Against the Academics 3.22–3.36

"Although these things, unless I am mistaken, may be enough for victory, they are perhaps not enough for the full satisfaction of victory. There are two things said by the Academics against which we have resolved to come, as far as we are able: that nothing can be perceived, and that one ought to assent to nothing. About assent later; now we will say a few other things about perception. Do you say that absolutely nothing can be grasped? Here Carneades woke up (for none of them slept less deeply than he) and looked around at the evidence of things. And so, speaking to himself, I believe, as people do, he says: 'So, Carneades, are you going to say that you do not know whether you are a man or an ant? Or will Chrysippus triumph over you? Let us say that we do not know the things inquired into among philosophers, and that the rest do not concern us; so that, if I stumble in the daily and common light, I may appeal to those darknesses of the unskilled, where only certain divine eyes see, which, even if they see me trembling and falling, cannot betray me to the blind, especially to the arrogant and those ashamed to be taught anything.' Splendidly indeed, O Greek industry, you go forth girded and ready; but you do not consider that that definition is both the discovery of a philosopher and fixed and founded in the entrance of philosophy. If you try to cut it down, the axe will rebound onto your legs; for if it is shaken, not only can something be perceived, but even what is most like the false can, if you do not dare to overthrow it. For it is your hiding place, from which you burst out fiercely on the unwary who want to pass by, and leap out; some Hercules will strangle you in your cave like a half-man and crush you under its own masses, teaching that there is something in philosophy which you cannot make uncertain as being like the false. Certainly I was hurrying on to other things; whoever presses this point greatly insults you yourself, Carneades, for he thinks you can be overcome by me, even dead, anywhere or from any position. But if he does not think so, he is merciless, compelling me to abandon my defenses here and there and fight with you in the open field; when I had begun to go down into it, terrified by your name alone, I drew back my foot and hurled something from higher ground; whether it reached you or what it did, let those judge under whose scrutiny we fight. But why do I foolishly fear? If I remember rightly, you are dead, and Alypius no longer rightly fights for your tomb; God will easily help me against your shade."

"You say that nothing in philosophy can be perceived, and, to spread your speech far and wide, you seize on the quarrels and disagreements of the philosophers and think they supply you with weapons against them. For how shall we decide the dispute between Democritus and the earlier natural philosophers about one world or innumerable worlds, when agreement could not last even between him and his heir Epicurus? For that voluptuary, letting his atoms, his little handmaids as it were, that is, the little bodies which he joyfully embraces in the darkness, not keep their own path but swerve of their own accord here and there into others' bounds, squandered the whole inheritance even through quarrels. But this does not concern me at all. For if knowing any of these things pertains to wisdom, it cannot be hidden from the wise man; but if it is something else, the wise man knows that wisdom and despises these things. Yet I, who am still far even from the neighborhood of the wise man, know something in these physical matters. For I hold it certain that there is either one world or not one; and if not one, either a finite number or an infinite. Will Carneades say that this view is like a false one? Likewise I know that this world of ours is arranged as it is either by the nature of bodies or by some providence; and that it either always was and will be, or began to be and will by no means cease, or has no beginning in time but will have an end, or began to remain and will not remain forever; and I know innumerable physical things in this way. For these disjunctions are true, and no one can confuse them by any likeness to the false. 'But take one side,' says the Academic. I will not; for that is to say: 'Leave what you know, say what you do not know.' 'But the statement is left hanging.' Better that it hang than fall; surely it is complete; surely it can now be called either false or true. This I say I know. You, who do not deny that these things pertain to philosophy and assert that nothing of them can be known, show that I do not know them; say that these disjunctions are either false or have something in common with the false by which they cannot be distinguished at all."

"'How do you know,' he says, 'that this world exists, if the senses are deceived?' Your reasonings have never been able to refute the force of the senses so far as to convince us that nothing appears to us; nor have you ever dared to attempt this, but you have set yourselves vigorously to persuade us that a thing can be other than it appears. So this whole thing, whatever it is, which contains and nourishes us, this, I say, which appears to my eyes and is perceived by me to have earth and sky, or something like earth and something like sky, I call the world. If you say that nothing appears to me, I will never err. For he errs who rashly approves what appears to him. For you say that something false can appear to those perceiving; you do not say that nothing appears. Indeed, every ground of dispute will be removed, where you like to reign, if we not only know nothing but nothing even appears to us. But if you deny that this which appears to me is the world, you are making a controversy about a name, since I have said that this is what I call the world."

"'Even if you are asleep,' you will say, 'is that the world you see?' It has already been said: whatever appears to me as such, I call the world. But if you choose to call world only what appears to those awake or even to the sane, contend, if you can, that those who sleep and rave do not rave and sleep in the world. So I say this: this whole mass and fabric of bodies in which we are, whether sleeping or raving or waking or sane, is either one or not one. Explain how this statement can be false. For if I am asleep, it may be that I have said nothing; or if words have escaped the mouth of a sleeper, as happens, it may be that I have not said it here, not sitting thus, not with these listening; but that it is false cannot be. Nor do I say I have perceived that I am awake. For you can say that this could have appeared to me even when asleep, and so this can be most like the false. But if there are one and six worlds, it is clear that there are seven worlds, however I am affected, and I affirm without shamelessness that I know this. So teach that either this conjunction or those disjunctions above can be false through sleep or madness or the vanity of the senses, and if I remember them when I wake, I will concede that I am defeated. For I think it is already clear enough which things appear false through dreams and madness, namely those which pertain to the senses of the body; for that three times three is nine, and the square of intelligible numbers, must be true even if the human race is snoring. Although I see that many things can also be said for the senses themselves which we do not find refuted by the Academics. For I believe the senses are not to be accused either because raving men suffer false imaginations or because we see false things in dreams. For if they have reported true things to the waking and sane, it is nothing to them what the mind of one sleeping or insane invents for itself."

"It remains to ask whether, when the senses themselves report, they report the truth. Come, suppose some Epicurean says: 'I have no complaint to make about the senses; for it is unjust to demand of them more than they can do; and whatever the eyes can see, they see truly.' So is what they see of the oar in the water true? Entirely true. For since there is a cause why it should appear so, if the oar plunged in the water appeared straight, I would rather accuse my eyes of a false report. For they would not be seeing what ought to be seen when such causes exist. What need of many words? The same can be said of the movement of towers, of the feathers of birds, and of countless other things. 'Still I am deceived if I assent,' someone says. Do not assent more than to persuade yourself that it appears so to you, and there is no deception. For I do not see how the Academic refutes one who says: 'I know that this appears white to me; I know that my hearing is delighted by this; I know that this smells pleasant to me; I know that this tastes sweet to me; I know that this is cold to me.' 'Say rather whether the leaves of the wild olive, which the goat seeks so persistently, are bitter in themselves.' O shameless man! Is not the goat himself more modest? I do not know what they are to the animal, but to me they are bitter. What more do you ask? 'But perhaps there is some man too to whom they are not bitter.' Are you trying to be troublesome? Did I say they are bitter to everyone? I said to me, and I do not always affirm even this. For what if at different times, for different reasons, something is now felt sweet in the mouth, now bitter? I say this: that a man, when he tastes something, can swear in good faith that he knows it is pleasant to his palate, or the opposite, and that no Greek quibble can draw him away from this knowledge. For who would be so shameless as to say to me, while I am licking something with delight: 'Perhaps you are not tasting, but this is a dream'? Do I resist? But it would delight me even in dreams. So what I said I know is confused by no likeness of false things; and an Epicurean or the Cyrenaics may perhaps say many other things for the senses, against which I have not heard that anything was said by the Academics. But what is that to me? If they want to and can, let them cut these down, even with my approval. For whatever they argue against the senses does not hold against all philosophers. For there are those who admit that all these things which the mind receives through the sense of the body can produce opinion, but deny that they produce knowledge, which they hold is contained in the intelligence and lives in the mind, removed from the senses. And perhaps that wise man whom we seek is among their number. But of this another time. Now let us go on to the rest, which, because of what has already been said, we will explain in a few words, unless I am mistaken."

"For what does the sense of the body help or hinder one inquiring about morals? Unless indeed, for those very people who placed the highest true good of man in pleasure, the dove's neck or the uncertain voice or the weight heavy for a man that is light for camels, or six hundred other things, prevent them from saying that they know they are delighted by what delights them, or offended by what offends them; which I do not see can be refuted. Will these things move one who embraces the end of the good with the mind? Which of these do you choose? If you ask what I think, I judge that the highest good of man is in the mind. But now we are inquiring about knowledge. So ask the wise man, who cannot be ignorant of wisdom; but even I, slow and foolish as I am, may meanwhile know that the end of human good, in which the happy life dwells, either is nothing, or is in the mind, or in the body, or in both. Convince me, if you can, that I do not know this; which those very well-known reasonings of yours in no way do. And if you cannot (for you will not find anything false that it resembles), shall I hesitate to conclude that it rightly seems to me that the wise man knows whatever is true in philosophy, since I have come to know so many true things from it?"

"But perhaps he fears that he may choose the highest good while asleep. There is no danger; when he wakes, he will reject it if it displeases him, and keep it if it pleases. For who will rightly blame him because he saw something false in dreams? Or perhaps you will dread that, asleep, he may lose wisdom if he approves false things for true? Not even a sleeper dares dream this, that he should call a man wise when awake and deny it if he sleeps. These things can also be said of madness; but my speech hurries to other things. Still I do not leave these without a most secure conclusion. For either wisdom is lost through madness, and then he will no longer be the wise man whom you proclaim ignorant of the truth; or his knowledge remains in the intellect, even if the other part of the mind imagines, as in dreams, what it has received from the senses."

"There remains dialectic, which the wise man certainly knows well, and no one can know what is false. But if he does not know it, knowledge of it does not pertain to his wisdom, since he could be wise without it, and we inquire superfluously whether it is true or can be perceived. Here perhaps someone may say to me: 'You fool, you usually reveal what you know; or could you know nothing about dialectic?' Indeed I know more of it than of any other part of philosophy. For first, it taught me that all those propositions I used above are true. Then through it I know many other true things. But count how many they are, if you can: if there are four elements in the world, there are not five; if there is one sun, there are not two; one soul cannot both die and be immortal; a man cannot be at once happy and wretched; it is not both sunlight and night here; either we are now awake or asleep; either what I seem to see is a body or it is not a body. These and many others, which it would take very long to mention, I learned through it to be true, true in themselves however our senses may be. It taught me that if the antecedent part of any of the statements I just proposed as conditionals is assumed, it necessarily draws with it what is joined to it; and that those which I stated by incompatibility or disjunction have this nature, that when the others are removed, whether one or many, something remains that is confirmed by their removal. It taught me also that when the thing for which words are spoken is agreed, one should not contend about words; and that whoever does this, if he does it from ignorance, is to be taught; if from malice, abandoned; if he cannot be taught, warned to do something else rather than waste time and effort on superfluous things; if he does not obey, ignored. As for captious and fallacious little arguments, the rule is short: if they are brought in through wrong concessions, one must go back to what was conceded; if true and false clash in one conclusion, one must take from it what is understood and leave what cannot be explained; and if the measure of some things lies wholly hidden from man, knowledge of it is not to be sought. These things I have from dialectic, and many others which there is no need to mention; for I must not be ungrateful. But that wise man either neglects these things, or, if perfect dialectic is itself the knowledge of truth, he knows it in such a way that he starves to death, by contempt and without pity, that most beggarly quibble of theirs: 'If it is true, it is false; if it is false, it is true.' I think this is enough about perception, because when I begin to speak about assent, the whole case will turn on it again."

"Now, then, let us come to that part in which Alypius still seems to doubt, and first let us see what sort of thing it is that moves you so sharply and cautiously. For if this discovery of yours, by which we are forced to admit that it is much more probable that the wise man knows wisdom, shakes the opinion of the Academics, strengthened (as you said) by so many and such great reasons, by which they held that the wise man knows nothing, then assent must be withheld all the more. For by this very thing it is shown that nothing can be urged by arguments, however copious and subtle, which cannot be resisted no less keenly, or perhaps more keenly, from the opposite side, if wit is present. So it happens that when the Academic is defeated, he has won. O, would that he were defeated! He will never bring it about by any Pelasgian art that he leaves me at once defeated and victor. Certainly, let nothing else be found that can be said against these things, and I will freely profess myself defeated. For we are dealing not with winning glory but with finding the truth. It is enough for me to get over, in any way at all, that mass which opposes itself to those entering philosophy and, hiding darkness in some recesses, threatens that all philosophy is such and allows no hope that any light will be found in it. And I have nothing more to desire if it is now probable that the wise man knows something. For it seemed likely that he should withhold assent for no other reason than that it was likely that nothing can be grasped. When that is removed (for the wise man perceives at least wisdom itself, as is now granted), no reason will remain why the wise man should not assent at least to wisdom itself. For it is without doubt more monstrous that the wise man should not approve wisdom than that the wise man should not know wisdom."

"For please let us set such a spectacle before our eyes for a little, if we can: a quarrel of the wise man and wisdom. What else does wisdom say but that she is wisdom? But he on the other side says, 'I do not believe it.' Who says to wisdom, 'I do not believe that you are wisdom'? Who but the one with whom she could speak and in whom she deigned to dwell, namely the wise man? Go now and look for me to fight with the Academics; you have a new contest: the wise man and wisdom fight with each other. The wise man will not consent to wisdom. I wait with you without care. For who does not believe that wisdom is invincible? Still, let us fortify ourselves with a dilemma. Either in this contest the Academic will defeat wisdom and be defeated by me, because he will not be wise; or he will be overcome by her, and we will teach that the wise man consents to wisdom. So either the Academic is not wise, or the wise man will assent to something; unless perhaps one who was ashamed to say that the wise man does not know wisdom will not be ashamed to say that the wise man does not consent to wisdom. But if it is now likely that even the perception of wisdom itself befalls the wise man, and there is no reason why he should not assent to what can be perceived, I see that what I wanted is likely, namely that the wise man will assent to wisdom. If you ask where he finds wisdom itself, I will answer: in himself. If you say he does not know what he has, you return to that absurdity, that the wise man does not know wisdom. If you deny that the wise man himself can be found, we will discuss this, in another conversation, not with the Academics but with you, whoever you are who think so. For when they dispute these things, they are surely disputing about the wise man. Cicero proclaims that he himself is a great holder of opinions, but that he is inquiring about the wise man. And if you young men do not yet know this, you have certainly read in the Hortensius: 'If, then, nothing is certain, and holding opinions does not befit the wise man, the wise man will never approve anything.' From this it is clear that in those disputations of theirs against which we strive, they are inquiring about the wise man."

"So I judge that wisdom is certain to the wise man, that is, that the wise man has perceived wisdom, and that for this reason he does not merely hold an opinion when he assents to wisdom; for he assents to that which, if he had not perceived it, he would not be wise. Nor do they affirm that one should not assent except to things that cannot be perceived. But wisdom is not nothing. Since, then, he both knows wisdom and assents to wisdom, the wise man neither knows nothing nor assents to nothing. What more do you want? Or are we inquiring something about that error which they say is wholly avoided if assent inclines the mind to nothing? For whoever approves, they say, not only a false thing but even a doubtful one, even if it is true, errs. But I find nothing that is not doubtful. 'But the wise man finds,' as we were saying, 'wisdom itself.'"

"But perhaps you want me to leave this point now. The most secure positions are not easily abandoned; we are dealing with very cunning men. Still, I will humor you. But what shall I say here? What? What indeed? That old saying, of course, must be said, to which they too have something to say. For what shall I do, whom you are pushing out of my camp? Shall I implore the help of the learned, with whom, if I cannot win, it will perhaps be less shameful to be defeated? So I will hurl, with what strength I can, a weapon already smoky and rough but, unless I am mistaken, very strong: 'He who approves nothing does nothing.' O rustic fellow! And where is the probable? Where is the truthlike? This is what you wanted. Do you hear how the Greek shields resound? What was very strong has been caught, but with what a hand we threw it! And my supporters suggest nothing more powerful to me, nor, as I see, have we inflicted any wound. I will turn to what the country house and the field supply; greater things weigh me down rather than equip me."

"For when I had long been thinking at leisure in this countryside how this probable or truthlike could defend our actions from error, at first it seemed to me, as it used to seem when I was selling these wares, nicely covered and fortified; then, when I looked over the whole more carefully, I thought I saw one approach by which error could rush in upon those who feel secure. For I think that not only he errs who follows a false road, but also he who does not follow the true one. Let us suppose two travelers heading for one place, one of whom has resolved to believe no one, while the other is too credulous. They come to a fork in the road. Here the credulous one says to a shepherd who was there, or to some countryman: 'Good day, honest fellow! Tell me, please, which is the right way to that place.' The answer comes: 'If you go this way, you will not go wrong at all.' And he says to his companion: 'He speaks the truth; let us go this way.' The very cautious man laughs and wittily mocks so quick an assent, and meanwhile, as the other goes off, he stays fixed at the fork. And now it begins to seem shameful to linger, when behold, from the other branch of the road a fine, elegant gentleman on horseback appears and begins to approach. This man is glad, and when he has arrived and been greeted, tells him his purpose, asks the way, and even tells him why he stayed behind, preferring him to the shepherd so as to make him more kindly. But by chance that man was a tramp, one of those whom the common people now call samardoci. The scoundrel kept to his habit even without pay. 'Go this way,' he says; 'for I come from there.' He deceived him and went off. But when would this man be deceived? 'For I do not approve this direction as true,' he says, 'but because it is truthlike; and to be idle here is neither honorable nor useful; I will go this way.' Meanwhile the one who erred by assenting, thinking so quickly that the shepherd's words were true, was already refreshing himself in the place they were heading for; while this one, not erring, since he follows the probable, wandered around some woods or other and did not even find anyone to whom the place he had set out for was known. I will tell you truly: when I thought of these things I could not keep from laughing that, by the words of the Academics, it somehow comes about that the one who holds the true road, even by chance, errs, while the one who was led probably through pathless mountains and did not find the region he sought does not seem to err. For even if I rightly condemn rash assent, it is easier to say that both err than that this one does not. From here, more watchful against these words, I began to consider men's very deeds and morals. Then indeed so many and such deadly things against them came to my mind that I no longer laughed, but was partly angry and partly grieved that most learned and sharp men had fallen into such crimes and disgraces of opinion."

"Certainly not everyone who errs perhaps sins; yet everyone who sins is admitted either to err or to do something worse. What, then, if some young man hears them saying: 'It is shameful to err, and so we ought to consent to nothing; but still, when each does what seems probable to him, he neither sins nor errs; let him only remember that whatever presents itself to the mind or the senses is not to be approved as true': hearing this, will the young man lay snares for the chastity of another man's wife? I consult you, you, Marcus Tullius; we are dealing with the morals and life of young men, for whose upbringing and instruction all those writings of yours kept watch. What else will you say than that it is not probable to you that the young man should do this? But it is probable to him. For if we live by another's probable, you too ought not to have governed the state, because it seemed to Epicurus that this should not be done. So that young man will commit adultery with another's wife. If he is caught, where will he find you to defend him? And even if he finds you, what will you say? You will surely deny it. What if it is so clear that you would deny it in vain? No doubt you want to persuade them, as if in the gymnasium at Cumae or even at Naples, that he has not sinned at all, indeed has not even erred. For he did not persuade himself as true that adultery should be committed; it presented itself as probable, he followed it, he did it; or perhaps he did not do it, but it seemed to him that he did. And that husband, a fool, upsets everything with lawsuits, crying out for the chastity of his wife, with whom he is perhaps now sleeping and does not know it. If the judges understand this, they will either ignore the Academics and punish it as a most real crime, or, obeying the same Academics, will condemn the man truthlikely and probably, so that the advocate will no longer know at all what to do. For he will have no one to be angry with, since all will say they have not erred at all, since, without assenting, they did what seemed probable. So he will lay aside the role of advocate and take up that of a consoling philosopher; thus he will easily persuade the young man, who has already made so much progress in the Academy, to think that he has been condemned as if in a dream. But you think I am joking. I may swear by every divinity that I do not know at all how that man sinned, if whoever does what seems probable does not sin; unless perhaps they say that to err is wholly one thing and to sin another, and that they acted by those precepts so that we should not err, but thought sinning no great matter."

"I say nothing of murders, parricides, sacrileges, and absolutely all the disgraces and crimes that can be done or thought of, which are defended in a few words, and, what is worse, before the wisest judges: 'I consented to nothing and so I did not err; but how could I not do what seemed probable?' Those who do not think such things can be urged probably should read the speech of Catiline by which he urged the parricide of his country, in which alone all crimes are contained. And who does not laugh at this? They themselves say that in acting they follow nothing but the probable, and they seek the truth with great effort, though it is probable to them that it cannot be found. O wonderful monster! But let us leave this; it concerns us less, less the hazard of our life, less the danger to our fortunes. This is the deadly thing, this the dreadful thing, this what every good man must fear: that if this reasoning is probable, anyone may commit every impiety, when it has seemed probable to him that it should be done, provided only that he assents to nothing as true, without blame not only of crime but even of error. What then? Did they not see this? On the contrary, they saw it most shrewdly and wisely; nor would I in any way claim so much for myself as to follow Marcus Tullius in any respect in industry, vigilance, talent, or learning. Yet if, when he asserted that man can know nothing, only this were said to him: 'I know that it seems so to me,' he would have nothing with which to refute it."