, of course, fix boundaries to
which the sum of good and evil is to be referred;) what subject, in fact,
is there about which there is a greater disagreement between the most
learned men? I say nothing about those points which seem now to be
abandoned; or about Herillus, who places the chief good in knowledge and
science: and though he had been a pupil of Zeno, you see how far he
disagrees with him, and how very little he differs from Plato. The school
of the Megaric philosophers was a very celebrated one; and its chief, as I
see it stated in books, was Xenophanes, whom I mentioned just now. After
him came Parmenides and Zeno; and from them the Eleatic philosophers get
their name. Afterwards came Euclid of Megara, a pupil of Socrates, from
whom that school got the name of Megaric. And they defined that as the
only good which was always one, alike, and identical. They also borrowed a
great deal from Plato. But the Eretrian philosophers, who were so called
from Menedumus, because he was a native of Eretria, placed all good in the
mind, and in that acuteness of the mind by which the truth is discerned.
The Megarians say very nearly the same, only that they, I think, develop
their theory with more elegance and richness of illustration. If we now
despise these men, and think them worthless, at all events we ought to
show more respect for Ariston, who, having been a pupil of Zeno, adopted
in reality the principles which he had asserted in words; namely, that
there was nothing good except virtue, and nothing evil except what was
contrary to virtue; and who denied altogether the existence of those
influences which Zeno contended for as being intermediate, and neither
good nor evil. His idea of the chief good, is being affected in neither
direction by these circumstances; and this state of mind he calls
{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER DELTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PHI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER OMICRON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER RHO~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}; but Pyrrho asserts that the wise man does not even feel them;
and that state is called {~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH PSILI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER PI~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA WITH OXIA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER THETA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER EPSILON~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER IOTA~}{~GREEK SMALL LETTER ALPHA~}.

To say nothing, then, of all these opinions, let us now examine those