Book 1
2
There was with us there at the time a young student of philosophy, of the Stoic school according to his own account, but intolerably loquacious and presuming. In the course of the conversations which are commonly carried on at table after dinner, this fellow often used to prattle unseasonably, absurdly, and at immoderate length, on the principles of philosophy, maintaining that compared with himself all the Greek-speaking authorities, all wearers of the toga, and the Latin race in general were ignorant boors. As he spoke, he rattled off unfamiliar terms, the catchwords of syllogisms and dialectic tricks, declaring that no one but he could unravel the master, the resting, and the heap arguments, Where there are three propositions, any two of which are at variance with the third, they may be taken in pairs as true, rejecting the third as false. This is called the master argument, from kurieu/w, to be master over; see Epictetus, ii. 18 and 19. The fallacy is due to the fact that all persons do not hold to the truth of the same pair, and it is impossible to maintain all three propositions at once. The sorites raised the question, if one grain at a time were taken from a heap, when it would cease to be a heap; and conversely, if one grain at a time were added, when it would become a heap; see Cic. Acad. ii. 49. A variant, called the falakro/s, inquired whether a man was bald after the loss of one hair, of two, or of how many. Horace, in Epist. ii. 1. 45–47, has combined both of these with the story told by Plutarch of Sertorius (Sert. 16). The silent, or resting argument consisted in stopping and refusing to answer. It was used to meet the logical fallacy of the sorites. and other riddles of the kind. Furthermore, as to ethics, the nature of the human intellect, and the origin of the virtues with their duties and limits, or on the other hand the ills caused by disease and sin, and the wasting and destruction of the soul, he stoutly maintained that absolutely no one else had investigated, understood and mastered all these more thoroughly than himself. Further, he believed that torture, bodily pain and deadly peril could neither injure nor detract from the happy state and condition of life which, in his opinion, he had attained, and that no sorrow could even cloud the serenity of the Stoic's face and expression.
