V. I entreat you however, said Atticus, I entreat you to go on, Varro. For I am greatly attached to my own countrymen and to their works; and those subjects delight me beyond measure when they are treated in Latin, and in such a manner as you treat them. And what, said I, do you think that I must feel, who have already engaged to display philosophy to our nation? Let us then, said he, continue the subject, since it is agreeable to you.
A threefold system of philosophising, then, was already received from Plato. One, on the subject of life and morals. A second, on nature and abstruse matters. The third, on discussion, and on what is true or false; what is right or wrong in a discourse; what is consistent or inconsistent in forming a decision.
And that first division of the subject, that namely of living well, they sought in nature herself, and said that it was necessary to obey her; and that that chief good to which everything was referred was not to be sought in anything whatever except in nature. And they laid it down that the crowning point of all desirable things, and the chief good, was to have received from nature everything which is requisite for the mind, or the body, or for life. But of the goods of the body, they placed some in the whole, and others in the parts. Health, strength, and beauty in the whole. In the parts, soundness of the senses, and a certain excellence of the individual parts. As in the feet, swiftness; in the hands, strength; in the voice, clearness; in the tongue, a distinct articulation of words. The excellences of the mind they considered those which were suitable to the comprehension of virtue by the disposition. And those they divided under the separate heads of nature and morals. Quickness in learning and memory they attributed to nature; each of which was described as a property of the mind and genius. Under the head of "morals" they classed our studies, and, I may say, our habits, which they formed, partly by a continuity of practice, partly by reason. And in these two things was contained philosophy itself, in which that which is begun and not brought to its completion, is called a sort of advance towards virtue; but that which is brought to completion is virtue, being a sort of perfection of nature and of all things which they place in the mind; the one most excellent thing. These things then are qualities of the mind.