sputes that he shall dispute, and of
him who writes that he shall write. Moreover, there will be no part of
that which now is, but either has been or is to be, and is either past
or future; but of what has been and is to be, of past and future, there
is no sense; wherefore there is absolutely no sense of anything. For we
neither see what is past and future, nor do we hear or have any other
sense of what has been or is to be. Nothing, then, even what is present,
is to be perceived by sense, if of the present, part is always future
and part past,--if part has been and part is to be.

Now they indeed say, that Epicurus does intolerable things and violates
the conceptions, in moving all bodies with equal celerity, and admitting
none of them to be swifter than another. And yet it is much more
intolerable and farther remote from sense, that nothing can be overtaken
by another:--

Not though Adrastus's swift-footed steed
Should chase the tortoise slow,

as the proverb has it. Now this must of necessity fall out, if things
move according to PRIUS and POSTERIUS, and the intervals through which
they pass are (as these men's tenet is) divisible IN INFINITUM; for if
the tortoise is but a furlong before the horse, they who divide
this furlong in infinitum, and move them both according to PRIUS and
POSTERIUS, will never bring the swiftest to the slowest; the slower
always adding some interval divisible into infinite spaces. Now to
affirm that, water being poured from a bowl or cup, it will never be all
poured out, is it not both against common sense, and a consequence of
what these men say? For no man can understand the motion according to
PRIUS of things infinitely divisible to be consummated; but leaving
always somewhat divisible, it will make all the effusion, all the
running and flux of a liquid, motion of a solid, and fall of an heavy
thing imperfect.

I pass by many absurdities of theirs, touching only such as are against
sense. The dispute concerning increase is indeed ancient; for the
question, as Chrysippus says, was put by Epicharmus. Now, whereas those
of the Academy think that the doubt is not very easy and ready all of
a sudden to be cleared, these men have mightily exclaimed against them,
and accused them of taking away the fixed ideas, and yet themselves are
so far from preserving the common notions, that they pervert even
sense itself. For the discourse is simple, and these men grant the
suppositions,--