Quapropter si venturus es, scito [231]
necesse esse te venire. Sin autem non es, [Greek: ton adynaton] est te
venire. Nunc vide utra te [Greek: krisis] magis delectet, [Greek:
Chrysippeia] ne, an haec; quam noster Diodorus [a Stoic who for a long time
had lived in Cicero's house] non concoquebat." This is quoted from a letter
that Cicero wrote to Varro. He sets forth more comprehensively the whole
state of the question, in the little book _De Fato_. I am going to quote a
few pieces (Cic., _De Fato_, p. m. 65): "Vigila, Chrysippe, ne tuam causam,
in qua tibi cum Diodoro valente Dialectico magna luctatio est, deseras ...
omne ergo quod falsum dicitur in futuro, id fieri non potest. At hoc,
Chrysippe, minime vis, maximeque tibi de hoc ipso cum Diodoro certamen est.
Ille enim id solum fieri posse dicit, quod aut sit verum, aut futurum sit
verum; et quicquid futurum sit, id dicit fieri necesse esse; et quicquid
non sit futurum, id negat fieri posse. Tu etiam quae non sint futura, posse
fieri dicis, ut frangi hanc gemmam, etiamsi id nunquam futurum sit: neque
necesse fuisse Cypselum regnare Corinthi, quamquam id millesimo ante anno
Apollinis Oraculo editum esset.... Placet Diodoro, id solum fieri posse,
quod aut verum sit, aut verum futurum sit: qui locus attingit hanc
quaestionem, nihil fieri, quod non necesse fuerit; et quicquid fieri
possit, id aut esse jam, aut futurum esse: nec magis commutari ex veris in
falsa ea posse quae futura sunt, quam ea quae facta sunt: sed in factis
immutabilitatem apparere; in futuris quibusdam, quia non apparent, ne
inesse quidem videri: ut in eo qui mortifero morbo urgeatur, verum sit, hic
morietur hoc morbo: at hoc idem si vere dicatur in eo, in quo tanta vis
morbi non appareat, nihilominus futurum sit. Ita fit ut commutatio ex vero
in falsum, ne in futuro quidem ulla fieri possit." Cicero makes it clear
enough that Chrysippus often found himself in difficulties in this dispute,
and that is no matter for astonishment: for the course he had chosen was
not bound up with his dogma of fate, and, if he had known how, or had
dared, to reason consistently, he would readily have adopted the whole
hypothesis of Diodorus. We have seen already that the freedom he assigned
to the soul, and his comparison of the cylinder, did not preclude the
possibility that in reality all the acts of the human will were unavoidable
consequences of fate. Hence it follows that everything which does not
happen is impo