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[9]
Now, I cannot possibly accept the view of those1
who say that that point was not overlooked but purposely omitted by Panaetius, and that it was not one
that ever needed discussion, because there never can
be such a thing as a conflict between expediency and
moral rectitude. But with regard to this assertion,
the one point may admit of doubt—whether that
question which is third in Panaetius's classification
ought to have been included or omitted altogether;
[p. 279]
but the other point is not open to debate—that it
was included in Panaetius's plan but left unwritten.
For, if a writer has finished two divisions of a threefold subject, the third must necessarily remain for
him to do. Besides, he promises at the close of the
third book that he will discuss this division also in its
proper turn.
1 Why Panaetius omitted the “Conflict” of the moral and the expedient.
M. Tullius Cicero. De Officiis. With An English Translation. Walter Miller. Cambridge. Harvard University Press; Cambridge, Mass., London, England. 1913.
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