om their studies, nor chosen for
that employment, unless the study of philosophy had been in vogue with
some of the great men at that time; who, though they might employ their
pens on other subjects, some on civil law, others on oratory, others on
the history of former times, yet promoted this most extensive of all arts,
the principle of living well, even more by their life than by their
writings. So that of that true and elegant philosophy, (which was derived
from Socrates, and is still preserved by the Peripatetics, and by the
Stoics, though they express themselves differently in their disputes with
the Academics,) there are few or no Latin records; whether this proceeds
from the importance of the thing itself, or from men's being otherwise
employed, or from their concluding that the capacity of the people was not
equal to the apprehension of them. But, during this silence, C. Amafinius
arose and took upon himself to speak; on the publishing of whose writings
the people were moved, and enlisted themselves chiefly under this sect,
either because the doctrine was more easily understood, or because they
were invited thereto by the pleasing thoughts of amusement, or that,
because there was nothing better, they laid hold of what was offered them.
And after Amafinius, when many of the same sentiments had written much
about them, the Pythagoreans spread over all Italy: but that these
doctrines should be so easily understood and approved of by the unlearned,
is a great proof that they were not written with any great subtlety, and
they think their establishment to be owing to this.

IV. But let every one defend his own opinion, for every one is at liberty
to choose what he likes; I shall keep to my old custom; and being under no
restraint from the laws of any particular school, which in philosophy
every one must necessarily confine himself to, I shall always inquire what
has the most probability in every question, and this system, which I have
often practised on other occasions, I have adhered closely to in my
Tusculan Disputations. Therefore, as I have acquainted you with the
disputations of the three former days, this book shall conclude the
discussion of the fourth day. When we had come down into the Academy, as
we had done the former days, the business was carried on thus.

_M._ Let any one say, who pleases, what he would wish to have discussed.

_A._ I do not think a wise man can possibly be free from every
perturbation