It will have been observed that in the list given in the previous chapter the works commonly published as Cicero's Philosophy have been divided. Some are called his Philosophy and some his Moral Essays. It seems to be absurd to put forward to the world his Tusculan Inquiries¹, written with the declared object of showing that death and pain were not evils, together with a moral essay, such as that De Officiis, in which he tells us what it may become a man of the world to do. It is as though we bound up Lord Chesterfield's letters in a volume with Hume's essays, and called them the philosophy of the eighteenth century. It might be true, but it would certainly be absurd. There might be those who regard the letters as philosophical², and those who would so speak of the essays; but their meaning would be diametrically opposite. It is so with Cicero, whose treatises³ have been lumped together under this name with the view of bringing them under one appellation⁵. It had been found necessary to divide his works and to describe them. The happy man who first thought to put the De Natura Deorum and the De Amicitia into boards together, and to present them to the world under the name of his philosophy, perhaps found the only title that could unite the two. But he has done very much to mislead the world, and to teach readers to believe that Cicero was in truth one who endeavored to live in accordance with the doctrine⁶ of any special school of philosophy.

He was too honest, too wise, too civilized⁷, too modern for that. He knew, no one better, that the pleasure of the world278 was pleasant, and that the ills are the reverse. When his wife betrayed him, he grieved. When his daughter died, he sorrowed. When his foe⁸ was strong against him, he hated him. He avoided pain when it came near him, and did his best to have everything comfortable around him. He was so far an Epicurean, as we all are. He did not despise death, or pain, or grief. He was a modern-minded man—if I make myself understood—of

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