was its predilection for polemics; and that of Elis, which appears to have
been well versed in the sophistic methods of Zeno of Elea and of Gorgias.

THE CYNIC SCHOOL; ANTISTHENES; DIOGENES.--Much more important is the
Cynic school, because a school, which was nothing less than Stoicism
itself, emanated or appeared to emanate from it. As often happens, the
vague commencements of Stoicism bore a close resemblance to its end. The
Stoics of the last centuries of antiquity were a sort of mendicant friars,
ill-clothed, ill-fed, of neglected appearance, despising all the comforts
of life; the Cynics at the time of Alexander were much the same, professing
that happiness is the possession of all good things, and that the only way
to possess all things is to know how to do without them. It was
Antisthenes who founded this school, or rather this order. He had been the
pupil of Socrates, and there can be no doubt that his sole idea was to
imitate Socrates by exaggeration. Socrates had been poor, had scorned
wealth, had derided pleasure, and poured contempt on science. The cult of
poverty, the contempt for pleasures, for honours, for riches, and the
perfect conviction that any knowledge is perfectly useless to man--that is
all the teaching of Antisthenes. That can lead far, at least in systematic
minds. If all is contemptible except individual virtue, it is reversion to
savage and solitary existence which is preached: there is no more
civilization or society or patriotism. Antisthenes in these ideas was
surpassed by his disciples and successors; they were cosmopolitans and
anarchists. The most illustrious of this school--illustrious especially
through his eccentricity--was Diogenes, who rolled on the ramparts of
Corinth the tub which served him as a house, lighted his lantern in broad
daylight on the pretext of "searching for a man," called himself a citizen
of the world, was accused of being banished from Sinope by his
fellow-countrymen and replied, "It was I who condemned them to remain," and
said to Alexander, who asked him what he could do for him: "Get out of my