The great Albucius was my enemy.
But surely Scævola was right. However, I can never sufficiently express my wonder whence this arrogant disdain of everything national arose among us. This is not exactly the place for lecturing on the subject; but my own feelings are, and I have constantly urged them, that the Latin language is not only not deficient, so as to deserve to be generally [pg 100] disparaged; but that it is even more copious than the Greek. For when have either we ourselves, or when has any good orator or noble poet, at least after there was any one for him to imitate, found himself at a loss for any richness or ornament of diction with which to set off his sentiments?
IV. And I myself (as I do not think that I can be accused of having, in my forensic exertions, and labours, and dangers, deserted the post in which I was stationed by the Roman people,) am bound, forsooth, to exert myself as much as I can to render my fellow-countrymen more learned by my labours and studies and diligence, and not so much to contend with those men who prefer reading Greek works, provided that they really do read them, and do not only pretend to do so; and to fall in also with the wishes of those men who are desirous either to avail themselves of both languages, or who, as long as they have good works in their own, do not care very much about similar ones in a foreign tongue. But those men who would rather that I would write on other topics should be reasonable, because I have already composed so many works that no one of my countrymen has ever published more, and perhaps I shall write even more if my life is prolonged so as to allow me to do so. And yet, whoever accustoms himself to read with care these things which I am now writing on the subject of philosophy, will come to the conclusion that no works are better worth reading than these. For what is there in life which deserves to be investigated so diligently as every subject which belongs to philosophy, and especially that which is discussed in this treatise, namely, what is the end, the object, the standard to which all the ideas of living well and acting rightly are to be referred? What it is that nature follows as the chief of all desirable things? what she avoids as the principal of all evils?
And as on this subject there is great difference of opinion among the most learned men, who can think it inconsistent with that dignity which every one allows to belong to me, to examine what is in every situation in life the best and truest good? Shall the chief men of the city, Publius Scævola and Marcus Manilius argue whether the offspring of a female slave ought to be considered the gain of the master of the slave; and shall Marcus Brutus express his dissent from their opinion, (and this is a kind of discussion giving great room [pg 101] for the display of acuteness, and one too that is of importance as regards the citizens,) and do we read, and shall we continue to read, with pleasure their writings on this subject, and the others of the same sort, and at the same time neglect these subjects, which embrace the whole of human life? There may, perhaps, be more money affected by discussions on that legal point, but beyond all question, this of ours is the more important subject: that, however, is a point which the readers may be left to decide upon. But we now think that this whole question about the ends of good and evil is, I may almost say, thoroughly explained in this treatise, in which we have endeavoured to set forth as far as we could, not only what our own opinion was, but also everything which has been advanced by each separate school of philosophy.
V. To begin, however, with that which is easiest, we will first of all take the doctrine of Epicurus, which is well known to most people; and you shall see that it is laid down by us in such a way that it cannot be explained more accurately even by the adherents of that sect themselves. For we are desirous of ascertaining the truth; not of convicting some adversary.
But the opinion of Epicurus about pleasure was formerly defended with great precision by Lucius Torquatus, a man accomplished in every kind of learning; and I myself replied to him, while Caius Triarius, a most learned and worthy young man, was present at the discussion. For as it happened that both of them had come to my villa near Cumæ to pay me a visit, first of all we conversed a little about literature, to which they were both of them greatly devoted; and after a while Torquatus said—Since we have found you in some degree at leisure, I should like much to hear from you why it is that you, I will not say hate our master Epicurus—as most men do who differ from him in opinion—but still why you disagree with him whom I consider as the only man who has discerned the real truth, and who I think has delivered the minds of men from the greatest errors, and has handed down every precept which can have any influence on making men live well and happily. But I imagine that you, like my friend Triarius here, like him the less because he neglected the ornaments of diction in which Plato, and Aristotle, and Theophrastus indulged. For I can hardly be persuaded to [pg 102] believe that the opinions which he entertained do not appear to you to be correct. See now, said I, how far you are mistaken, Torquatus. I am not offended with the language of that philosopher; for he expresses his meaning openly and speaks in plain language, so that I can understand him. Not, however, that I should object to eloquence in a philosopher, if he were to think fit to employ it; though if he were not possessed of it I should not require it. But I am not so well satisfied with his matter, and that too on many topics. But there are as many different opinions as there are men; and therefore we may be in error ourselves. What is it, said he, in which you are dissatisfied with him? For I consider you a candid judge; provided only that you are accurately acquainted with what he has really said. Unless, said I, you think that Phædrus or Zeno have spoken falsely (and I have heard them both lecture, though they gave me a high opinion of nothing but their own diligence,) all the doctrines of Epicurus are quite sufficiently known to me. And I have repeatedly, in company with my friend Atticus, attended the lectures of those men whom I have named; as he had a great admiration for both of them, and an especial affection even for Phædrus. And every day we used to talk over what we heard, nor was there ever any dispute between us as to whether I understood the scope of their arguments; but only whether I approved of them.
VI. What is it, then, said he, which you do not approve of in them, for I am very anxious to hear? In the first place, said I, he is utterly wrong in natural philosophy, which is his principal boast. He only makes some additions to the doctrine of Democritus, altering very little, and that in such a way that he seems to me to make those points worse which he endeavours to correct. He believes that atoms, as he calls them, that is to say bodies which by reason of their solidity are indivisible, are borne about in an interminable vacuum, destitute of any highest, or lowest, or middle, or furthest, or nearest boundary, in such a manner that by their concourse they cohere together; by which cohesion everything which exists and which is seen is formed. And he thinks that motion of atoms should be understood never to have had a beginning, but to have subsisted from all eternity.
But in those matters in which Epicurus follows Democritus, he is usually not very wrong. Although there are many [pg 103] assertions of each with which I disagree, and especially with this—that as in the nature of things there are two points which must be inquired into,—one, what the material out of which everything is made, is; the other, what the power is which makes everything,—they discussed only the material, and omitted all consideration of the efficient power and cause. However, that is a fault common to both of them; but these blunders which I am going to mention are Epicurus's own.
For he thinks that those indivisible and solid bodies are borne downwards by their own weight in a straight line; and that this is the natural motion of all bodies. After this assertion, that shrewd man,—as it occurred to him, that if everything were borne downwards in a straight line, as I have just said, it would be quite impossible for one atom ever to touch another,—on this account he introduced another purely imaginary idea, and said that the atoms diverged a little from the straight line, which is the most impossible thing in the world. And he asserted that it is in this way that all those embraces, and conjunctions, and unions of the atoms with one another took place, by which the world was made, and all the parts of the world, and all that is in the world. And not only is all this idea perfectly childish, but it fails in effecting its object. For this very divergence is invented in a most capricious manner, (for he says that each atom diverges without any cause,) though nothing can be more discreditable to a natural philosopher than to say that anything takes place without a cause; and also, without any reason, he deprives atoms of that motion which is natural to every body of any weight (as he himself lays it down) which goes downwards from the upper regions; and at the same time he does not obtain the end for the sake of which he invented all these theories.
For if every atom diverges equally, still none will ever meet with one another so as to cohere; but if some diverge, and others are borne straight down by their natural inclination, in the first place this will be distributing provinces as it were among the atoms, and dividing them so that some are borne down straight, and others obliquely; and in the next place, this turbulent concourse of atoms, which is a blunder of Democritus also, will never be able to produce this beautifully ornamented world which we see around us. Even this, [pg 104] too, is inconsistent with the principles of natural philosophy, to believe that there is such a thing as a minimum; a thing which he indeed never would have fancied, if he had been willing to learn geometry from his friend Polyænus,[24] instead of seeking to persuade him to give it up himself.