Greek Texts & Translations

There are five excellences of speech - pure Greek, lucidity, conciseness, appropriateness, distinction. By good Greek is meant language faultless in point of grammar and free from careless vulgarity. Lucidity is a style which presents the thought in a way easily understood ; conciseness a style that employs no more words than are necessary for setting forth the subject in hand ; appropriateness lies in a style akin to the subject ; distinction in the avoidance of colloquialism. Among vices of style barbarism is violation of the usage of Greeks of good standing ; while there is solecism when the sentence has an incongruous construction.

Posidonius in his treatise On Style defines a poetical phrase as one that is metrical or rhythmical, thus mechanically avoiding the character of prose ; an example of such rhythmical phrase is :

O mightiest earth, O sky, God's canopy. ^note

And if such poetical phraseology is significant and includes a portrayal or representation of things human and divine, it is poetry.

A term is, as stated by Antipater in his first book On Terms, a word which, when a sentence is analysed, is uttered with complete meaning ; or, according to Chrysippus in his book On Definitions, is a rendering back one's own. ^note Delineation is a statement which brings one to a knowledge of the subject in outline, or it may be called a definition which embodies the force of the definition proper in a simpler form. Genus (in logic) is the comprehension in one of a number of inseparable objects of thought : e.g. Animal ; for this includes all particular animals.

A notion or object of thought is a presentation to the intellect, which though not really substance nor attribute is quasi-substance or quasi-attribute. ^note Thus an image of a horse may rise before the mind, although there is no horse present.

Species is that which is comprehended under genus : thus Man is included under Animal. The highest or most universal genus is that which, being itself a genus, has no genus above : namely, reality or the real ; and the lowest and most particular species is that which, being itself a species, has no species below it, e.g. Socrates.

Division of a genus means dissection of it into its proximate species, thus : Animals are either rational or irrational (dichotomy). Contrary division dissects the genus into species by contrary qualities : for example, by means of negation, as when all things that are are divided into good and not good. Subdivision is division applied to a previous division : for instance, after saying, "Of things that are some are good, some are not good," we proceed, "and of the not good some are bad, some are neither good nor bad (morally indifferent)."

Partition in logic is (according to Crinis) classification or distribution of a genus under heads : for instance, Of goods some are mental, others bodily.

Verbal ambiguity arises when a word properly, rightfully, and in accordance with fixed usage denotes two or more different things, so that at one and the same time we may take it in several distinct senses : e.g. in Greek, where by the same verbal expression may be meant in the one case that "A house has three times" fallen, in the other that "a dancing-girl" has fallen.

Posidonius defines Dialectic as the science dealing with truth, falsehood, and that which is neither true nor false ; whereas Chrysippus takes its subject to be signs and things signified. Such then is the gist of what the Stoics say in their theory of language.

To the department dealing with things as such and things signified is assigned the doctrine of expressions, including those which are complete in themselves, as well as judgements and syllogisms and that of defective expressions comprising predicates both direct and reversed. ^note

By verbal expression they mean that of which the content corresponds to some rational presentation. Of such expressions the Stoics say that some are complete in themselves and others defective. Those are defective the enunciation of which is unfinished, as e.g. "writes," for we inquire "Who ?" Whereas in those that are complete in themselves the enunciation is finished, as "Socrates writes." And so under the head of defective expressions are ranged all predicates, while under those complete in themselves fall judgements, syllogisms, questions, and inquiries.

A predicate is, according to the followers of Apollodorus, what is said of something ; in other words, a thing associated with one or more subjects ; or, again, it may be defined as a defective expression which has to be joined on to a nominative case in order to yield a judgement. Of predicates some are adjectival [and so have personal subjects], as e.g. "to sail through rocks." ^note Again, some predicates are direct, some reversed, some neither. Now direct predicates are those that are constructed with one of the oblique cases, as "hears," "sees," "converses"; while reversed are those constructed with the passive voice, as "I am heard," "I am seen." Neutral are such as correspond to neither of these, as "thinks," "walks." Reflexive predicates are those among the passive, which, although in form passive, are yet active operations, ^{note note}: