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[25]
Another topic is derived from the cause. If the
cause exists, the effect exists; if the cause does not exist, the effect does
not exist; for the effect exists with the cause, and without cause there is
nothing. For example, Leodamas, when defending himself against the accusation of
Thrasybulus that his name had been posted in the Acropolis1 but that he had erased it in the time of
the Thirty, declared that it was impossible, for the Thirty would have had more
confidence in him if his hatred against the people had been graven on the stone.
1 The names of traitors were inscribed on a brazen pillar in the Acropolis. Leodamas supported the oligarchic, Thrasybulus the democratic party. In answer to the charge that he had had his name removed from the pillar when his party came into power, Leodamas replied that, if he had been originally posted as an enemy of the people and a hater of democracy, he would have preferred to keep the record, as likely to increase the confidence of the Thirty in him, than to have it erased, even though it branded him as a traitor.
Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 22, translated by J. H. Freese. Aristotle. Cambridge and London. Harvard University Press; William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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