The reader who bears in mind some passages near the beginning of this article, may now be disposed to inquire of us, what amount of originality do we attribute to Cicero in the "De Officiis." There has been a general agreement in the schools of philosophy upon positive duties and practical rules. Epicurus even has inculcated pure moral doctrine, though inconsistently with his general scheme. To ascertain their duties, men have interrogated nature, and receiving one uniform response from her, have come to entertain substantially uniform opinions upon them. The ideas of the "De Officiis " are undoubtedly drawn from the Greek schools, and principally, as we have seen, from the Porch. What work on philosophy or morals can claim any other than a Grecian paternity? With faculties wonderfully subtle and perfectly trained, the Greeks engaged in abstruse investigations with a genuine relish. They possessed, above all people, that "philosophic talent" which Gibbon so highly extols. Their intellectual vision pierced through the dark recesses of speculative truth, and irradiated all the leading questions of morals, virtue, honour, beauty, etc. In every department of letters they were preeminent, and worthy of imitation. Cicero makes it a point to insist upon this, upon all suitable occasions, while he claims just as determinedly for his countrymen other and not inferior qualities, such as depend upon nature, not literary effort. What he anxiously desired was, that to the high native moral excellencies which they possessed, the Romans should join the elegance of Greek erudition, and the subtlety and profoundness of Greek speculation. It was his constant aim to develope and mature fully the taste for philosophy, which, since the extraordinary impression produced by the celebrated embassy of the philosophers, Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes (155 B. Č.), and the influence exerted by Polybius and Panatius, who had lived and taught at Rome, had been gradually growing up in that city. Notwithstanding that many of the best and leading characters of the country approved of and encouraged it, this taste advanced but slowly. It was adverse to the peculiar tendencies of the Roman mind. Oratory, statesmanship, forensic tact, legal acquirement, coolness, and far-reaching views in council, military success, agriculture,these were pursuits and merits of which they had a just, if not exalted appreciation. Their predilections were all for the tangible, the actual. They felt but slight inclination for cold and dry abstractions. The lines of Virgil, in which he concedes eloquence, statuary, astronomy-the arts of peace, in short-to the Greeks, express the swelling consciousness of the peculiar destiny of the Roman people to be conquest and supremacy, and are strictly true to the universal feeling upon the subject. In an exulting apostrophe to Greece, Ovid betrays the same feeling; he who fought well, says he, best knew the Roman art, and he was the true orator who hurled the javelin home. In undertaking to treat philosophic questions, Cicero constantly discloses his sense of the national indifference, if not antipathy to them. He knew that a prejudice stood in the way of an attentive, candid hearing. "There are men," he says, "and they by no means unenlightened, to whom application to philosophy is wholly displeasing." His evident embarrassment at the thought of the reception which works upon such themes from his pen would be likely to receive, shows that the prejudice against them was not yet overcome, and sufficiently illustrates the strong conviction which he entertained of the necessity of a wider diffusion and intenser appreciation of philosophic discussion. He justly thought that, in such matters, it is wrong to stop with a mere smattering. He undertook, therefore, the office of interpreter of Greek philosophy to his countrymen. It was his noble ambition to open up to their "view, through the means of their own language, the conclusions of Greek sages on weighty subjects, with the purpose of enlarging their minds and reforming their morals." He sought to draw forth from the shades of the Greek Academy and the Porch, into the sunlight of public knowledge and general appreciation, precepts that were pleasing from their beauty, and suited to regulate the life and purify the heart. It may be asked what particular considerations induced him to follow Panatius. In the first place, he was no doubt attracted by his style, which is said to have combined solid reasoning with delicate handling, deep erudition, and easy method. He had likewise abated much of the rigour of his school; he was not an unquestioning Stoic, but chose to submit their tenets to the test of reason, and relinquished such as seemed to him not to be well established. Besides, he had lived in Rome, and had been greatly admired, and followed there. Lælius and Scipio were his friends and scholars. He had treated this subject (περί τοῦ καθήκοντος) in two books. The third, upon the resolution of cases growing out of the apparent conflict of virtue and utility, he had promised, but never executed. His discussion of the two first heads was brilliant and accurate. With some modifications-correctione quadam-Cicero proposes to follow him in these not that he has any idea of merely and tamely translating him. He will add to, or omit, as may suit his plans and opinions. In Aulus Gellius, we have preserved a chapter of the second book of Panatius, which we do not find in Cicero. By the way, the language of Gellius is to the effect, that Cicero emulated the work of Panatius with great ardour and exertion. Posidonius had supplied the omission of Panatius, we infer from Cicero's letter to Atticus (16-11); and he applied to * De Fin., 1. 1. Tus. Ques., 2. 1. ‡ N. A., 13. 27. Calvus, a scholar of Posidonius, for the heads of it. It does not appear that he received them, for he says, we believe subsequently, that, not approving anything which had come into his hands upon the subject, he will put the finishing touch to the incomplete work of Panatius, by his own unaided power. He has done it, we think, very successfully, and conclusively demonstrated, that, in all possible cases, honesty is the best policy. He has reached that excellence which Rutilius Rufus thought all mortals must despair of, that of adding to the unfinished work of Panatius, a conclusion worthy of the original; a task which he had compared in its difficulty to that of finishing the Coan Venus of Apelles. We have several times met with the objection that this work is not sufficiently comprehensive. It is, it is said, not a dissertation upon the principles of morality applicable to mankind in general, but limited almost to those which pertain to man in society, and restricted, moreover, particularly to the ruling class-legislators, commanders of armies, high public functionaries, judges, teachers, and savans. The principal point of view is unquestionably politics, and there is exhibited throughout a tendency to run into political maxims. Kühner is probably correct in saying that Cicero, when he composed the work, had Plato's political writings before his eyes. We grant this, but we do not consider it a defect. The general principles here laid down admit of the widest extension, and are adapted to promote virtue and integrity in the lowest as well as in the highest condition. If those who preside at the altars of religion, who make the laws, administer the affairs of the State, conduct the education of the youth of a country-whose appropriate and delightful task it should be likewise to mould the character to goodness and generosity, and to confirm it in ingenuousness and simplicity-if they would make their laws, instructions, and, above all else, their examples, conform to these pure precepts, the good influence would necessarily descend through all orders, ranks, and conditions, and be felt at the furthest extremities of society. Cicero looks to the fountain heads of influence, and seeks to heal them, and to keep them pure. We should not value, nor would the world have valued, this work half so highly, had it been a technical, methodical affair. It is the Roman life which we see in its pages, the noble array of historic and illustrious personages who are introduced so naturally, and attract while they awe us by their stately bearing and their exalted sentiments, that constitute its principal charm. The justest views and the most unexceptionable moral sentiments are richly illustrated by the amplest experience of men and things. The style, too, derives thence a practical adaptation and an exquisite genial flavour, which is in the highest degree fascinating, and rarely met with in disquisitions of philosophy. "When he treats abstract subjects," says Erasmus, "which are beyond the capacity of the vulgar to comprehend, and which many of his contemporaries thought could not be explained in Latin, what neatness, brilliancy, facility, variety-in fine, what sprightli ness! Until the time of Socrates, philosophy was limited to physics. It was he, they say, who, treating it on the moral side, gave. it entrance into the houses of individuals. Plato and Aristotle aimed to introduce it into the courts of kings and the tribunals of magistrates. Cicero, in my opinion, has made it appear in the theatre, and has taught it to speak so distinctly that even the pit can understand and applaud. Many as are the works which he has left us on these important matters, he composed them in the most stormy times of the republic, and some even after all hope was lost." The "De Officiis" fitly concluded the brilliant series. Through the loopholes of retreat he kept an eye upon Rome and the senate, but discerning no star of hope, and despairing of any amelioration in the state of things, he turned to his favourite solace, and sought to relieve his disquietude and gloomy apprehensions, in the composition of a work which should be a monument at once of pure morality, devoted patriotism, and sincere love for his distant son. Throughout it, there runs a mingled stream of tender, paternal affection, of despondency as regards the interests of liberty and right in the future, and, by way of offset, a strong sentiment of pride, rising sometimes into reverence for the past glories of his country. There are also, like the ruddy and golden hues of autumnal leaves, catching a brighter glow from the slanting rays of the setting sun poured through the arches of the forest, gleams of a high spiritual tone, of calm, charitable judgments, and of philosophic if not religious resignation to present evils and the impending doom. * In note, p. 206, instead of "Kühner has shown," read, Kühner. He has, &c. ART. IX.-HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY. A History of Philosophy in Epitome. BY ALBERT SCHWEGLER. Translated from the original German, by JULIUS H. SEELYE. New York: D. Appleton & Co. 1856. THE intellectual dignity of philosophy will always insure for its history a profound interest amongst cultivated men. To trace the progress of human thought in the highest province of knowledge; to sit in the seats of the philosophers, on the serene heights of speculation, and see the torch of truth as it passes from hand to hand, down the vista of time, cannot but be interesting to all but ignoble minds. As but few can study philosophy in the works of the philosophers themselves, most men must receive its doctrines at second hand, in the narrations and expositions of history. Hence is at once manifest the importance of the noble theme to which we now propose to introduce our readers. The History, by Schwegler, though of reputation in Germany, as we are informed, is, in our opinion, a trivial performance. It is only because it is the last history of philosophy which we have read, that it becomes the occasion of this article. We shall borrow nothing from it, either of fact, criticism, or arrangement, in the historical review of philosophy which we are about to present. In truth, it is because so many epitomes of the history of philosophy are from time to time put before the public, which, like Schwegler's, are vehicles to a great degree of the writer's peculiar opinions, or of the school to which he belongs, rather than a true historical narration of the consecutive series of doctrines which have, at different epochs, been promulgated in the progress of human speculation, that we are induced to offer a critical outline of the history of philosophy, unbiassed by any arbitrary theoretical preconceptions as to the course of the development of doctrine. It is true, that the historian of philosophy must point out the outward relations and the inner connections between the doctrines of different philosophers, in order to make the history intelligible. But then, this should be only a subordinate and ancillary criticism, merely to illumine the path of narration, and not to interpolate any assumptions of the historian's own. Schwegler, from the beginning to the end of his history, has assumed that the great end of philosophy is to identify subject and object, and accordingly has corrupted the whole stream of his narration with this Hegelian conceit. The history of philosophy (overlooking the Eastern periods anterior to those of Greece), presents three great periods: 1. Antiquity; 2. The Middle Ages; 3. Modern Times. Ancient philosophy comprehends three epochs. The first, from Thales to Socrates, about one hundred and thirty years, gave rise to four principal sects-the Ionic, founded by Thales; the Italic, founded by Pythagoras; the Eleatic, founded by Xenophanes; and the Atomic, founded by Leucippus and Democritus. The second epoch was from Socrates to the promulgation of Christianity, about five centuries. The third epoch extends from the preaching of Christianity to the age of Charlemagne, or rather into the sixth century; for philosophy, like all other cultivation, was extinguished in the barbarism which immediately preceded the reign of that great monarch. From Thales to Socrates, but one problem was discussed-the origin of existence; the essence of things; the formation of the universe. Each of the four sects of philosophers, during this epoch, |