The attachment, however, of Cicero to the Academic philosophy, was free from the exclusive spirit of sectarism, and hence it did not prevent his extracting from other systems what he found in them conformable to virtue and reason. His ethical principles, in particular, appear Eclectic, having been, in a great measure, formed from the opinions of the Stoics. Of most Greek sects he speaks with respect and esteem. For the Epicureans alone, he seems (notwithstanding his friendship for Atticus) to have entertained a decided aversion and contempt.
The general purpose of Cicero’s philosophical works, was rather to give a history of the ancient philosophy, than dogmatically to inculcate opinions of his own. It was his great aim to explain to his fellow-citizens, in their own language, whatever the sages of Greece had taught on the most important subjects, in order to enlarge their minds and reform their morals; while, at the same time, he exercised himself in the most useful employment which now remained to him—a superior force having deprived him of the privilege of serving his country as an orator or Consul.
Cicero was in many respects well qualified for the arduous but noble task which he had undertaken, of naturalizing philosophy in Rome, and exhibiting her, according to the expression of Erasmus, on the Stage of life. He was a man of fertile genius, luminous understanding, sound judgment, and indefatigable industry—qualities adequate for the cultivation of reason, and sufficient for the supply of subjects of meditation. Never was a philosopher placed in a situation more favourable for gathering the fruits of an experience employed on human nature and civil society, or for observing the effects of various qualities of the mind on public opinion and on the actions of men. He lived at the most eventful crisis in the fate of his country, and in the closest connection with men of various and consummate talents, whose designs, when fully developed by the result, must have afforded on reflection, a splendid lesson in the philosophy of mind. But this situation, in some respects so favourable, was but ill calculated for revolving abstract ideas, or for meditating on those abstruse and internal powers, of which the consequences are manifested in society and the transactions of life. Accordingly, Cicero appears to have been destitute of that speculative disposition which leads us to penetrate into the more recondite and original principles of knowledge, and to mark the internal operations of thought. He had cultivated eloquence as clearing the path to political honours, and had studied philosophy, as the best auxiliary to eloquence. But the contem[pg 219]plative sciences only attracted his attention, in so far as they tended to elucidate ethical, practical, and political subjects, to which he applied a philosophy which was rather that of life than of speculation.
In the writings of Cicero, accordingly, everything deduced from experience and knowledge of the world—every observation on the duties of society, is clearly expressed, and remarkable for justness and acuteness. But neither Cicero, nor any other Roman author, possessed sufficient subtlety and refinement of spirit, for the more abstruse discussions, among the labyrinths of which the Greek philosophers delighted to find a fit exercise for their ingenuity. Hence, all that required research into the ultimate foundation of truths, or a more exact analysis of common ideas and perceptions—all, in short, that related to the subtleties of the Greek schools, is neither so accurately expressed, nor so logically connected.
In theoretic investigation, then,—in the explication of abstract ideas—in the analysis of qualities and perceptions, Cicero cannot be regarded as an inventor or profound original thinker, and cannot be ranked with Plato and Aristotle, those mighty fathers of ancient philosophy, who carried back their inquiries into the remotest truths on which philosophy rests. Where he does attempt fixing new principles, he is neither very clear nor consistent; and it is evident, that his general study of all systems had, in some degree, unsettled his belief, and had better qualified him to dispute on either side with the Academics, than to examine the exact weight of evidence in the scale of reason, or to exhibit a series of arguments, in close and systematic arrangement, or to deduce accurate conclusions from established and certain principles. His philosophic dialogues are rather to be considered as popular treatises, adapted to the ordinary comprehension of well-informed men, than profound disquisitions, suited only to a Portico or Lyceum. They bespeak the orator, even in the most serious inquiries. Elegance and fine writing, their author appears to have considered as essential to philosophy; and historic, or even poetical illustration, as its brightest ornament. The peculiar merit, therefore, of Cicero, lay in the happy execution of what had never been before attempted—the luminous and popular exposition of the leading principles and disputes of the ancient schools of philosophy, with judgments concerning them, and the application of results, deduced from their various doctrines to the peculiar manners or employments of his countrymen. Hence, though it may be honouring Cicero too highly, to term his works, with Gibbon, a Repository of Reason, they are at least a Miscellany of [pg 220]Philosophic Information, which has become doubly valuable, from the loss of the writings of many of those philosophers, whose opinions he records; and though the merit of originality rests with the Greek schools, no compositions transmitted from antiquity present so concise and comprehensive a view of the opinions of the Greek philosophers[387].
That the mind of Cicero was most amply stored with the learning of the Greek philosophers, and that he had the whole circle of their wisdom at his command, is evident, from the rapidity with which his works were composed—having been all written, except the treatise De Legibus, during the period which elapsed from the battle of Pharsalia till his death; and the greater part of them in the course of the year 708.
It is justly remarked by Goerenz, in the introduction to his edition of the book De Finibus[388], and assented to by Schütz[389], that it seems scarcely possible, that those numerous philosophical works, which are asserted to have been composed by Cicero in the year 708, could have been begun and finished in one year; and that such speed of execution leads us to suppose, that either the materials had been long collected, or that the productions themselves were little more than versions. In his Academica, Cicero remarks,—“Ego autem, dum me ambitio, dum honores, dum causæ, dum reipublicæ non solum cura, sed quædam etiam procuratio multis officiis implicatum et constrictum tenebat, hæc inclusa habebam; et, ne obsolescerent, renovabam, quum licebat, legendo. Nunc vero et fortunæ gravissimo percussus vulnere, et administratione reipublicæ liberatus, doloris medicinam a philosophiâ peto, et otii oblectationem hanc, honestissimam judico.” It is not easy to determine, as Schütz remarks, whether, by the expression “hæc inclusa habebam,” Cicero means merely the writings of philosophical authors, or treatises and materials for treatises by himself. “We ought, however,” proceeds Schütz, “the less to wonder that Cicero composed so many works in so short a time, when we read the following passage in a letter to Atticus, written in July 708—‘De linguâ Latinâ securi es animi, dices, qui talia conscribis! ἀπογραφα sunt; minore labore fiunt: verba tantum affero, quibus abundo[390]’; which words, according to Gronovius, imply, that the philosophic writings of Cicero are little more than versions from the Greek.”
In the laudable attempt of naturalizing philosophy at Rome, [pg 221]the difficulty which Lucretius had encountered, in embodying in Latin verse the precepts of Epicurus,—
“Propter egestatem linguæ rerumque novitatem,”
must have been almost as powerfully felt by Cicero. Philosophy was still little cultivated among the Romans; and no people will invent terms for thoughts or ideas with which it is little occupied. One of his letters to Atticus is strongly expressive of the trouble which he had in interpreting the philosophic terms of Greece in his native tongue[391]. Thus, for example, he could find no Latin word equivalent to the ἐποχη, or that withholding of assent from all propositions, which the new Academy professed. The language of the Greeks had been formed along with their philosophy. Their terms of physics had their origin in the ancient Theogonies, or the speculations of the Milesian sage; and Plato informs us, that one might make a course of moral philosophy in travelling through Attica and reading the inscriptions engraved on the tombs, pillars, and monuments, erected in the earliest ages near the public ways and centre of villages[392]. Hence, in Greece, words naturally became the apposite signs of speculative and moral ideas; but in Rome, a foreign philosophy had to be inculcated in a tongue which was already completely formed, which was greatly inferior in flexibility and precision to the Greek; and which, though Cicero certainly used some liberties in this respect, had too nearly reached maturity, to admit of much innovation. Its words, accordingly, did not always precisely express the subtle notions signified in the original language, whence there was often an appearance of obscurity in the idea, and of a defect in conclusions, drawn from premises which were indefinite, or which differed by a shade of meaning from those established in Greece.