21–22
Chrysippos
Not at all; for those things are not under our control, and what is not under our control is therefore indifferent.
Buyer
I don't understand just what you mean.
Chrysippos
What, do you not understand that in such matters some things are preferred and some again rejected?
Buyer
I don't understand even yet.
5
Chrysippos
Naturally, for you are not accustomed to our terminology, nor have you the perceptive imagination. But the virtuous man, he who has mastered logical theory, knows not only these things, but also the nature of an accident and a secondary accident, and how much difference there is between them.
Buyer
In the name of wisdom, kindly take the trouble to tell me this, too: what accidents and secondary accidents are. I am indescribably impressed by the roll of the words.
Chrysippos
No trouble at all. If a lame man, stumbling with that lame foot itself against a stone gets unexpectedly hurt, this man's lameness is evidently a primary accident to which he adds a secondary accident in the way of the wound.
Buyer
What else, now, do you claim to know?
Chrysippos
The meshes of argument wherewith I trip up my interlocutors and block their passage and reduce them to silence by actually muzzling them. The name of this faculty is the famous syllogism.
Buyer
By Herkules, it is an irresistible, mighty weapon, from your description.
Chrysippos
I will give you a specimen. Have you a child?
5
