226 



ROMAN PHILOSOPHY. 



His form of 

 dialogue. 



Advantages 

 of it. 



which, in Cicero's judgment, was not inconsistent with the profession 

 of an Academic. And however his adoption of that philosophy may 

 be in part referred to his oratorical habits, or the natural cast of mind, 

 yet, considering the ambition which he felt to inspire his countrymen 

 with a taste for literature and science, 1 we must conclude with War- 

 burton, 2 that, in acceding to the system of Philo, he was strongly 

 influenced by the freedom of thought and reasoning which it allowed 

 to his compositions ; the liberty of developing the principles and 

 doctrines, the strong and weak parts of every Grecian school. Bearing 

 then in mind his design of recommending the study of philosophy, it 

 is interesting to observe the artifices of style and manner which, with 

 this end, he adopted in his treatises ; and though to enter minutely 

 into this subject would be foreign to our present purpose, it may be 

 allowed us to make some general remarks on the character of works 

 so eminently successful in accomplishing the object for which they were 

 undertaken. 



The most obvious peculiarity of Cicero's philosophical discussions is 

 the form of dialogue in which most of them are conveyed. Plato, 

 indeed, and Xenophon had, before his time, been even more strictly 

 dramatic in their compositions ; but they professed to be recording 

 the sentiments of an individual, and the Socratic mode of argument 

 could hardly be displayed in any other shape. Of that interrogative 

 and inductive conversation, however, Cicero affords but few specimens ; 3 

 the nature of his dialogue being as different from that of the two 

 Athenians, as was his object in writing. His aim was to excite 

 interest ; and he availed himself of this mode of composition for the 

 life and variety, the ease, perspicuity, and vigour which it gave to his 

 discussions. His dialogue is of two kinds : according as his subject 

 is, or is not, a controverted point, it assumes the shape of a continued 

 treatise, or a free disputation ; in the latter case imparting clearness to 

 what is obscure, in the former relief to what is clear. Thus his 

 practical and systematic treatises on rhetoric and moral duty are either 

 written in his own person, or merely divided between several speakers 

 who are the organs of his own sentiments ; while in questions of a 

 more speculative cast, on the nature of the gods, on the human soul, 

 on the greatest good, he uses his academic liberty, and brings forward 

 the theories of contending schools under the character of their respective 

 advocates. The advantages gained in both cases are evident. In 

 controverted subjects he is not obliged to discover his own views, he 

 can detail opposite arguments forcibly and luminously, and he is 

 allowed the use of those oratorical powers in which, after all, his great 

 strength lay. In those subjects, on the other hand, which are un- 

 interesting because they are familiar, he may pause or digress before 

 the mind is weary and the attention begins to flag ; the reader is 



1 De Nat. Deor. i. 4 ; Tusc. Quaest. i. 1, v. 29 ; de Fin. i. 3, 4 ; de Off. i. 1 ; de 

 Div. ii. 1, 2. 



2 Div. Legg. lib. iii. sec. 9. 3 See Tusc. Qusest. and de Republ. 



