‘Well, then, good fellow, holy father, or whatever thou art,’ quoth Robin, ‘I would know whether this same Friar is to be found upon this side of the river or the other.’

‘Truly, the river hath no side but the other,’ said the Friar.

‘How dost thou prove that?’ asked Robin.

‘Why, thus,’ said the Friar, noting the points upon his fingers. ‘The other side of the river is the other, thou grantest?’

‘Yea, truly.’

‘Yet the other side is but one side, thou dost mark?’

‘No man could gainsay that,’ said Robin.

‘Then if the other side is one side, this side is the other side. But the other side is the other side, therefore both sides of the river are the other side. Q.E.D.’

”Tis well and pleasantly argued,’ quoth Robin, ‘yet I am still in the dark as to whether this same Curtal Friar is upon the side of the river on which we stand or upon the side of the river on which we do not stand.’

‘That,’ quoth the Friar, ‘is a practical question upon which the cunning rules appertaining to logic touch not. I do advise thee to find that out by the aid of thine own five senses; sight, feeling, and what not.’

— Howard Pyle, The Merry Adventures of Robin Hood, 1883