Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

BOOK I. vii.5-13To state the true,, to eliminate the false, to suspendjudgement in doubtful cases. Is it enough, then,to learn this alone ? It isenough, saj-s one. Is it,then, also enough for the man who wants to makeno mistake in the use of money to be told thereason why you accept genuine drachmas and rejectthe counterfeit ? It is not enough. What, then,must be added to this ?Why, what else but thefaculty that tests the genuine drachmas and thecounterfeit and distinguishes between them ? Wherefore,in reasoning also the spoken word is not enough,is it? On the contrary, is it not necessary todevelop the power of testing the true and the falseand the uncertain and of distinguishing betweenthem ? It is necessary. What else besides this isproposed in reasoning ? Pray accept the consequenceof what you have properly granted. Come,is itenough, then, in this case also merely to knowthat this particular thingis true ? It is not enough,but one must learn in what way a thing follows as aconsequence upon certain other things, and howsometimes one thing follows upon one, and at othertimes upon, several conjointly. Is it not, then, necessarythat a man should also acquire this power, ifhe is to acquit himself intelligently in argument,and is himself not only to prove each point when hetries to prove it, but also to follow the argument ofthose who are conducting a proof, and is not to bemisled by men who quibble as though they wereproving something ? There has consequently arisenamong us, and shown itself to be necessary, a sciencewhich deals with inferential arguments and withlogical figures and trains men therein.But of course there are times when we haveS3