Note 74 — Chapter XXIII · THE NEW ACADEMY.

(δ) Moral views of the Stoics attacked. Connected probably with these attacks on divination was the defence by Carneades of the freedom of the will. The Stoic fatalism he refuted by an appeal to the fact that our decision is free; and since the Stoics appealed in support of their view to the law of causality, he likewise attacked this law.74 In so doing his intention was not to assert anything positive respecting the nature of the human will, but only to attack the Stoic assertion, and if for his own part he adhered to the old Academic doctrine of a free will, he still regarded that doctrine as only probable.