PHILOSOPHY |
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PHILOSOPHY |
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Socrates had begun in Athens, the elder Cato continued in Rome to inveigh against those artful and subtle Greeks who seduced virtue and enervated the courage of his fellow-citizens. But the Sciences, the Arts, and dialectics once again prevailed. Rome filled up with Philosophers and Orators; military discipline came to be neglected, agriculture despised; Sects joined, and the Fatherland forgotten. The sacred names of liberty, disinterestedness, obedience to the Laws, were replaced by the names of Epicurus, Zeno, Arcesilaus. Ever since the Learned have begun to appear among us, so their own Philosophers themselves said, good Men have been in eclipse. Until then the Romans had been content to practice virtue; all was lost when they began to study it.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, First Discourse [31] (1750)
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