thinkers from Milton to
Mill, to show that the free conflict of opinion is necessary to the
progress of philosophy, which was by that very freedom brought rapidly to
maturity in Greece[77]. Wherever authority has loudly raised its voice,
says Cicero, there philosophy has pined. Pythagoras[78] is quoted as a
warning example, and the baneful effects of authority are often
depicted[79]. The true philosophic spirit requires us to find out what can
be said for every view. It is a positive duty to discuss all aspects of
every question, after the example of the Old Academy and Aristotle[80].
Those who demand a dogmatic statement of belief are mere busybodies[81].
The Academics glory in their freedom of judgment. They are not compelled to
defend an opinion whether they will or no, merely because one of their
predecessors has laid it down[82]. So far does Cicero carry this freedom,
that in the fifth book of the _Tusculan Disputations_, he maintains a view
entirely at variance with the whole of the fourth book of the _De Finibus_,
and when the discrepancy is pointed out, refuses to be bound by his former
statements, on the score that he is an Academic and a freeman[83]. "Modo
hoc, modo illud probabilius videtur[84]." The Academic sips the best of
every school[85]. He roams in the wide field of philosophy, while the Stoic
dares not stir a foot's breadth away from Chrysippus[86]. The Academic is
only anxious that people should combat his opinions; for he makes it his
sole aim, with Socrates, to rid himself and others of the mists of
error[87]. This spirit is even found in Lucullus the Antiochean[88]. While
professing, however, this philosophic bohemianism, Cicero indignantly
repels the charge that the Academy, though claiming to seek for the truth,
has no truth to follow[89]. The probable is for it the true.

Another consideration which attracted Cicero to these tenets was their
evident adaptability to the purposes of oratory, and the fact that
eloquence was, as he puts it, the child of the Academy[90]. Orators,
politicians, and stylists had ever found their best nourishment in the
teaching of the Academic and Peripatetic masters[91]. The Stoics and
Epicureans cared nothing for power of expression. Again, the Academic
tenets were those with which the common sense of the world could have most
sympathy[92]. The Academy also was the school which had the most
respectable pedigree. Compared with its system, all other philosophies were
pl