differences. In Ethics, considered by them as almost the whole of
Philosophy, which was itself defined as 'the art of living', the main
question between the two schools was the amount of importance to be
attributed to Virtue,--the Stoics declaring that in comparison with Virtue
all other things sink into absolute insignificance, while the Peripatetics
maintained that these have a certain though infinitesimally small
significance. The New Academy taught at this time no complete philosophical
system. It simply proclaimed the view that in the field of knowledge
certainty is unattainable, and that all the inquirer has to do is to
balance probabilities one against the other. The New Academic, therefore,
was free to accept any opinions which seemed to him to have the weight of
probability on their side, but he was bound to be ready to abandon them
when anything appeared which altered his views of the probabilities. He not
only might be, but he could not help being, _eclectic_; that is, he chose
such views promulgated by other schools as seemed to him at the moment to
be most reasonable or probable. Cicero called himself an adherent of this
school. On most points however, although eclectic, he agreed with the
Peripatetics, but with a decided leaning toward the Stoic ethical system.
The Stoic opinion that it is the duty of the wise man to abstain from
public life, which the Peripatetics contested, Cicero decisively rejected.
With the Epicureans he had absolutely no sympathy. Up to this time these
schools and their teachings were known to the Romans only through the
medium of the Greek. The only Latin philosophical literature was Epicurean,
and, excepting the poem of Lucretius (_De Rerum Natura_), scarcely famous
as yet, consisted entirely of books rudely written, although considerably
read.

(ii.) THE MISSION OF CICERO IN PHILOSOPHY.

Cicero made no claim to originality as a philosopher, nor even to complete