editor of Cicero, has formed a new hypothesis on the subject. Cicero’s
tract _De Inventione_ having been written in his early youth, the period
of its composition may be placed about 672. From various circumstances,
which he discusses at great length, Schütz concludes that the _Rhetorica
ad Herennium_ was the work which was first written, and consequently
previous to 672. Farther, the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ must have been
written subsequently to 665, as it mentions the death of Sulpicius, which
happened in that year. The time thus limited corresponds very exactly with
the age of M. Ant. Gnipho, who was born in the year 640; and him Schütz
considers as the real author of the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_. This he
attempts to prove, by showing, that many things which Suetonius relates of
Gnipho, in his work _De Claris Rhetoribus_, agree with what the author of
the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ delivers concerning himself in the course of
that production. It is pretty well established, that both Gnipho and the
anonymous author of the _Rhetorica ad Herennium_ were free-born, had good
memories, understood Greek, and were voluminous authors. It is
unfortunate, however, that these characteristics, except the first, were
probably common to almost all rhetoricians; and Schütz does not allude to
any of the more particular circumstances mentioned by Suetonius, as that
Gnipho was a Gaul by birth, that he studied at Alexandria, and that he
taught rhetoric in the house of the father of Julius Cæsar.
Cicero, who was unquestionably the first orator, was as decidedly the most
learned philosopher of Rome; and while he eclipsed all his contemporaries
in eloquence, he acquired, towards the close of his life, no small share
of reputation as a writer on ethics and metaphysics. His wisdom, however,
was founded entirely on that of the Greeks, and his philosophic writings
were chiefly occupied with the discussion of questions which had been
agitated in the Athenian schools, and from them had been transmitted to
Italy. The disquisition respecting the certainty or uncertainty of human
knowledge, with that concerning the supreme good and evil, were the
inquiries which he chiefly pursued; and the notions which he entertained
of these subjects, were all derived from the Portico, Academy, or Lyceum.
The leading principles of the chief philosophic sects of Greece flowed
originally from Socrates—
—— “From whose mouth issued forth
Mellifluous streams, that watered all the schools
Of Academics, Old and New(359);”
and who has been termed by Cicero(360) the perennial source of philosophy,
much more justly than Homer has been styled the fountain of all poetry.
Though somewhat addicted to them from education and early habit, Socrates
withdrew philosophy from those obscure and intricate physical inquiries,
in which she had been involved by the founders and followers of the Ionic
school, and from the subtle paradoxical hypotheses of the sophists who
established themselves at Athens in the time of Pericles. It being his
chief aim to improve the condition of mankind, and to incline them to
discharge the several duties of the stations in which they had been
placed, this moral teacher directed his examinations to the nature of vice
and virtue, of good and evil. To accomplish the great object he had in
view, his practice was to hazard no opinion of his own, but to refute
prevalent errors and prejudices, by involving the pretenders to knowledge
in manifest absurdity, while he himself, as if in contrast to the
presumption of the sophists, always professed that he knew nothing. This
confession of ignorance, which amounted to no more than a general
acknowledgment of the imbecility of the human understanding, and was
merely designed to convince his followers of the futility of those
speculations which do not rest on the firm basis of experience, or to
teach them modesty in their inquiries, and diffidence in their assertions,
having been interpreted in a different sense from that in which it was
originally intended, gave rise to the celebrated dispute concerning the
certainty of knowledge.
The various founders of the philosophic sects of Greece, imbibed that
portion of the doctrines of Socrates which suited their own tastes and
views, and sometimes perverted his high authority even to dogmatical or
sophistical purposes. It is from Plato we have derived the fullest account
of his system; but this illustrious disciple had also greatly extended his
knowledge by his voyages to Egypt, Sicily, and Magna Græcia. Hence in the
Academy which he founded, (while, as to morals, he continued to follow
Socrates,) he superadded the metaphysical doctrines of Pythagoras; in
physics, which Socrates had excluded from philosophy, he adopted the
system of Heraclitus; and he borrowed his dialectics from Euclid of
Megara. The recondite and _eisoteric_ tenets of Pythagoras—the obscure
principles of Heraclitus—the superhuman knowledge of Empedocles, and the
sacred _Arcana_ of Egyptian priests, have diffused over the page of Plato
a majesty and mysticism very different from what we suppose to have been
the familiar tone of instruction employed by his great master, of whose
style at least, and manner, Xenophon probably presents us with a more
faithful image.
In Greece, the heads of sects were succeeded in their schools or academies
as in a domain or inheritance. Speusippus, the nephew of Plato, continued
to deliver lectures in the Academy, as did also four other successive
masters, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crates, and Crantor, all of whom retained the
name of Academics, and taught the doctrines of their master without
mixture or corruption. But on the appointment of Xenocrates to the chair
of the Academy, Aristotle, the most eminent of Plato’s scholars, had
betaken himself to another Gymnasium, called the Lyceum, which became the
resort of the Peripatetics. The commanding genius of their founder
enlarged the sphere of knowledge and intellect, devised the rules of
logic, and traced out the principles of rhetorical and poetical criticism:
But the sect which he exalted to unrivalled celebrity, though differing in
name from the contemporary Academics, coincided with them generally in all
the principal points of physical and moral philosophy, and particularly in
those concerning which the Romans chiefly inquired. “Though they differed
in terms,” says Cicero, “they agreed in things(361), and those persons are
grossly mistaken who imagine that the old Academics, as they are called,
are any other than the Peripatetics.” Accordingly, we find that both
believed in the superintending care of Providence, the immortality of the
soul, and a future state of reward and punishment. The supreme good they
placed in virtue, with a sufficiency of the chief external advantages of
nature, as health, riches, and reputation. Such enjoyments they taught,
when united with virtue, make the felicity of man perfect; but if
virtuous, he is capable of being happy, (though not entirely so,) without
them.
Plato, in his mode of communicating instruction, and promulgating his
opinions, had not strictly adhered to the method of his master Socrates.
He held the concurrence of memory, with a recent impression, to be a
criterion of truth, and he taught that opinions might be formed from the
comparison of a present with a recollected perception. But his successors,
both in the Academy and Lyceum, departed from the Socratic method still
more widely. They renounced the maxim, of affirming nothing; and instead
of explaining everything with a doubting reserve, they converted
philosophy, as it were, into an art, and formed a system of opinions,
which they delivered to their disciples as the peculiar tenets of their
sect. They inculcated the belief, that our knowledge has its origin in the
senses—that the senses themselves do not judge of truth, but the mind
through them beholds things as they really are—that is, it perceives the
ideas which always subsist in the same state, without change; so that the
senses, through the medium of the mind, may be relied on for the
ascertainment of truth. Such was the state of opinions and instruction in
the Academy when Arcesilaus, who was the sixth master of that school from
Plato, and in his youth had heard the lessons of Pyrrho the sceptic,
resolved to reform the dogmatic system into which his predecessors had
fallen, and to restore, as he conceived, in all its purity, the Socratic
system of affirming nothing with certainty. This founder of the New, or
Middle Academy as it is sometimes called, denied even the certain truth of
the proposition that we know nothing, which Socrates had reserved as an
exception to his general principle. While admitting that there is an
actual certainty in the nature of things, he rejected the evidence both of
the senses and reason as positive testimony; and as he denied that there
existed any infallible criterion of truth or falsehood, he maintained that
no wise man ought to give any proposition whatever the sanction of his
assent. He differed from the Sceptics or Pyrrhonists only in this, that he
admitted degrees of probability, whereas the Sceptics fluctuated in total
uncertainty.
As Arcesilaus renounced all pretensions to the certain determination of
any question, he was chiefly employed in examining and refuting the
sentiments of others. His principal opponent was his contemporary, Zeno,
the founder of the stoical philosophy, which ultimately became the chief
of those systems which flourished at Rome. The main point in dispute
between Zeno and Arcesilaus, was the evidence of the senses. Arcesilaus
denied that truth could be ascertained by their assistance, because there
is no criterion by which to distinguish false and delusive objects from
such as are real. Zeno, on the other hand, maintained that the evidence of
the senses is certain and clear, provided they be perfect in themselves,
and without obstacle to prevent their effect. Thus, though on different
principles, the founder of the Stoics agreed with the Peripatetics and old
Academicians, that there existed certain means of ascertaining truth, and
consequently that there was evident and certain knowledge. Arcesilaus,
though he did not deny that truth existed, would neither give assent nor
entertain opinions, because appearances could never warrant his
pronouncing on any object or proposition whatever. Nor did the Stoics
entertain opinions; but they refrained from this, because they thought
that everything might be perceived with certainty.
Arcesilaus, while differing widely from the teachers of the old Platonic
Academy in his ideas as to the certainty of knowledge, retained their
system concerning the supreme good, which, like them, he placed in virtue,
accompanied by external advantages. This was another subject of contest
with Zeno, who, as is well known, placed the supreme good in virtue
alone,—health, riches, and reputation, not being by him accounted
essential, nor disease, poverty, and ignominy, injurious to happiness.
The systems promulgated in the old and new Academy, and the stoical
Portico, were those which became most prevalent in Rome. But the Epicurean
opinions were also fashionable there. The philosophy of Epicurus has been
already mentioned while speaking of Lucretius. Moschus of Phœnicia, who
lived before the Trojan war, is said to have been the inventor of the
Atomic system, which was afterwards adopted and improved by Leucippus and
Democritus, whose works, as Cicero expresses it, were the source from
which flowed the streams that watered the gardens of Epicurus(362). To the
evidence of the senses this teacher attributed such weight, that he
considered them as an infallible rule of truth. The supreme good he placed
in pleasure, and the chief evil in pain. His scholars maintained, that by
pleasure, or rather happiness, he meant a life of wisdom and temperance;
but a want of clearness and explicitness in the definition of what
constituted pleasure, has given room to his opponents for alleging that he
placed consummate felicity in sensual gratification.
It was long before a knowledge of any portion of Greek philosophy was
introduced at Rome. For 600 years after the building of the city, those
circumstances did not arise in that capital which called forth and
promoted philosophy in Greece. The ancient Romans were warriors and
agriculturists. Their education was regulated with a view to an active
life, and rearing citizens and heroes, not philosophers. The _Campus
Martius_ was their school; the tent their Lyceum, and the traditions of
their ancestors, and religious rites, their science,—they were taught to
act, to believe, and to obey, not to reason or discuss. Among them a class
of men may indeed have existed not unlike the seven sages of Greece—men
distinguished by wisdom, grave saws, and the services they had rendered to
their country; but these were not philosophers in our sense of the term.
The wisdom they inculcated was not sectarian, but resembled that species
of philosophy cultivated by Solon and Lycurgus, which has been termed
political by Brucker, and which was chiefly adapted to the improvement of
states, and civilization of infant society. At length, however, in the
year 586, when Perseus, King of Macedon, was finally vanquished, his
conqueror brought with him to Rome the philosopher Metrodorus, to aid in
the instruction of his children(363). Several philosophers, who had been
retained in the court of that unfortunate monarch, auguring well from this
incident, followed Metrodorus to Italy; and about the same time a number
of Achæans, of distinguished merit, who were suspected to have favoured
the Macedonians, were summoned to Rome, in order to account for their
conduct. The younger Scipio Africanus, in the course of the embassy to
which he was appointed by the Senate, to the kings of the east, who were
in alliance with the republic, having landed at Rhodes, took under his
protection the Stoic philosopher Panætius(364), who was a native of that
island, and carried him back to Rome, where he resided in the house of his
patron. Panætius afterwards went to Athens, where he became one of the
most distinguished teachers of the Portico(365), and composed a number of
philosophical treatises, of which the chief was that on the Duties of Man.
But though the philosophers were encouraged and cherished by Scipio,
Lælius, Scævola, and others of the more mild and enlightened Romans, they
were viewed with an eye of suspicion by the grave Senators and stern
Censors of the republic. Accordingly, in the year 592, only six years
after their first arrival in Rome, the philosophers were banished from the
city by a formal decree of the Senate(366). The motives for issuing this
rigorous edict are not very clearly ascertained. A notion may have been
entertained by the severer members of the commonwealth, that the
established religion and constitution of Rome might suffer by the
discussion of speculative theories, and that the taste for science might
withdraw the minds of youth from agriculture and arms. This dread, so
natural to a rigid, laborious, and warlike people, would be increased by
the degraded and slavish character of the Greeks, which, having been an
accompaniment, might be readily mistaken for a consequence, of their
progress in philosophy. As most of the philosophers, too, had come from
the states of a hostile monarch, the Senate may have feared, lest they
should inspire sentiments in the minds of youth, not altogether patriotic
or purely republican.
“Sed vetuere patres quod non potuere vetare.”
Though driven from Rome, many of the Greek philosophers took up their
residence in the municipal towns of Italy. By the intercession likewise of
Scipio Africanus, an exception was made in favour of Panætius and the
historian Polybius, who were permitted to remain in the capital. The
spirit of inquiry, too, had been raised, and the mind had received an
impulse which could not be arrested by any senatorial decree, and on which
the slightest incident necessarily bestowed an accelerated progress.
The Greek philosophers returned to Rome in the year 598, under the sacred
character of ambassadors, on occasion of a political complaint which had
been made against the Athenians, and from which they found it necessary to
defend themselves. Notwithstanding the disrespect with which philosophers
had recently been treated in Italy, the Athenians resolved to dazzle the
Romans by a grand scientific embassy. The three envoys chosen were at that
time the heads of the three leading sects of Greek philosophers,—Diogenes,
the Stoic, Critolaus, the Peripatetic, and Carneades of Cyrene, who now
held the place of Arcesilaus in the new Academy. Besides their
philosophical learning, they were well qualified by their eloquence, (a
talent which had always great influence with the Romans,) to persuade and
bring over the minds of men to their principles. Such, indeed, were their
extraordinary powers of speaking and reasoning, that it was commonly said
at Rome that the Athenians had sent orators, not to persuade, but to
compel(367). During the period of their embassy at Rome they lectured to
crowded audiences in the most public parts of the city. The immediate
effect of the display which these philosophic ambassadors made of their
eloquence and wisdom, was to excite in the Roman youth an ardent thirst
after knowledge, which now became a rival in their breasts to the love of
military glory(368). Scipio, Lælius, and Furius, showed the strongest
inclination for these new studies, and profited most by them; but there
was scarcely a young patrician who was not in some degree attracted by the
modest simplicity of Diogenes, the elegant, ornamental, and polished
discourse of Critolaus, or the vehement, rapid, and argumentative
eloquence of Carneades(369). The principles inculcated by Diogenes, who
professed to teach the art of reasoning, and of separating truth from
falsehood, received their strongest support from the jurisconsults, most
of whom became Stoics; and in consequence of their responses, we find at
this day that the stoical philosophy exercised much influence on Roman
jurisprudence, and that many principles and divisions of the civil law
have been founded on its favourite maxims. Of these philosophic
ambassadors, however, Carneades was the most able man, and the most
popular teacher. “He was blessed,” says Cicero, “with a divine quickness
of understanding and command of expression(370).” “In his disputations, he
never defended what he did not prove, and never attacked what he did not
overthrow(371).” By some he has been considered and termed the founder of
a third Academy, but there appears to be no solid ground for such a
distinction. In his lectures, which chiefly turned on ethics, he agreed
with both Academies as to the supreme good, placing it in virtue and the
primary gifts of nature. Like Arcesilaus, he was a zealous advocate for
the uncertainty of human knowledge, but he did not deny, with him, that
there were truths, but only maintained that we could not clearly discern
them(372). The sole other difference in their tenets, is one not very
palpable, mentioned by Lucullus in the _Academica_. Arcesilaus, it seems,
would neither assent to anything nor opine. Carneades, though he would not
assent, declared that he would opine; under the constant reservation,
however, that he was merely opinionating, and that there was no such thing
as positive comprehension or perception(373). In this, Lucullus, who was a
follower of the _old_ Academy, thinks Carneades the most absurd and
inconsistent of the two. Carneades succeeded to the old dispute between
the Academics and Stoics, and in his prelections he combated the arguments
employed by Chrysippus(374), in his age the chief pillar of the Portico,
as Arcesilaus had formerly maintained the controversy with Zeno, its
founder. He differed from the Pyrrhonists, by admitting the real existence
of good and evil, and by allowing different degrees of probability(375),
while his sceptical opponents contended that there was no ground for
embracing or rejecting one opinion more than another. Carneades was no
less distinguished by his artful and versatile talents for disputation,
than his vehement and commanding oratory. But his extraordinary powers of
persuasion, and of maintaining any side of an argument, for which the
academical philosophy peculiarly qualified him, were at length abused by
him, to the scandal of the serious and inflexible Romans. Thus, we are
told, that he one day delivered a discourse before Cato, with great
variety of thought and copiousness of diction, on the advantages of a
rigid observance of the rules of justice. Next day, in order to fortify
his doctrine of the uncertainty of human knowledge, he undertook to refute
all his former arguments(376). It is likely that his attack on justice was
a piece of pleasantry, like Erasmus’ Encomium of Folly; and many of his
audience were captivated by his ingenuity; but the Censor immediately
insisted, that the affairs which had brought these subtle ambassadors to
Rome, should be forthwith despatched by the Senate, in order that they
might be dismissed with all possible expedition(377). Whether Cato
entertained serious apprehensions, as is alleged by Plutarch, that the
military virtues of his country might be enfeebled, and its constitution
undermined, by the study of philosophy, may, I think, be questioned. It is
more probable that he dreaded the influence of the philosophers themselves
on the opinions of his fellow-citizens, and feared lest their eloquence
should altogether unsettle the principles of his countrymen, or mould them
to whatever form they chose. Lactantius, too, in a quotation from Cicero’s
treatise _De Republica_, affords what may be considered as an explanation
of the reason why Carneades’ lecture against justice was so little
palatable to the Censor, and probably to many others of the Romans. One of
the objections which he urged against justice, or rather against the
existence of a due sense of that quality, was, that if such a thing as
justice were to be found on earth, the Romans would resign their
conquests, and return to their huts and original poverty(378). Cato
likewise appears to have had a considerable spirit of personal jealousy
and rivalry; while, at the same time, his national pride led him to scorn
all the arts of a country which the Roman arms had subdued.