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This is the reason why Clitomachus said of old that Carneades had outdone the labours of Hercules, in having eradicated consent from men, that is to say, opinion and the courage of judging. This so vigorous fancy of Carneades sprang, in my opinion, anciently from the impudence of those who made profession of knowledge and their immeasurable self-conceit.
Polyrhaphis fabricii, Thom. 4. Deliathis nivea, Bates. 5. Taeniotes praeclarus, Bates. 6. Chalastinus rubrocinctus, Bates. 7. Cosmisoma Titania, Bates. 8. Carneades superba, Bates. 9. H.W. Bates the types and other specimens of coleoptera described by him which had not remained in the original collection.
Chrysippus then, coming between them, by his writings against Arcesilaus, stopped also the way against the eloquence of Carneades, leaving indeed many things to the senses, as provisions against a siege, but wholly taking away the trouble about anticipations and conceptions, directing every one of them and putting it in its proper place; so that they who will again embroil and disquiet matters should gain nothing, but be convinced of being malicious and deceitful Sophists.
The Sceptic philosophy as such dates from Socrates, from whom the so-called Megarian school took its origin, but it did not reach its greatest importance until the second century, when the Academic school became Sceptic. For such criticism the theology of the philosophers was a grateful subject, and Carneades did not spare it.
When he could no longer talk politics, nor act them when the Forum was no longer open to him, nor the meetings of the people or of the Senate when he could no longer make himself heard on behalf of the State then he took to discussions on Carneades. And his discussions are wonderful.
No doubt Cato was at least a consenting party to the expulsion from Rome of Greek teachers in 161 B.C. When in 155 the famous embassy came from Athens consisting of Carneades the Academic, Critolaus the Peripatetic and Diogenes the Stoic, Cato was a prime mover of the decree by which they were removed from the city. Socrates was one of Cato's favorite marks for jests.
Thus, although we find Carneades, in conformity to the plan adopted by Arcesilas, opposing the dogmatic principles of the Stoics concerning moral duty, and studiously concealing his private views even from his friends; yet, by allowing that the suspense of judgment was not always a duty, that the wise man might sometimes believe though he could not know; he in some measure restored the authority of those great instincts of our nature which his predecessor appears to have discarded.
For that is a well-known saying which our friend Carneades used to repeat: "That Clitomachus said the same things, but that Charmadas said the same things in the same manner."
This Carneades ought not to be even listened to by our young men. I think all the while that I am hearing him that he must be a very impure person; if he be not, as I would fain believe, his discourse is not less pernicious. XXII. True law is right reason conformable to nature, universal, unchangeable, eternal, whose commands urge us to duty, and whose prohibitions restrain us from evil.
Carneades was more negative, and arrived at or reverted to scepticism and sophistry pure and simple. Cicero, with a certain foundation of Stoicism, was a pupil, and one of the most moderate, of the New Academy.
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