r I cannot deny it.
But the conclusions which follow from his premises are so false that the
premises from which they are deduced cannot be true. For the
dialecticians, you know, teach us that if the conclusions which follow
from any premises are false, the premises from which they follow cannot be
true. And so that conclusion is not only true, but so evident that even
the dialecticians do not think it necessary that any reasons should be
given for it--"If that is the case, this is; but this is not; therefore
that is not." And so, by denying your consequence, your premise is
contradicted. What follows, then?--"All who are not wise are equally
miserable; all wise men are perfectly happy: all actions done rightly are
equal to one another; all offences are equal." But, though all these
propositions at first appear to be admirably laid down, after a little
consideration they are not so much approved of. For every man's own
senses, and the nature of things, and truth itself, cried out, after a
fashion, that they could never be induced to believe that there was no
difference between those things which Zeno asserted to be equal.

XX. Afterwards that little Phoenician of yours (for you know that the
people of Citium, your clients, came from Phoenicia), a shrewd man, as he
was not succeeding in his case, since nature herself contradicted him,
began to withdraw his words; and first of all he granted in favour of
those things which we consider good, that they might be considered fit,
and useful, and adapted to nature; and he began to confess that it was
more advantageous for a wise--that is to say for a perfectly happy--man, to
have those things which he does not venture indeed to call goods, but yet
allows to be well adapted to nature. And he denies that Plato, if he were
not a wise man, would be in the same circumstances as the tyrant
Dionysius; for that to die was better for the one, because he despaired of
attaining wisdom, but to live was better for the other, because of his
hope of doing so. And he asserts that of offences some are tolerable, and
some by no means so, because many men passed by some offences, and there
are others which very few people pass by, on account of the number of
duties violated. Again, he said that some men are so foolish as to be
utterly unable ever to arrive at wisdom; but that there are others who, if
they had taken pains, might have attained to it. Now, in this he expressed
himself differently fro