Note 57 — Chapter III · * OTHER COMPANIONS OF SOKRATES.

The question between Aristotle and the Megarics has not passed out of debate with modern philosophers.

Dr. Thomas Brown observes, in his inquiry into Cause and Effect — “From the mere silence of any one, we cannot infer that he is dumb in consequence of organic imperfection. He may be silent only because he has no desire of speaking, not because speech would not have followed his desire: and it is not with the mere existence of any one, but with his desire of speaking, that we suppose utterance to be connected. A man who has no desire of speaking, has in truth, and in strictness of language, no power of speaking, when in that state of mind: since he has not a circumstance which, as immediately prior, is essential to speech. But since he has that power, as soon as the new circumstance of desire arises — and as the presence or absence of the desire cannot be perceived but in its effects — there is no inconvenience in the common language, which ascribes the power, as if it were possessed at all times, and in all circumstances of mind, though unquestionably, nothing more is meant than that the desire existing will be followed by utterance.” (Brown, Essay on the Relation of Cause and Effect, p. 200.)

This is the real sense of what Aristotle calls τὸ δὲ (λέγεται) δυνατόν, οἷον δυνατὸν εἶναι βαδίζειν ὅτι βαδισειεν ἂν, i.e. he will walk if he desires to do so (De Interpret. p. 23, a. 9-15).