ho cuts the throat of an old cock when there is no
need, has sinned as deeply as the parricide when breaking his father's
neck,"[281] says Cicero, laughing at the Stoics. There he speaks out the
feelings of his heart--there, and often elsewhere in his orations. Here,
in his Academica, he is eloquent on the same side. We cannot but rejoice
at the plainness of his words; but it has to be acknowledged that we do
not often find him so loudly betraying himself when dealing with the old
discussions of the Greek philosophers.

Very quickly after his Academica, in B.C. 45, came the five books, De
Finibus Bonorum et Malorum, written as though with the object of
settling the whole controversy, and declaring whether the truth lay with
the Epicureans, the Stoics, or the Academics. What, at last, is the good
thing, and what the evil thing, and how shall we gain the one and avoid
the other? If he will tell us this, he will have proved himself to be a
philosopher to some purpose. But he does nothing of the kind. At the end
of the fifth book we find Atticus, who was an Epicurean, declaring to
Quintus Cicero that he held his own opinion just as firmly as ever,
although he had been delighted to hear how well the Academician Piso had
talked in Latin. He had hitherto considered that these were things which
would not sound well unless in the Greek language.

It is again in the form of a dialogue, and, like all his writings at
this time, is addressed to Brutus. It is in five books. The first two
are supposed to have been held at Cumae, between Cicero, Torquatus, and
Triarius. Here, after a prelude in favor of philosophy and Latin
together, Torquatus is allowed to make the best excuse he can for
Epicurus. The prelude contains much good sense; for, whether he be right
or not in what he says, it is good for every man to hold his own
language in respect. "I have always thought and said that the Latin
language is not poor as it is supposed to be, but even richer than the
Greek."[282] "Let us learn," says Torquatus, who has happened to call
upon him at Cumae with Triarius, a grave and learned youth, as we are
told, "since we have found you at your house, why it is that you do not
approve of Epicurus--he who, alive, seems to have freed the minds of men
from error, and to have taught them everything which could tend to make
them happy."[283] Then Torquatus goes to work and delivers a most
amusing discourse on the wisdom of Democritus and his great d