Note 40 — Chapter I

It was inability to grasp this truth that explained the “patriotic” opposition of the Elder Cato to the lectures of Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes. He was “unwilling that the public policy of Rome, which for the Roman youth was the supreme norm of judgment and action, and was possessed of unconditional authority, should, through the influence of foreign philosophers, become subordinated, in the consciousness of these youths, to a more universal ethical norm.” Ueberweg: Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie (Morris and Porter’s translation, p. 189, vol. i.). (Cf. M. Martha: Le Philosophe Carnéade à Rome.)