Chapter III (2)

Arcesilaus left no writings, and his criticisms on the Stoic theory, as reported by Cicero and Sextus Empiricus, have a somewhat unsatisfactory appearance. By what we can make out, he seems to have insisted on the infallibility of the wise man to a much greater extent than the Stoics themselves, not allowing that there was any class of judgments in which he was liable to be mistaken. But just as the Stoics were obliged to accept suicide as an indispensable safeguard for the inviolability of their personal dignity and happiness, so also Arcesilaus had recourse to a kind of intellectual suicide for the purpose of securing immunity from error. The only way, according to him, in which the sage can make sure of never being mistaken is never to be certain about anything. For, granting that every mental representation is produced by a corresponding object in the external world, still different objects are connected by such a number of insensible gradations that the impressions produced by them are virtually indistinguishable from one another; while a fertile source of illusions also exists in the diversity of impressions produced by the same object acting on different senses and at different times. Moreover, the Stoics themselves admitted that the sage might form a mistaken opinion; it was only for his convictions that they claimed unerring accuracy, each of the two—opinion and conviction—being the product of a distinct intellectual energy. Here again, Arcesilaus employed his method of infinitesimal transitions, refusing to admit that the various cognitive faculties could be separated by any hard and fast line; especially as, according to the theory then held by all parties, and by none more strongly than the Stoics, intellectual conceptions are derived exclusively from the data of sense and imagination. We can see that the logic of Scepticism is, equally with that of the other Greek systems, determined by the three fundamental moments of Greek thought. There is first the careful circumscription of certainty; then there is the mediating process by which it is insensibly connected with error; and, lastly, as a result of this process, there is the antithetical opposition of a negative to an affirmative proposition on every possible subject of mental representation.[231]

To the objection that his suspensive attitude would render action impossible, Arcesilaus replied that any mental representation was sufficient to set the will in motion; and that, in choosing between different courses, probability was the most rational means of determination. But the task of reducing probable evidence to a system was reserved for a still abler dialectician, who did not appear on the scene until a century after his time. Arcesilaus is commonly called the founder of the Middle, Carneades the founder of the New Academy. The distinction is, however, purely nominal. Carneades founded nothing. His principles were identical with those of his predecessor; and his claim to be considered the greatest of the Greek sceptics is due to his having given those principles a wider application and a more systematic development. The Stoics regarded it as a special dispensation of providence that Chrysippus, the organising genius of their school, should have come between its two most formidable opponents, being thus placed in a position to answer the objections of the one and to refute by anticipation those of the other.[232] It might seem to less prejudiced observers that the thinker whose cause benefited most by this arrangement was Carneades. Parodying a well-known iambic, he used to say:

‘Without Chrysippus I should not have been.’[233]

And, in fact, it was by a close study of that writer’s voluminous treatises that he was able to cover the immense extent of ground which Scepticism thenceforward disputed with the dogmatic schools. Nor were his attacks directed against Stoicism only, but against all other positive systems past and present as well. What he says about the supposed foundation of knowledge is even now an unanswerable objection to the transcendental realism of Mr Herbert Spencer. States of consciousness speak for themselves alone, they do not include the consciousness of an external cause.[234] But the grounds on which he rests his negation of all certainty are still superficial enough, being merely those sensible illusions which the modern science of observation has been able either to eliminate altogether or to restrict within narrow and definable limits. That phenomena, so far from being necessarily referred to a cause which is not phenomenal, cannot be thought of at all except in relation to one another, and that knowledge means nothing more than a consciousness of this relation, was hardly perceived before the time of Hume.

Turning from sense to reason, Carneades attacks the syllogistic process on grounds already specified in connexion with the earlier Sceptics; and also on the plea that to prove the possibility of syllogism is itself to syllogise, and thus involves either a _petitio principii_ or a regress _ad infinitum_.[235] Such a method is, of course, suicidal, for it disproves the possibility of the alleged disproof, a consideration which the Stoics did not fail to urge, and which the later Sceptics could only meet by extending the rule of suspense to their own arguments against argument.[236] Nevertheless the sceptical analysis detected some difficulties in the ordinary theory of logic, which have been revived in modern times, and have not yet received any satisfactory solution. Sextus Empiricus, probably copying an earlier authority, it may be Carneades himself, observes that, as the major premise of every syllogism virtually contains the minor, it is either superfluous, or assumes the proposition to be proved. Thus we argue that Socrates is an animal because he is a man, and all men are animals. But if we do not know this latter proposition to be true in the case of Socrates, we cannot be sure that it is true in any case; while if we know it to be true in his case, we do not need to begin by stating it in general terms. And he also attempts to show the impossibility of a valid induction by the consideration, since so often urged, that to generalise from a limited number of instances to a whole class is unsafe, for some of the unknown instances may be contradictory, while the infinite, or at least indefinite multiplicity of individuals precludes the possibility of their exhaustive enumeration.[237]

When the Academicians pass from the form to the matter of dogmatic philosophy, their criticisms acquire greater interest and greater weight. On this ground, their assaults are principally directed against the theology of their Stoic and Epicurean rivals. It is here in particular that Carneades reveals himself to us as the Hume of antiquity. Never has the case for agnosticism been more powerfully made out than by him or by the disciples whom he inspired. To the argument for the existence of supernatural beings derived from universal consent, he replies, first, that the opinion of the vulgar is worthless, and secondly, that men’s beliefs about the gods are hopelessly at variance with one another, even the same divinity being made the subject of numberless discordant legends.[238] He reduces the polytheistic deification of natural objects to an absurdity by forcing it back through a series of insensible gradations into absolute fetichism.[239] The personification of mental qualities is similarly treated, until an hypothesis is provided for every passing mood.[240] Then, turning to the more philosophical deism of the Stoics, he assails their theory of the divine benevolence with instance after instance of the apparent malevolence and iniquity to be found in Nature; vividly reminding one of the facts adduced by Mr. Herbert Spencer in confutation of the similar views held by modern English theologians.[241] As against the whole theory of final causes, Carneades argues after a method which, though logically sound, could not then present itself with the authority which advancing science has more recently shown it to possess. ‘What you Stoics,’ he says, ‘explain as the result of conscious purpose, other philosophers, like Strato for instance, explain with equal plausibility as the result of natural causation. And such is our ignorance of the forces at work in Nature that even where no mechanical cause can be assigned, it would be presumptuous to maintain that none can exist.[242] The reign of law does not necessarily prove the presence of intelligence; it is merely the evidence of a uniform movement quite consistent with all that we know about the working of unconscious forces.[243] To contend, with Socrates, that the human mind must be derived from a Universal Mind pervading all Nature would logically involve the transfer of every human attribute to its original source.[244] And to say that the Supreme Being, because it surpasses man, must possess an intelligence like his, is no more rational than to make the same assumption with regard to a great city because it is superior to an ant.’[245]

The materialism of his dogmatic contemporaries placed them at a terrible disadvantage when the sceptical successor of Plato went on to show that eternal duration is incompatible with whatever we know about the constitution of corporeal substance; and this part of his argument applied as much to the Epicurean as to the Stoic religion.[246] But even a spiritualistic monotheism is not safe from his dissolving criticism. According to Carneades, a god without senses has no experience of whatever pleasurable or painful feelings accompany sensation, and is therefore, to that extent, more ignorant than a man; while to suppose that he experiences painful sensations is the same as making him obnoxious to the diminished vitality and eventual death with which they are naturally associated. And, generally speaking, all sensation involves a modification of the sentient subject by an external object, a condition necessarily implying the destructibility of the former by the latter.[247] So also, moral goodness is an essentially relative quality, inconceivable without the possibility of succumbing to temptation, which we cannot attribute to a perfect Being.[248] In a word, whatever belongs to conscious life being relative and conditioned, personality is excluded from the absolute by its very definition.

As to the proofs of divine agency derived from divination, they are both irrational and weak. If all things are predetermined by God’s providence, knowledge of the future is useless, and, therefore, cannot have been given to us. Moreover, no confidence can be placed in the alleged fulfilments of prophecy; probably most of them are fictitious and the remainder accidental. For the rest, good luck is distributed without regard to merit; and the general corruption of mankind shows that, from the Stoic point of view, human nature is a complete failure.[249]

Well may M. Havet say of the Academicians: ‘ce sont eux et non les partisans d’Epicure qui sont les libres penseurs de l’antiquité ou qui l’auraient voulu être; mais ils ne le pouvaient pas.’[250] They could not, for their principles were as inconsistent with an absolute negation as with an absolute affirmation; while in practice their rule was, as we have said, conformity to the custom of the country; the consequence of which was that Sceptics and Epicureans were equally assiduous in their attendance at public worship. It is, therefore, with perfect dramatic appropriateness that Cicero puts the arguments of Carneades into the mouth of Cotta, the Pontifex Maximus; and, although himself an augur, takes the negative side in a discussion on divination with his brother Quintus. And our other great authority on the sceptical side, Sextus Empiricus, is not less emphatic than Cotta in protesting his devotion to the traditional religion of the land.[251]

We have seen with what freedom Carneades discussed the foundations of morality. It is now evident that in so doing he did not exceed the legitimate functions of criticism. No one at the present day looks on Prof. Bain and Mr. Henry Sidgwick as dangerous teachers because they have made it clear that to pursue the greatest happiness of the greatest number is not always the way to secure a maximum of happiness for oneself. The really dangerous method, as we now see, is to foster illusions in early life which subsequent experience must dispel.

With the introduction of practical questions, we pass to the great positive achievement of Carneades, his theory of probable evidence. Intended as an account of the process by which belief is adjusted to safe action rather than of the process by which it is brought into agreement with reality, his logic is a systematisation of the principles by which prudent men are unconsciously guided in common life. Carneades distinguishes three degrees of probability. The lowest is attached to simple perception. This arises when we receive the impression of an object without taking the attendant circumstances into account. The next step is reached when our first impression is confirmed by the similar impressions received from its attendant circumstances; and when each of these, again, bears the test of a similar examination our assurance is complete. The first belief is simply probable; the second is probable and uncontradicted; the third probable, uncontradicted, and methodically established. The example given by Sextus is that of a person who on seeing a coil of rope in a dark passage thinks that it may be a snake, and jumps over it, but on turning round and observing that it remains motionless feels inclined to form a different opinion. Remembering, however, that snakes are sometimes congealed by cold in winter, he touches the coil with his stick, and finally satisfies himself by means of this test that the image present to his mind does not really represent a snake. The circumstances to be examined before arriving at a definite judgment include such considerations as whether our senses are in a healthy condition, whether we are wide awake, whether the air is clear, whether the object is steady, and whether we have taken time enough to be sure that the conditions here specified are fulfilled. Each degree of probability is, again, divisible into several gradations according to the strength of the impressions received and the greater or less consilience of all the circumstances involved.[252]

The Academic theory of probability bears some resemblance to the Canonic of Epicurus, and may have been partially suggested by it. Both are distinguished from the Aristotelian and Stoic logic by the care with which they provide for the absence of contradictory evidence. In this point, however, the superiority of Carneades to Epicurus is very marked. It is not enough for him that a present impression should suggest a belief not inconsistent with past experience; in the true inductive spirit, he expressly searches for negative instances, and recommends the employment of experiment for this purpose. Still more philosophical is the careful and repeated analysis of attendant circumstances, a precaution not paralleled by anything in the slovenly method of his predecessor. Here the great value of scepticism as an element in mental training becomes at once apparent. The extreme fallibility of the _intellectus sibi permissus_ had to be established before precautions could be adopted for its restraint. But the evidence accepted in proof of this fallibility has been very different at different times, and has itself given rise to more than one fallacious interpretation. With us it is, for the most part, furnished by experience. The circumstance that many demonstrable errors were formerly received as truths is quite sufficient to put us on our guard against untested opinions. With Bacon, it was not the erroneousness of previous systems, but their barrenness and immobility, which led him to question the soundness of their logic; and his doubts were confirmed by an analysis of the disturbing influences under which men’s judgments are formed. The ancient Sceptics were governed entirely by _à priori_ considerations. Finding themselves confronted by an immense mass of contradictory opinions, they argued that some of these must be false as all could not possibly be true. And an analysis of the human faculties led them, equally on _à priori_ grounds, to the conclusion that these irreconcilable divergences were but the result and the reproduction of an interminable conflict carried on within the mind itself. They could not foresee how much time would do towards reducing the disagreement of educated opinion within a narrower compass. They did not know what the experience of experience itself would teach. And their criticisms on the logic and metaphysics of their opponents were rendered inconclusive, as against all certainty, by the extent to which they shared that logic and metaphysics themselves. Carneades, at least, seems to assume throughout that all existence is material, that there is a sharp distinction between subject and object in knowledge, and that there is an equally sharp distinction between sensation and reasoning in the processes by which knowledge is obtained. In like manner, his ethical scepticism all turns on the axiom, also shared by him with the Stoics, that for a man to be actuated by any motive but his own interest is mere folly.

Modern agnosticism occupies the same position with regard to the present foundation and possible future extension of human knowledge as was occupied by the ancient Sceptics with regard to the possibility of all knowledge. Its conclusions also are based on a very insufficient experience of what can be effected by experience, and on an analysis of cognition largely adopted from the system which it seeks to overthrow. Like Scepticism also, when logically thought out, it tends to issue in a self-contradiction, at one time affirming the consciousness of what is, by definition, beyond consciousness; and at another time dogmatically determining the points on which we must remain for ever ignorant. It may be that some problems, as stated by modern thinkers, are insoluble; but perhaps we may find our way our of them by transforming the question to be solved.

If, in the domain of pure speculation, contemporary agnosticism exaggerates the existing divergences, in ethics its whole effort is, contrariwise, to reduce and reconcile them. Such was also the tendency of Carneades. He declared that, in their controversy about the highest good, the difference between the Stoics and the Peripatetics was purely verbal. Both held that we are naturally framed for the pursuit of certain objects, and that virtuous living is the only means by which they can be attained. But while the disciples of Aristotle held that the satisfaction of our natural impulses remains from first to last the only end, the disciples of Zeno insisted that at some point—not, as would seem very particularly specified—virtuous conduct, which was originally the means towards this satisfaction, becomes substituted for it as the supreme and ultimate good.[253] That the point at issue was more important than it seemed is evident from its reproduction under another form in modern ethical philosophy. For, among ourselves, the controversy between utilitarianism and what, for want of a better name, we must call intuitionism, is gradually narrowing itself to the question whether the pursuit of another’s good has or has not a higher value than the quantity of pleasure which accrues to him from it, _plus_ the effects of a good example and the benefits that society at large is likely to gain from the strength which exercise gives to the altruistic dispositions of one of its members. Those who attribute an absolute value to altruism, as such, connect this value in some way or other with the spiritual welfare of the agent; and they hold that without such a gain to himself he would gradually fall back on a life of calculating selfishness or of unregulated impulse. Here we have the return from a social to an individual morality. The Stoics, conversely, were feeling their way from the good of the individual to that of the community; and they could only bridge the chasm by converting what had originally been a means towards self-preservation into an end in itself. This Carneades could not see. Convinced that happiness was both necessary and attainable, but convinced also that the systems which had hitherto offered it as their reward were logically untenable, he wished to place morality on the broad basis of what was held in common by all schools, and this seemed to be the rule of obedience to Nature’s dictates,—a rule which had also the great merit of bidding men do in the name of philosophy what they already felt inclined to do without any philosophy at all. We are told, indeed, that he would not commit himself to any particular system of ethics; the inference, however, is not that he ignored the necessity of a moral law, but that he wished to extricate it from a compromising alliance with untenable speculative dogmas. Nevertheless his acceptance of Nature as a real entity was a survival of metaphysics; and his morality was, so far as it went, an incipient return to the traditions of the Old Academy.

VI.

We have now reached a point where Greek philosophy seems to have swung back into the position which it occupied three hundred years before, towards the close of the Peloponnesian War. The ground is again divided between naturalists and humanists, the one school offering an encyclopaedic training in physical science and exact philology, the other literary, sceptical, and limiting its attention to the more immediate interests of life; but both agreeing in the supreme importance of conduct, and differing chiefly as to whether its basis should or should not be sought in a knowledge of the external world. Materialism is again in the ascendant, to this extent at least, that no other theory is contemplated by the students of physical science; while the promise of a spiritualistic creed is to be found, if at all, in the school whose scepticism throws it back on the subjective sphere, the invisible and impalpable world of mind. The attitude of philosophy towards religion has, indeed, undergone a marked change; for the Stoic naturalists count themselves among the most strenuous supporters of beliefs and practices which their Sophistic predecessors had contemned, while the humanist criticism is cautiously guarded by at least an external conformity to established usage; but the Platonic doctrine of immortality has disappeared with the dogmatic spiritualism on which it rested; and faith in superior beings tends to dissociate itself from morality, or to become identified with a simple belief in the fixity of natural law.

Whenever naturalism and scepticism have thus stood opposed, the result has been their transformation or absorption into a new philosophy, combining the systematic formalism of the one with the introspective idealism of the other. In Greece such a revolution had already been effected once before by Plato; and a restoration of his system seemed the most obvious solution that could offer itself on the present occasion. Such was, in fact, the solution eventually adopted; what we have to explain is why its adoption was delayed so long. For this various reasons may be offered. To begin with, the speculative languor of the age was unfavourable to the rise of a new school. Greece was almost depopulated by the demands of foreign service; and at Alexandria, where a new centre of Hellenism had been created, its best energies were absorbed by the cultivation of positive science. It was, no doubt, in great part owing to the dearth of ability that ideas which, at an earlier period, would have been immediately taken up and developed, were allowed to remain stationary for a hundred years—the interval separating a Carneades from an Arcesilaus. The regular organisation of philosophical teaching was another hindrance to progress. A certain amount of property was annexed to the headships of the different schools, and served as an endowment, not of research but of contented acquiescence in the received traditions. Moreover, the jealousy with which the professors of rival doctrines would naturally regard one another, was likely to prevent their mutual approximation from going beyond certain not very close limits, and might even lead to a still severer definition of the characteristic tenets which still kept them apart. Another and deeper disturbing force lay in the dissensions which, at a very early stage of its development, had split the spiritualistic philosophy into two opposing tendencies respectively represented by Plato and Aristotle. Any thinker who wandered away from the principles either of Stoicism or of Scepticism was more likely to find himself bewildered by the conflicting claims of these two illustrious masters, than to discern the common ground on which they stood, or to bring them within the grasp of a single reconciling system. Finally, an enormous perturbation in the normal course of speculation was produced by the entrance of Rome on the philosophical scene. But before estimating the influence of this new force, we must follow events to the point at which it first becomes of calculable importance.

We have seen how Carneades, alike in his theory of probability and in his ethical eclecticism, had departed from the extreme sceptical standpoint. His successor, Clitomachus, was content with committing the doctrines of the master to writing. A further step was taken by the next Scholarch, Philo, who is known as the Larissaean, in order to distinguish him from his more celebrated namesake, the Alexandrian Jew. This philosopher asserted that the negations of the New Academy were not to be taken as a profession of absolute scepticism, but merely as a criticism on the untenable pretensions of the Stoa. His own position was that, as a matter of fact, we have some certain knowledge of the external world, but that no logical account can be given of the process by which it is obtained—we can only say that such an assurance has been naturally stamped on our minds.[254] This is the theory of intuitions or innate ideas, still held by many persons; and, as such, it marks a return to pure Platonism, having been evidently suggested by the semi-mythological fancies of the _Meno_ and the _Phaedrus_. With Philo as with those Scotch professors who long afterwards took up substantially the same position, the leading motive was a practical one, the necessity of placing morality on some stronger ground than that of mere probability. Neither he nor his imitators saw that if ethical principles are self-evident, they need no objective support; if they are derivative and contingent, they cannot impart to metaphysics a certainty which they do not independently possess. The return to the old Academic standpoint was completed by a much more vigorous thinker than Philo, his pupil, opponent, and eventual successor, Antiochus. So far from attempting any compromise with the Sceptics, this philosopher openly declared that they had led the school away from its true traditions; and claimed for his own teaching the merit of reproducing the original doctrine of Plato.[255] In reality, he was, as Zeller has shown, an eclectic.[256] It is by arguments borrowed from Stoicism that he vindicates the certainty of human knowledge. Pushing the practical postulate to its logical conclusion, he maintains, not only that we are in possession of the truth, but also—what Philo had denied—that true beliefs bear on their face the evidence by which they are distinguished from illusions. Admitting that the senses are liable to error, he asserts the possibility of rectifying their mistakes, and of reasoning from a subjective impression to its objective cause. The Sceptical negation of truth he meets with the familiar argument that it is suicidal, for to be convinced that there can be no conviction is a contradiction in terms; while to argue that truth is indistinguishable from falsehood implies an illogical confidence in the validity of logical processes; besides involving the assumption that there are false appearances and that they are known to us as such, which would be impossible unless we were in a position to compare them with the corresponding truths.[257] For his own part, Antiochus adopted without alteration the empirical theory of Chrysippus, according to which knowledge is elaborated by reflection out of the materials supplied by sense. His physics were also those of Stoicism with a slight Peripatetic admixture, but without any modification of their purely materialistic character. In ethics he remained truer to the Academic tradition, refusing to follow the Stoics in their absolute isolation of virtue from vice, and of happiness from external circumstances, involving as it did the equality of all transgressions and the worthlessness of worldly goods. But the disciples of the Porch had made such large concessions to common sense by their theories of preference and of progress, that even here there was very little left to distinguish his teaching from theirs.[258]

Meanwhile a series of Stoic thinkers had also been feeling their way towards a compromise with Plato and Aristotle, which, so far as it went, was a step in the direction of spiritualism. We have seen, in a former chapter, how one of the great distinguishing marks of Stoicism, as compared with the systems immediately preceding it, was the substitution of a pervading monism for their antithesis between God and the world, between heaven and earth, between reason and sense. It will be remembered also that this monistic creed was associated with a return to the Heracleitean theory that the world is periodically destroyed by fire. Now, with reference to three out of these four points, Boêthus, a Stoic contemporary of Carneades, returned to the Aristotelian doctrine. While still holding to the materialism of his own school, including a belief in the corporeal nature of the divinity, he separated God from the world, and represented him as governing its movements from without; the world itself he maintained to be eternal; and in the mind of man he recognised reason or nous as an independent source of conviction. In his cosmology, Boêthus was followed by a more celebrated master, Panaetius, who also adopted the Aristotelian rationalism so far as to deny the continued existence of the soul after death, and to repudiate the belief in divination which Stoicism had borrowed from popular superstition; while in psychology he partially restored the distinction between life and mind which had been obliterated by his predecessors.[259] The dualistic theory of mind was carried still further by Posidonius, the most eminent Stoic of the first century B.C. This very learned and accomplished master, while returning in other points to a stricter orthodoxy, was led to admit the Platonic distinction between reason and passion, and to make it the basis of his ethical system.[260] But the Platonising tendencies of Posidonius had no more power than those of Antiochus to effect a true spiritualistic revival, since neither they nor any of their contemporaries had any genius for metaphysical speculation; while the increased attention paid to Aristotle did not extend to the fundamental principles of his system, which, even within the Peripatetic school, were so misconceived as to be interpreted in a thoroughly materialistic sense.[261]

A distinct parallelism may be traced in the lines of evolution along which we have accompanied our two opposing schools. While the Academicians were coming over to the Stoic theory of cognition, the Stoics themselves were moving in the same general direction, and seeking for an external reality more in consonance with their notions of certainty than the philosophy of their first teachers could supply. For, as originally constituted, Stoicism included a large element of scepticism, which must often have laid its advocates open to the charge of inconsistency from those who accepted the same principle in a more undiluted form. The Heracleitean flux adopted by Zeno as the physical basis of his system, was much better suited to a sceptical than to a dogmatic philosophy, as the use to which it was put by Protagoras and Plato sufficiently proved; and this was probably the reason why Boêthus and Panaetius partially discarded it in favour of a more stable cosmology. The dialectical studies of the school also tended to suggest more difficulties than they could remove. The comprehensive systematisation of Chrysippus, like that of Plato and Aristotle, had for its object the illustration of each topic from every point of view, and especially from the negative as well as from the positive side. The consequence was that his indefatigable erudition had collected a great number of logical puzzles which he had either neglected or found himself unable to solve. There would, therefore, be a growing inclination to substitute a literary and rhetorical for a logical training: and as we shall presently see, there was an extraneous influence acting in the same direction. Finally, the rigour of Stoic morality had been strained to such a pitch that its professors were driven to admit the complete ideality of virtue. Their sage had never shown himself on earth, at least within the historical period; and the whole world of human interests being, from the rational point of view, either a delusion or a failure, stood in permanent contradiction to their optimistic theory of Nature. The Sceptics were quite aware of this practical approximation to their own views, and sometimes took advantage of it to turn the tables on their opponents with telling effect. Thus, on the occasion of that philosophical embassy with an account of which the present chapter began, when a noble Roman playfully observed to Carneades, ‘You must think that I am not a Praetor as I am not a sage, and that Rome is neither a city nor a state,’ the great Sceptic replied, turning to his colleague Diogenes, ‘That is what my Stoic friend here would say.’[262] And Plutarch, in two sharp attacks on the Stoics, written from the Academic point of view, and probably compiled from documents of a much earlier period,[263] charges them with outraging common sense by their wholesale practical negations, to at least as great an extent as the Sceptics outraged it by their suspense of judgment. How the ethical system of Stoicism was modified so as to meet these criticisms has been related in a former chapter; and we have just seen how Posidonius, by his partial return to the Platonic psychology, with its division between reason and impulse, contributed to a still further change in the same conciliatory sense.

VII.

We have now reached a point in history where the Greek intellect seems to be struck with a partial paralysis, continuing for a century and a half. During that period, its activity—what there is of it—is shown only in criticism and erudition. There is learning, there is research, there is acuteness, there is even good taste, but originality and eloquence are extinct. Is it a coincidence, or is it something more, that this interval of sterility should occur simultaneously with the most splendid period of Latin literature, and that the new birth of Greek culture should be followed by the decrepitude and death of the Latin muse? It is certain that in modern Europe, possessing as it does so many independent sources of vitality, the flowering-times of different countries rarely coincide; England and Spain, from the middle of the sixteenth to the middle of the seventeenth century, being the only instances that we can recall of two countries almost simultaneously reaching the highest point of their literary development. Possibly, during the great age of Latin literature, all the most aspiring Greeks found employment as tutors in Roman families; while the reading public of the West were too much absorbed by the masterpieces composed in their own language, or too elated with the consciousness of a new superiority, to encourage the rivalry of those from whom they had wrested not only poetical independence, but also, what till then had never been disputed with the Greeks, supreme dominion in the world of mind. It is, at any rate, significant that while Greek was the favourite language of Roman lovers in the time of Lucretius and again in the time of Juvenal, there are no allusions to its having been employed by them during the intermediate period.[264] Be this as it may, from the fall of the Republic to the time of Trajan, philosophy, like poetry and eloquence—or at least all philosophy that was positive and practical—became domiciled in Rome, and received the stamp of the Roman character. How Stoicism was affected by the change has been pointed out in a former chapter. What we have now to study is chiefly the reaction of Rome on the Greek mind, and its bearing on the subsequent development of thought.

This reaction had begun to make itself felt long before the birth of a philosophical literature in the Latin language. It may be traced to the time when the lecture-halls at Athens were first visited by Roman students, and Greek professors first received on terms of intimate companionship into the houses of Roman nobles. In each instance, but more especially in the latter, not only would the pupil imbibe new ideas from the master, but the master would suit his teaching to the tastes and capacities of the pupil. The result would be an intellectual condition somewhat resembling that which attended the popularisation of philosophy in Athens during the latter half of the fifth century B.C.; and all the more so as speculation had already spontaneously reverted to the Sophistic standpoint. The parallel will be still more complete if we take the word Sophist in its original and comprehensive sense. We may then say that while Carneades, with his entrancing eloquence and his readiness to argue both sides of a question, was the Protagoras of the new movement; Panaetius, the dignified rationalist and honoured friend of Laelius and the younger Scipio, its Prodicus; and Posidonius, the astronomer and encyclopaedic scholar, its Hippias, Phaedrus the Epicurean was its Anaxagoras or Democritus.

The Epicurean philosophy was, in fact, the first to gain a footing in Rome; and it thereby acquired a position of comparative equality with the other schools, to which it was not really entitled, but which it has ever since succeeded in maintaining. The new doctrine fell like a spark on a mass of combustible material. The Romans were full of curiosity about Nature and her workings; full of contempt for the degrading Etruscan superstitions which hampered them at every turn, and the falsity of which was proving too much even for the official gravity of their state-appointed interpreters; full of impatience at the Greek mythology which was beginning to substitute itself for the severe abstractions of their own more spiritual faith;[265] full of loathing for the Asiatic orgies which were being introduced into the highest society of their own city. Epicureanism offered them a complete and easily intelligible theory of the world, which at the same time came as a deliverance from supernatural terrors. The consequence was that its different parts were thrown out of perspective, and their relative importance almost reversed. Originally framed as an ethical system with certain physical and theological implications, it was interpreted by Lucretius, and apparently also by his Roman predecessors,[266] as a scientific and anti-religious system, with certain references to conduct neither very prominently brought forward nor very distinctly conceived. And we know from the contents of the papyrus rolls discovered at Herculaneum, that those who studied the system in its original sources paid particular attention to the voluminous physical treatises of Epicurus, as well as to the theological works of his successors. Nor was this change of front limited to Epicureanism, if, as we may suspect, the rationalistic direction taken by Panaetius was due, at least in part, to a similar demand on the side of his Roman admirers.

But what had happened once before when philosophy was taken up by men of the world, repeated itself on this occasion. Attention was diverted from speculative to ethical problems, or at least to issues lying on the borderland between speculation and practice, such as those relating to the criterion of truth and the nature of the highest good. On neither of these topics had Epicureanism a consistent answer to give, especially when subjected to the cross-examination of rival schools eager to secure Roman favour for their own doctrines. Stated under any form, the Epicurean morality could not long satisfy the conquerors of the world. To some of them it would seem a shameful dereliction of duty, to others an irksome restraint on self-indulgence, while all would be alienated by its declared contempt for the general interests of culture and ambition. Add to this that the slightest acquaintance with astronomy, as it was then taught in Hellenic countries, would be fatal to a belief in the Epicurean physics, and we shall understand that the cause for which Lucretius contended was already lost before his great poem saw the light.

The requirements which Epicureanism failed to meet, were, to a great extent, satisfied by Stoicism. This philosophy had, from a comparatively early period, won the favour of a select class, but had been temporarily overshadowed by the popularity of its hedonistic and anti-religious rival, when a knowledge of the Greek systems first became diffused through Italy. The uncouth language of the early Stoics and the apparently unpractical character of their theories doubtless exercised a repellent effect on many who were not out of sympathy with their general spirit. These difficulties were overcome first by Panaetius, and then, to a still greater extent, by Posidonius, the elder contemporary and friend of Pompeius and Cicero, who was remarkable not only for his enormous learning but also for his oratorical talent.[267] It seems probable that the lessons of this distinguished man marked the beginning of that religious reaction which eventually carried all before it. We have already seen how he abandoned the rationalistic direction struck out by his predecessor, Panaetius; and his return to the old Stoic orthodoxy may very well have responded to a revival of religious feeling among the educated Roman public, who by this time must have discovered that there were other ways of escaping from superstition besides a complete rejection of the supernatural.

The triumph of Stoicism was, however, retarded by the combined influence of the Academic and Peripatetic schools. Both claimed the theory of a morality founded on natural law as a doctrine of their own, borrowed from them without acknowledgment by the Porch, and restated under an offensively paradoxical form. To a Roman, the Academy would offer the further attraction of complete immunity from the bondage of a speculative system, freedom of enquiry limited only by the exigencies of practical life, and a conveniently elastic interpretation of the extent to which popular faiths might be accepted as true. If absolute suspense of judgment jarred on his moral convictions, it was ready with accommodations and concessions. We have seen how the scepticism of Carneades was first modified by Philo, and then openly renounced by Philo’s successor, Antiochus. Roman influence may have been at work with both; for Philo spent some time in the capital of the empire, whither he was driven by the events of the first Mithridatic War; while Antiochus was the friend of Lucullus and the teacher of Cicero.[268]

VIII.

The greatest of Roman orators and writers was also the first Roman that held opinions of his own in philosophy. How much original thought occurs in his voluminous contributions to the literature of the subject is more than we can determine, the Greek authorities on which he drew being known almost exclusively through the references to them contained in his disquisitions. But, judging from the evidence before us, carefully sifted as it has been by German scholars, we should feel disposed to assign him a foremost rank among the thinkers of an age certainly not distinguished either for fertility or for depth of thought. It seems clear that he gave a new basis to the eclectic tendencies of his contemporaries, and that this basis was subsequently accepted by other philosophers whose speculative capacity has never been questioned. Cicero describes himself as an adherent of the New Academy, and expressly claims to have reasserted its principles after they had fallen into neglect among the Greeks, more particularly as against his own old master Antiochus, whose Stoicising theory of cognition he agrees with Philo in repudiating.[269] Like Philo also, he bases certainty on the twofold ground of a moral necessity for acting on our beliefs,[270] and the existence of moral intuitions, or natural tendencies to believe in the mind itself;[271] or, perhaps, more properly speaking, on the single ground of a moral sense. This, as already stated, was unquestionably a reproduction of the Platonic ideas under their subjective aspect. But in his general views about the nature and limits of human knowledge, Cicero leaves the Academy behind him, and goes back to Socrates. Perhaps no two men of great genius could be more unlike than these two,—for us the most living figures in ancient history if not in all history,—the Roman being as much a type of time-servingness and vacillation as the Athenian was of consistency and resolute independence. Yet, in its mere external results, the philosophy of Socrates is perhaps more faithfully reproduced by Cicero than by any subsequent enquirer; and the differences between them are easily accounted for by the long interval separating their ages from one another. Each set out with the same eager desire to collect knowledge from every quarter; each sought above all things for that kind of knowledge which seemed to be of the greatest practical importance; and each was led to believe that this did not include speculations relating to the physical world; one great motive to the partial scepticism professed by both being the irreconcilable disagreement of those who had attempted an explanation of its mysteries. The deeper ground of man’s ignorance in this respect was stated somewhat differently by each; or perhaps we should say that the same reason is expressed in a mythical form by the one and in a scientific form by the other. Socrates held that the nature of things is a secret which the gods have reserved for themselves; while, in Cicero’s opinion, the heavens are so remote, the interior of the earth so dark, the mechanism of our own bodies so complicated and subtle, as to be placed beyond the reach of fruitful observation.[272] Nor did this deprivation seem any great hardship to either, since, as citizens of great and free states, both were pre-eminently interested in the study of social life; and it is characteristic of their common tendency that both should have been not only great talkers and observers but also great readers of ancient literature.[273]

With regard to ethics, there is, of course, a great difference between the innovating, creative genius of the Greek and the receptive but timid intelligence of the Roman. Yet the uncertainty which, in the one case, was due to the absence of any fixed system, is equally present in the other, owing to the embarrassment of having so many systems among which to choose. Three ethical motives were constantly present to the thoughts of Socrates: the utility of virtue, from a material point of view, to the individual; its social necessity; and its connexion with the dual constitution of man as a being composed of two elements whereof the one is infinitely superior to the other; but he never was able, or never attempted to co-ordinate them under a single principle. His successors tried to discover such a principle in the idea of natural law, but could neither establish nor apply it in a satisfactory manner. Cicero reproduces the Socratic elements, sometimes in their original dispersion and confusion, sometimes with the additional complication and perplexity introduced by the idea through which it had been hoped to systematise and reconcile them. To him, indeed, that idea was even more important than to the Greek moralists; for he looked on Nature as the common ground where philosophy and untrained experience might meet for mutual confirmation and support.[274] We have seen how he adopted the theory—as yet not very clearly formulated—of a moral sense, or general faculty of intuition, from Philo. To study and obey the dictates of this faculty, as distinguished from the depraving influence of custom, was his method of arriving at truth and right. But if, when properly consulted, it always gave the same response, a similar unanimity might be expected in the doctrines of the various philosophical schools; and the adhesion of Academicians, Peripatetics, and Stoics to the precept, Follow Nature, seemed to demonstrate that such an agreement actually existed. Hence Cicero over and over again labours to prove that their disputes were merely verbal, and that Stoicism in particular had borrowed its ethics wholesale from his own favourite sect. Yet from time to time their discrepancies would force themselves on his notice; and by none have the differences separating Stoicism from its rivals been stated with more clearness, concision, and point.[275] These relate to the absolute self-sufficingness of virtue, its unity, and the incompatibility of emotion with its exercise. But Cicero seems to have regarded the theory of preference and rejection as a concession to common sense amounting to a surrender of whatever was parodoxical and exclusive in the Stoic standpoint.[276] And with respect to the question round which controversy raged most fiercely, namely, whether virtue was the sole or merely the chief condition of happiness, Cicero, as a man of the world, considered that it was practically of no consequence which side prevailed.[277] It would be unfair to blame him for not seeing, what the stricter school felt rather than saw, that the happiness associated with goodness was not of an individual but of a social character, and therefore could not properly be compared with objects of purely individual desire, such as health, wealth, friends, and worldly fame.

But even taken in its mildest form, there were difficulties about Greek idealism which still remained unsolved. They may be summed up in one word, the necessity of subordinating all personal and passionate feelings to a higher law, whatever the dictates of that law may be. Of such self-suppression few men were less capable than Cicero. Whether virtue meant the extirpation or merely the moderation of desire and emotion, it was equally impossible to one of whom Macaulay has said, with not more severity than truth, that his whole soul was under the dominion of a girlish vanity and a craven fear.[278] Such weak and well-intentioned natures almost always take refuge from their sorrows and self-reproaches in religion; and probably the religious sentiment was more highly developed in Cicero than in any other thinker of the age. Here also a parallel with Socrates naturally suggests itself. The relation between the two amounts to more than a mere analogy; for not only was the intellectual condition of old Athens repeating itself in Rome, but the religious opinions of all cultivated Romans who still retained their belief in a providential God, were, to an even greater extent than their ethics, derived through Stoicism from the great founder of rational theology. Cicero, like Socrates, views God under the threefold aspect of a creator, a providence, and an informing spirit:—identical in his nature with the soul of man, and having man for his peculiar care. With regard to the evidence of his existence, the teleological argument derived from the structure of organised beings is common to both; the argument from universal belief, doubtless a powerful motive with Socrates, is more distinctly put forward by Cicero; and while both regard the heavenly luminaries as manifest embodiments of the divine essence, Cicero is led by the traditions of Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics, to present the regularity of their movements as the most convincing revelation of a superhuman intelligence, and to identify the outermost starry sphere with the highest God of all.[279] Intimately associated with this view is his belief in the immortality of the soul, which he supposes will return after death to the eternal and unchangeable sphere whence it originally proceeded.[280] But his familiarity with the sceptical arguments of Carneades prevented Cicero from putting forward his theological beliefs with the same confidence as Socrates; while, at the same time, it enabled him to take up a much more decided attitude of hostility towards the popular superstitions from which he was anxious, so far as possible, to purify true religion.[281] To sum up: Cicero, like Kant, seems to have been chiefly impressed by two phenomena, the starry heavens without and the moral law within; each in its own way giving him the idea of unchanging and everlasting continuance, and both testifying to the existence of a power by which all things are regulated for the best. But the materialism of his age naturally prevented him from regarding the external order as a mere reflex or lower manifestation of the inward law by which all spirits feel themselves to be members of the same intelligible community.