The Basic Works of Aristotle (Modern Library Classics) (237 page)

23
     1. One line of positive proof
⁶⁷
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—

Or—

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:

to which question Alcmaeon in reply says,

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

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:

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.

8. Another line of argument is founded upon the various senses of a word. Such a word is ‘rightly’, as has been explained in the
Topics.

9. Another line is based upon logical division. Thus,
(30)
‘All men do wrong from one of three motives, A, B, or C: in my case A and B are out of the question, and even the accusers do not allege C’.

10. Another line is based upon induction. Thus from the case of the woman of Peparethus it might be argued that women everywhere can settle correctly the facts about their children.
[1398b]
Another example of this occurred at Athens in the case between the orator Mantias
⁷⁴
and his son, when the boy’s mother revealed the true facts:
and yet another at Thebes, in the case between Ismenias and Stilbon, when Dodonis proved that it was Ismenias who was the father of her son Thettaliscus, and he was in consequence always regarded as being so. A further instance of induction may be taken from the
Law
of Theodectes: ‘If we do not hand over our horses to the care of men who have mishandled other people’s horses,
(5)
nor ships to those who have wrecked other people’s ships, and if this is true of everything else alike, then men who have failed to secure other people’s safety are not to be employed to secure our own.’ Another instance is the argument of Alcidamas: ’Every one honours the wise.
(10)
Thus the Parians have honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue; the Chians Homer, though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans Sappho, though she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made Chilon a member of their senate, though they are the least literary of men; the Italian Greeks honoured Pythagoras; the inhabitants of Lampsacus gave public burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien,
(15)
and honour him even to this day. [It may be argued that peoples for whom philosophers legislate are always prosperous] on the ground that the Athenians became prosperous under Solon’s laws and the Lacedaemonians under those of Lycurgus, while at Thebes no sooner did the leading men become philosophers than the country began to prosper.

11. Another line of argument is founded upon some decision already pronounced, whether on the same subject or on one like it or contrary to it. Such a proof is most effective if every one has always decided thus; but if not every one,
(20)
then at any rate most people; or if all, or most, wise or good men have thus decided, or the actual judges of the present question, or those whose authority they accept, or any one whose decision they cannot gainsay because he has complete control over them, or those whom it is not seemly to gainsay, as the gods, or one’s father, or one’s teachers. Thus Autocles said, when attacking Mixidemides, that it was a strange thing that the Dread Goddesses could without loss of dignity submit to the judgement of the Areopagus,
(25)
and yet Mixidemides could not. Or as Sappho said, ‘Death is an evil thing; the gods have so judged it, or they would die’. Or again as Aristippus said in reply to Plato when he spoke somewhat too dogmatically, as Aristippus thought: ‘Well,
(30)
anyhow, our
friend
’, meaning Socrates, ‘never spoke like that’. And Hegesippus, having previously consulted Zeus at Olympia, asked Apollo at Delphi ‘whether his opinion was the same as his father’s’, implying that it would be shameful for him to contradict his father.
[1399a]
Thus too Isocrates argued that Helen must have been a good woman,
because Theseus decided that she was;
⁷⁵
and Paris a good man, because the goddesses chose him before all others;
⁷⁶
and Evagoras also,
(5)
says Isocrates, was good, since when Conon met with his misfortune he betook himself to Evagoras without trying any one else on the way.
⁷⁷

12. Another line of argument consists in taking separately the parts of a subject. Such is that given in the
Topics:
⁷⁸
‘What
sort
of motion is the soul? for it must be this or that.’ The
Socrates
of Theodectes provides an example: ‘What temple has he profaned? What gods recognized by the state has he not honoured?’

13. Since it happens that any given thing usually has both good and bad consequences,
(10)
another line of argument consists in using those consequences as a reason for urging that a thing should or should not be done, for prosecuting or defending any one, for eulogy or censure. e. g. education leads both to unpopularity, which is bad, and to wisdom, which is good. Hence you either argue, ‘It is therefore not well to be educated,
(15)
since it is not well to be unpopular’: or you answer, ‘No, it is well to be educated, since it is well to be wise’. The
Art of Rhetoric
of Callippus is made up of this line of argument, with the addition of those of Possibility and the others of that kind already described.
⁷⁹

14. Another line of argument is used when we have to urge or discourage a course of action that may be done in either of two opposite ways, and have to apply the method just mentioned to both.
(20)
The difference between this one and the last is that, whereas in the last any two things are contrasted, here the things contrasted are opposites. For instance, the priestess enjoined upon her son not to take to public speaking: ‘For’, she said, ‘if you say what is right, men will hate you; if you say what is wrong, the gods will hate you.’ The reply might be, ‘On the contrary, you
ought
to take to public speaking: for if you say what is right, the gods will love you; if you say what is wrong,
(25)
men will love you.’ This amounts to the proverbial ‘buying the marsh with the salt’. It is just this situation, viz. when each of two opposites has both a good and a bad consequence opposite respectively to each other, that has been termed
divarication
.