Kitap 7
2.4
As regards facts falling within the present, if they can be detected by the eye without any reference to their logical antecedents being required, there will be no need of conjecture: let us suppose, for instance, that the Lacedaemonians are enquiring whether the Athenians are erecting fortifications. But although conjecture may seem entirely foreign to this class of question, there are cases in which it it necessary, as in questions of personal identity, which may be illustrated by the action brought against the heirs of Urbinia, cv. IV. i. 11 and VII. ii. 26. where the question was whether the man who claimed the property as being the son of the deceased, was Figulus or Sosipater.
2.5
In this case the actual person was before the eyes of the court, so that there could be no question whether he existed (as there is, for instance, when we ask whether there exists any land beyond the Ocean) cp. viii. 16. nor what he was nor of what kind. The question was simply, who he was. But this kind of dispute also depends on past time. The problem is whether this man Clusinius Figulus was born of Urbinia. Such disputes have arisen even in our own day, indeed I myself have pleaded in such. On the other hand,
