thing which has no magnitude,—that an extremity or levelness, as it were, is a space which has no thickness,—that a line is length without breadth.
Though I should grant that all these axioms are true, if I were to add an oath, do you think a wise man would swear that the sun is many degrees greater than the earth, before Archimedes had, before his eyes, made out all those calculations by which it is proved? If he does, then he will be despising the sun which he considers a god. But if he will not believe the mathematical calculations which employ a sort of constraint in teaching,—as you yourselves say,—surely he will be very far from believing the arguments of philosophers; or, if he does believe any such, which school will he believe? One may explain all the principles of natural philosophers, but it would take a long time: I ask, however, whom he will follow? Suppose for a moment that some one is now being made a wise man, but is not one yet,—what system and what school shall he select above all others? For, whatever one he selects, he will select while he is still unwise. But grant that he is a man of godlike genius, which of all the natural philosophers will he approve of above all others? For he cannot approve of more than one. I will not pursue an infinite number of questions; only let us see whom he will approve of with respect to the elements of things of which all things are composed; for there is a great disagreement among the greatest men on this subject.
XXXVII. First of all, Thales, one of the seven, to whom they say that the other six yielded the preeminence, said that everything originated out of water; but he failed to convince Anaximander, his countryman and companion, of this theory; for his idea was that there was an infinity of nature from which all things were produced. After him, his pupil, Anaximenes, said that the air was infinite, but that the things which were generated from it were finite; and that the earth, and water, and fire, were generated, and that from them was produced everything else.
Anaxagoras said that matter was infinite; but that from it were produced minute particles resembling one another; that at first they were confused, but afterwards brought into order by divine intellect. Xenophanes, who was a little more ancient still, asserted that all things were only one single being, and that that being was immutable and a god, not born, but everlasting, of a globular form. Parmenides considered that it is fire that moves the earth, which is formed out of it. Leucippus thought that there was a _plenum_, and a _vacuum_; Democritus resembled him in this idea, but was more copious on other matters: Empedocles adopts the theory of the four ordinary and commonly known elements. Heraclitus refers everything to fire; Melissus thinks that what exists is infinite, immutable, always has existed, and always will. Plato thinks that the world was made by God, so as to be eternal, out of matter which collects everything to itself. The Pythagoreans affirm that everything proceeds from numbers, and from the principles of mathematicians.
Now of all these different teachers the wise man will, I imagine, select some one to follow; all the rest, numerous, and great men as they are, will be discarded by him and condemned; but whichever doctrine he approves of he will retain in his mind, being comprehended in the same manner as those things which he comprehends by means of the senses; nor will he feel any greater certainty of the fact of its now being day, than, since he is a Stoic, of this world being wise, being endowed with intellect, which has made both itself and the world, and which regulates, sets in motion, and governs everything. He will also be persuaded that the sun, and moon, and all the stars, and the earth, and sea, are gods, because a certain animal intelligence pervades and passes through them all: but nevertheless that it will happen some day or other that all this world will be burnt up with fire.
XXXVIII. Suppose that all this is true: (for you see already that I admit that something is true,) still I deny that these things are comprehended and perceived. For when that wise Stoic of yours has repeated all that to you, syllable by syllable, Aristotle will come forward pouring forth a golden stream of eloquence, and pronounce him a fool; and assert that the world has never had a beginning, because there never existed any beginning of so admirable a work from the adoption of a new plan: and that the world is so excellently made in every part that no power could be great enough to cause such motion, and such changes; nor could any time whatever be long enough to produce an old age capable of causing all this beauty to decay and perish. It will be indispensable for you to deny this, and to defend the former doctrine as you would your own life and reputation; may I not have even leave to entertain a doubt on the matter? To say nothing about the folly of people who assent to propositions rashly, what value am I to set upon a liberty which will not allow to me what is necessary for you? Why did God, when he was making everything for the sake of man, (for this is your doctrine,) make such a multitude of water-serpents and vipers? Why did he scatter so many pernicious and fatal things over the earth? You assert that all this universe could not have been made so beautifully and so ingeniously without some godlike wisdom; the majesty of which you trace down even to the perfection of bees and ants; so that it would seem that there must have been a Myrmecides(12) among the gods; the maker of all animated things.
You say that nothing can have any power without God. Exactly opposite is the doctrine of Strato of Lampsacus, who gives that God of his exemption from all important business. But as the priests of the gods have a holiday, how much more reasonable is it that the gods should have one themselves? He then asserts that he has no need of the aid of the gods to account for the making of the world. Everything that exists, he says, was made by Nature: not agreeing with that other philosopher who teaches, that the universe is a concrete mass of rough and smooth, and hooked and crooked bodies, with the addition of a vacuum: this he calls a dream of Democritus, and says that he is here not teaching, but wishing;—but he himself, examining each separate part of the world, teaches that whatever exists, and whatever is done, is caused, or has been caused, by natural weights and motions. In this way he releases God from a great deal of hard work, and me from fear; for who is there who, (when he thinks that he is an object of divine care,) does not feel an awe of the divine power day and night? And who, whenever any misfortunes happen to him (and what man is there to whom none happen?) feels a dread lest they may have befallen him deservedly—not, indeed, that I agree with that; but neither do I with you: at one time I think one doctrine more probable, and at other times I incline to the other.
XXXIX. All these mysteries, O Lucullus, lie concealed and enveloped in darkness so thick that no human ingenuity has a sight sufficiently piercing to penetrate into heaven, and dive into the earth. We do not understand our own bodies: we do not know what is the situation of their different parts, or what power each part has: therefore, the physicians themselves, whose business it was to understand these things, have opened bodies in order to lay those parts open to view. And yet empirics say that they are not the better known for that; because it is possible that, by being laid open and uncovered, they may be changed. But is it possible for us, in the same manner, to anatomize, and open, and dissect the natures of things, so as to see whether the earth is firmly fixed on its foundations and sticks firm on its roots, if I may so say, or whether it hangs in the middle of a vacuum? Xenophanes says that the moon is inhabited, and that it is a country of many cities and mountains. These assertions seem strange, but the man who has made them could not take his oath that such is the case; nor could I take mine that it is not the case. You also say that, opposite to us, on the contrary side of the earth, there are people who stand with their feet opposite to our feet, and you call them Antipodes. Why are you more angry with me, who do not despise these theories, than with those who, when they hear them, think that you are beside yourselves?
Hiretas of Syracuse, as Theophrastus tells us, thinks that the sun, and moon, and stars, and all the heavenly bodies, in short, stand still; and that nothing in the world moves except the earth; and, as that turns and revolves on its own axis with the greatest rapidity, he thinks that everything is made to appear by it as if it were the heaven which is moved while the earth stands still. And, indeed, some people think that Plato, in the Timæus, asserts this, only rather obscurely. What is your opinion, Epicurus? Speak. Do you think that the sun is so small?—Do I? Do you yourselves think it so large? But all of you are ridiculed by him, and you in your turn mock him. Socrates, then, is free from this ridicule, and so is Ariston of Chios, who thinks that none of these matters can be known.
But I return to the mind and body. Is it sufficiently known by us what is the nature of the sinews and of the veins? Do we comprehend what the mind is?—where it is?—or, in short, whether it exists at all, or whether, as Dicæarchus thinks, there is no such thing whatever? If there is such a thing, do we know whether it has three divisions, as Plato thought; those of reason, anger, and desire?—or whether it is single and uniform? If it is single and uniform, do we know whether it is fire, or breath, or blood?—or, as Xenocrates says, number without a body?—though, what sort of thing that is, is not very easy to understand. And whatever it is, do we know whether it is mortal or eternal? For many arguments are alleged on both sides.
XL. Some of these theories seem certain to your wise man: but ours does not even see what is most probable; so nearly equal in weight are the opposite arguments in most cases. If you proceed more modestly, and reproach me, not because I do not assent to your reasoning, but because I do not assent to any, I will not resist any further: but I will select some one with whom I may agree. Whom shall I choose?—whom? Democritus?
for, as you know, I have always been a favourer of noble birth. I shall be at once overwhelmed with the reproaches of your whole body. Can you think, they will say to me, that there is any vacuum, when everything is so filled and close packed that whenever any body leaves its place and moves, the place which it leaves is immediately occupied by some other body? Or can you believe that there are any atoms to which whatever is made by their combination is entirely unlike? or that any excellent thing can be made without intellect? And, since this admirable beauty is found in one world, do you think that there are also innumerable other worlds, above, below, on the right hand and on the left, before, and behind, some unlike this one, and some of the same kind? And, as we are now at Bauli, and are beholding Puteoli, do you think that there are in other places like these a countless host of men, of the same names and rank, and exploits, and talents, and appearances, and ages, arguing on the same subjects? And if at this moment, or when we are asleep, we seem to see anything in our mind, do you think that those images enter from without, penetrating into our minds through our bodies? You can never adopt such ideas as these, or give your assent to such preposterous notions. It is better to have no ideas at all than to have such erroneous ones as these.
Your object, then, is not to make me sanction anything by my assent. If it were, consider whether it would not be an impudent, not to say an arrogant demand, especially as these principles of yours do not seem to me to be even probable. For I do not believe that there is any such thing as divination, which you assent to; and I also despise fate, by which you say that everything is regulated. I do not even believe that this world was formed by divine wisdom; or, I should rather say, I do not know whether it was so formed or not.
XLI. But why should you seek to disparage me? May I not confess that I do not understand what I really do not? Or may the Stoics argue with one other, and may I not argue with them? Zeno, and nearly all the rest of the Stoics, consider Æther as the Supreme God, being endued with reason, by which everything is governed. Cleanthes, who we may call a Stoic, _Majorum Gentium_, the pupil of Zeno, thinks that the Sun has the supreme rule over and government of everything. We are compelled, therefore, by the dissensions of these wise men, to be ignorant of our own ruler, inasmuch as we do not know whether we are subjects of the Sun or of Æther. But the great size of the sun, (for this present radiance of his appears to be looking at me,) warns me to make frequent mention of him. Now you all speak of his magnitude as if you had measured it with a ten-foot rule, (though I refuse credit to your measurement, looking on you as but bad architects.) Is there then any room for doubt, which of us, to speak as gently as possible, is the more modest of the two? Not, however, that I think those questions of the natural philosophers deserving of being utterly banished from our consideration; for the consideration and contemplation of nature is a sort of natural food, if I may say so, for our minds and talents. We are elevated by it, we seem to be raised above the earth, we look down on human affairs; and by fixing our thoughts on high and heavenly things we despise the affairs of this life, as small and inconsiderable. The mere investigation of things of the greatest importance, which are at the same time very secret, has a certain pleasure in it. And when anything meets us which appears likely, our minds are filled with pleasure thoroughly worthy of a man. Both your wise man and ours, then, will inquire into these things; but yours will do so in order to assent, to feel belief, to express affirmation; ours, with such feelings that he will fear to yield rashly to opinion, and will think that he has succeeded admirably if in matters of this kind he has found out anything which is likely.
Let us now come to the question of the knowledge of good and evil. But we must say a few words by way of preface. It appears to me that they who speak so positively about those questions of natural philosophy, do not reflect that they are depriving themselves of the authority of those ideas which appear more clear. For they cannot give a clearer assent to, or a more positive approval of the fact that it is now daylight, than they do, when the crow croaks, to the idea that it is commanding or prohibiting something. Nor will they affirm that that statue is six feet high more positively after they have measured it, than that the sun, which they cannot measure, is more than eighteen times as large as the earth. From which this conclusion arises: if it cannot be perceived how large the sun is, he who assents to other things in the same manner as he does to the magnitude of the sun, does not perceive them. But the magnitude of the sun cannot be perceived. He, then, who assents to a statement about it, as if he perceived it, perceives nothing. Suppose they were to reply that it is possible to perceive how large the sun is; I will not object as long as they admit that other things too can be perceived and comprehended in the same manner. For they cannot affirm that one thing can be comprehended more or less than another, since there is only one definition of the comprehension of everything.
XLII. However, to go back to what I had begun to say—What have we in good and bad certainly ascertained? (we must, of course, fix boundaries to which the sum of good and evil is to be referred;) what subject, in fact, is there about which there is a greater disagreement between the most learned men? I say nothing about those points which seem now to be abandoned; or about Herillus, who places the chief good in knowledge and science: and though he had been a pupil of Zeno, you see how far he disagrees with him, and how very little he differs from Plato. The school of the Megaric philosophers was a very celebrated one; and its chief, as I see it stated in books, was Xenophanes, whom I mentioned just now. After him came Parmenides and Zeno; and from them the Eleatic philosophers get their name. Afterwards came Euclid of Megara, a pupil of Socrates, from whom that school got the name of Megaric. And they defined that as the only good which was always one, alike, and identical. They also borrowed a great deal from Plato. But the Eretrian philosophers, who were so called from Menedumus, because he was a native of Eretria, placed all good in the mind, and in that acuteness of the mind by which the truth is discerned.
The Megarians say very nearly the same, only that they, I think, develop their theory with more elegance and richness of illustration. If we now despise these men, and think them worthless, at all events we ought to show more respect for Ariston, who, having been a pupil of Zeno, adopted in reality the principles which he had asserted in words; namely, that there was nothing good except virtue, and nothing evil except what was contrary to virtue; and who denied altogether the existence of those influences which Zeno contended for as being intermediate, and neither good nor evil. His idea of the chief good, is being affected in neither direction by these circumstances; and this state of mind he calls ἀδιαφορία; but Pyrrho asserts that the wise man does not even feel them; and that state is called ἀπάθεια.
To say nothing, then, of all these opinions, let us now examine those others which have been long and vigorously maintained. Some have accounted pleasure the chief good; the chief of whom was Aristippus, who had been a pupil of Socrates, and from whom the Cyrenaic school spring. After him came Epicurus, whose school is now better known, though he does not exactly agree with the Cyrenaics about pleasure itself. But Callipho thought that pleasure and honour combined made up the chief good.
Hieronymus placed it in being free from all annoyance; Diodorus in this state when combined with honour. Both these last men were Peripatetics. To live honourably, enjoying those things which nature makes most dear to man, was the definition both of the Old Academy, (as we may learn from the writings of Polemo, who is highly approved of by Antiochus,) and of Aristotle, and it is the one to which his friends appear now to come nearest. Carneades also introduced a definition, (not because he approved of it himself, but for the sake of opposition to the Stoics,) that the chief good is to enjoy those things which nature has made man consider as most desirable. But Zeno laid it down that that honourableness which arises from conformity to nature is the chief good. And Zeno was the founder and chief of the Stoic school.
XLIII. This now is plain enough, that all these chief goods which I have mentioned have a chief evil corresponding to them, which is their exact opposite. I now put it to you, whom shall I follow? only do not let any one make me so ignorant and absurd a reply as, Any one, provided only that you follow some one or other. Nothing more inconsiderate can be said: I wish to follow the Stoics. Will Antiochus, (I do not say Aristotle, a man almost, in my opinion, unrivalled as a philosopher, but will Antiochus) give me leave? And he was called an Academic; but he would have been, with very little alteration, something very like a Stoic. The matter shall now be brought to a decision. For we must either give the wise man to the Stoics or to the Old Academy. He cannot belong to both; for the contention between them is not one about boundaries, but about the whole territory.
For the whole system of life depends on the definition of the chief good; and those who differ on that point, differ about the whole system of life.
It is impossible, therefore, that those of both these schools should be wise, since they differ so much from one another: but one of them only can be so. If it be the disciple of Polemo, then the Stoic is wrong, who assents to an error: and you say that nothing is so incompatible with the character of a wise man as that. But if the principles of Zeno be true, then we must say the same of the Old Academics and of the Peripatetics; and as I do not know which is the more wise of the two, I give my assent to neither. What? when Antiochus in some points disagrees with the Stoics whom he is so fond of, does he not show that these principles cannot be approved of by a wise man?
The Stoics assert that all offences are equal: but Antiochus energetically resists this doctrine. At least, let me consider before I decide which opinion I will embrace. Cut the matter short, says he, do at last decide on something. What? The reasons which are given appear to me to be both shrewd and nearly equal: may I not then be on my guard against committing a crime? for you called it a crime, Lucullus, to violate a principle; I, therefore, restrain myself, lest I should assent to what I do not understand; and this principle I have in common with you.
Here, however, is a much greater difference.—Zeno thinks that a happy life depends on virtue alone. What says Antiochus? He admits that this is true of a happy life, but not of the happiest possible life. The first is a god, who thinks that nothing can be wanting to virtue; the latter is a miserable man, who thinks that there are many things besides virtue, some of which are dear to a man, and some even necessary. But I am afraid that the former may be attributing to virtue more than nature can bear; especially since Theophrastus has said many things with eloquence and copiousness on this subject; and I fear that even he may not be quite consistent with himself. For though he admits that there are some evils both of body and fortune, he nevertheless thinks that a man may be happy who is afflicted by them all, provided he is wise. I am perplexed here; at one time the one opinion appears to me to be more probable, and at another time the other does. And yet, unless one or the other be true, I think virtue must be entirely trampled under foot.
XLIV. However, they differ as to this principle. What then? Can we approve, as true, of those maxims on which they agree; namely, that the mind of the wise man is never influenced by either desire or joy? Come, suppose this opinion is a probable one, is this other one so too; namely, that it never feels either alarm or grief? Cannot the wise fear? And if his country be destroyed, cannot he grieve? That seems harsh, but Zeno thinks it inevitable; for he considers nothing good except what is honourable. But you do not think it true in the least, Antiochus. For you admit that there are many good things besides honour, and many evils besides baseness; and it is inevitable that the wise man must fear such when coming, and grieve when they have come. But I ask when it was decided by the Old Academy that they were to deny that the mind of the wise man could be agitated or disturbed? They approved of intermediate states, and asserted that there was a kind of natural mean in every agitation. We have all read the treatise on Grief, by Crantor, a disciple of the Old Academy.
It is not large, but it is a golden book, and one, as Panætius tells Tubero, worth learning by heart. And these men used to say that those agitations were very profitably given to our minds by nature; fear, in order that we may take care; pity and melancholy they called the whetstone of our clemency; and anger itself that of our courage. Whether they were right or wrong we may consider another time. How it was that those stern doctrines of yours forced their way into the Old Academy I do not know, but I cannot bear them; not because they have anything in them particularly disagreeable to me; for many of the marvellous doctrines of the Stoics, which men call παράδοξα, are derived from Socrates. But where has Xenocrates or where has Aristotle touched these points? For you try to make out the Stoics to be the same as these men. Would they ever say that wise men were the only kings, the only rich, the only handsome men? that everything everywhere belonged to the wise man? that no one was a consul, or prætor, or general, or even, for aught I know, a quinquevir, but the wise man? lastly, that he was the only citizen, the only free man? and that all who are destitute of wisdom are foreigners, exiles, slaves, or madmen? last of all, that the writings of Lycurgus and Solon and our Twelve Tables are not laws? that there are even no cities or states except those which are peopled by wise men? Now these maxims, O Lucullus, if you agree with Antiochus, your own friend, must be defended by you as zealously as the bulwarks of your city; but I am only bound to uphold them with moderation, just as much as I think fit.
XLV. I have read in Clitomachus, that when Carneades and Diogenes the Stoic were standing in the capitol before the senate, Aulus Albonus (who was prætor at the time, in the consulship of Publius Scipio and Marcus Marcellus, the same Albonus who was consul, Lucullus, with your own grandfather, a learned man, as his own history shows, which is written in Greek) said jestingly to Carneades—“I do not, O Carneades, seem to you to be prætor because I am not wise, nor does this seem to be a city, nor do the inhabitants seem to be citizens, for the same reason.” And he answered—“That is the Stoic doctrine.” Aristotle or Xenocrates, whom Antiochus wished to follow, would have had no doubt that he was prætor, and Rome a city, and that it was inhabited by citizens. But our friend is, as I said before, a manifest Stoic, though he talks a little nonsense.
But you are all afraid for me, lest I should descend to opinions, and adopt and approve of something that I do not understand; which you would be very sorry for me to do. What advice do you give me? Chrysippus often testifies that there are three opinions only about the chief good which can be defended; he cuts off and discards all the rest. He says that either honour is the chief good, or pleasure, or both combined. For that those who say that the chief good is to be free from all annoyance, shun the unpopular name of pleasure, but hover about its neighbourhood. And those also do the same who combine that freedom from annoyance with honour. And those do not much differ from them who unite to honour the chief advantages of nature. So he leaves three opinions which he thinks may be maintained by probable arguments.
Be it so. Although I am not easily to be moved from the definition of Polemo and the Peripatetics, and Antiochus, nor have I anything more probable to bring forward. Still, I see how sweetly pleasure allures our senses. I am inclined to agree with Epicurus or Aristippus. But virtue recalls me, or rather leads me back with her hand; says that these are the feelings of cattle, and that man is akin to the Deity. I may take a middle course; so that, since Aristippus, as if we had no mind, defends nothing but the body, and Zeno espouses the cause of the mind alone, as if we were destitute of body, I may follow Callipho, whose opinion Carneades used to defend with such zeal, that he appeared wholly to approve of it; although Clitomachus affirmed that he never could understand what Carneades approved of. But if I were to choose to follow him, would not truth itself, and all sound and proper reason, oppose me? Will you, when honour consists in despising pleasure, unite honour to pleasure, joining, as it were, a man to a beast?
XLVI. There is now, then, only one pair of combatants left—pleasure and honour; between which Chrysippus, as far as I can see, was not long in perplexity how to decide. If you follow the one, many things are overthrown, especially the fellowship of the human race, affection, friendship, justice, and all other virtues, none of which can exist at all without disinterestedness: for the virtue which is impelled to action by pleasure, as by a sort of wages, is not really virtue, but only a deceitful imitation and pretence of virtue. Listen, on the contrary, to those men who say that they do not even understand the name of honour, unless we call that honourable which is accounted reputable by the multitude; that the source of all good is in the body; that this is the law, and rule, and command of nature; and that he who departs from it will never have any object in life to follow. Do you think, then, that I am not moved when I hear these and innumerable other statements of the same kind?
I am moved as much as you are, Lucullus; and you need not think me less a man than yourself. The only difference is that you, when you are agitated, acquiesce, assent, and approve; you consider the impression which you have received true, certain, comprehended, perceived, established, firm, and unalterable; and you cannot be moved or driven from it by any means whatever. I think that there is nothing of such a kind that, if I assent to it, I shall not often be assenting to what is false; since there is no distinct line of demarcation between what is true and what is false, especially as the science of dialectics has no power of judging on this subject.
I come now to the third part of philosophy. There is an idea advanced by Protagoras, who thinks that that is true to each individual which seems so to him; and a completely different one put forward by the Cyrenaics, who think that there is no such thing as certain judgment about anything except the inner feelings: and a third, different from either, maintained by Epicurus, who places all judgment in the senses, and in our notions of things, and in pleasure. But Plato considered that the whole judgment of truth, and that truth itself, being abstracted from opinions and from the senses, belonged to the province of thought and of the intellect. Does our friend Antiochus approve of any of these principles? He does not even approve of those who may be called his own ancestors in philosophy: for where does he follow Xenocrates, who has written a great many books on the method of speaking, which are highly esteemed?—or Aristotle himself, than whom there is no more acute or elegant writer? He never goes one step without Chrysippus.
XLVII. Do we then, who are called Academics, misuse the glory of this name? or why are we to be compelled to follow those men who differ from one another? In this very thing, which the dialecticians teach among the elements of their art, how one ought to judge whether an argument be true or false which is connected in this manner, “If it is day, it shines,” how great a contest there is;—Diodorus has one opinion, Philo another, Chrysippus a third. Need I say more? In how many points does Chrysippus himself differ from Cleanthes, his own teacher? Again, do not two of the very princes of the dialecticians, Antipater and Archidemus, men most devoted to hypothesis, disagree in numbers of things? Why then, Lucullus, do you seek to bring me into odium, and drag me, as it were, before the assembly? And why, as seditious tribunes often do, do you order all the shops to be shut? For what is your object when you complain that all trades are being suppressed by us, if it be not to excite the artisans?
But, if they all come together from all quarters, they will be easily excited against you; for, first of all, I will cite all those unpopular expressions of yours when you called all those, who will then be in the assembly, exiles, and slaves, and madmen: and then I will come to those arguments which touch not the multitude, but you yourselves who are here present. For Zeno and Antiochus both deny that any of you know anything.
How so? you will say; for we allege, on the other hand, that even a man without wisdom comprehends many things. But you affirm that no one except a wise man knows one single thing. And Zeno professed to illustrate this by a piece of action; for when he stretched out his fingers, and showed the palm of his hand, “Perception,” said he, “is a thing like this.” Then, when he had a little closed his fingers, “Assent is like this.”
Afterwards, when he had completely closed his hand, and held forth his fist, that, he said, was comprehension. From which simile he also gave that state a name which it had not before, and called it κατάληψις. But when he brought his left hand against his right, and with it took a firm and tight hold of his fist, knowledge, he said, was of that character; and that was what none but a wise man possessed. But even those who are themselves wise men do not venture to say so, nor any one who has ever lived and been a wise man. According to that theory, you, Catulus, do not know that it is daylight; and you, Hortensius, are ignorant that we are now in your villa.
Now, are these arguments less formidable than yours? They are not, perhaps, very refined; and those others show more acuteness. But, just as you said, that if nothing could be comprehended, all the arts were destroyed at once, and would not grant that mere probability was a sufficient foundation for art; so I now reply to you, that art cannot exist without knowledge. Would Zeuxis, or Phidias, or Polycletus allow that they knew nothing, when they were men of such marvellous skill? But if any one had explained to them how much power knowledge was said to have, they would cease to be angry; they would not even be offended with us, when they had learnt that we were only putting an end to what did not exist anywhere; but that we left them what was quite sufficient for them.
And this doctrine is confirmed also by the diligence of our ancestors, who ordained, in the first place, that every one should swear “according to the opinion of his own mind;” secondly, that he should be accounted guilty “if he knowingly swore falsely,” because there was a great deal of ignorance in life; thirdly, that the man who was giving his evidence should say that “he thought,” even in a case where he was speaking of what he had actually seen himself. And that when the judges were giving their decision on their evidence, they should say, not that such and such a thing had been done, but that such and such a thing appeared to them.
XLVIII. But since the sailor is making signals, and the west wind is showing us too, by its murmur, that it is time for us, Lucullus, to set sail, and since I have already said a great deal, I must now conclude. But hereafter, when we inquire into these subjects, we will discuss the great