22
If a crocodile should seize it on finding it straying beside the river, and then should promise to give it back to you if you told him truly what he intended to do about giving it back, what would you say he had made up his mind to do?The commentators do not seem to have noticed that Lucian has (intentionally) spoiled the sophism by using the words δέδοικα and ἐγνωκέναι. It is perfectly possible for the father to guess what the crocodile “had made up his mind” to do, and so to get the child back: for an intention need not be executed. The crocodile should ask, ‘* Am I going to (μέλλω) give up the child?” Then, if the father answers “Yes,” he will say ‘ You are wrong,” and eat it: and if the father says “No,” he will reply “You are right; therefore I am not going to give it up.”
22
Your question is hard to answer, for I don’t know which alternative I should follow in my reply, in order to get back the child. Come, in Heaven’s name answer it yourself and save the child for me, for fear the beast may get ahead of us and devour it!
22
Courage! I'll teach you other things that are more wonderful.
22
What are they?
22
The Reaper, the Master,Neither of these are accurately known. The Reaper was based on the fallacious employment of the negative, and proved that a man who was going to reap a field could not possibly reap it. Zeno, the founder of the Stoic school, is said to have paid 200 minas to a logician who taught him seven varieties of this fallacy. The Master consisted of four propositions, of which you could take any three and disprove the fourth. and above all, the Electra and the Veiled Figure.
22
What do you mean by the Veiled Figure and the Electra?
