnesarchus, quid Antipater digladiatur cum Carneade tot voluminibus? *