 The Stoics felt the need to preserve the thesis that there are things which are possible but which do not happen. The same source that preserves the allegedly incompatible claims involved in the Master Argument tells us that the Stoics Cleanthes and Chrysippus did this in different ways. While Cleanthes rejected (1), the necessity of the past, Chrysippus rejected (2) that what is impossible does not follow from what is possible, using the following example: consider the conditional “if Dion is dead, then this one is dead” when ostensive reference is being made to Dion. The antecedent is possible, since Dion will one day be dead. Hence, let us suppose it true. Then, by modus ponens, it follows that “this one is dead.” However, the proposition that “this one is dead” is impossible (necessarily false), since one cannot make the requisite ostensive reference to a dead man so as to make it true that “this one [i.e. the (living) thing I’m pointing to] is dead,” for a dead person isn’t the same thing as what was there previously (Alex. Aph., 38F). This may appear utterly ad hoc to us, but it fits nicely with the Stoics’ views on definite or deictic propositions. It once again illustrates the systematic character of Stoic philosophy.