BOOK I. XXIX. 51-57
the statement, 'If it is day, there is light,' to be false," what has happened to the hypothetical syllogism? Who is being judged in this case, who has been condemned? The hypothetical syllogism, or the man who has been deceived in his judgement about it? Who in the world, then, is this man who has authority to make any declaration about you? Does he know what piety or impiety is? Has he pondered the matter? Has he learned it? Where? Under whose instruction? And yet a musician pays no attention to him, if he declares that the lowest string is the highest,[1] nor does a geometrician, if the man decides that the lines extending from the centre to the circumference of a circle are not equal; but shall the truly educated man pay attention to an uninstructed person when he passes judgement on what is holy and unholy, and on what is just and unjust?
How great is the injustice committed by the educated in so doing! Is this, then, what you have learned here? 55Will you not leave to others, mannikins incapable of taking pains, the petty quibbles about these things, so that they may sit in a corner and gather in their petty fees, or grumble because nobody gives them anything, and will you not yourself come forward and make use of what you have learned? For what is lacking now is not quibbles; nay, the books of the Stoics are full of quibbles. What, then, is the thing lacking now? The man to make use of them, the man to bear witness to the arguments by his acts. This is the character I would have you assume, that we may no longer use old examples in the school, but may have some example from our own time
- ↑ The lowest string had, however, the highest note in pitch, and vice versa.
