Note 25 — Chapter XXIII · THE NEW ACADEMY.

B. Carneades. Comparing with the theory of Arcesilaus that which was propounded by Carneades a century later, the same leading features are found to be underlying; but the points have been more carefully worked out, and the theory placed on a wider footing. Of the immediate followers of Arcesilaus25 it can only be stated that they clung to their teacher. It may be presumed that they did little in the way of expansion, since the ancients are silent as to their labours; Carneades26 is only mentioned as the continuer of the Academic Scepticism. The importance of Carneades is therefore very great, whence he is in consequence called the founder of the third or New Academy;27 and it is justly great, witness the admiration which his talents called forth among cotemporaries and posterity,28 and the flourishing condition in which he left his School.29 Himself a pupil of Chrysippus, and resembling him in tone of mind,30 Carneades expanded not only the negative side of the Sceptical theory in all directions with an acuteness entitling him to the first place among the ancient Sceptics, but he was also the first to investigate the positive side of Scepticism, the doctrine of probability, and to determine the degrees and conditions of probability. By his labours in both ways he brought the philosophy of Scepticism to its greatest scientific perfection.