them. And why, if he may pursue this course concerning those matters, which the men of whom he himself learnt considered unquestionable, why may not a wise man do so too in all other cases? Is there any position which a man may either approve or disapprove of after it has been asserted, but yet may not doubt about? May you do so with respect to the sorites whenever you please, and may not he take his stand in the same manner in other cases, especially when without expressing his assent he may be able to follow a probability which is not embarrassed by anything?
The second point is that you declare that man incapable of action who withholds his assent from everything. For first of all we must see in what assent consists. For the Stoics say that the senses themselves are assents; that desire comes after them, and action after desire. But that every thing is at an end if we deny perception.
XXXIV. Now on this subject many things have been said and written on both sides, but the whole matter may be summed up in a few words. For although I think it a very great exploit to resist one's perceptions, to withstand one's vague opinions, to check one's propensity to give assent to propositions,—and though I quite agree with Clitomachus, when he writes that Carneades achieved a Herculean labour when, as if it had been a savage and formidable monster, he extracted assent, that is to say, vague opinion and rashness, from our minds,—yet, supposing that part of the defence is wholly omitted, what will hinder the action of that man who follows probability, without any obstacle arising to embarrass him? This thing of itself, says he, will embarrass him,—that he will lay it down, that even the thing he approves of cannot be perceived. And that will hinder you, also, in sailing, in planting, in marrying a wife, in becoming the parent of children, and in many things in which you follow nothing except what is probable.
And, nevertheless, you bring up again that old and often repudiated objection, to employ it not as Antipater did, but, as you say, in a closer manner. For you tell us that Antipater was blamed for saying, that it was consistent in a man who affirmed that nothing could be comprehended, to say that at least this fact of that impossibility could be comprehended; which appeared even to Antiochus to be a stupid kind of
