se, composed in
a manner adapted to produce conviction.

IX. This was the first philosophy handed down to them by Plato. And if you
like I will explain to you those discussions which have originated in it.
Indeed, said I, we shall be glad if you will; and I can answer for Atticus
as well as for myself. You are quite right, said he; for the doctrine both
of the Peripatetics and of the old Academy is most admirably explained.

Aristotle, then, was the first to undermine the doctrine of species, which
I have just now mentioned, and which Plato had embraced in a wonderful
manner; so that he even affirmed that there was something divine in it.
But Theophrastus, a man of very delightful eloquence, and of such purity
of morals that his probity and integrity were notorious to all men, broke
down more vigorously still the authority of the old school; for he
stripped virtue of its beauty, and made it powerless, by denying that to
live happily depended solely on it. For Strato, his pupil, although a man
of brilliant abilities, must still be excluded entirely from that school;
for, having deserted that most indispensable part of philosophy which is
placed in virtue and morals, and having devoted himself wholly to the
investigation of nature, he by that very conduct departs as widely as
possible from his companions. But Speusippus and Xenocrates, who were the
earliest supporters of the system and authority of Plato,--and, after them,
Polemo and Crates, and at the same time Crantor,--being all collected
together in the Academy, diligently maintained those doctrines which they
had received from their predecessors. Zeno and Arcesilas had been diligent
attenders on Polemo; but Zeno, who preceded Arcesilas in point of time,
and argued with more subtilty, and was a man of the greatest acuteness,
attempted to correct the system of that school. And, if you like, I will
explain to you the way in which he set about that correction, as Antiochus
used to explain it. Indeed, said I, I shall be very glad to hear you do
so; and you see that Pomponius intimates the same wish.

X. Zeno, then, was not at all a man like Theophrastus, to cut through the
sinews of virtue; but, on the other hand, he was one who placed everything
which could have any effect in producing a happy life in virtue alone, and
who reckoned nothing else a good at all, and who called that honourable
which was single in its nature, and the sole and only good. But as for all
other