It is easy to see what there was in such a tenet to attract Cicero. Nothing was more repulsive to his mind than dogmatism. As an orator, he was accustomed to hear arguments put forward with equal persuasiveness on both sides of a case. It seemed to him arrogant to make any proposition with a conviction of its absolute, indestructible and irrefragable truth. One requisite of a philosophy with him was that it should avoid this arrogance[73]. Philosophers of the highest respectability had held the most opposite opinions on the same subjects. To withhold absolute assent from all doctrines, while giving a qualified assent to those which seemed most probable, was the only prudent course[74]. Cicero's temperament also, apart from his experience as an orator, inclined him to charity and toleration, and repelled him from the fury of dogmatism. He repeatedly insists that the diversities of opinion which the most famous intellects display, ought to lead men to teach one another with all gentleness and meekness[75]. In positiveness of assertion there seemed to be something reckless and disgraceful, unworthy of a self-controlled character[76]. Here we have a touch of feeling thoroughly Roman. Cicero further urges arguments similar to some put forward by a long series of English thinkers from Milton to Mill, to show that the free conflict of opinion is necessary to the progress of philosophy, which was by that very freedom brought rapidly to maturity in Greece[77]. Wherever authority has loudly raised its voice, says Cicero, there philosophy has pined. Pythagoras[78] is quoted as a warning example, and the baneful effects of authority are often depicted[79]. The true philosophic spirit requires us to find out what can be said for every view. It is a positive duty to discuss all aspects of every question, after the example of the Old Academy and Aristotle[80]. Those who demand a dogmatic statement of belief are mere busybodies[81]. The Academics glory in their freedom of judgment. They are not compelled to defend an opinion whether they will or no, merely because one of their predecessors has laid it down[82]. So far does Cicero carry this freedom, that in the fifth book of the _Tusculan Disputations_, he maintains a view entirely at variance with the whole of the fourth book of the _De Finibus_, and when the discrepancy is pointed out, refuses to be bound by his former statements, on the score that he is an Academic and a freeman[83]. "Modo hoc, modo illud probabilius videtur[84]." The Academic sips the best of every school[85]. He roams in the wide field of philosophy, while the Stoic dares not stir a foot's breadth away from Chrysippus[86]. The Academic is only anxious that people should combat his opinions; for he makes it his sole aim, with Socrates, to rid himself and others of the mists of error[87]. This spirit is even found in Lucullus the Antiochean[88]. While professing, however, this philosophic bohemianism, Cicero indignantly