Academica Part 9

For _iudicio_ cf. _D.F._ III. 35, _T.D._ III. 61, IV. 14, 15, 18.

_Intemperantiam_: the same in _T.D._ IV. 22, Gk. a???as?a, see Zeller 232.

_Quintam naturam_: the pept? ??s?a or pept?? s?a of Aristotle, who proves its existence in _De Coelo_ I. 2, in a curious and recondite fas.h.i.+on. Cic. is certainly wrong in stating that Arist. derived _mind_ from this fifth element, though the finest and highest of material substances.

He always guards himself from a.s.signing a material origin to mind. Cic.

repeats the error in _T.D._ I. 22, 41, 65, _D.F._ IV. 12. On this last pa.s.sage Madv. has an important note, but he fails to recognise the essential fact, which is clear from Stob. I. 41, 33, that the Peripatetics of the time were in the habit of deriving the mind from a????, which is the very name that Aristotle gives to the fifth element (s?a a??e???? in the _De Coelo_), and of giving this out to be Aristotle's opinion. The error once made, no one could correct it, for there were a hundred influences at work to confirm it, while the works of Aristotle had fallen into a strange oblivion. I cannot here give an exhaustive account of these influences, but will mention a few. Stoicism had at the time succeeded in powerfully influencing every other sect, and it placed ???? e? a??e?? (see Plutarch, qu. R. and P. 375). It had destroyed the belief in immaterial existence The notion that ???? or ???? came from a???? was also fostered by the language of Plato. He had spoken of the soul as ae?????t?? in pa.s.sages which were well known to Cic. and had taken great hold on his mind One from the _Phaedrus_ 245 C is translated twice, in _Somnium Scipionis_ (_De Rep._ VI.), and _T.D._ I. 53 sq. Now the only thing with Aristotle which is ae?????t?? in eternal perfect circular motion (for to the ancients circular motion is alone perfect and eternal), is the a???? or pept?? s?a, that fiery external rim of the universe of which the stars are mere nodes, and with which they revolve. How natural then, in the absence of Aristotle's works, to conclude that the ae?????t?? ???? of Plato came from the ae?????t?? a???? of Aristotle! Arist. had guarded himself by saying that the soul as an a??? ????se?? must be a????t??, but Cic. had no means of knowing this (see Stob. I. 41, 36). Again, Plato had often spoken of souls at death flying away to the outer circle of the universe, as though to their natural home, just where Arist. placed his pept?? s?a Any one who will compare _T.D._ I. 43 with the _Somn. Scipionis_ will see what power this had over Cicero. Further, Cic. would naturally link the mind in its origin with the stars which both Plato and Arist. looked on as divine (cf.

_Somn. Scip._ 15) These considerations will be enough to show that neither Cic. nor Antiochus, whom Madv. considers responsible for the error, could have escaped it in any way not superhuman except by the recovery of Aristotle's lost works, which did not happen till too late. _Sensus_: we seem here to have a remnant of the distinction drawn by Arist. between animal heat and other heat, the former being a?a????? t? t?? ast???

st???e?? (_De Gen. An._ II. 3, qu. R. and P. 299). _Ignem_: the Stoics made no difference, except one of degree, between a???? and p??, see Zeller 189, 190. _Ipsam naturam_: p?? is ?at' e????? st???e??? (Stob. I. 10, 16), and is the first thing generated from the ap???? ????; from it comes air, from air water, from water earth (Diog. Laert. VII. 136, 137) The fire is ???????, from it comes the ???e?????? of man, which comprises within it all powers of sensation and thought. These notions came from Herac.l.i.tus who was a great hero of the Stoics (Zeller ch. VIII. with notes) For his view of sensation and thought see s.e.xtus _Adv. Math._ VII. 127--129, qu. by R.

and P. 21. The Stoics probably misunderstood him; cf. R. and P.

"Herac.l.i.tus," and Grote's _Plato_ I. 34 sq. _Expers corporis_: for Stoic materialism see Zeller, pp. 120 sq. The necessity of a connection between the perceiving mind and the things perceived followed from old physical principles such as that of Democritus (?? ?a? e????e?? ta ?ete?a ?a?

d?afe???ta pas?e?? ??p' a??????, qu. from Arist. _De Gen. et Corr._ I. 7, by R. and P. 43), the same is affirmed loosely of all the old f?s????, (s.e.xtus _Adv. Math._ VII. 116), and by Empedocles in his lines ?a?a? e?

?a?a? ?p?pae?, etc. Plato in the _Timaeus_ fosters the same notion, though in a different way. The Stoics simply followed out boldly that line of thought. _Xenocrates_: see II. 124, n. _Superiores_: merely the supposed old Academico-Peripatetic school. _Posse esse non corpus_: there is no ultimate difference between Force and Matter in the Stoic scheme, see Zeller, pp. 134, 135.

--40. _Iunctos_: how can anything be a _compound_ of one thing? The notion that _iunctos_ could mean _aptos_ (R. and P. 366) is untenable. I entirely agree with Madv. (first Excursus to his _D.F._) that we have here an anacoluthon. Cic. meant to say _iunctos e quadam impulsione et ex a.s.sensu animorum_, but having to explain fa?tas?a was obliged to break off and resume at _sed ad haec_. The explanation of a Greek term causes a very similar anacoluthon in _De Off._ I. 153. Schuppe, _De Anacoluthis Ciceronianis_ p. 9, agrees with Madv. For the expression cf. _D.F._ II. 44 _e duplici genere voluptatis coniunctus_ Ernesti em. _cunctos_, Dav.

_punctos_, _ingeniose ille quidem_ says Halm, _pessime_ I should say.

Fa?tas?a?: a full and clear account of Stoic theories of sensation is given by Zeller, ch. V., R. and P. 365 sq. _Nos appellemus licet_: the same turn of expression occurs _D.F._ III. 21, IV. 74. _Hoc verb.u.m quidem hoc quidem_ probably ought to be read, see 18. _Adsensionem_ = s???ata?es??. _In n.o.bis positam_: the usual expression for freedom of the will, cf. II. 37, _De Fato_, 42, 43 (a very important pa.s.sage). The actual sensation is involuntary (a???s??? s.e.xt. Emp. _Adv. Math._ VIII. 397). _Tironum causa_ I note that the Stoics sometimes speak of the a.s.sent of the mind as _involuntary,_ while the ?ata??pt??? fa?tas?a _compels_ a.s.sent (see II.

38). This is, however, only true of the healthy reason, the unhealthy may refuse a.s.sent.

--41. _Visis non omnibus_: while Epicurus defended the truth of all sensations, Zeno abandoned the weak positions to the sceptic and retired to the inner citadel of the ?ata??pt??? fa?tas?a. _Declarationem_: e?a??e?a?, a term alike Stoic, Epicurean, and Academic, see n. on II. 17. _Earum rerum_: only this cla.s.s of sensations gives correct information of the _things_ lying behind. _Ipsum per se_: i.e. its whole truth lies in its own e?a??e?a, which requires no corroboration from without. _Comprehendibile_: this form has better MSS. authority than the vulg _comprehensibile_.

Goerenz's note on these words is worth reading as a philological curiosity _Nos vero, inquit_: Halm with Manut. writes _inquam_. Why change? Atticus answers as in 14, 25, 33. ?ata??pt??: strictly the _thing_ which emits the _visum_ is said to be ?ata??pt??, but, as we shall see in the _Lucullus_, the sensation and the thing from which it proceeds are often confused.

_Comprehensionem_: this word properly denotes the process of perception in the abstract, not the individual perception. The Greeks, however, themselves use ?ata????? for ?ata??pt??? fa?tas?a very often. _Quae manu prehenderentur_: see II. 145. _Nova enim dicebat_: an admission not often made by Cic., who usually contends, with Antiochus, that Zeno merely renamed old doctrines (cf. 43). _Sensum_: so Stob., I. 41, 25 applies the term a?s??s?? to the fa?tas?a. _Scientiam_: the word ep?st?? is used in two ways by the Stoics, (1) to denote a number of coordinated or systematised perceptions (?ata???e?? or ?ata??pt??a? fa?tas?a?) sometimes also called te??? (cf. s.e.xt. _Pyrrh. Hyp._ III. 188 te???? de e??a? s?st?a e? ?ata???e?? s???e???ase???); (2) to denote a single perception, which use is copied by Cic. and may be seen in several pa.s.sages quoted by Zeller 80. _Ut convelli ratione non posset_: here is a trace of later Stoicism. To Zeno all ?ata??pt??a? fa?tas?a? were asfa?e??, aetapt?t?? ??p? ?????.

Later Stoics, however, allowed that some of them were not impervious to logical tests; see s.e.xt. _Adv. Math._ VII. 253, qu. Zeller 88. Thus every ?ata??pt??? fa?tas?a, instead of carrying with it its own evidence, had to pa.s.s through the fire of sceptical criticism before it could be believed.

This was, as Zeller remarks, equivalent to giving up all that was valuable in the Stoic theory. _Inscientiam: ex qua exsisteret_: I know nothing like this in the Stoic texts; aa??a is very seldom talked of there. _Opinio_: d??a, see Zeller and cf. _Ac._ II. 52, _T.D._ II. 52, IV. 15, 26.

--42. _Inter scientiam_: so s.e.xtus _Adv. Math._ VII. 151 speaks of ep?st???

?a? d??a? ?a? t?? e? e??p?a? t??t?? ?ata?????. _Soli_: Halm, I know not why, suspects this and Christ gives _solum ei_. _Non quod omnia_: the meaning is that the reason must generalize on separate sensations and combine them before we can know thoroughly any one _thing_. This will appear if the whole sentence be read _uno haustu_; Zeller p. 78 seems to take the same view, but I have not come across anything exactly like this in the Greek. _Quasi_: this points out _normam_ as a trans. of some Gk.

word, ???t????? perhaps, or ????? or ?a???. _Notiones rerum_: Stoic e????a?; Zeller 81--84, R. and P. 367, 368. _Quodque natura_: the omission of _eam_ is strange; Faber supplies it. _Imprimerentur_: the terms e?apesf?a??se??, e?ap?ea?e??, e?tet?p?e?? occur constantly, but generally in relation to fa?tas?a?, not to e????a?. _Non principia solum_: there seems to be a ref. to those a??a? t?? ap?de??e?? of Arist. which, induced from experience and incapable of proof, are the bases of all proof.

(See Grote's _Essay on the Origin of Knowledge_, first printed in Bain's _Mental and Moral Science_, now re-published in Grote's _Aristotle._) Zeno's e????a? were all this and more. _Reperiuntur_: two things vex the edd. (1) the change from _oratio obliqua_ to _recta_, which however has repeatedly taken place during Varro's exposition, and for which see _M.D.F._ I. 30, III. 49; (2) the phrase _reperire viam_, which seems to me sound enough. Dav., Halm give _aperirentur_. There is no MSS. variant.

_Aliena_: cf. _alienatos_ _D.F._ III. 18. _A virtute sapientiaque removebat_: cf. _sapiens numquam fallitur in iudicando_ _D.F._ III. 59. The _firma adsensia_ is opposed to _imbecilla_ 41. For the _adsensio_ of the _sapiens_ see Zeller 87. More information on the subject-matter of this section will be found in my notes on the first part of the _Lucullus_. _In his const.i.tit_: cf. II. 134.

----43--END. Cicero's historical justification of the New Academy.

Summary. Arcesilas' philosophy was due to no mere pa.s.sion for victory in argument, but to the obscurity of phenomena, which had led the ancients to despair of knowledge (44). He even abandoned the one tenet held by Socrates to be certain; and maintained that since arguments of equal strength could be urged in favour of the truth or falsehood of phenomena, the proper course to take was to suspend judgment entirely (45). His views were really in harmony with those of Plato, and were carried on by Carneades (46).

--43. _Breviter_: MSS. _et breviter;_ see 37. _Tunc_: rare before a consonant; see Munro on _Lucr._ I. 130. _Verum esse [autem] arbitror_: in deference to Halm I bracket _autem_, but I still think the MSS. reading defensible, if _verum_ be taken as the neut. adj. and not as meaning _but_.

Translate: "Yet I think the truth to be ... that it is to be thought," etc.

The edd. seem to have thought that _esse_ was needed to go with _putandam_.

This is a total mistake; cf. _ait ... putandam_, without _esse_ II. 15, _aiebas removendum_ II. 74; a hundred other pa.s.sages might be quoted from Cic.

--44. _Non pertinacia aut studio vincendi_: for these words see n. on II.

14. The sincerity of Arcesilas is defended also in II. 76. _Obscuritate_: a side-blow at _declaratio_ 41. _Confessionem ignorationis_: see 16. Socrates was far from being a sceptic, as Cic. supposes; see note on II. 74. _Et iam ante Socratem_: MSS. _veluti amantes Socratem;_ Democritus (460--357 B.C.) was really very little older than Socrates (468--399) who died nearly sixty years before him. _Omnis paene veteres_: the statement is audaciously inexact, and is criticised II. 14. None of these were sceptics; for Democritus see my note on II. 73, for Empedocles on II. 74, for Anaxagoras on II. 72. _Nihil cognosci, nihil penipi, nihil sciri_: the verbs are all equivalent; cf. _D.F._ III. 15 _equidem soleo etiam quod uno Graeci ...

idem pluribus verbis exponere_. _Angustos sensus_: Cic. is thinking of the famous lines of Empedocles ste???p?? e? ?a? pa?aa? ?.t.?. R. and P. 107.

_Brevia curricula vitae_: cf. Empedocles' pa???? de ???? a??? e???. Is there an allusion in _curricula_ to Lucretius' _lampada vitai tradunt_, etc.? _In profundo_: Dem. e? ???, cf. II. 32. The common trans. "well" is weak, "abyss" would suit better. _Inst.i.tutis_: ??? of Democritus, see R.

and P. 50. Goerenz's note here is an extraordinary display of ignorance.

_Deinceps omnia_: pa?ta efe??? there is no need to read _denique_ for _deinceps_ as Bentl., Halm. _Circ.u.mfusa tenebris_: an allusion to the s??t?? ???s?? of Democr., see II. 73. _Dixerunt_: Halm brackets this because of _dixerunt_ above, parts of the verb _dicere_ are however often thus repeated by Cic.

--45. _Ne illud quidem_: cf. 16. _Latere censebat_ Goer. omitted _censebat_ though in most MSS. Orelli and Klotz followed as usual. For the sense II.

122. _Cohibereque_: Gk. epe?e??, which we shall have to explain in the _Lucullus_. _Temeritatem ... turpius_: for these expressions, see II. 66, note. _Praecurrere_: as was the case with the dogmatists. _Paria momenta_: this is undiluted scepticism, and excludes even the possibility of the _probabile_ which Carneades put forward. For the doctrine cf. II. 124, for the expression Euseb. _Praep. Evan._ XIV. c. 4 (from Numenius) of Arcesilas, e??a? ?a? pa?ta a?ata??pta ?a? t??? e?? e?ate?a ??????

?s???ate?? a???????, s.e.xtus _Adv. Math._ IX. 207 ?s?s?e?e?? ?????; in the latter writer the word ?s?s?e?e?a very frequently occurs in the same sense, e g _Pyrrhon. Hyp._ I. 8 (add _N.D._ I. 10, _rationis momenta_)

--46. _Platonem_: to his works both dogmatists and sceptics appealed, s.e.xtus _Pyrrhon. Hyp._ I. 221 t?? ??at??a ??? ??? e? d??at???? efasa? e??a?, ???

de ap? ?t????, ??? de ?ata e? t? ap???t????, ?ata de t? d??at????.

Stobaeus II. 6, 4 neatly slips out of the difficulty; ??at?? p???f???? ??, ??? ??? t??e? ????ta? p???d????. _Exposuisti_: Durand's necessary em., approved by Krische, Halm, etc. for MSS. _exposui_. _Zenone_: see Introd.

p. 5.

NOTES ON THE FRAGMENTS.

BOOK I.

1. _Mnesarchus_: see II. 69, _De Or._ I. 45, and _Dict. Biogr._ 'Antipater'; cf. II. 143, _De Off._ III. 50. Evidently this fragment belongs to that historical justification of the New Academy with which I suppose Cicero to have concluded the first book.

2. The word _concinere_ occurs _D.F._ IV. 60, _N.D._ I. 16, in both which places it is used of the Stoics, who are said _re concinere, verbis discrepare_ with the other schools. This opinion of Antiochus Cic. had already mentioned 43, and probably repeated in this fragment. Krische remarks that Augustine, _Cont. Acad._ II. 14, 15, seems to have imitated that part of Cicero's exposition to which this fragment belongs. If so Cic.

must have condemned the unwarrantable verbal innovations of Zeno in order to excuse the extreme scepticism of Arcesilas (Krische, p. 58).

BOOK II.

3. This fragm. clearly forms part of those antic.i.p.atory sceptical arguments which Cic. in the first edition had included in his answer to Hortensius, see Introd. p. 55. The argument probably ran thus: What seems so level as the sea? Yet it is easy to prove that it is really not level.

4. On this I have nothing to remark.

5. There is nothing distinctive about this which might enable us to determine its connection with the dialogue. Probably Zeno is the person who _serius adamavit honores_.

6. The changing aspects of the same thing are pointed to here as invalidating the evidence of the senses.

7. This pa.s.sage has the same aim as the last and closely resembles _Lucullus_ 105.

8. The fact that the eye and hand need such guides shows how untrustworthy the senses are. A similar argument occurs in _Luc._ 86. _Perpendiculum_ is a plumb line, _norma_ a mason's square, the word being probably a corruption of the Greek ????? (Curt. _Grundz_ p. 169, ed. 3), _regula_, a rule.

9. The different colours which the same persons show in different conditions, when young and when old, when sick and when healthy, when sober and when drunken, are brought forward to prove how little of permanence there is even in the least fleeting of the objects of sense.

10. _Urinari_ is to dive; for the derivation see Curt. _Grundz_ p. 326. A diver would be in exactly the position of the fish noticed in _Luc._ 81, which are unable to see that which lies immediately above them and so ill.u.s.trate the narrow limits of the power of vision.

11. Evidently an attempt to prove the sense of smell untrustworthy.

Different people pa.s.s different judgments on one and the same odour. The student will observe that the above extracts formed part of an argument intended to show the deceptive character of the senses. To these should probably be added fragm. 32. Fr. 19 shows that the impossibility of distinguis.h.i.+ng eggs one from another, which had been brought forward in the _Catulus_, was allowed to stand in the second edition, other difficulties of the kind, such as those connected with the bent oar, the pigeon's neck, the twins, the impressions of seals (_Luc._ 19, 54), would also appear in both editions. The result of these a.s.saults on the senses must have been summed up in the phrase _cuncta dubitanda esse_ which Augustine quotes from the _Academica Posteriora_ (see fragm. 36).

BOOK III.

12. This forms part of Varro's answer to Cicero, which corresponded in substance to Lucullus' speech in the _Academica Priora_ The drift of this extract was most likely this: just as there is a limit beyond which the battle against criminals cannot be maintained, so after a certain point we must cease to fight against perverse sceptics and let them take their own way. See another view in Krische, p. 62.

13. Krische believes that this fragment formed part of an attempt to show that the senses were trustworthy, in the course of which the clearness with which the fishes were seen leaping from the water was brought up as evidence. (In _Luc._ 81, on the other hand, Cic. drew an argument hostile to the senses from the consideration of the fish.) The explanation seems to me very improbable. The words bear such a striking resemblance to those in _Luc._ 125 (_ut nos nunc simus ad Baulos Puteolosque videmus, sic innumerabilis paribus in locis esse isdem de rebus disputantis_) that I am inclined to think that the reference in Nonius ought to be to Book IV. and not Book III., and that Cic., when he changed the scene from Bauli to the Lucrine lake, also changed _Puteolosque_ into _pisciculosque exultantes_ for the sufficient reason that Puteoli was not visible from Varro's villa on the Lucrine.

14. The pa.s.sion for knowledge in the human heart was doubtless used by Varro as an argument in favour of a.s.suming absolute knowledge to be attainable. The same line is taken in _Luc._ 31, _D.F._ III. 17, and elsewhere.

15. It is so much easier to find parallels to this in Cicero's speech than in that of Lucullus in the _Academica Priora_ that I think the reference in Nonius must be wrong. The talk about freedom suits a sceptic better than a dogmatist (see _Luc._ 105, 120, and Cic.'s words in 8 of the same). If my conjecture is right this fragment belongs to Book IV. Krische gives a different opinion, but very hesitatingly, p. 63.

16. This may well have formed part of Varro's explanation of the ?ata?????, _temeritas_ being as much deprecated by the Antiocheans and Stoics as by the Academics cf. I. 42.

17. I conjecture _malleo_ (a hammer) for the corrupt _malcho_, and think that in the second ed. some comparison from building operations to ill.u.s.trate the fixity of knowledge gained through the ?ata???e?? was added to a pa.s.sage which would correspond in substance with 27 of the _Lucullus_.

I note in Vitruvius, quoted by Forc. s.v. _malleolus_, a similar expression (_naves malleolis confixae_) and in Pliny _Nat. Hist._ x.x.xIV. 14 _navis fixa malleo_. _Adfixa_ therefore in this pa.s.sage must have agreed with some lost noun either in the neut. plur. or fem. sing.