always there in the background. On the whole Marcus prefers the more to the less personal expressions. He has less to say about curbing desire than does
Epictetus, but being a person in supreme authority he had less obvious need to free himself from unsatisfiable wishes than his master. Among the
precepts which he records there is one which expresses in a paradoxical way the ideal of the Stoic sage: 'At the same time to be utterly impervious to all
passions and full of natural affection.' Noble though such an ideal undoubtedly is, it may be doubted whether it is at all attainable.
Stoicism, much more than Platonism, was devoted to helping men to live at peace with themselves and with the world, and was always in danger of
toppling over into conformity, comfortable or otherwise. In accepting nature, or what happens, as the ultimate criterion of right and wrong, the Stoics
were incapable on their own principles of criticizing society, and found some measure of peace in adapting themselves to its vagaries. This inevitably led
them to pursue a sort of inner tranquillity through introversion, which represents at the same time a withdrawal from the external world and the
assumption of an inner reality that lay beyond the reach of external tyranny. But in seeking such a peace it may be doubted if they remained true to the
very principles of anti-dualism from which they began.
Scepticism
Despite Antiochus' abandonment of the sceptical position of the New Academy in favour of a Stoic belief in the possibility of certainty in perception and
knowledge, it must not be supposed that the anti-dogmatic habit died at once to be resurrected only with the sixteenth century. Almost at the same time
as the Academy abandoned the scepticism common to it since the days of Arcesilaus and Carneades, there arose at some time between 100 and 40 B.C. a
champion of the ancient and true sceptic tradition-Aenesidemus of Alexandria. Little is known about his life except that he denounced, not surprisingly,
Antiochus and, surprisingly, Arcesilaus and Carneades, because, he argued, they taught that scepticism was a dogma, whereas they should have said that
it was a possibility, not a certainty.
The final flowering of Scepticism as a system took place in the second century and is available to us through the writings of Sextus Empiricus (d. c.200
A.D.). In the course of fourteen books he expounded the principles of Scepticism, and then took issue with all brands of dogmatists and instructors. His
work and that of those he represents has been described somewhat eulogistically as the 'antecedent of freedom of conscience, rational criticism, and the
absolute right of scientific thought'.