Sextus on Religion #3: Against the Logicians

Excerpts from R. G. Bury's Loeb Classical Library translation.

Book I

47–51

Now many divergent opinions of all sorts are propounded regarding this subject, but for the present it is sufficient for us to say that some have rejected, others retained the criterion. Of those who have retained it the main views are three: some have retained it in rational discourse, some in non-rational self-evident facts, some in both. Moreover, it has been rejected by Xenophanes of Colophon and Xeniades of Corinth and Anacharsis the Scythian and Protagoras and Dionysodorusa; and besides these, by Gorgias of Leontini and Metrodorus of Chios and Anaxarchus “the Eudaemonist” and Monimus the Cynic. [And amongst these are also the Sceptics.] And of these Xenophanes, according to some, took up this position by declaring all things to be non-apprehensible, as in this passage:

Yet, with respect to the gods and what I declare about all things,
No man has seen what is clear nor ever will any man know it.
Nay, for e’en should he chance to affirm what is really existent,
He himself knoweth it not; for all is swayed by opining.

For here he seems to mean by “clear” what is true and known, just as in the saying

By nature simple is the word of truth.

And by “man” he seems to mean “human being,” using the special term instead of the general; for man is a species of human being. The use of this mode of speech is customary also in Hippocrates, as when he says “A woman is not produced right-handed,”—that is to say, “a female is not compounded in the right-hand parts of the womb.” The words “with respect to the gods” are used, by way of example, for “concerning any non-evident object”; and “opining” stands for surmise and opinion. Consequently his statement, when simplified, amounts to this—“Yet the true and known—at least in respect of non-evident things—no human being knows; for even if by chance he should hit upon it, still he knows not that he has hit upon it but imagines and opines.”

80–82

From the summary of Gorgias’ On Non-Being: “Furthermore, if the things thought are existent, the nonexistent things will not be thought. For opposites are properties of opposites, and the non-existent is the opposite of the existent; and because of this, if “to be thought” is a property of the existent, “not to be thought” will most certainly be a property of the non-existent. But this is absurd; for Scylla and Chimaera and many non-existent things are thought. Therefore the existent is not thought. And just as the things seen are called visible because of the fact that they are seen, and the audible termed audible because of the fact that they are heard, and we do not reject the visible things because they are not heard, nor dismiss the audible things because they are not seen (for each object ought to be judged by its own special sense and not by another),—so also the things thought will exist, even if they should not be viewed by the sight nor heard by the hearing because they are perceived by their own proper criterion. If, then, a man thinks that a chariot is running over the sea, even if he does not behold it he ought to believe that there exists a chariot running over the sea. But this is absurd; therefore the existent is not thought and apprehended.”

92–98

But the Pythagoreans declare that it is not reason in general but the reason which is attained from the sciences; even as Philolaus said that “It, being conversant with the nature of all things, possesses a certain kinship thereto, since it is the nature of like to be apprehended by like”:

Verily earth by earth we behold, and water by water,
Aether divine by aether, and fire the destructive by fire,
Love, moreover, by love, and hate by dolorous hatred.

And as Poseidonius says in his exposition of Plato’s Timaeus, “Just as light is apprehended by the luciform sense of sight, and sound by the aeriform sense of hearing, so also the nature of all things ought to be apprehended by its kindred reason.” But the principle of the structure of all things is number; wherefore also the reason that is judge of all things may be called “number,” seeing that it is not devoid of the potency thereof. And by way of indicating this the Pythagoreans are wont at one time to declare that “All things are like unto number,” and at another time to swear the most natural of oaths in this form:

Nay, by the man I swear who bequeathed to our head the Tetraktys,
Fount containing the roots of Nature ever-enduring.

By “the man who bequeathed” they mean Pythagoras (for him they deified); and by “the Tetraktys” a certain number which, being composed of the four primary numbers, makes up the most perfect number, namely the Ten; for one plus two plus three plus four amount to ten. And this number is the first Tetraktys, and it is termed the “fount of Nature ever-enduring” in so far as the whole Universe, according to them, is arranged according to harmony, and harmony is a system composed of three symphonies—… Seeing, then, that the Tetraktys supplies the proportion of the symphonies mentioned, and the symphonies serve to make up the perfect harmony, and according to the perfect harmony all things are arranged, on this account they have described it as “the fount containing the roots of Nature ever-enduring.”

110–117

“But Xenophanes, according to those who interpret him differently, when he says—

Yet, with respect to the gods and what I declare about all things,
No man has seen what is clear nor ever will any man know it.
Nay, for e’en should he chance to affirm what is really existent,
He himself knoweth it not; for all is swayed by opining,—

does not appear to be abolishing every apprehension, but only that which is cognitiveb and inerrant, while admitting that which is opinionative; for this is what the sentence “all is swayed by opining” indicates. So that according to him the opinionative reason—that is to say, the reason which holds to the probable but not to the certain—is the criterion.

But his friend Parmenides rejected the opinionative reason—I mean that which has weak conceptions,—and assumed as criterion the cognitive—that is, the inerrant—reason, as he also gave up belief in the senses. Thus in the opening of his work On Nature he writes in this fashion:

Far as the soul can aspire have the steeds that hurry me forward
Brought me, seeing that now on the far-famed road they have set me,
Road of the Daemon which all-whither leadeth the truth-witting mortal.
By that road was I drawn; for the fam’d steeds drew me by that road
Pulling the chariot amain; and damsels guided my going.
Glowing within its nave the axle sang like a reed-pipe—
Furnish’d on either side with a pair of wheels well-rounded—
Whenas the Sun-born damsels in haste proceeded to bring me
Into the sun-light, leaving behind them the chambers of Darkness,
When with their hands they had stript from their heads the mantles that veiled them.
There are the gates dividing the ways of Day-time and Night-time,
Gates which are holden around by a lintel and threshold of marble;
High in the air they stand and with doors immense are they furnish’d;
Justice, dealer of dooms, doth keep the keys which unlock them.
Her the damsels addressing with soft and flattering speeches
Artfully won her consent to push the bolted cross-bar
Back from the gates; and whenas the gates swung wide in the door-way,
Vast was the chasm they caused as they set the hinges revolving,
Each in its socket on either side,—of bronze were the hinges,
Fitted with bolts and with nails of bronze. So then through the gate-way
Straight did the damsels drive their horses and car on the high-road,
Graciously then did the goddess receive me, taking my right hand
Clasp’d in her own, and this was the speech wherewith she address’d me:
“Youth, who hast for thy fellows immortal chariot-drivers,
Now thou hast come to our halls, both thou and the horses that speed thee,
Hail! since the doom was no evil doom that prompted thy journey
Hither (for far does it lie from the ways that are trodden of mortals),
Nay, but justice and right. Thy task is now to discover
Truth’s unshakable heart, which fitly induces persuasion,
Mortals’ opinions, to boot, which are empty of true conviction.
Nay, but I bid thee restrain thy mind from this path of inquiry,
Nor let habit oft-tried along this pathway impel thee,
Eye unobservant to ply and tongue and echoing ear-drum,
But use reason to judge the oft-tried proof which refutes them
Utter’d by me. For the heart when alone still misseth the pathway.”

In these verses Parmenides means that the steeds which take him along are the irrational impulses and appetites of the soul, and that “the far-famed road of the Daemon” they travel is that of investigation according to philosophical reason, which reason, like a Divine conductor, points the way to the knowledge of all things. And the damsels that lead him on are the senses, the reports of which he indicates in riddling wise by saying “It was furnish’d with a pair of well-rounded wheels,” that is with those of the ears, by means of which they receive sound; and the acts of vision he calls “Sun-born damsels,” which “leave the chambers of Darkness” and “thrust into the light” because it is impossible to make use of them without light. And the approach to “Justice, dealer of dooms,” which holds “the keys which unlock them,” is that to intelligence which holds safe the apprehensions of things. And she, after welcoming him, promises to teach him two things—“Truth’s unshakable heart which fitly induces persuasion,” which is the immovable seat of knowledge, and secondly “mortal men’s opinions which are empty of true conviction,” that is to say everything which consists in opinion because all such things are unsure. And at the end he again makes it clear that one must not pay attention to the senses but to the reason; for he says “Let not habit oft-tried along this pathway impel thee, / Eye unobservant to ply and tongue and echoing ear-drum, / But use reason to judge the oft-tried proof which refutes them / Utter’d by me.”

This man himself, then, as is plain from his statements, proclaimed the cognitive reason to be the standard of truth in things existing and gave up paying attention to the senses. But Empedocles of Acragas, according to those who seem to interpret him most simply, offers us six criteria of truth. For having laid down two efficient principles of all things, Love and Strife, and having at the same time designated as material principles the four—earth and water and air and fire,—he declared that all these are criteria. For, as I said before,a there is an old opinion, dating from far back, which is prevalent among the Physicists to the effect that like things are cognitive of like; Democritus too seems to have brought a confirmation of this opinion, and Plato also seems to have introduced it in his Timaeus. But, on the one hand, Democritus bases his argument on both animate and inanimate things. “For animals,” he says, “flock together with animals of a like species, as doves with doves and cranes with cranes, and so too all other irrational animals.” …”

120–134

“Such, then, being the opinion held by the earlier thinkers, Empedocles also seems to be carried away by it, and to assert that as the principles which compose the Universe are six, so the criteria are equal to them in number, inasmuch as he writes—

Verily earth by earth we behold, and water by water, 

Aether divine by aether, and fire the destructive by fire,

Love, moreover, by love, and hate by dolorous hatred.

For thereby he indicates that we apprehend earth by participation in earth and water by partaking in water, and air by participation in air, and similarly in the case of fire. But there have been others who have asserted that according to Empedocles the criterion of truth is not the senses but right reason, and of right reason one sort is divine, the other human. And of these the divine sort is inexpressible, but the human sort expressible. As regards the fact that the judgement of truth does not reside in the senses he speaks thus:

Straiten’d in sooth are the powers which lie dispersed in our members,

Many the plagues which thwart them, and blunt the edge of our thinking.

Short is the span of unlivable life beholden by mortals,

Swift is their doom, as, whirl’d like smoke, they are lifted and vanish,

Each persuaded only of what himself has encounter’d.

Carried about all ways; yet each keeps foolishly boasting

How he has found the Whole. So far from human perception

Lie these things, out of reach of the sense of vision or hearing,

And of the grasp of the mind.

And as regards the fact that truth is not altogether unattainable, but is really attainable so far as the reason of man can reach, he makes this clear when to the foregoing verses he adds this:

But since thou hast hither retreated, 

Thou shalt be told not more than mortal wit has discovered.

And in what follows, after rebuking those who profess they know more, he tries to establish that the thing perceived by each sense is trustworthy, as the reason is in control of them, although he had previously run down the evidence supplied by them. For he says:

Nay, ye gods, avert from my tongue the madness of those men,

And make flow pure rivers of speech from lips that are holy.

Thee, too, now I beseech, O Muse white-armèd and virgin,

Courted by many; thy car well-reined from Piety’s dwelling

Drive, and bring to me all that is meet to be told unto mortals;

Nor shalt thou ever be forced to receive from hands that are mortal

Flowers of glorious honour for uttering more than is holy

Over-bold, and to gain thus a seat on the summits of wisdom.

Come, then, with each of thy powers discern each manifest object,

Putting no greater trust in the sight of the eye than in hearing,

Nor in the echoing ear above the clear witness of tongue’s taste;

Nor from the rest of the parts wherein are the channels of knowledge

Hold thou back thy trust, but mark each manifestation.

Such, then, are the views of Empedocles. And Heracleitus—since he again supposed that man is furnished with two organs for gaining knowledge of truth, namely sensation and reason—held, like the Physicists mentioned above, that of these organs sensation is untrustworthy, and assumes reason as the criterion. Sensation he convicts by saying expressly, “Ill witnesses for men are eyes and ears when they have barbarous souls,” which is equivalent to saying “To trust in the irrational senses is the part of barbarous souls.” And he declares reason to be the judge of truth—not, however, any and every kind of reason, but that which is “common” and divine. But what this is must be explained concisely. It is a favourite tenet of the Physicist that “What encompasses us is rational and intelligent.” And, long before, Homer had expressed this when he saysa:

As is the day which upon them is brought by the sire immortal,

So are the minds of mortal men.

Archilochus, too, says that the thoughts men think are “Such as the day which Zeus doth bring about.” And the same thing has also been said by Euripides:

To see and know thee, who thou art, O Zeus,

Doth baffle wit! Art thou Necessity

Of Nature? Or mankind’s Intelligence?

Howbeit, I invoke thee.

It is then by drawing in by inspiration this divine reason that, according to Heracleitus, we become intelligent, and while forgetful during sleep become sensible again on waking. For during sleep, as the passages of the senses are closed, the mind within us is cut off from its natural union with the enveloping substance—only the connexion by way of respiration, like that of a root, being preserved—and being thus parted it loses the power of memory which it previously possessed; but on waking it stretches out again through the passages of sense, as it were through windows, and by junction with the enveloping substance is invested with the power of reason. Thus, just as cinders when put close to the fire are altered and become ignited, but are extinguished when put at a distance, in like manner the fraction of the enveloping substance that stays as a stranger in our bodies becomes well-nigh irrational owing to the separation, but through its union by means of its numerous passages it is made like in kind to the Whole. Heracleitus, then, asserts that this common and divine reason, by participation in which we become rational, is the criterion of truth. Hence, that which appears to all in common is trustworthy (for it is perceived by the common and divine reason), but that which affects one person alone is, for the opposite cause, untrustworthy. Thus the man above-mentioned declares at the beginning of his work On Nature, pointing in a fashion to the enveloping substance—“Of this existent Reason men are without comprehension, both before they have heard of it and when they have heard of it for the first time; for they are like unto men without experience of the things which happen according to this reason when they experience such words and deeds as I relate, when I define each thing according to its nature and declare what its condition is. But as to the rest of mankind, all the things which they do when awake escape their notice, even as they forget all when asleep.” For having in these words expressly argued that we do and think everything through participation in the divine reason, after proceeding a little further, he adds, “Wherefore one must follow the comprehensive,” that is the “common” (for “comprehensive” means “common”); “and though reason is comprehensive most people live as though they possessed a private intelligence of their own.” And this is nothing else than an explanation of the mode of arrangement of the Whole. Therefore in so far as we share in the memory of that reason we say what is true, but whenever we utter our own private thoughts, we lie. So here and in these words he most expressly declares that the common reason is the criterion, and that the things which appear in common are trustworthy as being judged by the common reason, whereas those which appear privately to each man are false.”

147

“But Xenocrates says that there are three forms of existence, the sensible, the intelligible, and the composite and opinable; and of these the sensible is that which exists within the Heaven, and the intelligible that which belongs to all things outside the Heaven, and the opinable and composite that of the Heaven itself; for it is visible by sense but intelligible by means of astronomy. This, then, being the condition of things, he declared that the criterion of the existence which is outside the Heaven and intelligible is knowledge; and the criterion of that which is within the Heaven and sensible is sense; and the criterion of the mixed kind is opinion. And of these generally the criterion afforded by the cognitive reason is both firm and true, and that by sense is true indeed but not so true as that by the cognitive reason, while the composite kind shares in both truth and falsehood; for opinion is partly true and partly false. Hence, too, we have by tradition three Fates—Atropos, the Fate of things intelligible, she being unchangeable, and Clotho of things sensible, and Lachesis of things opinable.”

169f

And of these presentations that which is evidently false, or not apparently true, is to be ruled out and is not a criterion whether <it be derived from a non-existent object or> from an object which exists, but not in accord with that object and not representing the actual object—such as was the presentation derived from Electra which Orestes experienced, when he supposed her to be one of the Furies and cried out—

Avaunt! For of my Furies thou art one.

180f

And that the “irreversible” presentation is a concurrence capable of implanting belief is plain from the case of Menelaus; for when he had left behind him on the ship the wraith (eidôlon) of Helen—which he had brought with him from Troy, thinking it to be the true Helen—and had landed on the island of Pharos, he beheld the true Helen, but though he received from her a true presentation, yet he did not believe that presentation owing to his mind being warped by that other impression from which he derived the knowledge that he had left Helen behind in the ship. Such then is the “irreversible” presentation; and it too seems to possess extension inasmuch as one is found to be more irreversible than another.

249

“Of these the first is derivation from an existing object; for many presentations occur from what is non-existent, as in the case of madmen, and these will not be apprehensive. Second is derivation both from an existing object and according to that existing object; for some again, though they are derived from an existing object, do not resemble that object, as we showed a little while ago in the case of the mad Orestes. For though he derived a presentation from an existing object, Electra, it was not in conformity with that object; for he supposed that she was one of the Furies, and accordingly repulses her, as she approaches and eagerly seeks to tend him, with the wordsa—

Avaunt! For of my Furies thou art one.

Heracles*, too, derived an impression of Thebes from an existing object, but not according to that object; for the apprehensive presentation must also be in accord with the object itself.”

*An error for Pentheus?

253–257

“But whereas the older Stoics declare that this apprehensive presentation is the criterion of truth, the later Stoics added the clause “provided that it has no obstacle.” For there are times when an apprehensive presentation occurs, yet is improbable because of the external circumstances. When, for instance, Heracles presented himself to Admetus bringing back Alcestis from the grave, Admetus then received from Alcestis an apprehensive presentation, but disbelieved it; and when Menelaus on his return from Trob beheld the true Helen at the house of Proteus, after leaving on his ship that image of her for which the ten years’ war was waged, though he received a presentation which was imaged and imprinted from an existing object and in accordance with that object, he did not accept it as valid. So that, whereas the apprehensive presentation is the criterion when it has no obstacle, these presentations, although they were apprehensive, yet had obstacles. For Admetus argued that Alcestis was dead and that he who is dead does not rise again, but certain daemons do rove about at times; and Menelaus also reflected that he had left Helen under guard in his ship and that it was not improbable that she who was discovered in Pharos might not be Helen but a phantom and supernatural. Hence the apprehensive presentation is not the criterion of truth unconditionally, but only when it has no obstacle. For in this latter case it, being plainly evident and striking, lays hold of us, almost by the very hair, as they say, and drags us off to assent, needing nothing else to help it to be thus impressive or to suggest its superiority over all others.”

263–268

“First in order, then, let us examine the criterion “by whom,” or agent, that is to say Man (Anthropos, literally ‘Human’); for I suppose that when we have cast doubt on this, to begin with, there will no longer be any need to proceed to further discussion of the other criteria; for these are either parts or actions or affections of Man. If, then, this criterion is to be apprehended, it must be conceived long before, inasmuch as conception in every case precedes apprehension. But up till now Man has proved to be inconceivable, as we shall establish; therefore Man is certainly not apprehensible; and from this it follows that the knowledge of truth is indiscoverable, seeing that the subject who knows it is inapprehensible. Thus, for instance, of those who investigated the conception, Socrates was a doubter, remaining undecided and declaring himself ignorant both of what he himself is and in what relation he stands to the Universe—“for I do not know,” he says, “whether I am a man or some other kind of beast more complex than Typhon.” But Democritus, who likened himself to the voice of Zeus, and spoke so about the sum of all things, attempted indeed to explain the conception, but was able to produce nothing more than a crude statement, in the words “Man is what we all ken.” For, in the first place, we all know Dog as well, but Dog is not Man. And Horse we all know and Plant, but none of these is Man. And further, he has begged the question; for no one will grant off-hand that the nature of Man is known, seeing that the Pythian propounded “Know thyself” as Man’s chief problem. And even were one to grant this, one would not ascribe the knowledge of Man to all but only to the most exact philosophers.—Epicurus and his followers supposed that the conception of Man could be conveyed by indication, saying that “Man is this sort of a shape combined with vitality.” But they did not notice that if the thing indicated is Man, the thing not so indicated is not Man. And again, such an indication is made in the case of either a man or a woman, an elder or a youth, snub-nosed or hook-nosed, straight-haired or curly-haired, and all the other differences; and if it is made in the case of a man, a woman will not be Man, and if in the case of a woman, the male will be ruled out, and if in the case of a youth, all the remaining ages will be debarred from Manhood.”

272–275

“So then those who define Man as “a rational mortal animal,” and so on, achieve nothing; for they have not given a definition of Man but merely enumerated his properties. And of these “animal” is one of his constant properties, for it is impossible to be Man without being animal. But “mortal” is not even a property but something supervenient which occurs to Man; for when we are men we are alive and not dead. “Reasoning and possessing knowledge” is indeed a property of his, but not constantly; for in fact some who are not reasoning are men, as for instance those that are “by slumber sweet o’ercome,” and those who are not “possessing knowledge” have not lost manhood, as for instance madmen. Thus while we have been seeking one thing, they have offered us another.

Again, “Animal” is not “Man,” since in that case every animal would be a man. And if “rational” is put in place of “exercising reason,” then the gods, too, when they reason will become men, and possibly some of the other animals as well; while if “rational” stands for “uttering significant sounds,” we shall be saying that crows and parrots and the like are men, which is absurd. Moreover, if one should say that “mortal” is Man, it will follow that the irrational animals also, being mortal, are men. And one must take a similar view of the words “receptive of thought and knowledge.” For, firstly, this applies to gods as well; and secondly, if Man is receptive of these, Man is not these things but he who is receptive of these things, the real nature of whom they have not explained.”

404–411

“And just as in a normal state we believe and assent to very lucid appearances, behaving, for instance, towards Dion as Dion, and towards Theon as Theon, so also in a state of madness some are similarly affected. Thus Heracles, when he was mad and had received a presentation of his own children as though they were those of Eurystheus, followed up this presentation with corresponding action. And the corresponding action was to destroy his enemy’s children, which he did. If, then, presentations are apprehensive in so far as they attract us to assent and to the following of them up with corresponding action, then, since false ones also are seen to be of this kind, we must declare that the non-apprehensive presentations are indistinguishable from the apprehensive. Moreover, just as the hero received a presentation of the bow and arrows, so also he received a presentation of his own children as being the children of Eurystheus. For the pre-existent presentation was one and the same and received by a man in the same condition; yet while that of the bow and arrows was true, that of the children was false. So, since both affected him equally, one must admit that the one was indistinguishable from the other; and if that of the bow is termed “apprehensive,” because it was followed by the corresponding action when he used the bow as a bow, let it be said that the presentation of the children does not differ therefrom, inasmuch as it too was followed up by the corresponding action,—namely, the duty of slaying the enemy’s children. Well then, this form of indistinguishability, in respect of the characteristic of self-evidence and intensity, is established. And that in respect of stamp and impression is proved no less surely by the Academics. They summon the Stoics to face apparent facts. For in the case of things similar in shape but differing in substance it is impossible to distinguish the apprehensive presentation from the false and non-apprehensive. If, for example, of two eggs that are exactly alike I offer each one in turn to the Stoic for him to distinguish between them, will the Sage be able on inspection to declare indubitably whether the egg exhibited is this one or that other one? And the same argument also holds good in the case of twins. For the Good Man will receive a false presentation, though he has that presentation “imprinted and impressed both by a real object and according to that very object,” if the presentation he gets be one of Castor as though it were of Poly deuces. It was this, too, that led to the framing of “the Veiled” argument; when a snake has thrust out its head, if we wish to examine the real object we shall be plunged into great perplexity and shall not be able to say whether it is the same snake that thrust its head out before or another one, as there are many snakes coiled up in the same hole. So then the apprehensive presentation possesses no characteristic whereby it differs from the false and non-apprehensive presentations.”

433–435

“And this being so, it is open to the Sceptics to repeat in turn against the Stoics the objections made by the Stoics against the Sceptics. For since, according to themselves, Zeno and Cleanthes and Chrysippus and the rest of their School are numbered amongst the fools, and every fool is enslaved to ignorance, Zeno certainly was ignorant whether he was contained in the universe or himself contained the universe, and whether he was a man or a woman; and Cleanthes did not know whether he was a man or a beast more full of wiles than Typhon. Moreover, Chrysippus either knew this dogma, which is a Stoic one (I mean, that “The fool is ignorant of all things”), or he did not know even this. And if he knew it, it is false that the fool is ignorant of all things; for Chrysippus, who was a fool, perceived this very fact that the fool is ignorant of all things. But if he did not even know this very dogma that he is ignorant of all things, how does he dogmatize about many things, laying down that there is one universe, and that this is ordered by providence, and that its substance is to be wholly changed, and a multitude of other things? And it is possible, should anyone so desire, for the opponent to bring against them all the other difficulties which they themselves are accustomed to bring forward against the Sceptics; but now that the character of the argumentation has been made clear, there is no need for a lengthy exposition.”

Book II

58–61

“For such a thing will be grasped either by way of resemblance to things which have been presented in experience, or by way of enlargement thereof, or of diminution, or of composition. Thus, by way of resemblance, as when because of the likeness of Socrates which has been seen we conceive Socrates who has not been seen; and by way of enlargement, when starting from the common man we move on to a conception of one of such a kind that he was

Less like a corn-eating man than a forest-clad peak of the mountains
Towering high;

and by way of diminution, when, on the contrary, we decrease the size of the common man and grasp a conception of the pygmy; and by way of composition, when from man and horse we derive the conception of a thing we have never perceived—the Hippo-centaur. Every conception, then, must be preceded by experience through sense, and on this account if sensibles are abolished all conceptual thought is necessarily abolished at the same time.—Further, he who declares that all apparent things are false and that only intelligibles exist “in sooth”—that is, in truth—will, in saying so, either use mere assertion or will prove it.”

63

“Epicurus asserted that “All sensibles are true and every presentation is of a real object and is of the same kind as is the object which excites the sensation, and those who say that some presentations are true, others false, are led astray owing to their inability to separate opinion from clear evidence. Thus in the case of Orestes, when he fancied he saw the Furies, his sense excited by imagesc was true (for the images really existed), but his mind, in thinking that the Furies were solid, formed a false opinion.”

67f

“Nor, indeed, is the Stoic theory free from difficulty. For while they urge that a difference exists in both sensibles and intelligibles, by which some of them are true, others false, they are unable to deduce this by logic. For they have allowed that some presentations are “vacuous”—such as those which Orestes received from the Furies,—and that others are “distorted,” being derived from real objects but not in conformity with those objects themselves,—as was that which came to Heracles in his madness from his own children as though from those of Eurystheus; for it came from the children who really existed, but not in conformity with the actual real objects; for he did not see the children as his own, but declares—

This nestling of Eurystheus slain by me
Pays for his father’s enmity by death.

And this being so, the presentations are indistinguishable and the Stoics are unable to say which are in truth apprehensive and are derived from real objects and in conformity with those objects themselves, and which are not of this kind, as we have already shown more at length.”

70–74

“Thus, for instance, to start with the first view, the Stoics maintained that truth and falsity exist in the “expression.” And they say that “expression” is “that which subsists in conformity with a rational presentation,” and that a rational presentation is one in which it is possible to establish by reason the presented object. And of expressions they term some “defective,” others “self-complete”; the defective we may now pass over, but of the self-complete there are, as they assert, several varieties; for in fact they call some “jussive,” such as we utter in giving an injunction, as for example—

Come thou hither, O lady dear;

others “declaratory,” such as we utter when making a statement, as for example—“Dion is walking about”; and others “interrogations,” which we utter when asking a question, as for instance—“Where does Dion dwell?” And some, too, are named by them “imprecatory,” which we utter when we curse—

E’en as this wine is spilt, so may their brains be spilt earthwards;

also “precatory,” which we utter in prayer, of which this is an example—

Zeus, my Father, who rulest from Ida, majestic and mighty,
Victory grant unto Ajax and crown him with glory and honour.

And they also term some of the self-complete expressions “propositions,” in uttering which we either speak the truth or lie. Some, too, are more than propositions. The following, for instance, is a proposition—

The cowherd doth resemble Priam’s sons;

for in uttering it we are either telling the truth or lying; but a phrase like this—

How like to Priam’s sons the cowherd is,

is somewhat more than a proposition and is not a proposition. As, however, there is considerable difference in the expressions in order that a thing may be true or false it must first of all, they say. be an expression, and next self-complete, and that, too, not of any and every kind but a proposition; for, as I said before, it is only when we utter this that we speak a truth or a falsehood.”

307f

“[A]nd of these arguments which deduce something non-evident some lead us on from the premisses to the conclusion by way of progression only, others both by way of progression and by way of discovery as well. And of these such as seem to depend on belief and memory lead us on by way of progression only, as, for example, “If a god has said to you that this man will be rich, this man will be rich; but this god (assume that I point to Zeus) has said to you that this man will be rich; therefore he will be rich.” For here we accept the conclusion, that this man will be rich, not as established by the power of the argument set forth, but owing to our belief in the statement of the god.”

313f

“In the same way one like this—“If a god said to you that this man will be rich, this man will be rich; but this particular god said to you that this man will be rich; therefore he will be rich”—has a non-evident conclusion, that “this man will be rich,” but is not probative because it is not discovered by the power of the premisses but meets with acceptance through trust in the god. When, then, all these things concur—that the argument is at once conclusive and true and making manifest a non-evident—then proof really exists.”