II. And, without dwelling on the case of these liberal and gentlemanly professions, even artisans would not be capable of exercising their trades properly if they did not use technical words, which are not understood by us, though in common use among them. Agriculture, also, which is as distant as can be from all polite refinement, still marks those matters with which it is conversant by new names. And much more is this course allowable in a philosopher; for philosophy is the art of life, and a man who is discussing that cannot borrow his language from the forum,—although there is no school of philosophers which has made so many innovations as the Stoics. Zeno too, their chief, was not so much a discoverer of new things as of new words. But if, even in that language which most people consider richer than our own, Greece has permitted the most learned men to use words not in ordinary use about subjects which are equally unusual, how much more ought the same licence to be granted to us, who are now venturing to be the very first of our countrymen to touch on such matters? And though we have often said,—and that, too, in spite of some complaints not only of the Greeks, but of those men also who would prefer being accounted Greeks to being thought our own countrymen,—that we are so far from being surpassed by the Greeks in the richness and copiousness of our language, that we are even superior to them in that particular; we must labour to establish this point, not only in our own national arts, but in those too which we have derived from them. Although, since they have become established by habit, we may fairly consider those words as our own which, in accordance with ancient custom, we use as Latin words; such as _philosophia_ itself, _rhetorica_, _dialectica_, _grammatica_, _geometria_, _musica_,—although they could, no doubt, be translated into more genuine Latin. Enough, however, of the names of things. But with respect to the things themselves, I am often afraid, Brutus, that I may be blamed when I am writing to you, who have made so much progress, not only in philosophy, but in the most excellent kind of philosophy. And if I wrote as if I were giving you any instruction, I should deserve to be blamed; but such conceit is far from me. Nor do I send letters to you under the idea of making you acquainted with what is thoroughly known to you before; but because I am fond of supporting myself by your name, and because also I consider you the most candid critic and judge of those studies which both you and I apply ourselves to in common. I know, therefore, that you will pay careful attention to what I write, as is your wont, and that you will decide on the dispute which took place between your uncle—a most heavenly-minded and admirable man—and myself.