Cicero was of the fourth class, believing in the Republic, intent on saving it, imbued amid all his doubts with a conviction that if the "optimates" or "boni"-- the leading men of the party--would be true to themselves, Consuls, Censors, and Senate would still suffice to rule the world; but prepared to give and take with those who were opposed to him.
It was his idea that political integrity should keep its own hands clean, but should wink at much dirt in the world at large.

Nothing, he saw, could be done by Catonic rigor.

We can see now that Ciceronic compromises were, and must have been, equally ineffective.

The patient was past cure.

But in seeking the truth as to Cicero, we have to perceive that amid all his doubts, frequently in despondency, sometimes overwhelmed by the misery and hopelessness of his condition, he did hold fast by this idea to the end.