OF THE WAYS TO ANSWER THE ARGUMENTS OF THE ADVERSARY.
An _argument_ is answered by an _opposite syllogism_, or by an
_objection_.
The places of _opposite syllogisms_ are the same with the places of
syllogisms, or enthymemes; for a rhetorical syllogism is an enthymeme.
The places of _objections_ are four.
First, from _the same_. As, to the adversary that proves love to be good
by an enthymeme, may be _objected_, that, _No want is good, and yet love
is want_; or particularly thus, _The love of Myrrha to her father was
not good_.
The second from _contraries_. As, if the adversary say, _A good man does
good to his friends_, an _objection_ might be made, that then _an evil
man will do also evil to his friends_.
The third from _similitude_. As thus, if the adversary say, all men that
are injured do hate those that have injured them, it may be _objected_,
that then _all men that had received benefits should love their
benefactors_, that is to say, be grateful.
The fourth from the _authority of famous men_. As when a man shall say,
that drunken men ought to be pardoned those acts they do in their
drunkenness, because they know not what they do; the _objection_ may be,
that _Pittacus was of another mind, that appointed for such acts a
double punishment; one for the act, another for the drunkenness_.
And forasmuch as all enthymemes are drawn from _probability_, or
_example_, or from a _sign fallible_, or from a _sign infallible_: an
enthymeme from _probability_ may be confuted _really_, by showing that
for the most part it falls out otherwise; but _apparently_ or
_sophistically_, by showing only that it does not fall out so always;
whereupon the judge thinks the _probability_ not sufficient to ground
his sentence upon. The reason whereof is this, that the judge, while he
hears the fact proved _probable_, conceives it as true. For the
understanding has no object but _truth_. And therefore, by-and-by, when
he shall hear _an instance_ to the contrary, and thereby find that he
had no necessity to think it _true_, presently changes his opinion, and
thinks it _false_, and consequently not so much as _probable_. For he
cannot at one time think the same thing both _probable_ and _false_; and
he that says a thing is _probable_, the meaning is, he thinks it _true_,
but finds not arguments enough to prove it.
An enthymeme, from a _fallible sign_, is answered by _showing_ the sign
to be fallible.
An enthymeme from an _example_, is answered as an enthymeme from
_probability_; _really_ by showing _more examples_ to the contrary;
_apparently_, if he bring _examples_ enough to make it seem _not
necessary_.
If the adversary have more examples than we, we must make it appear that
they are not applicable to the case.
An enthymeme from an _infallible_ sign, if the proposition be _true_, is
unanswerable.
==========