of defending Cicero's substantial accuracy; of the
success of the defence I must leave the reader to judge. During the
progress of this work I shall have to expose the groundlessness of many
feelings and judgments now current which have contributed to produce a low
estimate of Cicero's philosophical attainments, but there is one piece of
unfairness which I shall have no better opportunity of mentioning than the
present. It is this. Cicero, the philosopher, is made to suffer for the
shortcomings of Cicero the politician. Scholars who have learned to despise
his political weakness, vanity, and irresolution, make haste to depreciate
his achievements in philosophy, without troubling themselves to inquire too
closely into their intrinsic value. I am sorry to be obliged to instance
the illustrious Mommsen, who speaks of the _De Legibus_ as "an oasis in the
desert of this dreary and voluminous writer." From political partizanship,
and prejudices based on facts irrelevant to the matter in hand, I beg all
students to free themselves in reading the _Academica_.

II. _The Philosophical Opinions of Cicero_.

In order to define with clearness the position of Cicero as a student of
philosophy, it would be indispensable to enter into a detailed historical
examination of the later Greek schools--the Stoic, Peripatetic, Epicurean
and new Academic. These it would be necessary to know, not merely as they
came from the hands of their founders, but as they existed in Cicero's age;
Stoicism not as Zeno understood it, but as Posidonius and the other pupils
of Panaetius propounded it; not merely the Epicureanism of Epicurus, but
that of Zeno, Phaedrus, Patro, and Xeno; the doctrines taught in the Lyceum
by Cratippus; the new Academicism of Philo as well as that of Arcesilas and
Carneades; the medley of Academicism, Peripateticism, and Stoicism put
forward by Antiochus in the name of the Old Academy. A systematic attempt
to distinguish between the earlier and later forms of doctrine held by
these schools is still a great desideratum. Cicero's statements concerning
any particular school are generally tested by comparing them with the
assertions made by ancient authorities about the earlier representatives of
the school. Should any discrepancy appear, it is at once concluded that
Cicero is in gross error, whereas, in all probability, he is uttering
opinions which would have been recognised as genuine by those who were at
the head of the school in