,
Persuade me that logic is necessary, he replied, Do you wish me to prove
this to you? The answer was, Yes. Then I must use a demonstrative form
of speech. This was granted. How then will you know if I am cheating you
by my argument? The man was silent. Do you see, said Epictetus, that you
yourself are admitting that logic is necessary, if without it you cannot
know so much as this, whether logic is necessary or not necessary?

* * * * *

OF FINERY IN DRESS.--A certain young man, a rhetorician, came to see
Epictetus, with his hair dressed more carefully than was usual and his
attire in an ornamental style; whereupon Epictetus said, Tell me if you
do not think that some dogs are beautiful and some horses, and so of all
other animals. I do think so, the youth replied. Are not then some men
also beautiful and others ugly? Certainly. Do we then for the same
reason call each of them in the same kind beautiful, or each beautiful
for something peculiar? And you will judge of this matter thus. Since we
see a dog naturally formed for one thing, and a horse for another, and
for another still, as an example, a nightingale, we may generally and
not improperly declare each of them to be beautiful then when it is most
excellent according to its nature; but since the nature of each is
different, each of them seems to me to be beautiful in a different way.
Is it not so? He admitted that it was. That then which makes a dog
beautiful, makes a horse ugly; and that which makes a horse beautiful,
makes a dog ugly, if it is true that their natures are different. It
seems to be so. For I think that what makes a Pancratiast beautiful,
makes a wrestler to be not good, and a runner to be most ridiculous; and
he who is beautiful for the Pentathlon, is very ugly for wrestling. It
is so, said he. What then makes a man beautiful? Is it that which in its
kind makes both a dog and a horse beautiful? It is, he said. What then
makes a dog beautiful? The possession of the excellence of a dog. And
what makes a horse beautiful? The possession of the excellence of a
horse. What then makes a man beautiful? Is it not the possession of the
excellence of a man? And do you then, if you wish to be beautiful, young
man, labor at this, the acquisition of human excellence? But what is
this? Observe whom you yourself praise, when you praise many persons
without partiality: do you praise the just or the unjust? The just.
Whether do you