Therefore, all those men appear to me to have made a blunder who have pronounced the chief good to be to live honourably. But some have erred more than others,—Pyrrho above all, who, having fixed on virtue as the chief good, refuses to allow that there is anything else in the world deserving of being desired; and, next to him, Aristo, who did not, indeed, venture to leave nothing else to be desired, but who introduced influence, by which a wise man might be excited, and desire whatever occurred to his mind, and whatever even appeared so to occur. He was more right than Pyrrho, inasmuch as he left man some kind of desire; but worse than the rest, inasmuch as he departed wholly from nature: but the Stoics, because they place the chief good in virtue alone, resemble these men: but inasmuch as they seek for a principle of duty, they are superior to Pyrrho; and as they do not admit the desire of those objects which offerthemselves to the imagination, they are more correct than Aristo; but, inasmuch as they do not add the things which they admit to be adopted by nature, and to be worthy of being chosen for their own sakes, to the chief good, they here desert nature, and are in some degree not different from Aristo: for he invented some strange kinds of occurrences; but these men recognise, indeed, the principles of nature, but still they disconnect them from the perfect and chief good; and when they put them forward, so that there may be some selection of things, they appear to follow nature; but when they deny that they have any influence in making life happy, they again abandon nature.
And hitherto I have been showing how destitute Zeno was of any good reason for abandoning the authority of previous philosophers: now let us consider the rest of his arguments; unless, indeed, O Cato, you wish to make any reply to what I have been saying, or unless we are getting tedious. Neither, said he; for I wish this side of the question to be completely argued by you; nor does your discourse seem to me to be at all tedious. I am glad to hear it, I replied; for what can be more desirable for me than to discuss the subject of virtue with Cato, who is the most virtuous of men in every point? But, first of all, remark that that imposing sentiment of yours, which brings a whole family after it, namely, that what is honourable is the only good, and that to live honourably is the chief good, will be shared in common with you by all who define the chief good as consisting in virtue alone; and, as to what you say, that virtue cannot be formed if anything except what is honourable is included in the account, the same statement will be made by those whom I have just named. But it appeared to me to be fairer, advancing from one common beginning, to see where Zeno, while disputing with Polemo, from whom he had learnt what the principles of nature were, first took his stand, and what the original cause of the controversy was; and not to stand on their side, who did not even allow that their own chief good was derived from nature, and to employ the same arguments which they did, and to maintain the same sentiments.