From Aristotle to Cicero.

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From Aristotle to Cicero
From Aristotle to Cicero
Essays on Ancient Philosophy

GISELA STRIKER

1
 3
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 Acknowledgements

Chapters 1–6, 8–10 and 12–15 were previously published as follows:

Chapter 1 (orig. in German as ‘Aristoteles über Syllogismen aufgrund einer
Hypothese’) in Hermes 107, 1979, 33–50.
Chapter 2 (orig. in German as ‘Notwendigkeit mit Lücken’) in neue hefte für
philosophie 24/25, 1985, 146–64.
Chapter 3 in Ancient Philosophy 14, 1994, 39–51.
Chapter 4 in M. Frede/G. Striker (ed.), Rationality in Greek Thought, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1996, 203–20.
Chapter 5 in J. Gentzler (ed.), Method in Ancient Philosophy, Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1998, 209–26.
Chapter 6 in D. Gicheva-Gocheva (ed.), The Challenge Aristotle, University
Printing House St Kliment Ohridski, Sofia (Bulgaria), 2018, 99–110.
Chapter 8 in B. Morison/K. Ierodiakonou (ed.), Episteme, etc., Oxford
University Press, 2011, 141–50.
Chapter 9 in A. O. Rorty (ed.), Essays on Aristotle’s Rhetoric, California
University Press, 1996, 286–302.
Chapter 10 in B. Reis/S. Haffmans (ed.), The Virtuous Life in Greek Ethics,
Cambridge University Press, 2006, 127–41.
Chapter 12 in B. Inwood/J. Mansfeld (ed.), Assent and Argument, Leiden: Brill,
1997, 257–76.
Chapter 13 in Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 83, 2001, 113–29.
Chapter 14 in Ph. Mitsis (ed.) The Oxford Handbook on Epicurus and
Epicureanism, Oxford University Press, 2020, 41–58.
Chapter 15 in Fiona Leigh (ed.), Themes in Plato, Aristotle, and Hellenistic
Philosophy, University of London Press, 2021, 121–30.
I am grateful to the publishers for the permission to reprint and translate.
Chapters 7, 11, and 16 have not been published before.
 Introduction

This collection brings together different lines of research that I have been pursuing
throughout my academic career: Aristotle’s logic and ethics, and Hellenistic
epistemology and ethics.
At the University of Göttingen, where I got most of my philosophical educa-
tion, a doctoral degree in philosophy required the addition of two secondary fields,
for which I chose the two classical languages, Greek and Latin, which I had already
learned in high school. After receiving my doctoral degree with a dissertation on
Plato’s Philebus, I continued to work on ancient philosophy, but turned to the
Hellenistic period, a field less studied by scholars than the great classics, although
it had an enormous influence on later European philosophy. Now, since teaching
is not limited to one’s specialty, during the first fifteen years, while still in
Göttingen, I was also teaching courses in contemporary philosophy—epistemology,
ethics, philosophy of mind—that kept me in touch with recent developments. Since
I moved to the United States, I have been mostly responsible for teaching ancient
philosophy, but I have continued to follow contemporary philosophy in the fields
I was studying in the ancient authors. This seemed to me the best way to engage with
historical texts, not limiting oneself to exegesis, but engaging in discussion with
authors who often had a different perspective, not treating them merely as prede-
cessors, but also to learn from them. So, for example, Greek ethics saw morality in
the wider framework of a good human life, and the ancient Sceptics were not
fascinated by questions about the existence of an external world, questions that
seem to have been prevalent ever since the time of Descartes.
A few years into my time in Göttingen, I was invited to produce a new German
translation and commentary on Aristotle’s Analytics. Since I had long been
interested in Aristotle’s logic, I accepted—vastly underestimating the difficulties
of the task and the time it would take me to complete it. In the meantime,
Hellenistic philosophy was having a kind of renaissance among philosophers
interested in the history of their subject, who had until then more or less limited
themselves to the study of the Presocratics and the two great classical philo-
sophers, Plato and Aristotle. This led to a lively exchange of ideas between
scholars, both philosophers and classicists, now working in this field. So
I continued my research in both areas, slowly making my way through
Aristotle’s Prior Analytics, first in German, then in English, while also publishing
papers on Hellenistic epistemology and ethics.

From Aristotle to Cicero: Essays on Ancient Philosophy. Gisela Striker, Oxford University Press. © Gisela Striker 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198868385.001.0001
x 

The present collection includes a number of essays on Aristotle’s logic that deal
with questions in more detail than would have been appropriate for a commen-
tary, including an, as yet unpublished, paper on the title ‘Analytica’ (chapter 7),
and a short piece outlining the development of Aristotle’s theory of argument that
might serve as a background to the paper on analysis (chapter 6). It was presented
at a conference to celebrate Aristotle’s 2400th birthday in Sofia, Bulgaria. The first
two chapters were originally published in German. I am very grateful for the
meticulous translations of Joshua Mendelsohn.
The four articles on Aristotle that follow those chapters are mainly the result of
teaching these subjects for many years. The second part of the collection contains
later studies in Hellenistic epistemology and ethics. After a lot of discussion and
new contributions by other historians of philosophy who had begun to investigate
Hellenistic philosophy in the preceding decades, I have been going beyond the
earlier generation of Stoics and Epicureans and Sceptics, and also sometimes
trying to correct my earlier views. The series ends with a, yet to be published,
study of a work by Panaetius, a Stoic of the second century , whose book on
appropriate action Cicero used as a model for his last philosophical work, the De
Officiis. At a time when Cicero was still being read as a philosopher in his own
right, that book, dedicated to his son, became a vademecum for young gentlemen
from the Renaissance until at least the end of the eighteenth century. It was clearly
read as a general book of morality and manners, not as a work of Stoic philosophy,
and I was interested in the changes, if any, in Stoicism that made this book
enormously influential, quite apart from the influence of Stoic philosophy in
other fields.
Special thanks are due to Peter Momtchiloff for giving me the opportunity to
bring these papers together.

Hamburg, March 2021

 1
Aristotle on Syllogisms ‘from a Hypothesis’
For Professor Jürgen Mau on the occasion of his 60th birthday,
26 September 1976

In chapters 23 and 44 of Prior Analytics I, Aristotle discusses arguments ‘from a

hypothesis’ and claims that these include the reductio-arguments. His descriptions in
both chapters show that what direct and indirect arguments of this group have in
common is that the ‘hypothesis’ is not a part of the argument, but either an agreement
to the effect that a certain proposition will be accepted as proven if another
proposition has been proven, or—in cases of reductio ad impossibile—a logical
principle for which no explicit agreement is needed.

In chapters A 23 and A 44 of the Prior Analytics, Aristotle deals with a type of

arguments that he calls syllogisms ἐξ ὑποθέσεως.¹ On neither occasion is his aim to

¹ Without wishing to enter the fray of the long-contested question as to what an Aristotelian
syllogism actually is, I should like to clarify, so that I am not misunderstood, that by an Aristotelian
syllogism I mean a valid argument or a deduction. T. Smiley (‘What is a Syllogism?’, J. Phil. Logic 2,
1973, 138) draws attention to the fact that one cannot identify syllogisms with arguments because the
same syllogism may be used in various arguments. It seems to me doubtful, however, that Aristotle
would have noticed this distinction—the definition of the syllogism in A 1.24b18–20, in any case, seems
only to refer to deductions that occur as complete arguments. On this, see M. Frede, ‘Stoic vs.
Aristotelian Syllogistic’, Archiv. f. Gesch. Phil. 56, 1974, 16ff.
In the two chapters I am considering here, Aristotle uses the word συλλογισμός in a broad sense that
seems to include all valid arguments, as well as in a narrower sense in which it only refers to an
argument in one of the syllogistic moods. The context makes clear which sense he intends in each case,
so I have not indicated this. For the sake of brevity, I will refer to syllogisms ἐξ ὑποθέσεως as
‘hypothetical arguments’ in what follows. This should not be taken to imply that they refer to what
were later called hypothetical syllogisms.
The moods of the Aristotelian syllogistic will be referred to in what follows using their traditional
Latin names (Barbara, Celarent, etc.). These names provide information about the form of the premises
as well as the conclusion of the syllogism in question. They each have three syllables whose vowels
indicate the quantity and quality of a statement: a stands for a universal affirmative statement of the
kind ‘A belongs to all B’ or ‘all B are A’, e for a universal negative (‘A belongs to no B’), i for particular
affirmative (‘A belongs to some B’) and o for particular negative (‘A does not belong to some B’).
Aristotle divides syllogistic moods into three figures (σχήματα) that differ in their placement of the
middle term: In the first figure the middle term appears once as subject and once as predicate; in the
second figure both times as predicate, in the third figure both times as subject. If one knows the figure of
a mood, one can construct the corresponding syllogism using its name. The premises of the mood
Barbara in the first figure, for instance, have the form ‘A belongs to all B’ and ‘B belongs to all C’, and

From Aristotle to Cicero: Essays on Ancient Philosophy. Gisela Striker, Oxford University Press. © Gisela Striker 2022.
DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780198868385.003.0001
2    

characterize these arguments or to demonstrate their validity. In A 23, hypothet-

ical syllogisms are treated in the context of completeness considerations.
Following on from A 7, Aristotle attempts to show that every proof and every
valid argument can be reduced to the universal moods of the first figure (Barbara
and Celarent). In A 44 his object is to argue, seemingly in opposition to what he
tries to prove in A 23, that hypothetical arguments cannot be put into syllogistic
form. The apparent contradiction between the theses of the two chapters will not
interest us further here—it is probably best solved by restricting the thesis of A 23
to the effect that every valid argument must contain at least one syllogism, which
can then be reduced to Barbara or Celarent. Aristotle himself seems to have
intended this restriction, since even in A 23 he describes hypothetical arguments
as consisting of two parts, where only one of the parts is a syllogism.
The question that will occupy us here is rather the following: What did Aristotle
actually mean by a syllogism ἐξ ὑποθέσεως? The expression, which also shows
up in the Topics (A 18,108b12), is explained neither here nor in any other
place. This allows us to infer that it was presumed to be familiar, at least in the
Academy. As Shorey has emphasized, Aristotle is probably referring to the
procedure that is introduced by Plato in the Meno as investigation ἐξ ὑποθέσεως
(Meno 86Eff.).² So Aristotle is here speaking of a kind of argument with which the
reader or listener is already familiar, and which therefore need not be character-
ized more closely.
Aristotle also counts reductio ad impossibile as a hypothetical argument (40b25).
It is not entirely certain whether this classification was also already in place, since,
first, Aristotle does mention it himself and, second, it seems to serve to completely
classify all valid arguments under two headings.
Aristotle begins his discussion of completeness with the claim (40b23) that every
proof and every syllogism must demonstrate that something belongs or does not
belong, either universally or particularly; and—the significant part for our
purposes—either in the ostensive way (δεικτικῶς) or from a hypothesis (ἐξ
ὑποθέσεως). The ostensive method of proof had been contrasted with proof διὰ
τοῦ ἀδυνάτου in A 7 already (29a32, cf. also A 29,45b8, b14; B 14.62b29, b38); and
since reductio ad impossible is one type of hypothetical argument, one might at first
assume that it is the contrast between direct and indirect arguments that Aristotle
intends. Aristotle does, in fact, use the expressions δεικτικὴ and δεικτικῶς in the
sense of ‘direct’ or ‘directly’ in chapter B 14 (62b29ff.); he describes the difference

the conclusion ‘A belongs to all C’. For further details, see G. Patzig, Die aristotelische Syllogistik, 3rd
ed., Göttingen 1969, 11–13; W. and M. Kneale, The Development of Logic, Oxford 1962, 67ff. See 232f.
for a more precise explanation of the names.
² Cf. P. Shorey, ‘ΣΥΛΛΟΓΙΣΜΟΙ ΕΞ ΥΠΟΘΕΣΕΩΣ in Aristotle’, Amer. Journ. Philol. X, 1889,
460–2. On the Meno see R. Robinson, Plato’s Earlier Dialectic, 2nd ed., Oxford 1953, 114ff.
    ‘    ’ 3

between ostensive proof and reductio ad impossibile as follows: ‘A demonstration

that leads to an impossibility differs from an ostensive demonstration in that it puts
as a premise what it wants to reject, leading away into an agreed falsehood, while an
ostensive demonstration begins from agreed propositions.’ One could then explain
why direct proof is characterized in this passage as ostensive, that is, as ‘showing
something’, by saying that a direct proof presents states of affairs that make it
necessary that the thing to be proven is the case, whereas indirect arguments only
show why the opposite cannot be the case. However, first, ostensive proof is only
contrasted with reductio ad impossibile here, not with hypothetical proof in general,
and second, the hypothetical arguments that are treated in A 23 and 44 are not all
indirect; this actually holds only for reductio arguments.
The word ‘hypothesis’ might perhaps suggest the contrast between scientific
proof from necessary premises and arguments from ‘merely’ hypothetical prem-
ises, which need not actually be true. However, this cannot be what Aristotle
means here, for in this case, the distinction between ostensive and hypothetical
arguments would have to coincide with the distinction between proofs in the strict
sense (that is, syllogisms with necessary premises) and dialectical syllogisms,
which Aristotle mentions briefly in A 1 (24a30–b15). But as we will see in what
follows, Aristotle counts all arguments that are syllogistic in form as ostensive
arguments, and we must therefore assume that Aristotle means to specify a formal
property of certain arguments when he describes them as ἐξ ὑποθέσεως.
In view of the ensuing completeness argument, it is certainly correct, as
Bochenski³ and others have noted, that Aristotle classifies all non-syllogistic
arguments as συλλογισμοὶ ἐξ ὑποθέσεως. This label is, however, clearly not a
purely negative characterization, and so there remains the further question of
what formal commonality of non-syllogistic arguments Aristotle had in mind
when he used this expression.
This question is complicated by the fact that Aristotle distinguishes in both
chapters between hypothetical arguments through the impossible and other
hypothetical arguments.⁴ An adequate interpretation needs, therefore, not only
to show what formal difference there is between ostensive and hypothetical
arguments; it also needs to show what the various types of hypothetical arguments
that Aristotle distinguishes have in common and how they differ. In the best case,
such an interpretation would put us in a position to determine what domain of
arguments Aristotle’s completeness claim refers to and to what extent it is possible
to accept it in light of this.

³ I.M. Bochenski, La Logique de Théophraste, Fribourg (Suisse) 1947, 105. Cf. also F. Solmsen, Die
Entwicklung der aristotelischen Logik und Rhetorik, Berlin 1929, 64ff.
⁴ The fact that Aristotle has no special term for the ‘other’ cases seems to me to indicate that
originally only these arguments were called (συλλογισμοὶ) ἐξ ὑποθέσεως. The Platonic argument in the
Meno must have belonged to this class, and outside of the An.Pr. it is in any case only arguments of this
sort that are called hypothetical.
4    

II

Studying the word ὑπόθεσις seems in this case not to be of any further help.
Aristotle normally uses the term ‘hypothesis’ to refer to various kinds of under-
lying assumptions of arguments.⁵ The fact that an argument contains a hypothesis
is certainly not sufficient to render it a hypothetical argument, since hypotheses
can also occur in syllogisms. Our topic here is not merely arguments ‘with’ a
hypothesis, but rather arguments ‘on the basis of ’ or ‘from’ (ἐξ) a hypothesis—
that is, the expression refers not only to the fact that a hypothesis is used, but
rather to the role of the hypothesis in the argument. Whereas it is reasonably clear
what the hypothesis is for the ‘remaining’ hypothetical arguments (which Aristotle
discusses second in A 23 and first in A 44), the inclusion of reductio ad impossibile
arguments means that we still need to ask the question: What actually is the
hypothesis on account of which all of these arguments are to count as hypothetical?
To begin with the simpler case, direct hypothetical arguments: If one follows
the example of A 44 (50a19–26), a typical argument of this form appears to be as
follows. It begins with a hypothesis or agreement (ὁμολογία) that takes the form of
an if–then sentence, for example: ‘If there is not a single power of contraries, then
there is also not a single knowledge.’ There follows a syllogistic proof for the
antecedent of the conditional—or in any case Aristotle says so. The proof that he
alludes to in the text is, however, as Alexander rightly notes (in An.Pr. 387, 5–11)
not a syllogism. Aristotle writes: ‘ . . . that not every power is a power of contraries:
not, for example, of the healthy and the sick, for then the same thing would be
healthy and sick at the same time.’ The proof sketched here seems to consist of a
modus tollens argument and a syllogism (cf. Ross’s commentary ad loc.). Aristotle,
however, evidently assumes that it can be put in syllogistic form. From the
analogous example in B 26 (69b13ff.) one can infer, as the commentators explain,
that he had in mind a syllogism in Felapton: ‘The healthy and the sick are not
based on a single capacity; the sick and the healthy are opposites; therefore, not all
opposites are based on a single capacity.’ This, however, does not fully capture the
argument given in the text, and thus Alexander (387.1–5) and Philoponus (in An.
Pr. 358,27–31) add another syllogism as a proof of the first premise.⁶
After establishing the antecedent of the conditional, one can proceed to the
consequent, the demonstrandum, ‘on the basis of the hypothesis’. The transition is,
as Aristotle emphasizes (50a24–26), necessary, but not syllogistic.

⁵ Cf. H. Bonitz, Index Aristotelicus, Berlin 1870, repr. Graz 1955, s. v. ὑπόθεσις, 796b59: ‘logice
ὑποθέσεις eae sunt propositiones, sive demonstratae sive non demonstratae, quibus positis aliquid
demonstratur.’
⁶ The example makes clear that Aristotle’s remark about this type of hypothetical argument
represents only a rough generalization. He had evidently not verified whether the analysis he points
to—that such arguments consist of a syllogism and a hypothetical step—was really applicable in all
cases. It is thus hardly surprising that he does not consider the possibility of proving the antecedent of
the hypothesis other than by a syllogism. On this, see also pp. xxf. below.
    ‘    ’ 5

What Aristotle describes here seems to be, to put it anachronistically, an

argument in modus ponendo ponens supplemented with a syllogism for the second
premise. Aristotle initially leaves it open whether this is the only possible form this
type of argument can have. It certainly seems that the hypothesis describes the
conditional premise, and it is thus natural to follow the usage of later logicians in
viewing the use of a conditional premise as the reason for characterizing an
argument as ἐξ ὑποθέσεως.⁷ This, however, does not fully explain Aristotle’s
text, as one can see from the case of the reductio.
As described in B 11 (61a27–31), an Aristotelian syllogism per impossibile
proceeds as follows: One begins with a premise that is accepted as true and the
assumption of the contradictory of the demonstrandum. From these two things a
syllogistic conclusion is derived that is evidently false. Since the first premise was
assumed to be true, the negation of the demonstrandum is shown to be false by the
‘impossible’ conclusion. Its contradictory is thus true by the law of excluded
middle (B 11,62a13–15).⁸
The apagogical proofs of chapter A 5 and 6 (27a36–b1; 28b17–20) seem at first
to present a different procedure. Here Aristotle begins with the premises of the
mood to be established and then uses one of the premises together with the
negation of the conclusion to derive the negation of the other premise. In this
way he shows that the negation of the conclusion is incompatible with the
premises and thus that the conclusion follows from the premises. The impossi-
bility of the proposition derived arises in this case from the fact that its contra-
dictory is taken as a premise. These proofs thus proceed according to the law of
propositional logic:

ðp&qÞ & ½ðq&sÞ > p > s

In the syllogisms per impossibile that are treated in B 11–14, by contrast, the
negation of the syllogistically derived conclusion does not seem to be one of the
premises (61a24).⁹ That the derived proposition is ‘impossible’ seems to arise
simply from the fact that its contradictory is evidently true (61a25; b14). Aristotle,
however, adds in B 14 (62b33–37) that the proof through reductio ad impossibile
proceeds from two propositions that are granted, namely from one of the premises
of the syllogism and the negation of the derived conclusion. Accordingly, the
difference seems to be a matter of where the respective premises are introduced. In

⁷ As does M. Kneale in The Development of Logic, Oxford 1962, 98 (or so it seems): ‘Here the
subject-matter seems to demand an explicit discussion of the varieties of argument with one condi-
tional premise.’
⁸ Strictly speaking, of course, all that can be inferred from the ‘impossible’ conclusion is that one of
the two premises must be false. From this, and the presupposition that one of the two premises is true, it
then follows that the other is false. Aristotle makes clear at the outset which premise is to be given up by
characterizing it as the ‘hypothesis’.
⁹ Smiley, op. cit., 153, n. 2.
6    

A 5 and 6 Aristotle carries out a deduction in order to show that a certain type of
conclusion follows from certain premises, which therefore must naturally be
supplied at the outset. In B 11, however, Aristotle is talking about how a particular
type of conclusion can be proven. Now, a proof by reductio will be expedient to use
only if the falsity of the derived statement is evident (cf. Top. Θ 2.157b34–158a2;
An.Po. A 26,87a14–17) and its negation thus need not itself be assumed in advance.
That, of course, does not mean that it is not one of the presuppositions from which
the proposition to be proven follows.
The proof of the incommensurability of the diagonal, mentioned as an example
in A 24 and 44, points to a different type of reductio, of which Aristotle nowhere
offers a detailed analysis (and which could hardly be put into syllogistic form).
Here the procedure by all appearances seems to consist in deriving an explicit
contradiction from an assumption, together with premises that have been proven
or are known to be true. Accordingly, this form of reductio is based on the law of
propositional logic [p > (q&–q)] > –p.
That Aristotle uses this example, even though his own apagogical proofs
normally proceed otherwise, seems to me to be evidence that he had not distin-
guished these two kinds of reductio proof. The incommensurability proof simply
provides an especially clear example of a conclusion that is evidently impossible.¹⁰
I will thus assume in what follows that when Aristotle speaks of arguments
through the impossible generally, he is referring to the standard case he initially
describes.
No conditional premise seems to appear in an argument of this sort. One could,
of course, formulate the syllogistic part of the argument as an if–then premise, as
the formula of propositional logic presented above suggests. However, if the
expression ἐξ ὑποθέσεως referred to the use of a conditional premise, then
Aristotle himself would be characterizing the syllogism as a hypothesis, and this
is plainly not what he does. That rules out the possibility of explaining Aristotle’s
terminology by speaking of hypothetical syllogisms in the way that later became
common.
In view of the type of arguments just described, three different interpretations
have been proposed. These all have something going for them, but they also all
face problems.

¹⁰ A further type, which Corcoran (‘Aristotle’s Natural Deduction System’, in J. Corcoran (ed.),
Ancient Logic and its Modern Interpretations, Dordrecht 1974, 115) claims to find in A 29,45b1–3 and
refers to as ‘abnormal reductio’, seems to me to be the result of a misunderstanding. Aristotle does not
claim that one can transform a direct proof into an indirect one by taking the opposite of the conclusion
as a hypothesis at the outset, deriving the conclusion and finally recognizing that one has assumed the
opposite of the conclusion. He says only that if one already has an ostensive syllogism, then in every
case, one can start from the contradictory opposite of the conclusion together with one of the premises
and derive a false statement (namely the negation of the other premise) and so prove the conclusion per
impossibile. It is evidently presupposed here that the truth of the ostensive premises is known, due to
the use of the tables of premises.
    ‘    ’ 7

(A) On the oldest interpretation, due to Alexander of Aphrodisias,¹¹ the

hypothesis on account of which reductio ad impossibile is classified as a hypo-
thetical argument is the contradictory of the demonstrandum. The fact that
Aristotle undeniably characterizes this proposition in many places expressly as a
ὑπόθεσις (41a32, cf. especially B 11–14, B 17 passim) initially favours this inter-
pretation. This use of language evidently corresponds to the fact that a proposition
is assumed without one thereby wishing to commit oneself to its truth. To this
extent, this interpretation seems to provide the most natural explanation. The
characterization of reductio as a hypothetical syllogism can then be understood as
follows: The proof of the demonstrandum relies on a hypothesis insofar as its
‘recognized falsity’ is derived, and on this basis one can then infer the contradict-
ory of the hypothesis. Difficulties, however, arise for this interpretation when one
attempts to describe the formal characteristic that allows such arguments to be
treated together with the remaining hypothetical arguments. In the case of
reductio, the hypothesis is, on this interpretation, a categorical premise that is
assumed merely argumenti causa. In the remaining cases, however, it is one of the
accepted premises of the argument, a premise that also has a different form. It is
not easy to see why Aristotle would have wished to bring these two types of
argument together under a single heading. The most conspicuous commonality,
to which the characterization as hypothetical should at least be related in some
way, is, of course, the occurrence of a non-syllogistic argumentative step. This is
also what Aristotle seems to emphasize when, in both chapters, he describes
hypothetical arguments as consisting in two steps (41a23–41b1 passim;
50a23–28, 30–32): They consist, 1. of a syllogism, and 2. of a step ἐξ ὑποθέσεως,
which is indeed necessitated, but not syllogistic. According to the interpretation
discussed here, however, the hypothesis in the reductio is precisely a part of the
syllogism. One should, therefore, perhaps look for a different explanation, one on
which the hypothesis is that which permits the transition to the demonstrandum.
The difficulty that arises from the fact that Aristotle would be speaking of two
different hypotheses within the reductio is perhaps not so severe when one
considers that the classification of reductio arguments as hypothetical was perhaps
introduced only in view of the complete classification of all valid arguments.
Aristotle might thus have first used the term ‘hypothesis’ only for premises
assumed argumenti causa in a reductio and then later have had the idea of
bringing reductio arguments together with those which he had earlier called
hypothetical arguments, which would then have led to the somewhat unfortunate
double use of ‘hypothesis’. This brings us to the two other interpretations.

¹¹ In An.Pr. 256,18–25; cf. also N.M. Thiel, ‘Die Bedeutung des Wortes Hypothesis bei Aristoteles’,
(Diss.), Freiburg 1919, 26ff.; H. Gomperz, Die deutsche Literatur über die . . . aristotelische Philosophie
1899 und 1900, Archiv. f. Gesch. Phil 16, 1903, 274f.; K. Ebbinghaus, Ein formales Modell der Syllogistik
des Aristoteles, Hypomnemata 9, Göttingen 1964, 41ff.
8    

(B) According to Sigwart, Shorey, and, more recently, Mignucci,¹² the hypothesis
is the negation of the ‘impossible’ conclusion. The assumption that this con-
clusion is false enables us to infer the opposite of the first hypothesis. This
assumption is not explicitly characterized as (the) hypothesis by Aristotle, but
he does say in B 14 (62b35–37) that one must assume the falsity of the
conclusion. In addition to this, one might also appeal to the remark in A 44
(50a35–38), according to which one needs no prior agreement for reductio,
‘because the falsehood’ (scil. of the derived conclusion) ‘is evident’. With
hypothetical arguments of the first type, one requires agreement as (or to) the
hypothesis, but not with a reductio—thus the ‘evident falsehood’ must be that
which is here characterized as a hypothesis.
This interpretation seems quite plausible in view of the two-part structure of
hypothetical arguments. Difficulties, however, arise again when we ask what the
two types of hypothetical arguments have in common. Mignucci seems to assume
that it is the unproven assumption that is characterized as a hypothesis in each
case—the negation of the syllogistic conclusion in the case of reductio and the
conditional premise in the other case, since a syllogistic proof is given for its
antecedent, which forms the second premise of the modus ponens argument. We
noted at the outset, however, that the characterization ἐξ ὑποθέσεως could not
refer merely to the occurrence of an unjustified premise, since these also occur
in ostensive syllogisms insofar as they are not required to count as proofs.
Furthermore, it is questionable whether Aristotle, as Mignucci assumes, thought
of the syllogistic part of the reductio as a proof of a conditional statement. What
is ‘shown’, that is, derived in this specific case, is according to Aristotle the
impossible conclusion, not, say, the sentence ‘if the diagonal is commensurable,
then even and uneven numbers are equal’ (cf. 41a24, 28, 32f.; 50a31). And
according to Aristotle’s own description in B 14 (62b32–35), a reductio presup-
poses two premises that are ‘admitted’ or recognized as true, namely one
premise of the syllogism and the opposite of the conclusion—both of these
are, of course, unproven within the argument. One thus arrives, at best, at the
resigned judgement of Martha Kneale: ‘ “hypothesis” seems here to be his
general name for a statement which plays an essential rôle in an argument
but not as any part of a syllogism nor yet as the conditional formulation of a
syllogism.’¹³
(C) On the third interpretation, which was first proposed by Pacius and has
been defended more recently by Maier and Ross,¹⁴ the hypothesis is not one of the

¹² Ch. Sigwart, Beiträge zur Lehre vom hypothetischen Urteil, Tübingen 1871; Shorey, op. cit., 461;
M. Mignucci, Aristotele, Gli Analitici Primi a cura di M.M., Naples 1969, 424.
¹³ Op. cit., 99.
¹⁴ Cf. I. Pacius, In Porphyrii Isagogen et Aristotelis Organum Commentarius Analyticus, Frankfurt
1597 (reprint Hildesheim 1966), 153; H. Maier, Die Syllogistik des Aristoteles, Bd. II 1, Tübingen
1900, 236ff.; W.D. Ross, commentary on ‘Aristotle’s Prior and Posterior Analytics’, Oxford 1949, 371f.
    ‘    ’ 9

premises, but rather the logical law that allows one to proceed from ascertaining
the conclusion’s falsity to accepting the demonstrandum. This interpretation also
has textual support: Aristotle says twice in A 23 that the initial thesis is inferred
from a hypothesis ‘when’ (ὅταν) or ‘since’ (ἐπεί) its contradictory gives rise to
something impossible. Ross understands this as an—admittedly inexact—
formulation of the hypothesis, which, spelled out more fully, would say: ‘If from
a proposition something impossible follows, this proposition is false and its
contradictory true.’¹⁵ One need not necessarily take this formulation as an explicit
description of the hypothesis—Ebbinghaus¹⁶ draws attention to the ὅταν, which
seems to suggest that an inference ἐξ ὑποθέσεως is always possible when some-
thing impossible follows, without taking the hypothesis itself to be identified.
These passages are, therefore, not conclusive evidence for this position. Whether,
like Ross, one ought to rely on A 44, according to which a reductio needs no
agreement—for the reason, according to Ross, that the hypothesis is a logical
law—is questionable, for what is there characterized as evident is, of course, not
the logical law, but rather the falsity of the conclusion. On the one hand it does seem
plausible to ground the difference between the two types of hypothetical arguments
in the fact that the transition to the demonstrandum is in one case made possible by a
logical law and in the other by a conditional premise that requires agreement; we
can, however, not be sure that Aristotle meant to claim this. Furthermore, on this
interpretation we run into the difficulty, mentioned also by Ebbinghaus, that the
hypothesis in the reductio is not a part of the argument, but rather a rule which
justifies one of the steps of the proof, whereas in the other case it seems to be a
premise.
This last point brings us back to the arguments of the first type. So far we have
been assuming that these are arguments in modus ponendo ponens. This is
certainly true in view of the example given by Aristotle, but that does not yet
show that Aristotle himself would have described the argument in this way. Now,
it is well known that Aristotle neither explicitly recognized the conditional as a
form of statement nor specifically investigated it. On the contrary: in the first
chapter of the An.Pr. he seems to assume that all premises must be categorical

¹⁵ G. Patzig (Die aristotelische Syllogistik, 3. Aufl., Göttingen 1969, 158, 165) proposes that the law of
excluded middle is the hypothesis. He does so by viewing the syllogism that leads to the impossible as a
proof of the falsity of the first hypothesis (on this see e.g. B 11.62a14–15: δειχθέντος ὅτι οὐχ ἡ ἀπόφασις
ἀνάνγκη τὴν κατάφασιν ἀληθεύεσθαι). Aristotle himself does, in fact, say (An.Po. A 11.77a22; cf. An.Pr.
B 11.62a13) that the proof ad impossibile assumes (λαμβάνει) this law. The syllogism can, however,
prove the falsity of the first hypothesis only if the falsity of the conclusion is assumed—that is, the step
to the negation of the first hypothesis is, strictly speaking, no longer a step of the syllogistic part of the
proof. However, according to Aristotle’s own description, what is ‘shown’ by the syllogism is not the
falsity of the hypothesis but rather the false conclusion. At least in these two chapters the view of Ross
and Maier thus seems to me to be more plausible. Since Aristotle nowhere explicitly formulates the
hypothesis, it seems to me equally likely that he had not consciously distinguished between these two
views.
¹⁶ Op. cit., 43, n. 1.
10    

statements. At least as conclusions of proofs, conditional statements seem not

to be at issue if, as Aristotle holds, ‘every proof and every syllogism must show
something as belonging or not belonging’ (40b23–24). If, however, in
Aristotle’s view both the premises and the conclusions of all valid arguments
must be categorical statements, one needs to ask whether he viewed the
hypothesis of a hypothetical argument as a premise at all. In fact, some things
do indicate that he thought of the hypothesis differently: namely as an
agreement according to which one of two statements will count as proven
when the other is.¹⁷ Those hypotheses are indeed usually formulated as
conditional statements; in A 44, however, we also encounter the formulation
‘if it is proven that . . . , then . . . ’ (50a34–35; cf. also Top. A 18,108b16–17). The
expression τὸ μεταλαμβανόμενον in A 23 suggests something similar. The
μεταλαμβανόμενον is something that is substituted for something else—in the
case of hypothetical arguments, a statement that takes the place of the demon-
strandum. Underlying this seems to be the view that the proof of the substi-
tuted statement takes the place of the proof for the demonstrandum—in
contrast to the contemporary view according to which one would have to
say that the demonstrandum is derived or proven from the conditional premise
together with the ‘substituted’ statement.¹⁸

III

If one does not regard the hypothesis as a premise, then it can at least plausibly be
explained why Aristotle treats the two types of hypothetical syllogisms as a single

¹⁷ Frede (op. cit. 29f.) also arrives at this result when considering the question why Aristotle seems
by all appearances to have thought that only syllogistic arguments in the strict sense fall under his
definition of the syllogism. Cf. also I. Mueller, ‘Greek Mathematics and Greek Logic’, in J. Corcoran
(ed.), Ancient Logic . . . , op. cit. 56f.
¹⁸ In the view of some commentators, the μεταλαμβάνομενον in A 23 is a term that is substituted for
another, not a statement. The word μεταλαμβανόμενα in A 29.45b18 does indeed doubtless refer to the
added terms of the statement; in A 23, however, the juxtaposition of τὸ μεταλαμβανόμενον with τὸ ἐξ
ἀρχῆς seems to indicate that Alexander is correct when he assumes that we are here dealing with the
substituted statement. In any case, this makes no important difference to the interpretation of this
passage. A further difficulty seems to me to stem from the commentators themselves—including
Alexander: They assume that the words ἐν ἅπασι γὰρ . . . κτλ. (41a38) refer to all hypothetical argu-
ments, thus also to reductio, and then they attempt to show how the syllogism of an apagogical
argument also relates to a substitute. It is, however, equally natural to read ἐν ἅπασι as referring only
to the ‘remaining’ hypothetical arguments. To support this reading further one may appeal to the place
in A 29 mentioned above. There Aristotle characterizes direct hypothetical arguments as κατὰ
μετάληψιν ἢ κατὰ ποιότητα, and if one follows the explanation of Alexander (324.22–24), μετάληψις
refers to the substitution of one statement for another. This seems essential to the ‘remaining’
arguments, since Aristotle adds that one must search for the premises of these arguments in view of
the substituted terms. The fact that Aristotle describes both the statement as well as the terms as
μεταλαμβανόμενα is hardly surprising, since additional terms are, of course, introduced with an
additional statement. In a reductio ad impossibile, on the other hand, one requires no
μεταλαμβανόμενα, because the three syllogistic terms are all one needs.
    ‘    ’ 11

class: The formal commonality consists in the fact that, in both the apagogical
arguments as well as in the others, a non-syllogistic rule of deduction is employed.
That is, there is a step that is justified neither by conversion nor by one of the
syllogistic moods. The distinction between the two types, on the other hand,
consists in the fact that the hypothesis corresponds to a logical rule in the case
of the reductio whereas it is a more or less ad hoc, non-logical rule that is agreed
upon in the case of the other hypothetical syllogisms—which was then rightly
treated as a premise by Aristotle’s successors. It is for just this reason that the
second type requires an explicit agreement.
This interpretation also explains the curious fact that Aristotle seems not to
take pure modus ponens arguments into account at all, but rather tacitly assumes
that a syllogism for the second premise—and only for this one—must be con-
structed. If one does not view the conditional hypothesis as a premise, then a pure
modus ponens argument has only a single premise, and therefore, as Aristotle once
again emphatically claims in A 23, cannot represent a complete argument. A proof
of the conditional premise, as suggested by Alexander and Philoponus, can, of
course, for this very reason not be at issue, since a conditional cannot appear as the
conclusion of an argument.
If Aristotle classified reductio ad impossibile as a hypothetical argument for the
reason just given, then what was important for him was less the logical status of
the hypothesis and more the type of logical step that it justifies. From the
standpoint of formal logic, it would otherwise be more natural to separate
formally valid methods of deduction—ostensive syllogisms and reductio ad
impossibile—from formally invalid ones and then, within the group of formally
valid arguments, to distinguish between direct and indirect deductions. For
ostensive deductions, which, in addition to the arguments of the syllogistic
moods, also include the direct conversion proofs of chapters A 4–6 (cf. A
7,29a30–34), what seems to be essential is that each step can be justified by
recourse to the underlying relations of belonging that hold among the terms of
the premises. For the evident validity of the perfect moods, Aristotle appeals to the
meaning of the expressions κατὰ παντός and κατὰ μηδενός respectively (cf. A
4.25b39–40; 26a24, 27). For the imperfect moods, the necessity is made evident
(cf. 24b24 and 27a17) by interposing statements between the premises and
conclusion that are ‘necessary because of the terms laid down’ (24a25; cf. 28a6).
This means, as one can see from the proofs of chapters A 4–6, that they are derived
using the conversion rules. Aristotle adds for completeness in A 5,28a6–7 that the
apagogical proofs use an additional ‘hypothesis’. These proofs are, however, not
ostensive. For ostensive proofs it must, therefore, be the case that they only
contain such statements as intermediate steps that are necessary ‘because of the
terms’. Now, the conversion rules explicitly refer to specific relations among
terms, and the perfect moods are also based on these relations, as we have seen.
A difficulty for this view seems, however, to arise from the fact that some of the
12    

imperfect moods—Baroco in the second figure and Bocardo in the third—cannot

be proven by means of conversion. Both are proven by Aristotle using reductio ad
impossibile. In these cases one cannot say that the deduction uses only sentences
that are ‘necessary because of the terms’. To put it another way, the proofs of these
moods do show that the conclusion follows from the premises, but they do not
show that the conclusion follows simply ‘on the basis of the terms assumed’.
Strictly speaking, one should not therefore, it seems, consider these moods to be
ostensive. Aristotle, however, clearly treats all syllogisms in the narrow sense as
ostensive arguments.
Alexander (24, 12–18) and Philoponus (37, 16–38, 29), who both address this
question, try to make do with the observation that the additional hypothesis only
serves to derive the impossibility, not the actual conclusion. But this hardly helps,
since it shows precisely that the conclusion itself is, in these cases, derived ἐξ
ὑποθέσεως. Elsewhere (318, 17ff.), Alexander entertains the possibility that, after
one has proven the validity of a mood by reductio, one can then use this mood as
an ostensive argument: ἢ καὶ ἐπὶ τούτων εἴη ἂν μετὰ τὴν πίστιν τὴν διὰ τῆς εἰς
ἀδύνατον ἀπαγωγῆς τοῦ συλλογιστικὴν εἶναι τὴν συμπλοκὴν καὶ ἐκ τῶν κειμένων
προτάσεων δεικτικῶς δεικνύμενον τὸ προκείμενον—that is, Aristotle could have
understood δεικτικῶς in the sense of ‘direct’. As noted at the beginning, Aristotle
in fact uses the expressions δεικτικῶς, δεικτικός etc. in some places to contrast
with διὰ τοῦ αδυνάτου, and thus presumably in the sense of ‘direct’, while in other
places he uses it as a contrast to ἐξ ὑποθέσεως. It is, therefore, possible that
syllogisms might be viewed as ostensive in the first instance because they are
direct arguments. That, however, would not justify Aristotle in viewing them all as
ostensive rather than hypothetical, for if the validity of some moods can only be
shown through a hypothetical argument, this would mean that the conclusion in
these cases could not be derived solely by recourse to the relations assumed to hold
between the terms. Aristotle does not address this problem himself, but he does
mention in connection with the apagogical proof of Bocardo (A 6.28b20) that one
can also carry out the proof without (!) reductio ad impossibile—namely by
ἔκθεσις. The same holds of Baroco, although Aristotle does not actually say so.
If one counts ἔκθεσις as an ostensive deductive step, then there is indeed an
ostensive proof for every syllogistic mood within Aristotle’s system, and
Aristotle is justified in treating every syllogism in the strict sense as an ostensive
argument.
That ἔκθεσις is an ostensive deductive step in the relevant sense is fairly clear,
since the ‘setting out’ is grounded in the relation between terms contained in one
of the premises. It makes no difference whether the thing ‘set out’ is to be
understood as a term or as an individual constant.¹⁹

¹⁹ On ἔκθεσις see Patzig, op. cit. 166ff. and W. Wieland, ‘Review of Patzig, Die aristotelische
Syllogistik’, Philos. Rundschau 14, 1966, 24f.
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The Canon’s voice was steady and gentle.
“Thank you, my child. Bid me good-night, and go, now. You must
have some rest, before your journey tomorrow.”
She came to him and he blessed and kissed her as usual, only
letting his hand linger for a moment on her head as he repeated as
though speaking to himself:
“And with the morn those Angel faces smile
“Which I have loved long since and lost awhile.”
“Good-night, Owen. Goodbye,” said Flora.
She left the room, and the Canon raised himself with difficulty from
his low chair and said:
“I have some preparations to make for tomorrow. I will leave you for
a little while.”
When he had gone, Owen felt the relaxation of his own mental
tension.
For the first time, and with a sincerity that left him amazed, he found
himself making use of the phrase that from others had so often
aroused rebellion in himself:
“He is wonderful!”
Lucilla raised her eyes now, and looked full and gravely at
Quentillian.
“Yes. I’m glad you see it at last, Owen.”
“At last?” he stammered, replying to her voice rather than to her
words.
“He is very fond of you. He has always been very fond of you, ever
since you were a little boy. And it has—vexed me—very often, to see
that you gave him nothing in return, that, because he belongs to
another school, and another generation, you have almost despised
him, I think.”
Owen was conscious of colouring deeply in his sudden surprise and
humiliation.
“Although you are so clever, Owen,” she said in the same grave, un-
ironical tone, “it has seemed as though you are not able, at all, to
see beyond the surface. I know that my father’s religious sentiment,
sentimentality even, his constant outward expression of emotional
piety, his guileless optimism, have all jarred upon you. But you have
had no eyes for his pathetic courage, his constant striving for what
he sees as the highest.”
“Lucilla—in justice to myself—although what you say may be true, if I
have judged your father it has been far more on account of his
children—of what I have seen of their lives.”
“You were not called upon to constitute yourself the champion of his
children. Valeria, even, had no claim on your championship. It was
not you whom she loved, and you, too, tried to make Val what she
was never meant to be. When Val threw you over, if my father tried
to force upon you what you could only see as the conventional beau
geste of renunciation, it was because he was incapable of believing
that you could have asked a woman to marry you without loving her,
body and soul. His forgiveness of Val, whether you thought him
entitled to forgive or not, lay between him and her. And when you
speak of our lives, Owen, can’t you see that Val and Adrian and I,
and perhaps in a way even Flora, too, have come to what we were
meant for? No one can stand between another soul, and life, really.”
He was oddly struck by the echo of words that he had himself once
used to Flora.
“You admit that he tried, to stand between you and life?”
“I do,” she said instantly. “But if he had succeeded, the fault would
have been ours.”
She suddenly smiled.
“Isn’t it true that to face facts means freedom? That’s why I’m not an
optimist, Owen. I am willing to face all the facts you like. But you, I
think, in judging my father, have only faced half of them.”
“You find me intolerant!” he exclaimed, half-ironically. Never before
had such an adjective been presented to his strong sense of his own
impartiality, his detached rationalism.
“Not exactly. Only, I’m afraid—a little bit of a prig.”
She uttered the strange, unimposing accusation, not rudely, not
unkindly, but almost mournfully.
“Christianity has been accused of intolerance very often, and with
only too much reason, but those outside the Churches, who frankly
claim to be agnostic, often seem to me to be the most intolerant of
all, of what they look upon as superstition. Why should you despise
my father for beliefs that have led him to lead an honourable life, and
that have given him courage to bear his many sorrows?”
“You have said, yourself, that the facing of facts means freedom. I
can see no freedom, and therefore no beauty, in living in illusion.”
“Not for yourself, perhaps. Illusions could never be anything but
conscious, for you.”
“Nor for yourself, Lucilla,” he retorted swiftly.
“But how does that entitle us to despise another for holding them?”
she demanded, quite as swiftly. Nevertheless Owen detected a
lessening of severity, in so far as she had coupled them together in
her speech.
“Tonight,” he said gravely, “I admired your father with all my heart.”
“I’m glad.”
On the words, the same as those with which Lucilla had begun their
brief and rather amazing conversation, the Canon returned into the
room.
 IV
THE DEATH OF AN OPTIMIST

(i)
Quentillian’s next and final summons to St. Gwenllian came some
months after Canon Morchard had taken Flora to her Sisterhood,
and returned alone.
Owen was unprepared for the change in the Canon’s appearance,
although he knew him to be ill.
“Aye, dear lad! It’s the last stage of the journey. I have thought that it
was so for some time, and they tell me now that there is no doubt of
it. This poor clay is worn out, and the spirit within is to be set free.
Verily, I can still repeat those favourite words of mine: ‘All things work
together for good, to those that love God.’ If you but knew the
number of times during these last few years that I have cried out
within myself ‘O for the wings of a dove, that I might fly away and be
at rest!’ And now it has come! and I hope to keep my Christmas feast
among the blest. They tell me that it cannot be long.”
Quentillian looked the enquiry that he felt it difficult to put into words.
“I can take very little. Soon, they tell me that even that little will have
become impossible. See how even the crowning mercy of
preparedness is vouchsafed to me! I have put my house in order as
well as may be, and have no care save for my poor Lucilla. She will
be alone indeed, and it is for her sake, Owen, that I want you to do a
great kindness to a dying man.”
“Anything, sir. Do you want me to stay?”
“You have it, Owen.” The Canon laid his hand, thin now to
emaciation, upon Quentillian’s.
“Stay with us now until the end comes. It cannot be far off. I have
outlived my brothers, and Lucilla’s remaining aunt is old and infirm. It
is not fit, even were it possible, that she should come here. She will
receive Lucilla most tenderly after I am gone—of that I am assured.
But there is no one to uphold her, to spare her needless distress,
when the time comes.”
“I will do everything that I can to help her.”
“I know it, dear fellow—I know it. Thank you from the bottom of my
heart. It seems natural to treat you as a son.”
The Canon paused and looked wistfully at Quentillian upon the word.
“Perhaps Adrian will come home. I have written to him—a long letter.
He need not be afraid of me.
“I have written to my three absent children: To Valeria—my blessing
for her little sons—I would have given much to see them before
going—aye, and their mother, too, my merry Valeria, as I once called
her! I have missed Valeria’s laughter in this quiet house, that was
once full of merriment and children’s voices.
“And I have written to Flora, my Flora, who chose the better part.
May she indeed be blessed in her choice—little Flora!”
He sank back, looking exhausted.
“I will stay as long as you wish me to stay, and I will do all that I can
for Lucilla,” repeated Quentillian.
“I know it. The last anxiety has been allayed. Aye, Owen, I have
ceased to concern myself with these things now, I hope. If Adrian
comes to me, and if Lucilla can count upon you as upon a brother,
then I am well satisfied indeed. My affairs are in good order, I
believe. My will is with my solicitors—Lucilla knows the address.
What there is, goes in equal shares to Lucilla, Valeria, and Adrian.
Flora has received her portion already. My books, dear Owen, are
yours. All else—personal effects, manuscripts, and the rest—are
Lucilla’s. She has been my right hand. There are mementos to
Clover, to one or two old friends and servants—nothing else. I have
thought it well to make Lucilla sole executrix—she has helped in all
my business for so long!
“So you see that my temporal concerns are over and done with. In
regard to the spiritual, I have had the unutterable honour and
pleasure of a visit from the Bishop himself. He was all fatherly
goodness and kindness. The dear Clover is always at hand for
reading, and I can depend on him utterly for those last
commendations that are to smooth my way down the Valley of the
Shadow. There is nothing wanting. And now you have come!”
The Canon’s wasted face was both radiant and serene.
The grief that had so often shown there seemed to have passed
away, and Quentillian found it almost incredible that he had ever
seen the Canon angry, or weighed down by a leaden depression of
spirits.
“Is he really happy, all the time?” Quentillian asked Lucilla.
“Yes, all the time. Even when he has pain. But they say there won’t
be any more pain, most likely, now. He will just sink, gradually. If you
knew how very little he is living on, even now, you would be
surprised.”
“Are you doing the nursing?”
“He wants a trained nurse. One has been sent for. He thinks that it
will spare me,” said Lucilla, smiling a little.
In the days that followed, Owen saw how difficult Lucilla found it to
be so spared.
The nurse was an efficient and conscientious woman, and the
Canon quickly became dependent upon her. He begged Owen to
spend as much time as possible with Lucilla, who remained
downstairs, replying to the innumerable letters and the enquirers
who came to the house.
She was now only with her father for a brief morning visit, and the
hour in the afternoon when the nurse took her exercise out of doors.
Very often Quentillian, at the Canon’s request, was also with them
then.
“Lucilla and I have long ago said our last words, such as they are,”
the Canon told him with a smile. “We understand one another too
well to need to be left alone together.”
Time slipped by with monotonous regularity, the changes in the
Canon almost imperceptible to the onlookers.
Then, preceded only by a telegram, Adrian came home.
“My father isn’t really dying, is he?” he asked piteously.
“He can’t take anything at all, now. It’s a question almost of hours.”
Lucilla took him upstairs to where his father lay, propped upon
pillows, and they were left alone together.
“You know, it is very bad for Canon Morchard to have any agitation,”
the nurse anxiously pointed out to Lucilla, when the interview had
lasted a long while.
“Can it make any real difference?”
“It may reduce his strength more quickly.”
“He would say that it was worth it. He has not seen this son for a
long while.”
Lucilla kept the woman out of the room as long as it was possible to
do so.
At last Adrian came downstairs.
That evening the Canon said to Quentillian, with tears in his eyes:
“Adrian has promised me to give up his work for that man. Is it not
wonderful, dear Owen? All, all added unto me. If this pain of mine is
to be the price of my boy’s awaking to his own better nature, how
gladly shall I not pay it!”
It was the only time that Quentillian had ever heard him allude to
having suffered physical pain.
“I have not been so much at rest about Adrian since he was a little
boy,” said the Canon. “He was always the most affectionate of them
all. And he cried like a little child, poor fellow, this afternoon, and
voluntarily passed me his promise to leave that man.”
Quentillian’s own involuntary distrust of the promise given by a weak
nature, under strong emotional stress, was profound, but he gave no
sign of it. It no longer caused him any satisfaction to be aware of a
deeper insight in himself than in the Canon. He could not share that
guileless singleness of vision, and felt no envy of it, and yet he
paradoxically desired that it should remain unimpaired.
He asked Lucilla if she knew of Adrian’s promise.
“He told me. He was crying when he came down. He can’t believe
even yet that father is dying, poor Adrian! And yet he must believe it,
really, to have made that promise.”
“The Canon is so thankful for it.”
“I know. He wanted it more than anything in the world. Everything
has come to make it easy for him to go, Owen.”
Something in her tone made him say gently:
“Poor Lucilla!”
“Even if the impression is only temporary with Adrian, it will be a
comfort to him afterwards. He is very unhappy now, that there should
have been any estrangement between them.”
It was evident enough that Lucilla, also, had no great reliance upon
Adrian’s stability of purpose, although his present reaction had
brought such joy and comfort to the dying man.
That night for the first time the Canon’s mind wandered. He spoke of
his children as though all were once more of nursery age, and at
home together.
“Little Adrian can take my hand, and then he can keep up with the
others. Less noise, my love—a little less noise.... Valeria’s voice is
too often raised, too often raised—although I like its merry note, in fit
and proper season. My merry Valeria! Now are we ready? The
sketch-book, Flora, the sketch-book.... I want to see that pretty
attempt at the Church finished.”
Then he said with an apologetic note in his voice:
“Flora lacks perseverance, and is too easily discouraged, but we
hope that she may show great feeling for art, by and bye. Lucilla’s
forte lies in more practical directions. She is my housekeeper—my
right hand, I often call her. Look, children, at that effect of sunlight
through the beech-leaves. Is it not wonderful? Come, Adrian, my
man—no lagging behind....”
Presently a puzzled, distressed look came over his face and he
asked: “Is not one missing? Is David here?”
Lucilla bent over him to say, “Yes, father,” but the distressed look still
lingered.
“Where is David?” said the Canon. “Was there not some sadness—
some trouble between us? No—no—all a dream.”
His face lightened again. “David is safe home. I shall see David
tonight.”
By and by he asked to be told the time.
It was nine o’clock.
The Canon’s voice had become a weak whisper.
“I thought it was morning, and that I had them all again—little
children. Such trustful little hands lying in mine ... and the children
have grown up and gone away.... No ... Lucilla, you are there, are
you not, my dear love? And Owen—Owen, that was like a third son
to me. My own sons are there, too—David is safe home ... only a
very little way on ... and Adrian, little Adrian—he promised ... ah, all
things work together for good....”
His voice trailed thinly away into silence, his wan face was smiling.
“He will sleep,” whispered the nurse, and her words were verified
almost instantly.
Owen took Lucilla away.
There was a strong sense upon him that the summons would not be
long delayed now.
Lucilla went downstairs and quietly opened the outer door into the
garden. They walked up and down there, Owen watching the red
spark waxing and waning from his own cigar. The night was
extraordinarily still, the dark arch of the sky powdered with stars.
Neither spoke directly of that which occupied their minds most, but
Quentillian said by and bye:
“Where shall you go, eventually?”
“Torquay, perhaps. There is an old aunt there—father’s sister. I shall
have just enough not to be dependent upon her, even if I make my
home with her.”
“Will that be congenial?”
Lucilla gave a little low, sad laugh.
“I don’t think there’s much alternative, is there? This house, of
course, goes to the next incumbent. If Mr. Clover is appointed—and
we very much hope that he will be—he would probably buy a good
deal of the furniture (which is just as well, as it would certainly drop
to pieces if we tried to move it). I couldn’t possibly afford to set up
house for myself, in any case. And I must have something to do.
Aunt Mary would find plenty for me to do.”
“I daresay,” said Quentillian without enthusiasm.
“Perhaps you are thinking of my taking up an occupation or a
profession seriously, but you know, Owen, it isn’t really a practical
proposition, though one feels as though it ought to be. Just think for
a minute, and tell me what I’m fit for—except perhaps being
someone’s housekeeper.”
“My dear Lucilla, with your education and the literary training your
father has given you, surely anyone would be glad of your services.”
“Not at all. I can’t write shorthand. My typing, which I taught myself,
isn’t nearly as good or as quick as that of any little girl of sixteen who
has learnt it properly, and can probably use half a dozen different
makes of machine. I’ve never learnt office routine—filing, indexing,
bookkeeping, the use of a dictaphone. I believe all those things are
necessary nowadays. I don’t suppose, if I did learn them all now, I
should ever be very good or very quick.”
“I’m not suggesting that you should become a City clerk at forty
shillings a week.”
“A private secretary, then? I can’t honestly see why anyone should
employ a woman with no experience, when there are so many
experts wanting work. Languages might be an asset, but most
people know French. German isn’t likely to be wanted now, and I
don’t fancy there is any great demand for Latin or Greek. Even for
teaching, schools want diplomas and certificates, besides proficiency
in games.”
“But the higher professions are all open to women of education
nowadays,” he protested. “You’re not restricted to the kitchen or the
nursery.”
“Do you really think that I could work up, now, for a stiff legal or
medical examination, and pass it?” she demanded with a sort of
gentle irony. “You don’t realize, Owen, that I’m nearly forty.”
He had not realized it, and it silenced him momentarily.
“I think my chances went by a long time ago,” said Lucilla. “I’ve never
told anyone about it, but I think I’d like to tell you now, because I
don’t want you to think of me as a victim.”
Quentillian registered a silent mental appreciation of a reason
diametrically opposite to the reason for which the majority of
confidences are bestowed.
“Before Val and Flossie grew up, it was obvious that I should stay at
home and look after the house. Besides, I liked doing it. My father
was—and is—the whole world to me. But there was a time, just
once, when Val grew up, and David had gone away, when I wanted
to go away, too. Of course I’m talking of a good many years ago, and
there weren’t so many openings to choose from. But I wanted very
much to go to college. Father could just have managed it, without
being unfair to any of the others.”
“You told him, then?”
“Oh, yes; I told him.”
“Would he not consent?” inquired Owen, as she paused.
“He promised to consent if I still wished it, after thinking it over.”
“But he persuaded you not to wish it any more?”
“No, it wasn’t that. It’s a little bit difficult to explain. He did ask me
what I should gain by it, and whether it wasn’t just restlessness and
seeking a vocation to which I was not called. You remember hearing
him say that about Val, too?”
“I remember.”
“Well, that was all. He didn’t say anything more. Of course I knew he
wouldn’t like my going away from him, without being told. But it was I
who decided that it was an occasion for making what I’m afraid I
thought of as a sacrifice.”
She surprised him by a little laugh.
“You see, Owen, I think now that I was quite wrong.”
“Quite wrong,” he echoed gravely.
“It was an odd, muddled sort of time for some years after that. I
suppose I was resenting my own decision, and yet trying to buoy
myself up all the time by thinking of my own self-abnegation and
generosity. It had seemed rather a beautiful thing to do at the time—
to sacrifice my own life to my widowed father and my motherless
brothers and sisters. At first, I remember thinking that there would be
something almost sacred about my everyday life at home.”
“When people begin to think that things are sacred to them, it
generally means that they’re afraid of facing the truth about them.”
“Exactly. It was a long time before I told myself the truth. But in the
end I did, when I saw that no one was likely to want to marry me,
and that my life was going to be exactly what I had decided to let it
be. And of course from the minute I faced it fair and square—after
the first—it all became a great deal easier. Besides, there were
compensations, really.”
He made a sound of interrogation.
“Well, it’s really a great thing to have a home. I’ve always felt sorry
for women who lived in their boxes, and had nowhere of their own.
And being mistress of the house all these years—I’ve liked that, and
been fairly interested in it. And I’ve got imagination enough to see
that books, and music, and a garden, to anyone brought up as we
were especially, are quite important items. You know, women who
have a career don’t generally get those other things thrown in as
well, unless they’re exceptionally fortunate.”
“You set them against independence and your own freedom?”
“I don’t say that, but they do count,” she said steadily. “If it comes to
a question of relative values, of course they take second place. But
once I’d admitted to myself, quite honestly, that I’d relinquished my
chance of the best things of all, then I could quite see those other
things as being intrinsically worth something—a very good second
best. They’re really only unsatisfactory when one tries to think of
them as substitutes. Taken at their own value—well, I’ve found them
helpful, you know.”
There was a silence before she spoke again.
“Most of all, there was Father.”
“That relationship has been the biggest factor in your life, of course.”
“Yes.” She paused, and then in a tone resolutely matter-of-fact, said:
“I think perhaps I won’t talk about that now. But I know just as well as
you do that in the course of nature, those particular links can only be
expected to endure for a certain number of years. They’re breaking
now, for me, and it means that part of my life goes too.”
He could not contradict her.
“Is Adrian any use?”
“Poor Adrian! He says now that he and I must keep together, and
make a home for one another. He wants to comfort me, and he
knows Father would be glad; but you can see for yourself that it
wouldn’t be fair to take him at his word. Perhaps we may be together
for a little while—till things have worn off a little bit, for him. Adrian is
emotional, isn’t he? I don’t know what he’ll do, eventually.”
The recollection of Adrian’s promise to the Canon, that he would
relinquish his work, was evidently not a factor that Lucilla took into
serious consideration. By tacit agreement neither of them alluded to
it.
“Valeria will hardly be able to come home, I suppose?”
“Oh, no. It’s out of the question. She couldn’t leave the two babies,
nor very well bring them with her.”
“Flora?”
Already, Owen realized with faint surprise, he had come to
remember Flora’s corporeal existence only by an effort. He could
scarcely feel her to be less separated from the realities of life than
one who had died in youth, and been long forgotten.
Lucilla only shook her head.
“They are all gone. Whatever anyone may say, Owen, they didn’t
shirk their chances. They said Yes to Life as they saw it.”
“Can you be glad of that?”
“Very glad. Even selfishly, I can be glad. Think of three—unfulfilled—
lives to be spent side by side, held together by affection if you like,
but fundamentally built on an artificial basis! No, no”—her smile held
humour, rather than conscious valour, though Owen saw it as valiant
too—“I’m glad to have faced my facts at last, though it ought to have
been done long ago, when I made my choice. I’m not optimistic now,
but I—I’m free.”
As they turned, at the end of the garden path, a dark figure sped
across the grass towards them. Adrian’s voice reached them, low
and urgent:
“Come!”

(ii)
The Canon lay back against his pillows and it did not need the
nurse’s gesture to Lucilla to tell them that he was dying. His breath
came loud and fast and his eyes were closed.
Adrian had flung himself on his knees at the bedside and was
sobbing, his face hidden in his arms. Quentillian stood beside Lucilla,
who held her father’s hand in hers.
“Is he conscious?” Lucilla asked.
The nurse shook her head.
“Can anything be done to make it easier?” Lucilla said then.
“No, my dear. I’ve sent messages for the doctor and Mr. Clover, but
——”
Her face completed the sentence.
They remained motionless, Adrian’s irregular sobs and the Canon’s
heavy breathing alone cutting intermittently across the silence.
Quentillian never knew how long it was before Canon Morchard
opened his eyes and spoke, articulating with great difficulty.
“All safe—all happy ... verily, all things work together for good!”
He smiled, looking straight across at Owen Quentillian, and suddenly
said with great distinctness:
“Mors janua vitæ!”
Owen could hear the cry still, ringing through the room, in the time of
dumb struggle that followed.
It seemed a fitting epitome of the spirit that had been Fenwick
Morchard’s.
Just before the first hint of day dawned into the room, Lucilla and the
nurse laid back on to the pillows the form that they had been
supporting.
Adrian was crying and shivering like a child.
“Take him downstairs and give him something hot to drink,” the nurse
commanded Owen. “There’s a fire in the kitchen.”
Quentillian looked at Lucilla.
“Please go,” she said.
He went downstairs with Adrian.
“If only I’d been better to him! He was awfully good to me, really,”
sobbed Adrian. “He used to make an awful fuss of me when I was a
little chap, and I wasn’t half grateful enough—beast that I was!”
“Drink this.”
“I can’t.”
“Of course you can. Try and be a man, Adrian, for your sister’s
sake.”
“It’s worse for me than for any of them,” said Adrian ingenuously,
“because I’ve got things to be remorseful about, and they haven’t.
And now it’s too late!”
“You were here in time,” said Quentillian, abominably conscious, and
resentful, of his own triteness.
“And I promised him I’d chuck my job. I think it comforted him.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“It was a sacrifice, in a way, to throw the whole thing up, when I was
doing well and keen on it, and all that sort of thing; but I’m thankful
now that I did it. Perhaps it made up to—him—for my having been
such a hound, often and often.”
It was oddly evident that Adrian was torn between genuine grief and
shock and a latent desire to make the most of his own former
depravity.
“I daresay you’re thinking that having been through the war and
everything, I ought to be used to the sight of death,” he said
presently; “but it’s quite different when it’s like this. One got sort of
hardened there, and everybody was running the same risk—oneself
included. But my father—why, it seems like the end of everything,
Owen. I must say, I think I’m a bit young to have my home broken up
like this, don’t you?”
“Very young,” repeated Quentillian automatically, and yet not
altogether without significance.
“I don’t know what will happen, but of course Lucilla and I have to
leave St. Gwenllian. It’s hard on her, too. I thought we ought to keep
together, you know, for a bit. It seems more natural. I shall have to
look for a fresh job, and I don’t know what Hale will say to my
chucking him.”
Adrian was silent, obviously uneasy, and it was evident enough that
it was the strong revulsion from that anxiety which prompted his next
sudden outburst.
“I’m so awfully thankful that I had the strength to make that promise
about leaving Hale. It’ll always be a comfort to me to feel that I made
a sacrifice for the dear old man, and that he—went—the happier for
it. Mind you, I don’t agree with him about Hale and Hale’s crowd.
Father had the old-fashioned ideas of his generation, you know, and
of course all progress seemed a sort of vandalism to him. I daresay if
he’d ever met Hale he’d have had his eyes opened a bit, and seen
things quite differently. Hale was always jolly decent about him, too—
he’d read some of his stuff, and had quite a sort of admiration for it,
in a way. Said it was reactionary, and all that, but perfectly sound in
its own way, you know—scholarly, and all that kind of muck.”
“Have you written to Hale?”
“No. Of course, in a way it’s an awfully awkward situation for me,
having to tell him why I’m not coming back to him, and so on. I
thought I’d pop up and see him as soon as it could be managed. Of
course there are arrangements to be made——”
The boy broke off, in a fresh access of bewilderment and grief.
“I simply can’t realize he’s gone, Owen. I say—you do think he was
happy, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“That promise of mine meant a lot to him. I’m so thankful that I’ve got
that to remember. You might say, in a way, considering how much he
always thought of us, that some of his children had rather let him
down, in a way. I mean, Lucilla and I were the only two there, out of
the five of us. Of course, David, poor chap, had gone already, and
Val and Flossie couldn’t very well help themselves—and yet there it
was! Do you suppose that when he said—that—about ‘all safe, all
happy’—he was thinking of us?”
“Yes, I do.”
“It’s a comfort to know his mind was at rest. He wouldn’t have said
that if I hadn’t made that promise, you know,” said Adrian.
“Look here, Adrian, hadn’t you better try and get some sleep?
There’ll be things to be done, later, you know, and you and I—if you’ll
let me help—must try and take some of it off Lucilla’s hands.”
All the child in Adrian responded to the transparent lure.
He drew himself up.
“Thanks awfully, Owen. I shall be only too glad of your help. There’ll
be a good deal for me to see to, of course, so perhaps I’d better lie
down for an hour or two while I can. What about Lucilla?”
“Would you like to come and find her?”
The boy shuddered violently.
“Not in there—I couldn’t,” he said piteously.
They went upstairs together.
As they passed the door of the Canon’s room, it was cautiously
opened and the nurse came outside and spoke to Adrian.
“The doctor should be here presently. I want him to see Miss
Morchard. She turned faint a little while ago, and I’ve got her into her
room, but I’m afraid she’s in for a breakdown. I’ve seen them like this
before, after a long strain, you know.”
The woman’s tone was professionally matter-of-fact.
“Had I better go to her?” said Adrian, troubled, and seeming rather
resentful at the fresh anxiety thrust upon him.
“I shouldn’t, if I were you. It’ll only upset her. She’s broken down a bit
—hysterical. It’ll relieve her, in the end. I shan’t leave her now, till the
doctor comes.”
Lucilla hysterical!
Owen, almost more amazed than concerned, watched the nurse
depart to what she evidently looked upon as a fresh case.
“Well, I can’t do anything, I suppose,” said Adrian miserably.
“Go to bed,” Quentillian repeated. “Shall I draft out some telegrams
for you, and let you see them before they go? It’s no use sending
them to the post-office before eight.”
“Don’t you want to sleep yourself?”
“Not just now, thanks.”
“Well, I’ll relieve you at seven. Send someone to call me, will you?—
though I don’t suppose I shall sleep.”
The boy trailed into his room, disconsolate and frightened-looking.
Owen Quentillian, searching for writing materials, found them on the
table in the Canon’s study, a table scrupulous in its orderliness, each
stack of papers docketed, each article laid with symmetrical
precision in its own place.
Owen would not sit there, where only the Canon had sat, under the
crucifix mounted on the green velvet plaque. He went instead to
another, smaller table, in the embrasure of a window, and sat there
writing until the morning light streamed in upon him.
Then he laid down the pen, with a sense of the futility of activities
that sought to cheat reflection, and let his mind dwell upon that which
subconsciously obsessed it.
Canon Morchard had died as he had lived—an optimist. An invincible
faith in the ultimate rightness of all things had been his to the end,
and perhaps most of all at the end.
Quentillian envisaged the Canon’s causes of thankfulness.
He had seen his children as “safe” and “happy.” Was it only because
he had wanted so to see them?
David, who was dead, had been mourned for, but the Canon had
been spared the deepest bitterness of separation. He had known
nothing of the gulf widening between his own soul and that of his
eldest son....
A fool’s paradise?
He had seen Lucilla as safe and happy.
And yet Lucilla’s life was over, unlived. As she herself had said, her
chances had gone by. Torquay remained. It was not very difficult to
imagine her days there. An old lady—the placid kindness accorded
by the aged to the middle-ageing—the outside interests of a little
music, a few books, a flower-garden—the pathetic, vicarious
planning for scarcely-seen nephews and nieces—the quick, solitary
walks, cut short by the fear of being missed, and then, as years went
on, more solitude, and again more solitude.
Lucilla had said: “I’m not an optimist now—but I’m free.”
From the bottom of his heart Owen recalled with thankfulness the
fact of Lucilla’s freed spirit.
It was the best that life would ever hold for her now.
His thoughts turned to Flora.
Quentillian could not envisage her life: eternally secluded, eternally
withdrawn. She was lost to them, as they were lost to her.
Subconsciously, he was aware of associations connected with
Flora’s vocation upon which he preferred not to dwell. He knew,
dimly, intuitively, that Lucilla’s merciless clarity of outlook had seen
Flora less as a voluntary sacrifice than as the self-deluded victim of
fanaticism.
But no doubts had crossed the Canon’s mind on Flora’s behalf. He
had known no distrust of her craving for self-immolation, no dread of
reaction coming too late.
He had thanked God for the dedication of Flora.