virtue; since the 67 true nature of justice is to give to every one according to his merit, as the dog wags his tail to those who belong to the family, and to those who behave well to him, guards them, and keeps off strangers and evil doers, he is surely not without justice.  Now if he has this virtue, since the virtues follow 68 each other in turn, he has the other virtues also, which the wise men say, most men do not possess.  We see the dog also brave in warding off attacks, and sagacious, as Homer testified when he represented Odysseus as unrecognised by all in his house, and recognised only by Argos, because the dog was not deceived by the physical change in the man, and had not lost the [Greek:  phantasia kataleptike] which he proved that he had kept better than the men had.  But according to Chrysippus even, who most 69 attacked the irrational animals, the dog takes a part in the dialectic about which so much is said.  At any rate, the man above referred to said that the dog follows the fifth of the several non-apodictic syllogisms, for when he comes to a meeting of three roads, after seeking the scent in the two roads, through which his prey has not passed, he presses forward quickly in the third without scenting it.  For the dog reasons in this way, potentially said the man of olden time; the animal passed through this, or this, or this; it was neither through this nor this, therefore it was through this.  The dog also understands his own sufferings and mitigates them.  As soon as 70 a sharp stick is thrust into him, he sets out to remove it, by rubbing his foot on the ground, as also with his teeth; and if ever he has a wound anywhere, for the reason that uncleansed wounds are difficult to cure, and those that are cleansed are easily cured, he gently wipes off the collected matter; and 71 he observes the Hippocratic advice exceedingly well, for since quiet is a relief for the foot, if he has ever a wound in the foot, he lifts it up, and keeps it undisturbed as much as possible.  When he is troubled by disturbing humours, he eats grass, with which he vomits up that which was unfitting, and recovers.  Since therefore it has been shown that the animal 72 that we fixed the argument upon for the sake of an example, chooses that which is suitable for him, and avoids what is harmful, and that he has an art by which he provides what is suitable, and that he comprehends his own sufferings and mitigates them, and that he is not without virtue, things in which perfection of reasoning in thought consists, so according to this it would seem that the dog has reached perfection.  It is for this reason, it appears to me, that some philosophers have honoured themselves with the name of this animal.  In regard to reasoning in speech, it is not necessary at present to bring 73 the matter in question.  For some of the Dogmatics, even, have put this aside, as opposing the acquisition of virtue, for which reason they practiced silence