This I cannot disclose in due season just now, but I shall recall it again when I am about to come especially to that point. Having taken their stand apart, then, they cast their darts at one another openly — not the two of them equally, but Arcesilaus against Zeno. For Zeno had, in the contest, a certain solemnity and weight, not inferior to that of Cephisodorus the rhetorician; who indeed, this Cephisodorus, since he saw his teacher Isocrates being attacked by Aristotle, being himself ignorant and inexperienced of Aristotle's own doctrines, but because he observed that the doctrines of Plato were held in repute, supposing that Aristotle philosophized in accordance with Plato, made war upon Aristotle but cast his darts at Plato, and brought his accusation beginning from the Forms, ending with other matters which he himself did not even know, but merely conjecturing the common opinions held about them, as they are reported.
However, this man was not fighting the one against whom he was actually warring, but was fighting the one against whom he had no wish to make war. Zeno himself, however, since he had let Arcesilaus go, if indeed he was not warring even against Plato — then, in my judgment as critic, he was philosophizing most worthily, for the sake of this very peace. But if — not being ignorant, perhaps, of the doctrines of Arcesilaus, yet ignorant of those of Plato, as is proved from what he wrote in reply to him — he in turn did the opposite, neither striking the one he knew, and outraging most dishonorably and most shamefully the one he ought not to have, and this far worse than would befit even a dog.
Nevertheless he did show, at any rate, a certain magnanimity in refraining from Arcesilaus. For either through ignorance of that man's doctrines, or through fear of the Stoics, he turned aside the great mouth of bitter war elsewhere, toward Plato. But concerning the innovations Zeno made against Plato — by no means done finely or with due modesty — I shall speak again at another time, if ever I find leisure for philosophy. Yet may I never find so much leisure, at least for this purpose, unless it be in jest.
Arcesilaus, then, seeing that Zeno was a rival craftsman worthy of victory, kept demolishing the arguments brought forward by him, and hesitated at nothing.
And concerning the other matters over which he had contended with him, perhaps I am not able to speak — or even if I could, there was no need now to mention them. But since he himself had first discovered this doctrine, and seeing that its very name — the 'cognitive impression' — was held in high repute at Athens, he employed every device on its behalf. But Arcesilaus, being in the weaker position, kept quiet, unable to be wronged; he let Zeno go — though he had much he might have said, he did not wish to — but rather, in another way, fought a shadow-battle against Plato, who was no longer among the living, and threw into an uproar the whole procession of cart-abuse, saying that, since Plato was not there to defend himself, it would concern no one else to plead his case on his behalf; but if it should concern Arcesilaus, he himself thought he would gain by turning Arcesilaus's attack away from himself. This device Agathocles the Syracusan, too, is known to have used against the Carthaginians.
The Stoics submitted, utterly dumbfounded. For their Muse, even then, was neither devoted to learning nor a worker of graces; and by means unlike these, Arcesilaus, now battering them down on this side, now undercutting them on that, now tripping others up, talked them down and was persuasive. Accordingly, those to whom he spoke in opposition were defeated, and those among whom he was speaking were struck with astonishment; it had somehow been demonstrated to the people of that time that there was nothing — no word, no feeling, no deed, however small — that could ever appear otherwise than useless, unless it seemed so to Arcesilaus of Pitane; whereas to him, nothing at all seemed so, nor did he declare anything, holding that these were nothing more than mere little phrases and empty fears.
Concerning Lacydes I wish to relate a pleasant anecdote. Lacydes, then, was rather stingy, and in a certain way what is called 'thrifty' — this being the trait for which he was esteemed by the many — himself opening the storeroom, himself locking it. And he would take out for himself whatever he needed, and did all other such things by his own hand, not at all because he praised self-sufficiency, nor because he was otherwise poor, nor for lack of slaves — since he did in fact have slaves, however many. But the reason may be conjectured.
Now I will relate the pleasant story I promised. Being his own steward, he did not think it necessary to carry the key about on his own person; rather, after locking up, he would deposit it in a certain hollow writing-case. Then, having sealed it with his ring, he would roll the ring itself through the keyhole, letting it fall inside the room, so that afterward, when he came again and had opened it with the key, being able to pick up the ring, he would lock up again, then seal it, then throw the ring back again inside through the keyhole.
The slaves, having understood this clever device, whenever Lacydes went out for a walk or somewhere else, would themselves open it up, and then, as their appetite moved them, eating some things, drinking up others, and carrying off yet other things, they would do this regularly; they would lock it up again, seal it, and — laughing a great deal at him over it — let the ring fall back into the room through the keyhole.
Lacydes, then, having left the vessels full but finding them empty, being at a loss about what was happening, since he had heard that non-apprehension was being taught as philosophy by Arcesilaus, thought that this very thing was happening to him concerning his storeroom. And starting from this, he began to philosophize in Arcesilaus's manner, holding that one neither sees nor hears anything clear or sound. And once, having drawn one of his companions into his house, he insisted to him, with extraordinary vehemence, as it seemed, on the doctrine of suspension of judgment, and said: 'This much, at least, I can tell you without dispute, having learned it myself from my own experience, not having heard it from another.'
And then he began to relate the whole experience that had happened to him concerning the storeroom. 'What, then,' he said, 'could Zeno still say against a non-apprehension so thoroughly agreed upon, so evident to me in cases like this? For I, who locked it with my own hands, who sealed it myself, who myself let the ring fall inside — coming again and opening it, I see the ring within, indeed, but not the other things as well. How, then, shall I not rightly be in a state of disbelief toward these facts? For I myself will not dare to say that someone came and stole these things, since the ring was there inside.'
And that man, hearing this — for he was an insolent fellow — taking the whole thing exactly as he had heard it, scarcely restraining himself even before, burst out into a great, broad laugh, and, still laughing and cackling, at the same time exposed the man's vain conceit. So that from then on Lacydes, having reconsidered, no longer threw the ring inside, no longer applied non-apprehension to his storeroom, but rather took possession of what had been given out, and had philosophized in vain.
Nevertheless, the slaves were coarse fellows, and not to be caught by one trick alone — such as those comic-type Getae and Dacians, trained to chatter with Dacian glibness — since, having heard the Stoics' sophisms, or having otherwise learned them on their own, they went straight to the daring deed, and would remove his seal, sometimes substituting another in its place, sometimes not even another, on the theory that to him, at least, things would be non-apprehensible in any case, and so in this way and that.
And he, coming in, would inspect it; and seeing the writing-case unsealed, or sealed but with a different seal, would become indignant. But when the slaves said it was sealed and that, at any rate, they saw his own seal upon it, he would examine it precisely and demonstrate the contrary; and when they, defeated by his demonstration, said that if the seal were not on it, perhaps he himself had forgotten and had not sealed it — why, he himself declared that he remembered sealing it, and he would give proof, and would go around and around with the argument, and would speak indignantly to them, thinking he was being made fun of, and would even swear an oath on top of it.
But they, taking up his accusations, themselves thought that they, in turn, were being made fun of by him, since it had been decided by Lacydes, as a wise man, that he should hold no opinions, and thus also have no memory — for memory, they said, is a kind of opinion; and indeed, they said, they had recently heard him say these very things to his friends.
And when he turned his own arguments back against them and spoke words that were not proper Academic doctrine, they themselves went to attend some Stoic's lectures and learned by heart what they ought to say, and starting from there, counter-argued sophistically, and became rival, skilled 'Academic' thieves. He, meanwhile, kept lodging his complaint against the Stoics; and the slaves would dissolve his accusations against them by appeal to non-apprehension, not without a certain amount of mockery.
There were, then, disputations of everyone there, and arguments and counter-arguments; and not a single thing was left untouched in their midst — not a vessel, not any of the things placed in a vessel, nor whatever else contributes to the furnishing of a household.
And Lacydes, for the time being, was at a loss, seeing that a defense drawn from his own doctrines would not be advantageous to him, and supposing that, if he did not refute them, everything would be overturned for him; falling into helplessness, he would cry out to his neighbors and the gods, and 'Alas, alas!' and 'Ah me, ah me!' and 'By the gods!' and 'By the goddesses!' and all the other artless means of persuasion that belong to those who speak vehemently amid disbelief — all these things were uttered with loud outcry and an air of trustworthiness.
Finally, since he was engaged in a running dispute at home, he himself, no doubt, would play the Stoic toward the slaves, while the slaves insisted on Academic doctrines, so that they might no longer have any trouble; and, to guard his storeroom, some house-keeping friend would sit before it. But since this benefited him not at all, perceiving at last where his cleverness was leading him, he unveiled the truth and said: 'These things, my boys, are said by us one way in our disputations — but we live our lives another way.'
So much, then, concerning Lacydes. Many became his pupils, among whom one distinguished figure was Aristippus of Cyrene. Of all his acquaintances, it was Evander who succeeded to his school, and those after him.
After them, Carneades, taking up the school, established the third Academy. He employed, then, the same manner of argument as Arcesilaus had used; for he too practiced the method of arguing on both sides of a question, and demolished everything said by others. But on one point alone, concerning the doctrine of suspension of judgment, he took a different stand from him, saying that it was impossible for a human being to suspend judgment about absolutely everything; that there was a difference between what is unclear and what is non-apprehensible, and that, while all things are non-apprehensible, not all things are unclear. He also had a share in Stoic doctrines, and by taking a contentious stand against them, he grew all the greater, aiming at what seemed plausible to the many rather than at truth; whence he also caused the Stoics much displeasure. Numenius, then, writes the following concerning him.
Carneades, having received the school from Hegesinus, whose duty it was to preserve whatever doctrines were fixed and whatever had been altered, neglected this task; but referring things back to Arcesilaus — whether they were better or worse — after a long interval, he renewed the battle.
And next he adds: 'He too, then, both led and carried off the victory; he brought together counter-arguments and subtle turns of speech, varying his contest, and he was both a denier and an affirmer, and argued against both sides. If ever there was need of arguments that had some marvel in them, he would rise up impetuous, like a rushing river, filling everything on this side and that, and would burst in and sweep away his hearers amid uproar.'
Accordingly, while leading others astray, he himself remained undeceived — a quality which did not belong to Arcesilaus. For that man, going about bewitching his fellow-revelers, had, without perceiving it, deceived himself first, but had become persuaded that what he said was true, through the abolition of absolutely all criteria of things.
Carneades would have been an evil piled upon the evil of Arcesilaus, had he not relaxed one small point, by which men were not going to be left without the power to act — namely, according to the affirmative and negative impressions derived from the plausible criterion he spoke of, used to judge whether this particular thing is a living creature or is not a living creature.
Having thus relaxed this point, like wild beasts that, when retreating, hurl themselves the more violently and forcefully upon the spear-points, he too, having yielded, was able to attack all the more powerfully. And once he had gained a foothold and had good success, then he would deliberately neglect and no longer remember even that which he had previously granted.
For, by conceding that the true and the false are present in things, as if cooperating in the manner of the inquiry, he gave, in the manner of a skilled wrestler, a hold to his opponent, and thereby got the better of him. For, having offered each — the true and the false — according to the inclination toward the plausible, he said that neither of the two is apprehended with certainty. He was, then, a wiser sort of robber and sorcerer.
For taking up a falsehood resembling the true, and something resembling the apprehensible in a cognitive impression, and bringing them to an equal footing, he did not allow either the true to be true or the false to be false — or rather, did not allow the one to be more so than the other, except in accordance with the plausible.
There were, then, dreams in exchange for dreams, since false impressions are similar to true ones — just as a wax egg is compared to a real, genuine egg.
Thus even more evils resulted. And indeed Carneades, by his speaking, bewitched his hearers' souls and enslaved them. He was a thief who worked unseen, but a robber who was plainly visible, capturing by both guile and force even those who were exceedingly well prepared against him.
At any rate, every thought of Carneades prevailed, and no other whatsoever prevailed otherwise, since even those against whom he waged war were more unable to speak in reply.
Antipater, then, who lived in his time, was anxious to write something, but against the arguments daily put forth by Carneades, he never published anything publicly — not in the lecture halls, not in the walks; nor did he speak, nor did he utter a sound, nor, they say, did anyone ever hear so much as a peep from him. Instead, he kept drafting rebuttals, and, taking a corner, left behind books written for those who came after — books which are not capable of refuting Carneades even now, and were then still more incapable, against a man who appeared so exceedingly great, and who was reputed by the men of that time truly to be what his name signified.
Nevertheless, although he himself, out of Stoic contentiousness, was stirring up confusion in public, yet toward his own companions, in secret, he would confess the truth and speak honestly, and declare things which even any ordinary person who fails to attain such subtlety might say.
Then next he says: 'Mentor became a pupil of Carneades first, but not his successor; rather, while Carneades was still living, having caught him committing adultery with his concubine — not on the basis of a merely plausible impression, nor as one who had not truly apprehended it, but trusting his own eyesight in the highest degree, and having thus apprehended it — he dismissed him from the school. And Mentor, having departed, began to argue sophistically against him in turn and became a rival craftsman, refuting his non-apprehension in his own arguments.'
And again he adds, saying: 'Carneades, philosophizing as it were in inverted fashion, adorned himself with falsehoods, and beneath them concealed the truths. He used falsehoods, then, as veils, and told the truth hidden within, in a rather huckster-like manner. He suffered, then, the fate of pulses: of these, the empty ones float on top of the water and rise above, while the good ones among them are below and out of sight.'
These things, then, are said also concerning Carneades. His successor in the school is Clitomachus, after whom came Philo, concerning whom Numenius records the following.
This Philo, then, upon receiving the school, was beside himself with joy, and, rendering thanks, paid court to his predecessor, and increased the doctrines held by Clitomachus, and armed himself against the Stoics with gleaming bronze.
But as time went on, and their doctrine of suspension of judgment grew faint through habituation, he no longer thought consistently the same things about himself, and the clarity and self-evident agreement of his own experiences turned him around. Having by now a great deal of inner perception, he greatly desired — you may be sure — to meet with those who would refute him, so that he might not seem to have turned his back and fled of his own will.
Antiochus became a pupil of Philo, and he founded yet another Academy. Having studied, at any rate, under Mnesarchus the Stoic, he came to hold views opposite to those of Philo his teacher, and attached countless foreign elements to the Academy.
These things, and countless others similar to them, are recorded concerning the succession pertaining to Plato. It is time, then, for us to take up the discussion again from the beginning, and to examine the false opinions together with the counter-opinions of the natural philosophers — men who wandered over much of the earth, and who made the discovery of truth their supreme concern, who had thoroughly conversed with the opinions of all the ancients, and who had accurately investigated the precise theology held long before among all the Phoenicians and Egyptians, and among the Greeks themselves — it is worth hearing what fruit of their labors they found, so that we may learn whether anything befitting God had come down to them from their elders.
For formerly, from ancient ages, polytheistic superstition prevailed among the nations, and temples, sacred rites, and mysteries of the gods were customarily kept, city by city and region by region, among all peoples. There would then have been no need at all for human philosophy, if indeed the wisdom of the divine had already taken hold beforehand; nor would there have been any necessity for the wise to innovate, if indeed the ways of their ancestors had been well-established for them; nor, indeed, would there have been need for noble philosophers to form factions and disagree among themselves, if the ancestral opinion held by them concerning the gods had turned out, upon examination, to be harmonious and true.
Why, then, was there need to wage war and fight with one another, or to run up and down the long road, wandering and pilfering the doctrines of the barbarians, when it was fitting for them to remain at home and learn thoroughly from the gods themselves, if indeed there were any gods, or from the theologians among men, the true and unerring accounts concerning the matters sought after in philosophy — matters about which, having toiled countless times, they fell into disagreement, falling far short of the discovery of the truth?
And why should they have dared to seek out novelties concerning the gods, or to form factions and box against one another, if indeed a secure and firm discovery of the gods, and a true knowledge of piety, was contained in the rites and mysteries, and otherwise in the theology of the most ancient peoples, when it was possible for them simply to cherish that theology itself, unmoved and unanimously agreed upon?
But if, in fact, these men should be shown to have learned nothing true about God from their predecessors, but rather to have applied their own private notions to the investigation concerning nature, and to have relied on conjecture rather than on genuine apprehension, what then remains but to agree that the ancient theology of the nations holds nothing more than the account already set forth in the treatises prior to this one?
That, then, philosophy among the Greeks arose out of human conjectures, and much strife of words, and error, and not out of any precise apprehension, you may learn from the letter of Porphyry to Anebo the Egyptian, hearing him himself confessing this very point, in the following words.
I shall begin my friendly discourse to you from the gods and the good daemons, and the philosophical doctrines akin to these, concerning which very much has been said also among the philosophers of the Greeks — but said, for the most part, deriving the foundations of its credibility from conjecture.
And going on a little further, he adds, saying: 'For among us there is much dispute over words, since the good is guessed at from human reasonings; but as for those for whom communion with the better has been contrived, if this part is neglected in the examination, their wisdom has been cultivated in vain.'
But also in the work in which the same man wrote back to Boethus concerning the soul, he confesses word for word as follows: 'That the considerations drawn from our notions and from history establish beyond dispute that the soul is immortal; but the arguments brought forward by the philosophers as proof seem to be easily overturned, on account of the sophistical ingenuity of contentious men in everything. For what argument in philosophy is not disputable by those of opposing opinion, when even concerning things that seem self-evident some of them have thought it right to suspend judgment?'
And in the work he entitled 'On the Philosophy from the Oracles,' he expressly admits that the Greeks have gone astray, calling his own god to witness — since Apollo too declared this through oracles, testifying that the discovery of truth belongs to barbarians rather than Greeks — and indeed he mentions the Hebrews among those so attested.
After citing the oracle, then, he goes on to add these remarks: 'You have heard how great, how great is the toil needed merely to offer purifications for the body — let alone to find the salvation of the soul! For bronze-bound is the road to the gods, steep and rough; of its many paths the barbarians found the way, but the Greeks went astray, while those who already possessed them even corrupted them. And the god testified that the discovery belongs to the Egyptians, and to the Phoenicians and Chaldeans (for these are the Assyrians), and to the Lydians and the Hebrews.'
These are the words of the philosopher — or rather, of his own god. Is it right, then, that we should be reproached for this, that having abandoned the Greeks who have gone astray, we have chosen the ways of the Hebrews, who are attested as having attained the truth?
What, then, should we expect to learn from the philosophers? Or what hope is there of benefit from them, if what is said among them has for the most part conjectures and guesses as the very foundations of its conviction? And what is the fruit of disputing over words, if all the arguments of the philosophers stand easily overturned on account of their sophistical ingenuity in everything? For these things were not heard just now from us, but were said by the philosophers themselves.
Wherefore it seems to me that we have done well, and with carefully examined judgment, not without reason, in having despised such things and cherished instead what belongs to the Hebrews — not because it has been attested by the demon, but because it is shown to be a partaker of divine virtue and power.
That you may learn, then, from the very facts themselves, the disputes among these admired philosophers — their disagreements about first principles, about the gods, and about the constitution of the universe — I shall shortly set before you their own words.
First, since they carry about, up and down, endlessly repeating their branches of learning, insisting that it is absolutely necessary for those who intend to have experience of grasping the truth to pursue astronomy, arithmetic, geometry, and music — these very things having been shown to have come to them from the barbarians — for without these, they say, no one can become a learned man and philosopher, nor even touch the truth of realities, unless the knowledge of them has first been imprinted upon the soul; and then, puffed up by their learning of the aforesaid subjects, they suppose that they walk, lifted aloft, all but upon the ether itself, as though carrying God himself about in their numbers; and they think that we, because we do not aspire to the like, differ in no way from cattle, and on this ground they say that we can know neither God nor anything of the sacred things — come, let us first correct this mistaken notion, holding out to them the true word in place of light.
But he will show that countless Greeks, and countless races of barbarians too, some of whom, despite possessing the aforesaid learning, have recognized neither God nor a sound way of life nor anything at all of what is best and most beneficial, while others, entirely without that learning, have become most pious and most devoted to wisdom. Socrates at least, celebrated by them all, held some such view about these matters, as you may learn by trusting Xenophon, who relates it thus somewhere in the Memorabilia:
He taught also to what point a rightly educated man ought to be experienced in each subject. For instance, he said that geometry should be learned only to the point where one becomes competent, should the need ever arise, to receive or transfer or divide a piece of land correctly by measurement, or to demonstrate a piece of work; and this, he said, is so easy to learn that a person who applies his mind to the measuring knows at the same time how large the land is, and leaves knowing how it is measured.
But learning geometry as far as its difficult diagrams he disapproved of; for he said he could not see what use these were — though he himself was by no means ignorant of them. He said they were enough to wear away a man's whole life and to keep him from many other useful studies.
He also urged men to become experienced in astronomy, but likewise only to the point of being able to tell the hour of the night, and the month, and the year, for the sake of travel, sailing, and keeping watch, and of whatever else is done by night, month, or year, so as to have signs by which to distinguish the seasons of these things; and this, too, he said, was easy to learn from night-hunters, pilots, and many others whose business it is to know it.
But he strongly discouraged learning astronomy to the point of coming to know the bodies not sharing the same revolution, the planets and the wandering stars, their distances from the earth, their periods, and wearing oneself out in seeking their causes; for he said he saw no benefit even in these — though he was not unacquainted with them either. He said that these too were enough to wear away a man's life and to keep him from many useful pursuits.
And altogether he discouraged becoming a diligent inquirer into how God contrives each of the heavenly things; for he considered these things neither discoverable by men, nor did he think that God would be pleased with one who sought after what the gods had not chosen to make clear. He said that the man preoccupied with such matters would run no less risk of losing his mind than Anaxagoras did — the man who took the greatest pride in expounding the contrivances of the gods.
For that man, in saying that fire and the sun are the same thing, failed to notice that men can look easily upon fire, but cannot look straight at the sun; and that when lit by the sun their complexions grow darker, but not so from fire. He failed to notice, too, that of the things that grow from the earth, none can flourish without the sun's light, whereas all things are destroyed when heated by fire. And when he declared the sun to be a red-hot stone, he failed to notice this as well — that a stone in fire neither glows nor endures for long, whereas the sun remains for all time the brightest of all things.
He also urged men to learn calculation, and in this, as in the other subjects, he likewise bade them beware of useless labor; but as far as it was profitable, he himself both examined it and worked through it together with his companions. This is what Xenophon records in the Memorabilia. And in his letter to Aeschines, the same man writes as follows concerning Plato and those who boast of their natural philosophy of the universe:
'That things divine are beyond us is plain to everyone; it is enough to worship them with the utmost of our power; but what sort of beings they are, it is neither easy to discover nor lawful to inquire. For it is not fitting for servants to know more of their masters' nature or actions than pertains to their service. And, most important of all, to the degree that men who toil over human affairs deserve admiration, to that same degree a burden is brought upon those who grasp after reputation from many untimely and empty pursuits. For when, Aeschines, has anyone heard Socrates speak of heavenly things, or urge anyone to study geometrical lines for the improvement of character? We know that his understanding of music went no further than the ear; but he never ceased telling them at every turn what is noble, and what courage, justice, and the other virtues are. These, then, he called goods proper to man, but the rest he declared either impossible for men to grasp or akin to myths, mere playthings recited with knitted brow by sophists. And he did not merely say these things without also doing them. To write out for you, who already know them, the deeds he did — though it would not be unwelcome — would take too long, and I have recorded them elsewhere. So let those to whom Socrates was displeasing either cease being refuted, or come round to what is reasonable — Socrates, to whom, while he lived, God bore witness of his wisdom, while those who killed him found no purging for their repentance. And yet, for all their talk of the noble, they fell in love with Egypt and with the monstrous wisdom of Pythagoras — whose excess and instability, compared with Socrates, a lust for tyranny exposed, together with a Sicilian table of immoderate gluttony in place of a simple way of life.' These words of Xenophon allude to Plato. Plato himself, in the Republic, concerning gymnastic and music, records Socrates as saying the following:
'What, then, Glaucon, would be a study that draws the soul from what is becoming toward what is? And I mean this at the same time as I say it: did we not say that these men, while young, must necessarily be athletes of war?' 'We did say so.' 'Then the study we seek must, in addition to that, have this quality also.' 'What quality?' 'That it not be useless to men of war.'