-I should be glad to hear how you
think it consistent for them to say so, when you have said so much against
that opinion, and the conclusions of the Stoics.

_M._ I will make use, then, of that liberty which no one has the privilege
of using in philosophy but those of our school, whose discourses determine
nothing, but take in everything, leaving them, unsupported by the
authority of any particular person, to be judged of by others, according
to their weight. And as you seem desirous of knowing how it is that,
notwithstanding the different opinions of philosophers with regard to the
ends of goods, virtue has still sufficient security for the effecting of a
happy life,--which security, as we are informed, Carneades used indeed to
dispute against; but he disputed as against the Stoics, whose opinions he
combated with great zeal and vehemence,--I however shall handle the
question with more temper; for if the Stoics have rightly settled the
_ends_ of goods, the affair is at an end; for a wise man must necessarily
be always happy. But let us examine, if we can, the particular opinions of
the others, that so this excellent decision, if I may so call it, in
favour of a happy life, may be agreeable to the opinions and discipline of
all.

XXX. These then are the opinions, as I think, that are held and defended:
the first four are simple ones; "that nothing is good but what is honest,"
according to the Stoics: "nothing good but pleasure," as Epicurus
maintains: "nothing good but a freedom from pain," as Hieronymus(111)
asserts: "nothing good but an enjoyment of the principal, or all, or the
greatest goods of nature," as Carneades maintained against the
Stoics:--these are simple, the others are mixed propositions. Then there
are three kinds of goods; the greatest being those of the mind, the next
best those of the body, the third are external goods, as the Peripatetics
call them, and the old Academics differ very little from them.
Dinomachus(112) and Callipho(113) have coupled pleasure with honesty: but
Diodorus,(114) the Peripatetic, has joined indolence to honesty. These are
the opinions that have some footing; for those of Aristo,(115)
Pyrrho,(116) Herillus,(117) and of some others, are quite out of date. Now
let us see what weight these men have in them, excepting the Stoics, whose
opinion I think I have sufficiently defended; and indeed I have explained
what the Peripatetics have to say; excepting that Theophrastus, and thos