The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics)

by Mckeon, Richard

  Chiefest of blessings is health for a man, as it seemeth to me,48

  this being the general opinion: or because, as soon as the view is stated, (15) it is clear at a glance, e. g.

  No love is true save that which loves for ever.49

  Of the maxims that do have a supplement attached, some are part of an Enthymeme, e. g.

  Never should any man whose wits are sound, &c.50

  Others have the essential character of Enthymemes, but are not stated as parts of Enthymemes; these latter are reckoned the best; they are those in which the reason for the view expressed is simply implied, (20) e. g.

  O mortal man, nurse not immortal wrath.

  To say ‘it is not right to nurse immortal wrath’ is a maxim; the added words ‘O mortal man’ give the reason. Similarly, with the words

  Mortal creatures ought to cherish mortal, not immortal thoughts.51

  What has been said has shown us how many kinds of maxim there are, (25) and to what subjects the various kinds are appropriate. They must not be given without supplement if they express disputed or paradoxical views: we must, in that case, either put the supplement first and make a maxim of the conclusion, e. g. you might say, ‘For my part, since both unpopularity and idleness are undesirable, (30) I hold that it is better not to be educated’; or you may say this first, and then add the previous clause. Where a statement, without being paradoxical, is not obviously true, the reason should be added as concisely as possible. In such cases both laconic and enigmatic sayings are suitable: thus one might say what Stesichorus said to the Locrians, ‘Insolence is better avoided, lest the cicalas chirp on the ground.’52 [1395a]

  The use of maxims is appropriate only to elderly men, and in handling subjects in which the speaker is experienced. For a young man to use them is—like telling stories—unbecoming; to use them in handling things in which one has no experience is silly and ill-bred: a fact sufficiently proved by the special fondness of country fellows for striking out maxims, (5) and their readiness to air them.

  To declare a thing to be universally true when it is not is most appropriate when working up feelings of horror and indignation in our hearers; especially by way of preface, or after the facts have been proved. Even hackneyed and commonplace maxims are to be used, (10) if they suit one’s purpose: just because they are commonplace, every one seems to agree with them, and therefore they are taken for truth.

  Thus, any one who is calling on his men to risk an engagement without obtaining favourable omens may quote

  One omen of all is best, that we fight for our fatherland.53

  Or, if he is calling on them to attack a stronger force—

  The War-God showeth no favour.54 (15)

  Or, if he is urging people to destroy the innocent children of their enemies—

  Fool, who slayeth the father and leaveth his sons to avenge him.55

  Some proverbs are also maxims, e. g. the proverb ‘An Attic neighbour’. You are not to avoid uttering maxims that contradict such sayings as have become public property (I mean such sayings as ‘know thyself’ and ‘nothing in excess’), (20) if doing so will raise your hearers’ opinion of your character, or convey an effect of strong emotion—e. g. an angry speaker might well say, ‘It is not true that we ought to know ourselves: anyhow, if this man had known himself, he would never have thought himself fit for an army command.’ It will raise people’s opinion of our character to say, (25) for instance, ‘We ought not to follow the saying that bids us treat our friends as future enemies: much better to treat our enemies as future friends.’56 The moral purpose should be implied partly by the very wording of our maxim. Failing this, we should add our reason: e. g. having said ‘We should treat our friends, not as the saying advises, but as if they were going to be our friends always’, we should add ‘for the other behaviour is that of a traitor’: or we might put it, (30) ‘I disapprove of that saying. A true friend will treat his friend as if he were going to be his friend for ever’; and again, ‘Nor do I approve of the saying “nothing in excess”: we are bound to hate bad men excessively.’

  [1395b] One great advantage of maxims to a speaker is due to the want of intelligence in his hearers, who love to hear him succeed in expressing as a universal truth the opinions which they hold themselves about particular cases. I will explain what I mean by this, indicating at the same time how we are to hunt down the maxims required. The maxim, (5) as has been already said,57 is a general statement, and people love to hear stated in general terms what they already believe in some particular connexion: e. g. if a man happens to have bad neighbours or bad children, he will agree with any one who tells him, ‘Nothing is more annoying than having neighbours’, or, ‘Nothing is more foolish than to be the parent of children.’ The orator has therefore to guess the subjects on which his hearers really hold views already, (10) and what those views are, and then must express, as general truths, these same views on these same subjects. This is one advantage of using maxims. There is another which is more important—it invests a speech with moral character. There is moral character in every speech in which the moral purpose is conspicuous: and maxims always produce this effect, because the utterance of them amounts to a general declaration of moral principles: so that, (15) if the maxims are sound, they display the speaker as a man of sound moral character. So much for the maxim—its nature, varieties, proper use, and advantages.

  22 We now come to the Enthymemes, and will begin the subject with some general consideration of the proper way of looking for them, (20) and then proceed to what is a distinct question, the lines of argument to be embodied in them. It has already58 been pointed out that the Enthymeme is a syllogism, and in what sense it is so. We have also noted the differences between it and the syllogism of dialectic. Thus we must not carry its reasoning too far back, or the length of our argument will cause obscurity: nor must we put in all the steps that lead to our conclusion, (25) or we shall waste words in saying what is manifest. It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences—makes them, as the poets59 tell us, ‘charm the crowd’s ears more finely’. Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions. (30) We must not, therefore, start from any and every accepted opinion, but only from those we have defined—those accepted by our judges or by those whose authority they recognize: and there must, moreover, be no doubt in the minds of most, if not all, of our judges that the opinions put forward really are of this sort. [1396a] We should also base our arguments upon probabilities as well as upon certainties.

  The first thing we have to remember is this. Whether our argument concerns public affairs or some other subject, we must know some, (5) if not all, of the facts about the subject on which we are to speak and argue. Otherwise we can have no materials out of which to construct arguments. I mean, for instance, how could we advise the Athenians whether they should go to war or not, if we did not know their strength, whether it was naval or military or both, and how great it is; what their revenues amount to; who their friends and enemies are; what wars, (10) too, they have waged, and with what success; and so on? Or how could we eulogize them if we knew nothing about the sea-fight at Salamis, or the battle of Marathon, or what they did for the Heracleidae, or any other facts like that? All eulogy is based upon the noble deeds—real or imaginary—that stand to the credit of those eulogized. (15) On the same principle, invectives are based on facts of the opposite kind: the orator looks to see what base deeds—real or imaginary—stand to the discredit of those he is attacking, such as treachery to the cause of Hellenic freedom, or the enslavement of their gallant allies against the barbarians (Aegina,60 Potidaea,61 & c.), (20) or any other misdeeds of this kind that are recorded against them. So, too, in a court of law: whether we are prosecuting or defending, we must pay attention to the existing facts of the case. It makes no difference whether the subject is the Lacedaemonians or the Athenians, a man or
a god; we must do the same thing. (25) Suppose it to be Achilles whom we are to advise, to praise or blame, to accuse or defend; here too we must take the facts, real or imaginary; these must be our material, whether we are to praise or blame him for the noble or base deeds he has done, to accuse or defend him for his just or unjust treatment of others, or to advise him about what is or is not to his interest. (30) The same thing applies to any subject whatever. Thus, in handling the question whether justice is or is not a good, we must start with the real facts about justice and goodness. We see, then, that this is the only way in which any one ever proves anything, whether his arguments are strictly cogent or not: not all facts can form his basis, but only those that bear on the matter in hand: nor, plainly, can proof be effected otherwise by means of the speech. [1396b] Consequently, as appears in the Topics,62 we must first of all have by us a selection of arguments about questions that may arise and are suitable for us to handle; and then we must try to think out arguments of the same type for special needs as they emerge; not vaguely and indefinitely, (5) but by keeping our eyes on the actual facts of the subject we have to speak on, and gathering in as many of them as we can that bear closely upon it: for the more actual facts we have at our command, (10) the more easily we prove our case; and the more closely they bear on the subject, the more they will seem to belong to that speech only instead of being commonplaces. By ‘commonplaces’ I mean, for example, eulogy of Achilles because he is a human being, or a demi-god, or because he joined the expedition against Troy: these things are true of many others, (15) so that this kind of eulogy applies no better to Achilles than to Diomede. The special facts here needed are those that are true of Achilles alone; such facts as that he slew Hector, the bravest of the Trojans, and Cycnus the invulnerable, who prevented all the Greeks from landing, and again that he was the youngest man who joined the expedition, and was not bound by oath to join it, and so on.

  Here, then, we have our first principle of selection of Enthymemes—that which refers to the lines of argument selected. (20) We will now consider the various elementary classes of Enthymemes. (By an ‘elementary class’ of Enthymeme I mean the same thing as a ‘line of argument’.) We will begin, as we must begin, by observing that there are two kinds of Enthymemes. One kind proves some affirmative or negative proposition; (25) the other kind disproves one. The difference between the two kinds is the same as that between syllogistic proof and disproof in dialectic. The demonstrative Enthymeme is formed by the conjunction of compatible propositions; the refutative, by the conjunction of incompatible propositions.

  We may now be said to have in our hands the lines of argument for the various special subjects that it is useful or necessary to handle, having selected the propositions suitable in various cases. We have, (30) in fact, already ascertained the lines of argument applicable to Enthymemes about good and evil, the noble and the base, justice and injustice, and also to those about types of character, emotions, and moral qualities.63 Let us now lay hold of certain facts about the whole subject, considered from a different and more general point of view. [1397a] In the course of our discussion we will take note of the distinction between lines of proof and lines of disproof:64 and also of those lines of argument used in what seem to be Enthymemes, but are not, since they do not represent valid syllogisms.65 Having made all this clear, we will proceed to classify Objections and Refutations, (5) showing how they can be brought to bear upon Enthymemes.66

  23 1. One line of positive proof67 is based upon consideration of the opposite of the thing in question. Observe whether that opposite has the opposite quality.68 If it has not, you refute the original proposition; if it has, you establish it. e. g. (10) ‘Temperance is beneficial; for licentiousness is hurtful’. Or, as in the Messenian speech,69 ‘If war is the cause of our present troubles, peace is what we need to put things right again.’ Or—

  For if not even evil-doers should

  Anger us if they meant not what they did,

  Then can we owe no gratitude to such

  As were constrained to do the good they did us. (15)

  Or—

  Since in this world liars may win belief,

  Be sure of the opposite likewise—that this world

  Hears many a true word and believes it not.70

  2. Another line of proof is got by considering some modification of the key-word, (20) and arguing that what can or cannot be said of the one, can or cannot be said of the other: e. g. ‘just’ does not always mean ‘beneficial’, or ‘justly’ would always mean ‘beneficially’, whereas it is not desirable to be justly put to death.71

  3. Another line of proof is based upon correlative ideas. If it is true that one man gave noble or just treatment to another, you argue that the other must have received noble or just treatment; or that where it is right to command obedience, it must have been right to obey the command. (25) Thus Diomedon, the tax-farmer, said of the taxes: ‘If it is no disgrace for you to sell them,72 it is no disgrace for us to buy them’. Further, if ‘well’ or ‘justly’ is true of the person to whom a thing is done, you argue that it is true of the doer. But it is possible to draw a false conclusion here. It may be just that A should be treated in a certain way, and yet not just that he should be so treated by B. (30) Hence you must ask yourself two distinct questions: (1) Is it right that A should be thus treated? (2) Is it right that B should thus treat him? and apply your results properly, according as your answers are Yes or No. [1397b] Sometimes in such a case the two answers differ: you may quite easily have a position like that in the Alcmaeon of Theodectes:

  And was there none to loathe thy mother’s crime?

  to which question Alcmaeon in reply says,

  Why, there are two things to examine here.

  And when Alphesiboea asks what he means, (5) he rejoins:

  They judged her fit to die, not me to slay her.

  Again there is the lawsuit about Demosthenes and the men who killed Nicanor; as they were judged to have killed him justly, it was thought that he was killed justly. And in the case of the man who was killed at Thebes, the judges were requested to decide whether it was unjust that he should be killed, (10) since if it was not, it was argued that it could not have been unjust to kill him.

  4. Another line of proof is the a fortiori. Thus it may be argued that if even the gods are not omniscient, certainly human beings are not. The principle here is that, if a quality does not in fact exist where it is more likely to exist, it clearly does not exist where it is less likely. Again, the argument that a man who strikes his father also strikes his neighbours follows from the principle that, (15) if the less likely thing is true, the more likely thing is true also; for a man is less likely to strike his father than to strike his neighbours. The argument, then, may run thus. Or it may be urged that, if a thing is not true where it is more likely, it is not true where it is less likely; or that, if it is true where it is less likely, it is true where it is more likely: according as we have to show that a thing is or is not true. This argument might also be used in a case of parity, as in the lines:

  Thou hast pity for thy sire, who has lost his sons:

  Hast none for Oeneus, whose brave son is dead? (20)

  And, again, ‘if Theseus did no wrong, neither did Paris’; or ‘if the sons of Tyndareus did no wrong, neither did Paris’; or ‘if Hector did well to slay Patroclus, Paris did well to slay Achilles’. And ‘if other followers of an art are not bad men, neither are philosophers’. And ‘if generals are not bad men because it often happens that they are condemned to death, neither are sophists’. And the remark that ‘if each individual among you ought to think of his own city’s reputation, (25) you ought all to think of the reputation of Greece as a whole’.

  5. Another line of argument is based on considerations of time. Thus Iphicrates, in the case against Harmodius, said, ‘if before doing the deed I had bargained that, if I did it, I should have a statue, you would have given me one. Will you not give me one now that I have done
the deed? You must not make promises when you are expecting a thing to be done for you, (30) and refuse to fulfil them when the thing has been done.’ And, again, to induce the Thebans to let Philip pass through their territory into Attica, it was argued that ‘if he had insisted on this before he helped them against the Phocians, they would have promised to do it. [1398a] It is monstrous, therefore, that just because he threw away his advantage then, and trusted their honour, they should not let him pass through now’.

  6. Another line is to apply to the other speaker what he has said against yourself. It is an excellent turn to give to a debate, (5) as may be seen in the Teucer.73 It was employed by Iphicrates in his reply to Aristophon. ‘Would you’, he asked, ‘take a bribe to betray the fleet?’ ‘No’, said Aristophon; and Iphicrates replied, ‘Very good: if you, who are Aristophon, would not betray the fleet, would I, who am Iphicrates?’ Only, it must be recognized beforehand that the other man is more likely than you are to commit the crime in question. (10) Otherwise you will make yourself ridiculous; if it is Aristeides who is prosecuting, you cannot say that sort of thing to him. The purpose is to discredit the prosecutor, who as a rule would have it appear that his character is better than that of the defendant, a pretension which it is desirable to upset. But the use of such an argument is in all cases ridiculous if you are attacking others for what you do or would do yourself, or are urging others to do what you neither do nor would do yourself.

  7. Another line of proof is secured by defining your terms. (15) Thus, ‘What is the supernatural? Surely it is either a god or the work of a god. Well, anyone who believes that the work of a god exists, cannot help also believing that gods exist’. Or take the argument of Iphicrates, ‘Goodness is true nobility; neither Harmodius nor Aristogeiton had any nobility before they did a noble deed’. (20) He also argued that he himself was more akin to Harmodius and Aristogeiton than his opponent was. ‘At any rate, my deeds are more akin to those of Harmodius and Aristogeiton than yours are.’ Another example may be found in the Alexander. ‘Every one will agree that by incontinent people we mean those who are not satisfied with the enjoyment of one love’. A further example is to be found in the reason given by Socrates for not going to the court of Archelaus. (25) He said that ‘one is insulted by being unable to requite benefits, as well as by being unable to requite injuries’. All the persons mentioned define their term and get at its essential meaning, and then use the result when reasoning on the point at issue.