had stolen them before. Cicero, however,
regarded chiefly the ethics of Zeno with this feeling, while Antiochus so
regarded chiefly the dialectic. It is just in this that the difference
between Antiochus and Cicero lies. To the former Zeno's dialectic was true
and Socratic, while the latter treated it as un-Socratic, looking upon
Socrates as the apostle of doubt[106]. On the whole Cicero was more in
accord with Stoic ethics than Antiochus. Not in all points, however: for
while Antiochus accepted without reserve the Stoic paradoxes, Cicero
hesitatingly followed them, although he conceded that they were
Socratic[107]. Again, Antiochus subscribed to the Stoic theory that all
emotion was sinful; Cicero, who was very human in his joys and sorrows,
refused it with horror[108]. It must be admitted that on some points Cicero
was inconsistent. In the _De Finibus_ he argued that the difference between
the Peripatetic and Stoic ethics was merely one of terms; in the _Tusculan
Disputations_ he held it to be real. The most Stoic in tone of all his
works are the _Tusculan Disputations_ and the _De Officiis_.

With regard to physics, I may remark at the outset that a comparatively
small importance was in Cicero's time attached to this branch of
philosophy. Its chief importance lay in the fact that ancient theology was,
as all natural theology must be, an appendage of physical science. The
religious element in Cicero's nature inclined him very strongly to
sympathize with the Stoic views about the grand universal operation of
divine power. Piety, sanctity, and moral good, were impossible in any form,
he thought, if the divine government of the universe were denied[109]. It
went to Cicero's heart that Carneades should have found it necessary to
oppose the beautiful Stoic theology, and he defends the great sceptic by
the plea that his one aim was to arouse men to the investigation of the
truth[110]. At the same time, while really following the Stoics in physics,
Cicero often believed himself to be following Aristotle. This partly arose
from the actual adoption by the late Peripatetics of many Stoic doctrines,
which they gave out as Aristotelian. The discrepancy between the spurious
and the genuine Aristotelian views passed undetected, owing to the strange
oblivion into which the most important works of Aristotle had fallen[111].
Still, Cicero contrives to correct many of the extravagances of the Stoic
physics by a study of Aristotle and Pl