[80]
We must therefore accept the view of the authorities followed by Cicero,1 to the effect that there are
three things on which enquiry is made in every case:
we ask whether a thing is, that it is, and of that kind it
is. Nature herself imposes this upon us. For first of all
there must be some subject for the question, since we
cannot possibly determine what a thing is, or of what
kind it is, until we have first ascertained whether it is,
and therefore the first question raised is whether it is.
But even when it is clear that a thing is,
1 See ยง 44.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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