=114.= Panaetius may well be regarded as the founder of Roman Stoicism, and is of special interest to us as the writer of the treatise (περὶ καθήκοντος) which Cicero has freely translated in his _de Officiis_. He sets before us Stoicism as the school which will train the scholar, the gentleman, and the statesman, whilst he shrinks from those bolder doctrines, borrowed from the Cynic school, which conflict with that which is conventional, or, as their opponents say, with that which is becoming. The central doctrine that virtue is knowledge, and is the sole and sufficient good, he accepts as the plain teaching of nature; and with it the paradox that the wise man never errs[19]. Yet even these maxims are somewhat toned down as he expresses them; and external advantages appear to him worthy of pursuit, not only as giving a meaning to virtue and providing a field for its exercise, but also for their own sake, so long as they do not conflict with virtue[20]; and he perhaps hesitated to assert positively that ‘pain is no evil[21].’ In his treatises the figure of the wise man is withdrawn to the background; he is practically concerned only with the ‘probationer’ (ὁ προκόπτων), who is making some advance in the direction of wisdom. This advance is not made by acts of perfect virtue, but by regular performance of ‘services’ (καθήκοντα, _officia_), the simple and daily duties which come in the way of the good citizen[22]. Further, scientific investigation must not become the main end of life, as perhaps it seemed to Aristotle; it is permitted only as a recreation in the well-earned intervals between the calls of active life[23]. [Sidenote: His views on physics.] =115.= It does not appear that Panaetius devoted much attention to logic[24]; on the other hand he was much occupied with that part of philosophy which deals with the history of the universe and its government by divine providence[25]. The Heraclitean theory he appears to have left altogether on one side; for he rejected the theory of the conflagration[26], as Boethus had done before him, accepting the objection of Carneades that ‘if everything turned into fire, the fire would go out for lack of fuel[27].’ He therefore joined the Peripatetics in holding that the universe is immortal[28]; but since again Carneades has shown that ‘no living thing is immortal,’ it follows that the world is not an animal, nor is the deity its soul[29]. Upon all these subjects Panaetius ceased to maintain Stoic doctrines; and, alone amongst Stoic teachers, he ‘suspended his judgment’ as to the reality of divination[30]. [Sidenote: Concession in ethics.]