subsistent, as also what
is fortuitous; and in those motions devised by some and called
adventitious, there occur certain obscure causes, which, being concealed
from us, move our inclinations to one side or other. These are some of
those things which are most evidently known to have been frequently said
by him; but what he has said contrary to this, not lying so exposed to
every one's sight, I will set down in his own words. For in his book
of Judging, having supposed two running for a wager to have exactly
finished their race together, he examines what is fit for the judge in
this case to do. "Whether," says he, "may the judge give the palm to
which of them he will, since they both happen to be so familiar to him,
that he would in some sort appear to bestow on them somewhat of his own?
Or rather, since the palm is common to both, may it be, as if lots had
been cast, given to either, according to the inclination he chances
to have? I say the inclination he chances to have, as when two groats,
every way else alike, being presented to us, we incline to one of them
and take it." And in his Sixth Book of Duties, having said that there
are some things not worthy of much study or attention, he thinks we
ought, as if we had cast lots, to commit the choice of those things to
the casual inclination of the mind: "As if," says he, "of those who
try the same two drams in a certain time, some should approve this and
others that, and there being no more cause for the taking of one than
the other, we should leave off making any farther investigation and
take that which chances to come first; thus casting the lot (as it were)
according to some uncertain principle, and being in danger of choosing
the worse of them." For in these passages, the casting of lots and the
casual inclining of the mind, which is without any cause, introduce the
choice of indifferent things.

In his Third Book of Dialectics, having said that Plato, Aristotle, and
those who came after them, even to Polemon and Straton, but especially
Socrates, diligently studied dialectics, and having cried out that one
would even choose to err with such and so great men as these, he brings
in these words: "For if they had spoken of these things cursorily,
one might perhaps have cavilled at this place; but having treated of
dialectic skill as one of the greatest and most necessary faculties, it
is not probable they should have been so much mistaken, having been such
in all the pa