To give a solution to the inclinations, when a man
seems to be necessitated by exterior causes, some philosophers place in the principal faculty of the soul a certain
adventitious motion, which is chiefly manifested in things
differing not at all from one another. For when, with two
things altogether alike and of equal importance, there is a
necessity to choose the one, there being no cause inclining
to either, for that neither of them differs from the other,
this adventitious power of the soul, seizing on its inclination, determines the doubt. Chrysippus, discoursing against
these men, as offering violence to Nature by devising an
effect without a cause, in many places alleges the die and
the balance, and several other things, which cannot fall or
incline either one way or the other without some cause or
difference, either wholly within them or coming to them
from without; for that what is causeless (he says) is
[p. 453]
wholly insubsistent, 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, because they both happen to be
so familiar to him, that he would in some sort seem 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 groats in a
certain time, some should say this and others that to be
good, and there being no more cause for the taking of one
than the other, we should leave off making any farther
enquiry into their value, and take that which chances to
come first to hand; thus casting the lot (as it were) according to some hidden 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.
[p. 454]
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.