And the consequence is, that it is not necessary for one now to be always repeating a sort of dictated lesson on the same subject, or to be afraid to go beyond one's note-books: for he who knows where everything is placed, and how he can arrive at it, even if anything be completely buried, will be able to dig it up, and will always have his wits about him in every discussion. And although men who are endowed with great abilities, attain to a certain copiousness of eloquence without any definite principles of oratory, still art is a surer guide than nature. For it is one thing to pour out words after the fashion of poets, and another to distinguish on settled principles and rules all that you say.
V. Similar things may be said about the explanation of natural philosophy, which both the Peripatetics and Stoics apply themselves to; and that not on two accounts only, as Epicurus thinks, namely, to get rid of the fears of death and of religion; but besides this, the knowledge of heavenly things imparts some degree of modesty to those who see what great moderation and what admirable order there is likewise among the gods: it inspires them also with magnanimity when they contemplate the arts and works of the gods; and justice, too, when they come to know how great is the power and wisdom, and what the will is also, of the supreme ruler and master of the world, whose reason, in accordance with nature, is called by philosophers the true and supreme law. There is in the same study of nature, an insatiable kind of pleasure derived from the knowledge of things; the only pleasure in which, when all our necessary actions are performed, and when we are free from business, we can live honourably, and as becomes free men. Therefore, in the whole of this ratiocination on subjects of the very highest importance, the Stoics have for the most part followed the Peripatetics; so far at all events as to admit that there are gods, and to assert that everything consists of one of four elements. But when an exceedingly difficult question was proposed, namely, whether there did not seem to be a sort of fifth nature from which reason and intelligence sprang; (in which question another was involved respecting the mind, as to what class that belonged to;) Zeno said that it was fire; and then he said a few more things--very few, in a novel manner; but concerning the most important point of all, he spoke in the same way, asserting that the universal world, and all its most important parts, were regulated by the divine intellect and nature of the gods. But as for the matter and richness of facts, we shall find the Stoics very poorly off, but the Peripatetics very rich.
