His son records the way in which he spent the night before the battle of Muret with a crudity of language which defies translation, and tells us that his father was too exhausted in the morning to stand at Mass, and had to be lifted into the saddle by his squires.
The course of his narrative is unperplexed by doubtful or insoluble problems. The painting is filled in with primary colours and with a free hand; and any sense of crudity which may be awakened by close inspection is compensated by the vigour and massive effectiveness of the whole.
The details of this system, which has no other refuge in the civilized world save partially in Switzerland, are remarkable for a most extraordinary diversity in the manner of collection, which practically becomes, however, self-assessment, and an equally extraordinary and general evidence of the crudity and inadequacy of the system, which has been the target of state tax reports throughout the Union for half a century.
Such Cynic crudity Chrysippus rightly judged to be out of keeping with the requirements of a great dogmatic school, and he laboured on all sides after thoroughness, erudition and scientific completeness.