Editorial: History Repeats

PERSPECTIVES IN BIOLOGY AND MEDICINE Volume 12 · Number 3 · Spring 1969 EDITORIAL: HISTORY REPEATS The following passage was called to the attention ofthe editors by Dr. Joel H. Hildebrand. It was discovered by his colleague Professor Albert A. Ehrenzweig ofthe University ofCalifornia. "... A youth approached me. He was bearded; his clothes were dirty; he wore a student's cloak and he looked a typical New Cynic ofthe sort I deplore. I have recently written at considerable length about these vagabonds . In the last few years the philosophy of Crates and Zeno has been taken over by idlers who, though they have no interest in philosophy, deliberately imitate the Cynics in such externals as not cutting their hair or beards, carrying sticks and wallets, and begging. But where the original Cynics despised wealth, soughtvirtue, questioned all things in order to find whatwas true, these imitators mock all things, including the true, using the mask ofphilosophy to disguise license and irresponsibility. Nowadays, any young man who does not choose to study or to work grows a beard, insults the gods, and calls himself Cynic" (from the memoirs of Emperor Julian [fourth century a.D.] in Vidal's version). 331 ...