The gods are infinitely obliged to this favourable opinion of their judgment.-But Chrysippus is best known to us as the inventor of that notable species of argument the Sorites, (wpos) or Heap, which is made up of an indefinite number of propositions, the one rising out of the other, so that the progression is infinite, unless a conclusion is formed by adroitly connecting the predicate with the first subject. Cicero, who has more than one reference to it in his Academicks, calls it," Captiosum genus interrogationis quod minimè in Philosophia probari solet, cum aliquod minutatim et gradatim additur aut demitur." This he illustrates, elsewhere, by the well-known instance.-What precise number of grains constitute a heap? Do three? four? five ? &c. Again: At what precise point does a heap cease to be so? When one ?-two?-three? four, &c. grains are taken from it? Enough of this idle sophism—it is more than time to follow the example of Holyday. "Wherefore, not to trouble the reader further with these roundabouts, I come to the poet : "And now, where likewise I may rest, design, 66 Chrysippus, thou that didst thy heap confine." whole System to Olympus; for of the seven hundred and fifty books which this doctor subtilissimus is said to have excogitated, not one has been seen on earth for many ages. * Holyday has yet a few last words; and those who are acquainted with the real character of his version of Juvenal, which he was now meditating, will smile at the energy with which he threatens to wind up each corporal faculty to that great work: "This lash has but SIXE knots: but see thou mend; "Or peradventure else, I shall intend "To come in fury; and thee naked strip, "And scourge thee with a SIXTEENE knotted whip." |