able to bear everything that happens without being depressed or broken
by it; but, like a good king and a true father, He has given us
these faculties free from hindrance, subject to no compulsion
unimpeded, and has put them entirely in our own power, without even
having reserved to Himself any power of hindering or impeding. You,
who have received these powers free and as your own, use them not: you
do not even see what you have received, and from whom; some of you
being blinded to the giver, and not even acknowledging your
benefactor, and others, through meanness of spirit, betaking
yourselves to fault finding and making charges against God. Yet I will
show to you that you have powers and means for greatness of soul and
manliness but what powers you have for finding fault and making
accusations, do you show me.

CHAPTER 7

Of the use of sophistical arguments, and hypothetical, and the like

The handling of sophistical and hypothetical arguments, and of those
which derive their conclusions from questioning, and in a word the
handling of all such arguments, relates to the duties of life,
though the many do not know this truth. For in every matter we inquire
how the wise and good man shall discover the proper path and the
proper method of dealing with the matter. Let, then, people either say
that the grave man will not descend into the contest of question and
answer, or that, if he does descend into the contest, he will take
no care about not conducting himself rashly or carelessly in
questioning and answering. But if they do not allow either the one
or the other of these things, they must admit that some inquiry
ought to be made into those topics on which particularly questioning
and answering are employed. For what is the end proposed in reasoning?
To establish true propositions, to remove the false, to withhold
assent from those which are not plain. Is it enough then to have
learned only this? "It is enough," a man may reply. Is it, then,
also enough for a man, who would not make a mistake in the use of
coined money, to have heard this precept, that he should receive the
genuine drachmae and reject the spurious? "It is not enough." What,
then, ought to be added to this precept? What else than the faculty
which proves and distinguishes the genuine and the spurious
drachmae? Consequently also in reasoning what has been said is not
enough; but is it necessary that a man should acquire the faculty of
examining and distinguishing the true and the false, and that which is
not plain? "It is necessary." Besides this, what is proposed in
reasoning? "That you should accept what follows from that which you
have properly granted." Well, is it then enough in this case also to
know this? It is not enough; but a man must learn how one thing is a
consequence of other things, and when one thing follows from one
thing, and when it follows from several collectively. Consider, then
if it be not necessary that this power should also be acquired by
him who purposes to conduct himself skillfully in reasoning, the power