e general name as its
own peculiar distinction. Its kinds are these:--"Can you fear this
man, and not fear that one?"--"You condemn this woman, against whom
you bring no accusation; and do you say that this other one deserves
punishment, whom you believe to deserve reward?"--"That which you do
know is no good; that which you do not know is a great hindrance to
you."

XIV. This kind of disputing is very closely connected with the mode
of discussion adopted by you lawyers in reply, and still more closely
with that adopted by philosophers, as they share with the orators
in the employment of that general conclusion which is drawn from
inconsistent sentences, which is called by dialecticians the third
mood, and by rhetoricians an enthymeme. There are many other
moods used by the rhetoricians, which consist of disjunctive
propositions:--"Either this or that is the case; but this is the case;
then that is not the case." And again:--"Either this or that is the
case; but this is not the case; then that is the case." And these
conclusions are valid, because in a disjunctive proposition only one
alternative can be true. And from those conclusions which I have
mentioned above, the former is called by the dialecticians the
fourth mood, and the latter the fifth. Then they add a negation of
conjunctive propositions; as, "It is not both this and that; but it is
this; therefore it is not that." This is the sixth mood. The seventh
is, "It is not both this and that; but it is not this; therefore it is
that." From these moods innumerable conclusions are derived, in which
nearly the whole science of dialectics consists. But even those which
I have now explained are not necessary for this present discussion.

XV. The next topic is drawn from efficient circumstances which are
called causes; and the next from the results produced by these
efficient causes. I have already given instances of these, as of the
other topics, and those too drawn from civil law; but these have a
wider application.

There are then two kinds of causes; one which of its own force to a
certainty produces that effect which is subordinate to it; as, "Fire
burns;" the other is that which has no nature able to produce the
effect in question, though still that effect cannot be produced
without it; as, if any one were to say, that "brass was the cause of a
statue; because a statue cannot be made without it." Now of this kind
of causes which are indispensable to a thing bei