of Greek philosophy was nearly as accurate as it was extensive.  So far as the Academica is concerned, I have had in my notes an opportunity 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 his day.  The criticism of Madvig even is not free from this error, as will be seen from my notes on several passages of the Academica[70].  As my space forbids me to attempt the thorough inquiry I have indicated as desirable, I can but describe in rough outline the relation in which Cicero stands to the chief schools.