1. Cicero, Academ. ii. pp. 30-96. "Si dicis te mentiri verumque dicis, mentiris. Dicis autem te mentiri, verumque dicis: mentiris igitur." 2, 3. [Greek: O( e)gkekalumme/nos]. You know your father: you are placed before a person covered and concealed by a thick veil: you do not know him. But this person is your father. Therefore you both know your father and do not know him. 5. [Greek: Kerati/nês]. That which you have not lost, you have: but you have not lost horns; therefore you _have_ horns. 4, 6. [Greek: Sôrei/tês--Pha/lakros]. What number of grains make a heap--or are many? what number are few? Are three grains few, and four _many_?--or, where will you draw the line between Few and Many? The like question about the hairs on a man's head--How many must he lose before he can be said to have only a few, or to be bald?] These sophisms are ascribed to Eubulides, and belonged probably to the Megaric school both before and after him. But it is plain both from the Euthydêmus of Plato, and from the Topica of Aristotle, that there were many others of similar character; frequently employed in the abundant dialectic colloquies which prevailed at Athens during the fourth and third centuries B.C. Plato and Aristotle handle such questions and their authors contemptuously, under the name of Eristic: but it was more easy to put a bad name upon them, as well as upon the Eleate Zeno, than to elucidate the logical difficulties which they brought to view. Neither Aristotle nor Plato provided a sufficient answer to them: as is proved by the fact, that several subsequent philosophers wrote treatises expressly in reference to them--even philosophers of reputation, like Theophrastus and Chrysippus.[38] How these two latter philosophers performed their task, we cannot say. But the fact that they attempted the task, exhibits a commendable anxiety to make their logical theory complete, and to fortify it against objections. [Footnote 38: Diog. L. v. p. 49; vii. pp. 192-198. Seneca, Epistol. p. 45. Plutarch (De Stoicor. Repugnantiis, p. 1087) has some curious extracts and remarks from Chrysippus; who (he says) spoke in the harshest terms against the [Greek: Megarika\ e)rôtê/mata], as having puzzled and unsettled men's convictions without ground--while he (Chrysippus) had himself proposed puzzles and difficulties still more formidable, in his treatise [Greek: kata\ Sunêthei/as].] [Side-note: Real character of the Megaric sophisms, not calculated to deceive but to guard against deception.]