Note 111 — Chapter XXIII · THE NEW ACADEMY.

C. School of Carneades. In Carneades this Scepticism attained its highest growth. The successor of Carneades, Clitomachus,111 is known as the literary exponent of the views taught by Carneades.112 At the same time we hear of his being accurately acquainted with the teaching of the Peripatetics and Stoics; and although it was no doubt his first aim to refute the dogmatism of these Schools, it would appear that Clitomachus entered into the connection of their doctrines more fully than is usually the case with opponents.113 As to his fellow-pupil, Charmidas (or Charmadas),114 one wholly unimportant utterance is our only guide for determining his views.115 For ascertaining the philosophy of the other pupils of Carneades,116 nothing but the scantiest fragments have been preserved. The statement of Polybius that the Academic School degenerated into empty subtleties, and thereby became an object of contempt,117 may deserve no great amount of belief; but it does seem probable that the School made no important advance on the path marked out by himself and Arcesilaus. It did not even continue true to that path for very long. Not a generation after the death of its most celebrated teacher, and even among his own pupils,118 that eclecticism began to appear, the general and simultaneous spread of which ushered in a new period in the history of the post-Aristotelian philosophy.