114 //-3
- Sensibles are conceived on the basis of direct experience; on the
basis of similarity are conceived things [known] from something which
is at hand-as Socrates is conceived of on the basis of his statue; on the
basis of analogy things are conceived by expansion, for example, Tityos
and the Cyclops, and by shrinking, for example, a Pygmy. And the centre
of the earth is conceived through analogy with smaller spheres. On the
basis of transposition, for example, eyes in the chest. On the basis of
composition the Hippocentaur is conceived of; and death on the basis of
opposition [to life]. Some things too are conceived of on the basis of
transference, for example, the things said [lekta] and place. And there is
a natural origin too for the conception of something just and good. Also
on the basis of privation, for example, a man without a hand. These are
their doctrines on presentation, sense-perception and conception. - They say that the graspable presentation, i.e. the one from what
exists, is a criterion of truth, as Chrysippus says in book 2 of the Physics
and Antipater and Apollodorus too. For Boethus says that there are a
number of criteria: mind, sense-perception, desire, and knowledge. But
Chrysippus, disagreeing with him in book one of On Rational Discourse,
says that sense-perception and the basic grasp are criteria. (A basic grasp
is a natural conception of things which are universal.) And other older
Stoics say that right reason is a criterion, as Posidonius says in his On
the Criterion. - Most of them are agreed that the study of dialectic should begin
from the topic of utterance. An utterance is air which has been struck,
or the proper sensible of hearing, as Diogenes of Babylon says in his
Treatise on Utterance. An animal's utterance is air struck by an impulse,
while a human [utterance] is articulate and emitted from the intellect,
as Diogenes says; and this [the intellect] is completed from the age of
fourteen on. And utterance is a body, according to the Stoics, as Archede-
mus says in his On Utterance and Diogenes and Anti pater, and Chrysippus
in book two of his Physics. 56. For everything which acts is a body, and
voice does act when it comes to the listeners from the utterers. As
Diogenes says, speech, according to the Stoics, is an utterance in letters,
for example 'day'. Rational discourse [logos] is an utterance which signifies,
emitted from the intellect; <for example, 'It is day'.> And dialect is speech
marked both as Greek and as distinctive of a [specific] ethnic group; or
speech from a particular region, i.e., which is peculiar in its dialect. For
example, in Attic [one says] thalatta [for thalassa], and in Ionic hemere
[for hemera].
The elements of speech are the twenty-four letters. Letter is used in
three sense,, the character and the name, for example alpha. - There are seven vowels among the elements, alpha, epsilon, eta, iota,