Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

452 THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH ANDthird from Carneades and Clitomachus. Of hisbooks on Divination, the first is taken from Chry-sippus, Posidonius, Diogenes, and Antipater ; thesecond from Carneades, and the stoic Panaitius.His treatise on Fate from the writings of Chrysip-pus, Posidonius, Cleanthes, and Carneades: hisElder Cato from Plato, Xenophon, Hippocrates,and Aristo of Chius : his Lcelius mainly from awriting of Theophrastus on Friendship. His mainauthority for the first two books on Offices isPanaetius ; and for the third Posidonius ; whilebesides Plato and Aristotle he has made use ofDiogenes of Babylon, Antipater of Tyre, and Hecato. .Now in this selection from rival and antagonisticschools-this oscillation between the posi-tive and sceptical tone of thought, this sitting asa judge rather than obeying as a disciple-Cicerovery exactly represented the tone and attitude ofthe cultivatedclasses in his own time and in thecentury following his death. Originality of mindin philosophic studies was gone; nor was anysystem as a whole believed in. The sceptic aneclectic turn of mind are but the reverse sides ofthe same mental coinage : he who selects fromall is convinced by none. Neither his doubts norhis choices satisfied Cicero, or any one - of thosewho followed him in that most important century,the eighth of the Roman city, fifty years of whichpreceded and fifty followed the coming of Christ.