Then Cato said: But now, what books in the world are they that you are looking for here, when you have such a library at home? I want, said I, some of the Aristotelian Commentaries, which I know are here; and I came to carry them off, to read when I have leisure, which is not, as you know, very often the case with me. How I wish, said he, that you had an inclination towards our Stoic sect; for certainly it is natural for you, if it ever was so for any one, to think nothing a good except virtue. May I not, I replied, rejoin that it would be natural for you, as your opinion in reality is the same as mine, to forbear giving new names to things? for our principles are the same,—it is only our language that is at variance. Indeed, said he, our principles are not the same at all; for I can never agree to your calling anything desirable except what is honourable, and to your reckoning such things among the goods,—and, by so doing, extinguishing honourableness, which is, as it were, the light of virtue, and utterly upsetting virtue herself. Those are all very fine words, said I, O Cato; but do you not see that all those pompous expressions are shared by you in common with Pyrrho and Aristo, who think all things equal? And I should like to know what your opinion of them is. Mine?said he; do you want to know what I think of them? I think that those men whom we have either heard of from our ancestors, or seen ourselves, to be good, brave, just, and moderate in the republic,—those who, following nature herself, without any particular learning or system, have done many praiseworthy actions, have been educated by nature herself better than they could have been educated by philosophy, if they had adopted any other philosophy except that which ranks nothing whatever among the goods except whatis honourable, and nothing among the evils except what is disgraceful. As for all other systems of philosophy, they differ entirely in their estimate of good and evil; but still I consider no one of them which classes anything destitute of virtue among either the goods or the evils, as being of any use to men, or as uttering any sentiment by which we may become better; but I think that they all tend rather to deprave nature herself. For if this point be not conceded, that that alone is good which is honourable, it follows that it must be impossible to prove that life is made happy by virtue. And if that be the case, then I do not see why any attention should be bestowed on philosophy; for if a wise man can be miserable, then of a truth I do not consider that virtue, which is accounted so glorious and memorable a thing, of any great value.