The Politics of Aristotle

by Aristotle

  17Iliad III 172.

  18Odyssey VI 168.

  RHETORIC**

  W. Rhys Roberts

  BOOK I

  [1354a1] 1 · Rhetoric is the counterpart of dialectic. Both alike are concerned with such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men and belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use, more or less, of both; for to a certain [5] extent all men attempt to discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others. Ordinary people do this either at random or through practice and from acquired habit. Both ways being possible, the subject can plainly be handled systematically, for it is possible to inquire the reason why some [10] speakers succeed through practice and others spontaneously; and everyone will at once agree that such an inquiry is the function of an art.

  Now, the framers of the current treatises on rhetoric have constructed but a small portion of that art. The modes of persuasion are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is merely accessory. These writers, however, say nothing [15] about enthymemes, which are the substance of rhetorical persuasion, but deal mainly with non-essentials. The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case. Consequently if the rules for trials which are [20] now laid down in some states—especially in well-governed states—were applied everywhere, such people would have nothing to say. All men, no doubt, think that the laws should prescribe such rules, but some, as in the court of Areopagus, give practical effect to their thoughts and forbid talk about non-essentials. This is sound law and custom. It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy [25] or pity—one might as well warp a carpenter’s rule before using it. Again, a litigant has clearly nothing to do but to show that the alleged fact is so or is not so, that it has or has not happened. As to whether a thing is important or unimportant, just or unjust, the judge must surely refuse to take his instructions from the litigants: he [30] must decide for himself all such points as the law-giver has not already defined for him.

  Now, it is of great moment that well-drawn laws should themselves define all the points they possibly can and leave as few as may be to the decision of the judges; and this for several reasons. First, to find one man, or a few men, who are sensible [1354b1] persons and capable of legislating and administering justice is easier than to find a large number. Next, laws are made after long consideration, whereas decisions in the courts are given at short notice, which makes it hard for those who try the case to satisfy the claims of justice and expediency. The weightiest reason of all is that [5] the decision of the lawgiver is not particular but prospective and general, whereas members of the assembly and the jury find it their duty to decide on definite cases brought before them. They will often have allowed themselves to be so much influenced by feelings of friendship or hatred or self-interest that they lose any clear [10] vision of the truth and have their judgement obscured by considerations of personal pleasure or pain. In general, then, the judge should, we say, be allowed to decide as few things as possible. But questions as to whether something has happened or has not happened, will be or will not be, is or is not, must of necessity be left to the judge, [15] since the lawgiver cannot foresee them. If this is so, it is evident that anyone who lays down rules about other matters, such as what must be the contents of the ‘introduction’ or the ‘narration’ or any of the other divisions of a speech, is theorizing about non-essentials as if they belonged to the art. The only question with which these writers here deal is how to put the judge into a given frame of [20] mind. About the orator’s proper modes of persuasion they have nothing to tell us; nothing, that is, about how to gain skill in enthymemes.

  Hence it comes that, although the same systematic principles apply to political as to forensic oratory, and although the former is a nobler business, and fitter for a citizen, than that which concerns the relations of private individuals, these authors [25] say nothing about political oratory, but try, one and all, to write treatises on the way to plead in court. The reason for this is that in political oratory there is less inducement to talk about non-essentials. [Political oratory is less given to unscrupulous practices than forensic, but treats of wider issues.]1 In a political debate the man who is forming a judgement is making a decision about his own vital interests. [30] There is no need, therefore, to prove anything except that the facts are what the supporter of a measure maintains they are. In forensic oratory this is not enough; to conciliate the listener is what pays here. It is other people’s affairs that are to be decided, so that the judges, intent on their own satisfaction and listening with partiality, surrender themselves to the disputants instead of judging between them. [1355a1] Hence in many places, as we have said already, irrelevant speaking is forbidden in the law-courts: in the public assembly those who have to form a judgement are themselves well able to guard against that.

  It is clear, then, that the technical study of rhetoric is concerned with the modes of persuasion. Now persuasion is a sort of demonstration (since we are most [5] fully persuaded when we consider a thing to have been demonstrated); the orator’s demonstration is an enthymeme, [and this is, in general, the most effective of the modes of persuasion];1 the enthymeme is a sort of deduction (the consideration of deductions of all kinds, without distinction, is the business of dialectic, either of dialectic as a whole or of one of its branches): clearly, then, he who is best able to see [10] how and from what elements a deduction is produced will also be best skilled in the enthymeme, when he has further learnt what its subject-matter is and in what respects it differs from the deductions of logic. For the true and the approximately [15] true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to make a good guess at what is reputable.

  It has now been shown that the ordinary writers on rhetoric treat of [20] non-essentials; it has also been shown why they have inclined more towards the forensic branch of oratory.

  Rhetoric is useful because things that are true and things that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites, so that if the decisions of judges are not what they ought to be, the defeat must be due to the speakers themselves, and they must be blamed accordingly. Moreover, before some audiences not even the [25] possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct. Here, then, we must use, as our modes of persuasion and argument, notions possessed by everybody, as we observed in the Topics2 when dealing with the way to handle a popular audience. Further, we must [30] be able to employ persuasion, just as deduction can be employed, on opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him. No other of the arts draws opposite conclusions: dialectic and [35] rhetoric alone do this. Both these arts draw opposite conclusions impartially. Nevertheless, the underlying facts do not lend themselves equally well to the contrary views. No; things that are true and things that are better are, by their nature, practically always easier to prove and more persuasive. Again, it is absurd to [1355b1] hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself with rational speech, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. And if it is objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against all good things except [5] excellence, and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right use
of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly.

  It is clear, then, that rhetoric is not bound up with a single definite class of subjects, but is like dialectic; it is clear, also, that it is useful. It is clear, further, that [10] its function is not simply to succeed in persuading, but rather to discover the persuasive facts in each case. In this it resembles all other arts. For example, it is not the function of medicine simply to make a man quite healthy, but to put him as far as may be on the road to health; it is possible to give excellent treatment even to [15] those who can never enjoy sound health. Furthermore, it is plain that it is the function of one and the same art to discern the real and the apparent means of persuasion, just as it is the function of dialectic to discern the real and the apparent deduction. What makes a man a sophist is not his abilities but his choices. In rhetoric, however, the term ‘rhetorician’ may describe either the speaker’s knowledge of the art, or his choices. In dialectic a man is a sophist because he makes a [20] certain kind of choice, a dialectician in respect not of his choices but of his abilities.

  Let us now try to give some account of the systematic principles of rhetoric itself—of the right method and means of succeeding in the object we set before us. We must make as it were a fresh start, and before going further define what [25] rhetoric is.

  2 · Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other art. Every other art can instruct or persuade about its own particular subject-matter; for instance, medicine about what is healthy and unhealthy, geometry about the properties of [30] magnitudes, arithmetic about numbers, and the same is true of the other arts and sciences. But rhetoric we look upon as the power of observing the means of persuasion on almost any subject presented to us; and that is why we say that, in its technical character, it is not concerned with any special or definite class of subjects. [35]

  Of the modes of persuasion some are technical, others non-technical. By the latter I mean such things as are not supplied by the speaker but are there at the outset—witnesses, evidence given under torture, written contracts, and so on. By the former I mean such as we can ourselves construct by means of the principles of rhetoric. The one kind has merely to be used, the other has to be invented. [1356a1]

  Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself. Persuasion is achieved by the speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think [5] him credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided. This kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character [10] before he begins to speak. It is not true, as some writers assume in their treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses. Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions. Our judgements when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile. It is [15] towards producing these effects, as we maintain, that present-day writers on rhetoric direct the whole of their efforts. This subject will be treated in detail when we come to speak of the emotions. Thirdly, persuasion is effected through the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the [20] persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question.

  There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able to reason logically, to understand human characters and excellences, and to understand the emotions—that is, to know what they are, their nature, their causes and the way in which they are [25] excited. It thus appears that rhetoric is an offshoot of dialectic and also of ethical studies. Ethical studies may fairly be called political; and for this reason rhetoric masquerades as political science, and the professors of it as political experts—sometimes from want of education, sometimes from ostentation, sometimes owing [30] to other human failings. As a matter of fact, it is a branch of dialectic and similar to it, as we said at the outset. Neither rhetoric nor dialectic is the scientific study of anyone separate subject: both are faculties for providing arguments. This is [35] perhaps a sufficient account of their scope and of how they are related to each other.

  [[With regard to the persuasion achieved by proof or apparent proof: just as in [1356b1] dialectic there is induction on the one hand and deduction or apparent deduction on the other, so it is in rhetoric. The example is an induction, the enthymeme is a deduction, and the apparent enthymeme is an apparent deduction; for I call a [5] rhetorical deduction an enthymeme, and a rhetorical induction an example.]]3 Everyone who effects persuasion through proof does in fact use either enthymemes or examples: there is no other way. And since everyone who proves anything at all is bound to use either deductions or inductions (and this is clear to us from the [10] Analytics), it must follow that each of the latter is the same as one of the former. The difference between example and enthymeme is made plain by the passages in the Topics4 where induction and deduction have already been discussed. When we base the proof of a proposition on a number of similar cases, this is induction in [15] dialectic, example in rhetoric; when it is shown that, certain propositions being true, a further and quite distinct proposition must also be true in consequence, whether universally or for the most part this is called deduction in dialectic, enthymeme in rhetoric. It is plain also that each of these types of oratory has its advantages. For [20] what has been said in the Methodics applies equally well here; in some oratorical styles examples prevail, in others enthymemes; and in like manner, some orators are better at the former and some at the latter. Speeches that rely on examples are as persuasive as the other kind, but those which rely on enthymemes excite the louder [25] applause. The reason for this, and their proper uses, we will discuss later. Our next step is to define the processes themselves more clearly.

  What is persuasive is persuasive to someone; and something is persuasive either because it is directly self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that are so. But none of the arts theorizes about individual cases. [30] Medicine, for instance, does not theorize about what will help to cure Socrates or Callias, but only about what will help to cure any or all of a given class of patients: this alone is subject to technique—individual cases are so infinitely various that no knowledge of them is possible. In the same way the theory of rhetoric is concerned not with what seems reputable to a given individual like Socrates or Hippias, but with what seems so to men of a given type; and this is true of dialectic also. Dialectic does not construct its deductions out of any haphazard materials, such as the fancies of crazy people, but out of materials that call for discussion; and rhetoric draws [1357a1] upon the regular subjects of debate. The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning. The subjects of our deliberation are such as seem to present us with alternative possibilities: about things that could not have been, and cannot now [5] or in the future be, other than they are, nobody who takes them to be of this nature wastes his time in deliberation.

  It is possible to form deductions and draw conclusions from the results of previous deductions; or, on the other hand, from premisses which have not been thus proved, and at the same time are not reputable and so call for proof. Reasonings of [10] the former kind will necessarily be hard to follow owing to their length, for we assume an audience of untrained thinkers;
those of the latter kind will fail to be persuasive, because they are based on premisses that are not generally admitted or reputable.

  The enthymeme and the example must, then, deal with what is for the most part capable of being otherwise, the example being an induction, and the [15] enthymeme a deduction. The enthymeme must consist of few propositions, fewer often than those which make up a primary deduction. For if any of these propositions is a familiar fact, there is no need even to mention it; the hearer adds it himself. Thus, to show that Dorieus has been victor in a contest for which the prize is a crown, it is enough to say ‘For he has been victor in the Olympic games’, without [20] adding ‘And in the Olympic games the prize is a crown’, a fact which everybody knows.

  There are few facts of the necessary type that can form the basis of rhetorical deductions. Most of the things about which we make decisions, and into which we inquire, present us with alternative possibilities. For it is about our actions that we [25] deliberate and inquire, and all our actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them are determined by necessity. Again, conclusions that state what holds for the most part and is possible must be drawn from premisses that do the same, just as necessary conclusions must be drawn from necessary premisses; this too is clear to us from the Analytics.5 It is evident, therefore, that the propositions forming the [30] basis of enthymemes, though some of them may be necessary, will in the main hold for the most part. Now the materials of enthymemes are probabilities and signs, so that each of the former must be the same as one of these. A probability is a thing [35] that happens for the most part—not, however, as some definitions would suggest, anything whatever that so happens, but only if it belongs to the class of what can turn out otherwise, and bears the same relation to that in respect of which it is probable as the universal bears to the particular. Of signs, one kind bears the same [1357b1] relation as the particular bears to the universal, the other the same as the universal bears to the particular. A necessary sign is an evidence, a non-necessary sign has no [5] specific name. By necessary signs I mean those on which deductions may be based; and this shows us why this kind of sign is called an evidence: when people think that what they have said cannot be refuted, they then think that they are bringing forward an evidence, meaning that the matter has now been demonstrated and [10] completed; for the word πέρας has the same meaning as the word τέκμαρ in the ancient tongue.6 Now the one kind of sign (that which bears to the proposition it supports the relation of particular to universal) may be illustrated thus. Suppose it were said, ‘The fact that Socrates was wise and just is a sign that the wise are just’. Here we certainly have a sign; but even though the proposition is true, the argument is refutable, since it does not form a deduction. Suppose, on the other [15] hand, it were said, ‘The fact that he has a fever is a sign that he is ill’, or, ‘The fact that she is giving milk is a sign that she has lately borne a child’. Here we have the necessary kind of sign, the only kind that constitutes an evidence, since it is the only kind that, if true, is irrefutable. The other kind of sign, that which bears the relation of universal to particular, might be illustrated by saying, ‘The fact that he breathes [20] fast is a sign that he has a fever’. This argument also is refutable, even if true, since a man may breathe hard without having a fever.