




                         The Academic Questions,

                           Treatise De Finibus.

                                   and

                          Tusculan Disputations

                                    Of

                               M. T. Cicero

                                   With

         A Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by Cicero.

                         Literally Translated by

                            C. D. Yonge, B.A.

                       London: George Bell and Sons

                               York Street

                              Covent Garden

                   Printed by William Clowes and Sons,

                    Stamford Street and Charing Cross.

                                   1875





CONTENTS


A Sketch of the Greek Philosophers Mentioned by Cicero.
Introduction.
First Book Of The Academic Questions.
Second Book Of The Academic Questions.
A Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
   First Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
   Second Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
   Third Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
   Fourth Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
   Fifth Book Of The Treatise On The Chief Good And Evil.
The Tusculan Disputations.
   Introduction.
   Book I. On The Contempt Of Death.
   Book II. On Bearing Pain.
   Book III. On Grief Of Mind.
   Book IV. On Other Perturbations Of The Mind.
   Book V. Whether Virtue Alone Be Sufficient For A Happy Life.
Footnotes






A SKETCH OF THE GREEK PHILOSOPHERS MENTIONED BY CICERO.


In the works translated in the present volume, Cicero makes such constant
references to the doctrines and systems of the ancient Greek Philosophers,
that it seems desirable to give a brief account of the most remarkable of
those mentioned by him; not entering at length into the history of their
lives, but indicating the principal theories which they maintained, and
the main points in which they agreed with, or differed from, each other.

The earliest of them was _Thales_, who was born at Miletus, about 640 B.C.
He was a man of great political sagacity and influence; but we have to
consider him here as the earliest philosopher who appears to have been
convinced of the necessity of scientific proof of whatever was put forward
to be believed, and as the originator of mathematics and geometry. He was
also a great astronomer; for we read in Herodotus (i. 74) that he
predicted the eclipse of the sun which happened in the reign of Alyattes,
king of Lydia, B.C. 609. He asserted that water is the origin of all
things; that everything is produced out of it, and everything is resolved
into it. He also asserted that it is the soul which originates all motion,
so much so, that he attributes a soul to the magnet. Aristotle also
represents him as saying that everything is full of Gods. He does not
appear to have left any written treatises behind him: we are uncertain
when or where he died, but he is said to have lived to a great age--to 78,
or, according to some writers, to 90 years of age.

_Anaximander_, a countryman of Thales, was also born at Miletus, about 30
years later; he is said to have been a pupil of the former, and deserves
especial mention as the oldest philosophical writer among the Greeks. He
did not devote himself to the mathematical studies of Thales, but rather
to speculations concerning the generation and origin of the world; as to
which his opinions are involved in some obscurity. He appears, however, to
have considered that all things were formed of a sort of matter, which he
called {~GREEK SMALL LETTER TAU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON WITH VARIA~} {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI AND OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}, or The Infinite; which was something everlasting and
divine, though not invested with any spiritual or intelligent nature. His
own works have not come down to us; but, according to Aristotle, he
considered this "Infinite" as consisting of a mixture of simple,
unchangeable elements, from which all things were produced by the
concurrence of homogeneous particles already existing in it,--a process
which he attributed to the constant conflict between heat and cold, and to
affinities of the particles: in this he was opposed to the doctrine of
Thales, Anaximenes, and Diogenes of Apollonia, who agreed in deriving all
things from a single, not _changeable_, principle.

Anaximander further held that the earth was of a cylindrical form,
suspended in the middle of the universe, and surrounded by water, air, and
fire, like the coats of an onion; but that the interior stratum of fire
was broken up and collected into masses, from which originated the sun,
moon, and stars; which he thought were carried round by the three spheres
in which they were respectively fixed. He believed that the moon had a
light of her own, not a borrowed light; that she was nineteen times as
large as the earth, and the sun twenty-eight. He thought that all animals,
including man, were originally produced in water, and proceeded gradually
to become land animals. According to Diogenes Laertius, he was the
inventor of the gnomon, and of geographical maps; at all events, he was
the first person who introduced the use of the gnomon into Greece. He died
about 547 B.C.

_Anaximenes_ was also a Milesian, and a contemporary of Thales and
Anaximander. We do not exactly know when he was born, or when he died; but
he must have lived to a very great age, for he was in high repute as early
as B.C. 544, and he was the tutor of Anaxagoras, B.C. 480. His theory was,
that air was the first cause of all things, and that the other elements of
the universe were resolvable into it. From this infinite air, he imagined
that all finite things were formed by compression and rarefaction,
produced by motion, which had existed from all eternity; so that the earth
was generated out of condensed air, and the sun and other heavenly bodies
from the earth. He thought also that heat and cold were produced by
different degrees of density of this primal element, air; that the clouds
were formed by the condensing of the air; and that it was the air which
supported the earth, and kept it in its place. Even the human soul he
believed to be, like the body, formed of air. He believed in the eternity
of matter, and denied the existence of anything immaterial.

_Anaxagoras_, who, as has been already stated, was a pupil of Anaximenes,
was born at Clazomenae, in Ionia, about B.C. 499. He removed to Athens at
the time of the Persian war, where he became intimate with Pericles, who
defended him, though unsuccessfully, when he was prosecuted for impiety:
he was fined five talents, and banished from the city; on which he retired
to Lampsacus, where he died at the age of 72. He differed from his
predecessors of the Ionic School, and sought for a higher cause of all
things than matter: this cause he considered to be {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~}, _intelligence_,
or _mind_. Not that he thought this {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} to be the creator of the world,
but only that principle which arranged it, and gave it motion; for his
idea was, that matter had existed from all eternity, but that, before the
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON WITH PERISPOMENI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER FINAL SIGMA~} arranged it, it was all in a state of chaotic confusion, and full of
an infinite number of homogeneous and heterogeneous parts; then the {~GREEK SMALL LETTER NU~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER UPSILON