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The Project Gutenberg eBook of ... same, seeing that all parts were in a continuous flux. Knowledge based only on sense was therefore mere opinion (31). Real knowledge only came through the reasonings of the mind, hence they defined everything about which they argued, and also used verbal explanations, from which they drew proofs. In these two processes consisted their dialectic, to which they added persuasive rhetoric (32). §30. Quae erat: the Platonic ??, = was, as we said. In ratione et disserendo: an instance of Cicero's fondness for tautology, cf. D.F. I. 22 quaerendi ac disserendi. Quamquam oriretur: the sentence is inexact, it is knowledge which takes its rise in the senses, not the criterion of truth, which is the mind itself; cf. however II. 30 and n. Iudicium: the constant translation of ???t?????, a word foreign to the older philosophy. Mentem volebant rerum esse iudicem: Halm with his pet MS. writes esse rerum, thus giving an almost perfect iambic, strongly stopped off before and after, so that there is no possibility of avoiding it in reading. I venture to say that no real parallel can be found to this in Cic., it stands in glaring contradiction to his own rules about admitting metre in prose, Orator 194 sq., De Or. III. 182 sq. Solam censebant ... tale quale esset: probably from Plato's Tim. 35 A thus translated by Cic., Tim. c. 7 ex ea materia quae individua est et unius modi (ae? ?ata ta?ta e???s?? cf. 28 A. t? ?ata ta?ta e???) et sui simile, cf. also T.D. I. 58 id solum esse quod semper tale sit quale sit, quam ?dea? appellat ille, nos speciem, and Ac. II. 129. Illi ?dea?, etc.: there is more than one difficulty here. The words iam a Platone ita nom seem to exclude Plato from the supposed old Academico-Peripatetic school. This may be an oversight, but to say first that the school (illi, cf. sic tractabatur ab utrisque) which included Aristotle held the doctrine of ?dea?, and next, in 33, that Aristotle crushed the same doctrine, appears very absurd. We may reflect, however, that the difference between Plato's ?dea? and Aristotle's ta ?a? a??? would naturally seem microscopic to Antiochus. Both theories were practically as dead in his time as those of Thales or Anaxagoras. The confusion must not be laid at Cicero's door, for Antiochus in reconciling his own dialectics with Plato's must have been driven to desperate shifts. Cicero's very knowledge of Plato has, however, probably led him to intensify what inconsistency there was in Antiochus, who would have glided over Plato's opinions with a much more cautious step. §31. Sensus omnis hebetes: this stands in contradiction to the whole Antiochean view as given in II. 12—64, cf. esp. 19 sensibus quorum ita clara et certa iudicia sunt, etc.: Antiochus would probably defend his agreement with Plato by asserting that though sense is naturally dull, reason may sift out the certain from the uncertain. Res eas ... quae essent aut ita: Halm by following his pet MS. without regard to the meaning of Cic. has greatly increased the difficulty of the passage. He reads res ullas ... quod aut ita essent; thus making Antiochus assert that no true information can be got from sensation, whereas, as we shall see in the Lucullus, he really divided sensations into true and false. I believe that we have a mixture here of Antiochus' real view with Cicero's reminiscences of the Theaetetus and of Xenocrates; see below. Nec percipere: for this see Lucullus passim. Christ's conj. percipi, quod perceptio sit mentis non sensuum, which Halm seems to approve, is a wanton corruption of the text, cf. II. 101 neget rem ullam percipi posse sensibus, so 21, 119 (just like ratione percipi 91), also I. 41 sensu comprehensum. Subiectae sensibus: cf. II. 74 and Sext. Emp. Adv. Math. VIII. 9, ta ??p?p?pt??ta t? a?s??se?. Aut ita mobiles, etc.: this strongly reminds one of the Theaetetus, esp. 160 D sq. For constans cf. est??? ?, which so often occurs there and in the Sophistes. Ne idem: Manut. for MSS. eidem. In the Theaetetus, Heraclitus' theory of flux is carried to such an extent as to destroy the self-identity of things; even the word eµe is stated to be an absurdity, since it implies a permanent subject, whereas the subject is changing from moment to moment; the expression therefore ought to be t? ?? eµe. Continenter: ???e???; cf. Simplicius quoted in Grote's Plato, I. p. 37, about Heraclitus, e? µetaß??? ?a? s??e?e? ta ??ta. Laberentur et fluerent: cf. the phrases ????, pa?ta ??e?, ????? ??e?µata ???e?s?a? ta pa?ta, etc., which are scattered thickly over the Theaet. and the ancient texts about Heraclitus; also a very similar passage in Orator 10. Opinabilem: d??ast??, so opinabile = d??ast?? in Cic. Tim ch. II. The term was largely used by Xenocrates (R. and P. 243 —247), Arist. too distinguishes between the d??ast?? and the ep?st?t??, e.g Analyt. Post. I. 33 http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14970/14970-h/14970-h.htm[1/5/2010 10:31:57 AM]
The Project Gutenberg eBook of ... (qu. R. and P. 264). §32. For this cf. D.F. IV. 8—10. Notionibus: so one MS. for motionibus which the rest have. Notio is Cicero's regular translation for e????a, which is Stoic. This statement might have been made both by Aristotle and Plato, though each would put a separate meaning on the word notio. ? p?st?µ? in Plato is of the ?dea? only, while in Aristotle it is t?? ?a?????; cf. Anal. Post. I. 33 (R. and P. 264), ?e?? ???? a???? ep?st?µ??. Definitiones rerum: these must be carefully distinguished fiom definitiones nominum, see the distinction drawn after Aristotle in R. and P. 265, note b. The definitio rei really involves the whole of philosophy with Plato and Aristotle (one might almost add, with moderns too). Its importance to Plato may be seen from the Politicus and Sophistes, to Aristotle from the passages quoted in R. and P. pp. 265, 271, whose notes will make the subject as clear as it can be made to any one who has not a knowledge of the whole of Aristotle's philosophy. Verborum explicatio: this is quite a different thing from those definitiones nominum just referred to; it is derivation, which does not necessitate definition. et?µ?????a?: this is almost entirely Stoic. The word is foreign to the Classic Greek Prose, as are et?µ?? and all its derivatives. (?t?µ?? means "etymologically" in the De Mundo, which however is not Aristotle's). The word et?µ?????a is itself not frequent in the older Stoics, who use rather ??? µat?? ????t?? (Diog. Laert. VII. 83), the title of their books on the subject preserved by Diog. is generally "pe?? t?? et?µ????????" The systematic pursuit of etymology was not earlier than Chrysippus, when it became distinctive of the Stoic school, though Zeno and Cleanthes had given the first impulse (N.D. III. 63). Specimens of Stoic etymology are given in N.D. II. and ridiculed in N.D. III. (cf. esp. 62 in enodandis nominibus quod miserandum sit laboratis). Post argumentis et quasi rerum notis ducibus: the use of etymology in rhetoric in order to prove something about the thing denoted by the word is well illustrated in Topica 10, 35. In this rhetorical sense Cic. rejects the translation veriloquium of et?µ?????a and adopts notatio, the rerum nota (Greek s? µß????) being the name so explained (Top. 35). Varro translated et?µ?????a by originatio (Quintil. I. 6, 28). Aristotle had already laid down rules for this rhetorical use of etymology, and Plato also incidentally adopts it, so it may speciously be said to belong to the old Academico- Peripatetic school. A closer examination of authorities would have led Halm to retract his bad em. notationibus for notas ducibus, the word notatio is used for the whole science of etymology, and not for particular derivations, while Cic. in numerous passages (e.g. D.F. V. 74) describes verba or nomina as rerum notae. Berkley's nodis for notis has no support, (enodatio nominum in N.D. III. 62 is quite different). One more remark, and I conclude this wearisome note. The quasi marks rerum nota as an unfamiliar trans. of s?µß????. Davies therefore ought not to have placed it before ducibus, which word, strong as the metaphor is, requires no qualification, see a good instance in T.D. I. 27. Itaque tradebatur: so Halm improves on Madvig's ita for in qua of the MSS., which cannot be defended. Orelli's reference to 30 pars for an antecedent to qua (in ea parte in qua) is violent, while Goerenz's resort to partem rerum opinabilem is simply silly. Manut. conj. in quo, Cic. does often use the neut. pronoun, as in Orator 3, but not quite thus. I have sometimes thought that Cic. wrote haec, inquam (cf. huic below). Dialecticae: as ?????? had not been Latinised, Cic. is obliged to use this word to denote ??????, of which d?a?e?t??? is really one subdivision with the Stoics and Antiochus, ???t????? which is mentioned in the next sentence being the other; see Zeller 69, 70. Orationis ratione conclusae: speech drawn up in a syllogistic form which becomes oratio perpetua under the influence of ???t?????. Quasi ex altera parte: a trans. of Aristotle's a?t?st??f?? in the beginning of the Rhetoric. Oratoria: Halm brackets this word; cf. however a close parallel in Brut. 261 oratorio ornamenta dicendi. The construction is simply a variation of Cic.'s favourite double genitive (T.D. III. 39), oratoria being put for oratoris. Ad persuadendum: t? p??a??? is with Arist. and all ancient authorities the one aim of ???t?????. §§33—42. Part v. of Varro's exposition: the departures from the old Academico- Peripatetic school. Summary. Arist. crushed the ?dea? of Plato, Theophrastus weakened the power of virtue (33). Strato abandoned ethics for physics, Speusippus, Xenocrates, Polemo, Crates, Crantor faithfully kept the old tradition, to which Zeno http://www.gutenberg.org/files/14970/14970-h/14970-h.htm[1/5/2010 10:31:57 AM]
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