[Sidenote: C] V. ‘No, the Delphic Officials’, said Nicander the priest, speaking for them, ‘believe that it is a vehicle, a form assumed by the petition addressed to the God; it has a leading place in the questions of those who consult him, and inquire, _If_ they shall conquer; _If_ they shall marry; _If_ it is advisable to sail; _If_ to farm; _If_ to travel. The God in his wisdom would bow out the dialecticians when they think that nothing practical comes of the “_If_” part with its clause attached; he admits as practical, in his sense of the word, all questions so attached. Then, since it is our personal concern to question him as prophet, but [Sidenote: D] a general concern to pray to him as God, they hold that the letter embraces the virtue of prayer no less than that of inquiry; “O, If I might!” says every one who prays, as Archilochus,[53] If _it might be mine, prevailing, Neobule’s hand to touch_! When _If-so-be_ is used, the latter part is dragged in (compare Sophron’s “Bereaved of children, I trow”, or Homer’s “As I will break thy might, I trow”[54]). But _If_ gives the sense of prayer sufficiently.’ VI. When Nicander had finished, our friend Theon, whom I am sure you know, asked Ammonius whether Dialectic might [Sidenote: E] speak freely, after the insulting remarks to which she had been treated. Ammonius told him to speak out on her behalf. ‘That the God is a master of Dialectic,’ Theon said, ‘is shown clearly by most of his oracles; for you will grant that the solution of puzzles belongs to the same person as their invention. Again, as Plato used to say, when a response was given that the altar at Delos should be doubled,[55] a matter requiring the most advanced geometry, the God was not merely enjoining this, but was also putting his strong command upon the Greeks to practise geometry. Just so, when the God puts out ambiguous [Sidenote: F] oracles, he is exalting and establishing Dialectic, as essential to the right understanding of himself. You will grant again, that in Dialectic this conjunctive particle has great force, because it formulates the most logical of all sentences. This is certainly the “conjunctive”, seeing that the other animals know the existence of things, but man alone has been gifted by nature with the power of observing and discerning their sequence. That “it is day” and “it is light” we may take it that wolves and dogs and birds perceive. But “if it is day it is light”, is [Sidenote: 387] intelligible only to man; he alone can apprehend antecedent and consequent, the enunciation of each and their connexion, their mutual relation and difference, and it is in these that all demonstration has its first and governing principle. Since then Philosophy is concerned with truth, and the light of truth is demonstration, and the principle of demonstration is the conjunctive proposition, the faculty which includes and produces this was rightly