Page:The academic questions, treatise de finibus, and Tusculan disputations.djvu/77

 arts, which are, as it were, second senses; and it strengthens philosophy itself to such a degree that it creates virtue, to which single thing all life is subordinate. Therefore, those men who affirm that nothing can be comprehended, take away by their assertion all these instruments or ornaments of life; or rather, I should say, utterly overturn the whole of life, and deprive the animal itself of mind (animo), so that it is difficult to speak of their rashness as the merits of the case require.

Nor can I sufficiently make out what their ideas or intentions really are. For sometimes, when we address them with this argument,—that if the doctrines which we are upholding are not true, then everything must be uncertain: they reply,—Well, what is that to us? is that our fault? blame nature, who, as Democritus says, has buried truth deep in the bottom of the sea.

But others defend themselves more elegantly, who complain also that we accuse them of calling everything uncertain; and they endeavour to explain how much difference there is between what is uncertain and what cannot be perceived, and to make a distinction between them. Let us, then, now deal with those who draw this distinction, and let us abandon, as incurable and desperate, those who say that everything is as uncertain as whether the number of the stars be odd or even. For they contend, (and I noticed that you were especially moved by this,) that there is something probable, and, as I may say, likely; and that they adopt that likelihood as a rule in steering their course of life, and in making inquiries and conducting discussions.

XI. But what rule can there be, if we have no notion whatever of true or false, because it is impossible to distinguish one from the other? For, if we have such a notion, then there must be a difference between what is true and what is false, as there is between what is right and what is wrong. If there is no difference, then there is no rule; nor can a man to whom what is true and what is false appear under one common aspect, have any means of judging of, or any mark at all by which he can know the truth. For when they say, that they take away nothing but the idea of anything being able to appear in such a manner that it cannot possibly appear false in the same manner but that they admit everything else, they are acting childishly. For though they have