Peripatetĭci

, a sect of philosophers at Athens, disciples to Aristotle. They derived this name from the place where they were taught, called Per i pat on , in the Lyceum, or because they received the philosopher’s lectures as they walked ( περιπατουντες ). The Peripatetics acknowledged the dignity of human nature, and placed their summum bonum , not in the pleasures of pa ive sensation, but in the due exercise of the moral and intellectual faculties. The habit of this exercise, when guided by reason, constituted the highest excellence of man. The philosopher contended that our own happine chiefly depends upon ourselves, and though he did not require in his followers that self-command to which others pretended, yet he allowed a moderate degree of perturbation, as becoming human nature, and he considered a certain sensibility of pa ion totally nece ary, as by resentment we are enabled to repel injuries, and the smart which past calamities have inflicted renders us careful to avoid the repetition. Cicero , Academic a , bk. 2 , .