Vitarum auctio

Heraclitus What name?

Fifth Dealer Dion; of Syracuse.

Heraclitus Take him, and much good may he do you. Now I want Epicureanism. Who offers for Epicureanism? He isa disciple of the laughing creed and the drunken creed, whom we were offering just now. But he has one extra accomplishment— impiety. For the rest, a dainty, lickerish creed.

Sixth Dealer What price?

Heraclitus Eight pounds.

Sixth Dealer Here you are. By the way, you might let me know what he likes to eat.

Heraclitus Anything sweet. Anything with honey in it. Dried figs are his favourite dish.

Sixth Dealer That is all right. We will get in a supply of Carian fig-cakes,

Zeus Call the next lot.

Stoicism; the creed of the sorrowful countenance, the close-cropped creed.

Heraclitus Ah yes, several customiers, I fancy, are on the look-out for him. Virtue incarnate! The very quintessence of creeds! Who is for universal monopoly?

Seventh Dealer How are we to understand that?

Heraclitus Why, here is monopoly of wisdom, monopoly of beauty, monopoly of courage, monopoly of justice. Sole king, sole orator, sole legislator, sole millionaire.

Seventh Dealer And I suppose sole cook, sole tanner, sole carpenter, and all that?

Heraclitus Presumably.

Seventh D. Regard me as your purchaser, good fellow, and tell me all about yourself. I dare say you think it rather hard to be sold for a slave?

Chrysippus Not at all. These things are beyond our control. And what is beyond our control is indifferent.

Seventh Dealer I don’t see how you make that out.

Chrysippus What! Have you yet to learn that of indifferentia some are praepostta and others rejecta?

Seventh Dealer Still I don’t quite see.

Chrysippus No; how should you? You are not familiar with our terms. You lack the comprebensio vist. The earnest student of logic knows this and more than this. He understands the nature of subject, predicate, and contingent, and the distinctions between them.

Seventh Dealer Now in Wisdom’s name, tell me, pray, what is a predicate? what is a contingent? ‘There is a ring about those words that takes my fancy.

Chrysippus With all my heart. A man lame in one foot knocks that foot accidentally against a stone, and gets a cut. Now the man is subject to lameness; which is the predicate. And the cut is a contingency.