than any particular minor, but equal or co-extensive with the sum
total of the particulars. Thus the predicate deciduous, affirmable of
all plants with broad leaves, is greater in extension than the
subject vines, also than the subject fig-trees; but it is equal in
extension to the sum total of vines and fig-trees (the other
particular broad-leaved plant). The middle also, in an universal
demonstration, reciprocates with the major, being its definition.
Here the true middle or cause of the effect that vines and fig-trees
shed their leaves, is not that they are broad-leaved plants, but
rather a coagulation of sap or some such fact.[61]
[Footnote 61: Ibid. a. 16 seq.]
The last chapter of the present treatise is announced by Aristotle as
the appendix and completion of his entire theory of Demonstrative
Science, contained in the Analytica Priora, which treats of
Syllogism, and the Analytica Posteriora, which treats of
Demonstration. After formally winding up the whole enquiry, he
proceeds to ask regarding the _principia_ of Demonstrative Science:
What are they? How do they become known? What is the mental habit or
condition that is cognizant of them?[62]
[Footnote 62: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 99, b. 15-19: [Greek: peri\
me\n ou)=n sullogismou= kai\ a)podei/xeôs, ti/ te e(ka/tero/n e)sti
kai\ pô=s gi/netai, phanero/n, a(/ma **de\ kai\ peri\ e)pistê/mês
a)podeiktikê=s; tau)to\n ga/r e)stin. peri\ de\ tô=n a)rchô=n, pô=s
te gi/nontai gnô/rimoi, kai\ _ti/s ê( gnôri/zousa e(/xis_,
e)nteu=the/n e)sti dê=lon proaporê/sasi prô=ton.]
Bekker and Waitz, in their editions, include all these words in ch.
xix.: the older editions placed the words preceding [Greek: peri\
de\] in ch. xviii. Zabarella observes the transition to a new subject
(Comm. ad Analyt. Post. II. ch. xv. p. 640):--"Postremum hoc caput
(beginning at [Greek: peri\ de\]) extra primariam tractationem
positum esse manifestum est: quum præcesserit epilogus respondens
prooemio quod legitur in initio primi libri Priorum Analyticorum."]
Aristotle has already laid down that there can be no Demonstration
without certain _præcognita_ to start from; and that these
_præcognita_ must, in the last resort, be _principia_ undemonstrable,
immediately known, and known even more accurately than the
conclusions deduced from them. Are they then cognitions, or cognizant
habits and possessions, born along with us, and complete from the
first? This is impossible (Aristotle declares); we cannot have such
valuable and accurate cognitions from the first moments of childhood,
and yet not be at all aware of them. They must therefore be acquired;
yet how is it possible for us to acquire them?[63] The fact is, that,
though we do not from the first possess any such complete and
accurate cognitions as these, we have from the first an inborn
capacity or potentiality of arriving at them. And something of the
same kind belongs to all animals.[64] All of them possess an
apprehending and discriminating power born with them, called Sensible
Perception; but, though all possess such power, there is this
difference, that with some the act of perception dwells for a longer
or shorter time in the mind; with others it does not. In animals with
whom it does not dwell, there can be no knowledge beyond perception,
at least as to all those matters wherein perception is evanescent;
but with those that both perceive and retain perceptions in their
minds, ulterior knowledge grows up.[65] There are many such retentive
animals, and they differ among themselves: with some of them reason
or rational notions arise out of the perceptions retained; with
others, it is not so. First, out of perception arises memory; next,
out of memory of the same often repeated, arises experience, since
many remembrances numerically distinct are summed up into one
experience. Lastly, out of experience, or out of the universal
notion, the _unum et idem_ which pervades and characterizes a
multitude of particulars, when it has taken rest and root in the
mind, there arises the _principium_ of art and science: of science,
in respect to objects existent; of art, in respect to things
generable.[66] And thus these mental habits or acquirements neither
exist in our minds determined from the beginning, nor do they spring
from other acquirements of greater cognitive efficacy. They spring
from sensible perception; and we may illustrate their growth by what
happens in the panic of a terrified host, where first one runaway
stops in his flight, then a second, then a third, until at last a
number docile to command is collected. One characteristic feature of
the mind is to be capable of this process.[67]
[Footnote 63: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 99, b. 25-30: [Greek:
po/teron ou)k e)nou=sai ai( e(/xeis e)ggi/nontai, ê)\ e)nou=sai
lelê/thasin. ei) me\n dê\ e)/chomen au)ta/s, a)/topon; sumbai/nei
ga\r a)kribeste/ras e)/chontas gnô/seis a)podei/xeôs lantha/nein; ei)
de\ lamba/nomen mê\ e)/chontes pro/teron, pô=s a)\n gnôri/zoimen kai\
mantha/noimen e)k mê\ prou+parchou/sês gnô/seôs?] Compare, supra,
Analyt. Post. I. iii. p. 72, b. 20-30; Metaphys. A. ix. p. 993, a. 1,
with the Comment. of Alexander, p. 96, Bonitz.]
[Footnote 64: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 99, b. 30: [Greek: phanero\n
toi/nun ou)/t' e)/chein oi(=o/n te, ou)/t' a)gnoou=si kai\ mêdemi/an
e)/chousin e(/xin e)ggi/nesthai; a)na/gkê a)/ra e)/chein me/n tina
du/namin, mê\ toiau/tên d' e)/chein ê)\ e)/stai tou/tôn timiôte/ra
kat' a)kri/beian. phai/netai de\ tou=to/ ge pa=sin u(pa/rchon toi=s
zô/|ois.]]
[Footnote 65: Analyt. Post II. xix. p. 99, b. 37: [Greek: o(/sois
me\n ou)=n mê\ e)ggi/netai, ê)\ o(/lôs ê)\ peri\ a(\ mê\ e)ggi/netai,
ou)k e)/sti tou/tois gnô=sis e)/xô tou= ai)stha/nesthai; e)n oi(=s d'
e)/nestin ai)sthanome/nois e)/chein e)/ti e)n tê=| psuchê=|. pollô=n
de\ toiou/tôn ginome/nôn ê)/dê diaphora/ tis gi/netai, ô(/ste toi=s
me\n gi/nesthai lo/gon e)k tê=s tô=n toiou/tôn monê=s, toi=s de\
mê/.] Compare Analyt. Poster. I. p. 81, a. 38, seq., where the
dependence of Induction on the perceptions of sense is also affirmed.
See Themistius, pp. 50-51, ed. Spengel. The first chapter of the
Metaphysica (p. 981), contains a striking account of this generation
of universal notions from memory and comparison of sensible
particulars: [Greek: gi/netai de\ te/chnê, o(/tan e)k pollô=n tê=s
e)mpeiri/as e)nnoêma/tôn mi/a katho/lou ge/nêtai peri\ tô=n o(moi/ôn
u(po/lêpsis] ("_intellecta similitudo"_). Also in the Physica VII. p.
247, b. 20 (in the Paraphrase of Themistius, as printed in the Berlin
edition, at bottom of page): [Greek: e)k ga\r tê=s kata\ me/ros
e)mpeiri/as tê\n katho/lou lamba/nomen e)pistê/mên.]]
[Footnote 66: Analyt Post II. xix. p. 100, a. 3-10: [Greek: e)k me\n
ou)=n ai)sthê/seôs gi/netai mnê/mê, ô(/sper le/gomen, e)k de\ mnê/mês
polla/kis tou= au)tou= ginome/nês e)mpeiri/a; ai( ga\r pollai\
mnê=mai tô=| a)rithmô=| e)mpeiri/a mi/a e)sti/n. e)k d' e)mpeiri/as,
ê)\ e)k panto\s ê)remê/santos tou= katho/lou e)n tê=| psuchê=|, tou=
e(no\s para\ ta\ polla/, o(\ a)\n e)n a(/pasin e(\n e)nê=| e)kei/nois
to\ au)to/, te/chnês a)rchê\ kai\ e)pistê/mês; e)a\n me\n peri\
ge/nesin, te/chnês, e)a\n de\ peri\ to\ o)/n, e)pistê/mês.]
A theory very analogous to this (respecting the gradual generation of
scientific universal notions in the mind out of the particulars of
sense) is stated in the Phædon of Plato, ch. xlv. p. 96, B., where
Sokrates reckons up the unsuccessful tentatives which he had made in
philosophy: [Greek: kai\ po/teron to\ ai(=ma/ e)stin ô(=|
phronou=men, ê)\ o( a)ê\r, ê)\ to\ pu=r, ê)\ tou/tôn me\n ou)de/n, o(
de\ e)gke/phalo/s e)stin o( ta\s ai)sthê/seis pare/chôn tou=
a)kou/ein kai\ o(pa=n kai\ o)sphrai/nesthai, e)k _tou/tôn de\
gi/gnoito mnê/mê kai\ do/xa_, e)k _de\ mnê/mês kai\ do/xês, labou/sês
to\ ê)remei=n, kata\ tau=ta gi/gnesthai e)pistê/mên_.]
Boethius says, Comm. in Ciceronis Topica, p. 805:--"Plato ideas
quasdam esse ponebat, id est, species incorporeas, substantiasque
constantes et per se ab aliis naturæ ratione separatas, ut hoc ipsum
_homo_, quibus participantes cæteræ res homines vel animalia fierent.
At vero Aristoteles nullas putat extra esse substantias; sed
_intellectam similitudinem plurimorum inter se differentium
substantialem_, genus putat esse vel speciem. Nam cum homo et equus
differunt rationabilitate et irrationabilitate, horum _intellecta
similitudo_ efficit genus. Ergo communitas quædam et plurimorum inter
se differentium similitudo _notio_ est; cujus notionis aliud _genus_
est, aliud _forma_. Sed quoniam _similium intelligentia_ est omnis
notio, in rebus vero similibus necessaria est differentiarum
discretio, idcirco indiget notio quadam enodatione ac divisione;
velut ipse intellectus animalis sibi ipsi non sufficit," &c.
The phrase _intellecta similitudo plurimorum_ embodies both Induction
and Intellection in one. A like doctrine appears in the obscure
passages of Aristotle, De Animâ, III. viii. p. 429, b. 10; also p.
432, a. 3: [Greek: o( nou=s, ei)=dos ei)dô=n, kai\ ê( ai)/sthêsis,
ei)=dos ai)sthêtô=n. e)pei\ de\ ou)de\ pra=gma ou)the/n e)sti para\
ta\ mege/thê, ô(s dokei=, ta\ ai)sthêta\ kechôrisme/non, e)n toi=s
ei)/desi toi=s ai)sthêtoi=s ta\ noêta/ e)stin.]]
[Footnote 67: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, a. 10-14: [Greek: ou)/te
dê\ e)nupa/rchousin a)phôrisme/nai ai( e(/xeis, ou)/t' a)p' a)/llôn
e(/xeôn gi/nontai gnôrimôte/rôn, a)ll' a)po\ ai)sthê/seôs,--ê( de\
psuchê\ u(pa/rchei toiau/tê ou)=sa oi(/a du/nasthai pa/schein
tou=to.]
The varieties of intellectual [Greek: e(/xeis] enumerated by
Aristotle in the sixth book of the Nikomachean Ethica, are elucidated
by Alexander in his Comment. on the Metaphysica. (A. p. 981) pp. 7,
8, Bonitz. The difference of [Greek: e(/xis] and [Greek: dia/thesis],
the durable condition as contrasted with the transient, is noted in
Categoriæ, pp. 8, 9. See also Eth. Nikom. II. i. ii. pp 1103, 4.]
Aristotle proceeds to repeat the illustration in clearer terms--at
least in terms which he thinks clearer.[68] We perceive the
particular individual; yet sensible perception is of the universal in
the particular (as, for example, when Kallias is before us, we
perceive man, not the man Kallias). Now, when one of a set of
particulars dwells some time in the mind, first an universal notion
arises; next, more particulars are perceived and detained, and
universal notions arise upon them more and more comprehensive, until
at last we reach the highest stage--the most universal and simple.
From Kallias we rise to man; from such and such an animal, to animal
_in genere_; from animal _in genere_, still higher, until we reach
the highest or indivisible genus.[69] Hence it is plain that the
first and highest _principia_ can become known to us only by
Induction; for it is by this process that sensible perception builds
up in us the Universal.[70] Now among )those intellective habits or
acquirements, whereby we come to apprehend truth, there are some
(Science and Noûs) that are uniformly and unerringly true, while
others (Opinion and Ratiocination) admit an alternative of
falsehood.[71] Comparing Science with Noûs, the latter, and the
latter only, is more accurate and unerring than Science. But all
Science implies demonstration, and all that we know by Science is
conclusions deduced by demonstration. We have already said that the
_principia_ of these demonstrations cannot be themselves
demonstrated, and therefore cannot be known by Science; we have also
said that they must be known more accurately than the conclusions.
How then can these _principia_ themselves be known? They can be known
only by Noûs, and from particulars. It is from the _principia_ known
by Noûs, with the maximum of accuracy, that Science demonstrates her
conclusions. Noûs is the great _principium_ of Science.[72]
[Footnote 68: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, a. 14: [Greek: o(\ d'
_e)le/chthê me\n pa/lai_, ou) saphô=s de\ e)le/chthê, pa/lin
ei)/pômen.]
Waitz supposes that Aristotle here refers to a passage in the first
book of the Analytica Posteriora, c. xxxi. p. 87, b. 30. M.
Barthélemy St. Hilaire thinks (p. 290) that reference is intended to
an earlier sentence of this same chapter. Neither of these
suppositions seems to suit (least of all the last) with the meaning
of [Greek: pa/lai]. But whichever he meant, Aristotle has not done
much _to clear up_ what was obscure in the antecedent statements.]
[Footnote 69: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, a. 15: [Greek: sta/ntos
ga\r tô=n a)diapho/rôn e(no/s, prô=ton me\n e)n tê=| psuchê=|
katho/lou (kai\ ga\r ai)sthêsis tou= katho/lou e)sti/n, oi(=on
a)nthrô/pou, a)ll' ou) Kalli/ou a)nthrô/pou) pa/lin d' e)n tou/tois
i(/statai, _e(/ôs a)\n ta\ a)merê= stê=| kai\ ta\ katho/lou_, oi(=on
toiondi\ zô=|on, e(/ôs zô=|on; kai\ e)n tou/tô| ô(sau/tôs.]
These words are obscure: [Greek: ta\ a)merê=] must mean the highest
genera; indivisible, _i.e._ being a _minimum_ in respect of
_comprehension_. Instead of [Greek: ta\ katho/lou], we might have
expected [Greek: ta\ ma/lista katho/lou], or, perhaps, that [Greek:
kai\] should be omitted. Trendelenburg comments at length on this
passage, Arist. De Animâ Comment. pp. 170-174.]
[Footnote 70: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, b. 3: [Greek: dê=lon dê\
o(/ti ê(mi=n ta\ prô=ta e)pagôgê=| gnôri/zein a)nagkai=on; kai\ ga\r
kai\ ai)/sthêsis ou(/tô to\ katho/lou e)mpoiei=.] Compare, supra,
Analyt. Post. I. xviii. p. 81, b. 1. Some commentators contended that
Aristotle did not mean to ascribe an inductive origin to the common
Axioms properly so called, but only to the special _principia_
belonging to each science. Zabarella refutes this doctrine, and
maintains that the Axioms (Dignitates) are derived from Induction
(Comm. in Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 649, ed. Venet., 1617):--"Quum
igitur inductio non sit proprie discursus, nec ratio, jure dicit
Aristoteles principiorum notitiam non esse cum ratione, quia non ex
aliis innotescunt, sed ex seipsis dum per inductionem innotescunt.
Propterea in illa propositione, quæ in initio **primi libri
legitur, sub doctrina discursiva cognitio principiorum non
comprehenditur, quia non est dianoëtica. Hoc, quod modo diximus, si
nonnulli advertissent, fortasse non negassent principia communia, quæ
dicuntur Dignitates, inductione cognosci. Dixerunt enim Aristotelem
hic de principiis loquentem sola principia propria considerasse, quæ
cum non proprio lumine cognoscantur, inductione innotescunt; at
Dignitates (inquiunt) proprio lumine ab intellectu nostro
cognoscuntur per solam terminorum intelligentiam, ut quod omne totum
majus est suâ parte; hoc enim non magis est evidens sensui in
particulari, quam intellectui in universali, proinde inductione non
eget. Sed hanc sententiam hic Averroes refutat, dicens hæc quoque
inductione cognosci, sed non animadverti nobis tempus hujus
inductionis; id enim omnino confitendum est, omnem intellectualem
doctrinam à sensu originem ducere, et nihil esse in intellectu quod
prius in sensu non fuerit, ut ubique asserit Aristoteles."
To the same purpose Zabarella expresses himself in an earlier portion
of his Commentary on the Analyt. Post., where he lays it down that
the truth of the proposition, Every whole is greater than its part,
is known from antecedent knowledge of particulars by way of
Induction. Compare the Scholion of Philoponus, ad Analyt. Post. p.
225, a. 32, Brand., where the same is said about the Axiom, Things
equal to the same are equal to each other.]
[Footnote 71: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, b. 5: [Greek: e)pei\ de\
tô=n peri\ tê\n dia/noian e(/xeôn, ai(=s a)lêtheu/omen, ai( me\n
a)ei\ a)lêthei=s ei)si/n, ai( de\ e)pide/chontai to\ pseu=dos], &c.]
[Footnote 72: Ibid. fin. p. 100.]
The manner in which Aristotle here describes how the _principia_ of
Syllogism become known to the mind deserves particular attention. The
march up to _principia_ is not only different from, but the reverse
of, the march down from _principia_; like the athlete who runs first
to the end of the stadium, and then back.[73] Generalizing or
universalizing is an acquired intellectual habit or permanent
endowment; growing out of numerous particular acts or judgments of
sense, remembered, compared, and coalescing into one mental group
through associating resemblance. As the ethical, moral, practical
habits, are acquirements growing out of a repetition of particular
acts, so also the intellectual, theorizing habits are mental results
generated by a multitude of particular judgments of sense, retained
and compared, so as to imprint upon the mind a lasting stamp of some
identity common to all. The Universal (_notius naturâ_) is thus
generated in the mind by a process of Induction out of particulars
which are _notiora nobis_; the potentiality of this process, together
with sense and memory, is all that is innate or connatural.
[Footnote 73: Aristot. Eth. Nikom. I. iv. p. 1095, b. 1.]
The _principia_, from which the conclusions of Syllogism are deduced,
being thus obtained by Induction, are, in Aristotle's view,
appreciated by, or correlated with, the infallible and unerring Noûs
or Intellect.[74] He conceives repeated and uncontradicted Induction
as carrying with it the maximum of certainty and necessity: the
syllogistic deductions constituting Science he regards as also
certain; but their certainty is only derivative, and the _principia_
from which they flow he ranks still higher, as being still more
certain.[75] Both the one and the other he pointedly contrasts with
Opinion and Calculation, which he declares to be liable to error.
[Footnote 74: The passages respecting [Greek: a)rchai\] or
_principia_, in the Nikomachean Ethica (especially Books I. and VI.),
are instructive as to Aristotle's views. The _principia_ are
universal notions and propositions, not starting up ready-made nor as
original promptings of the intellect, but gradually built up out of
the particulars of sense and Induction, and repeated particular acts.
They are judged and sanctioned by [Greek: Nou=s] or Intellect, but it
requires much care to define them well. They belong to the [Greek:
o(/ti], while demonstration belongs to the [Greek: dio/ti]. Eth. Nik.
I. vii. p. 1098, a. 33: [Greek: ou)k a)paitête/on d' ou)de\ tê\n
ai)ti/an e)n a(/pasin o(moi/ôs, a)ll' i(kano\n e)/n tisi to\ o(/ti
deichthê=nai kalô=s, oi(=on kai\ peri\ ta\s a)rcha/s; to\ d' o(/ti
prô=ton kai\ a)rchê/. tô=n a)rchô=n d' ai( me\n e)pagôgê=|
theôrou=ntai, ai( d' ai)sthê/sei, ai( d' e)thismô=| tini, kai\
a)/llai d' a)llô=s. metie/nai de\ peirate/on e(ka/stas ê(=|
pephu/kasin, kai\ spoudaste/on o(/pôs o(risthô=si kalô=s; mega/lên
ga\r e)/chousi r(opê\n pro\s ta\ e(po/mena.]
Compare Eth. Nik. VI. iii. p. 1139, b. 25, where the Analytica is
cited by name--[Greek: ê( me\n dê\ e)pagôgê\ a)rchê/ e)sti kai\ tou=
katho/lou, o( de\ sullogismo\s e)k tô=n katho/lou; ei)si\n a)/ra
a)rchai\ e)x ô(=n o( sullogismo/s, ô(=n ou)/k e)sti sullogismo/s;
e)pagôgê\ a)/ra.]--ib. p. 1141, a. 7: [Greek: lei/petai nou=n ei)=nai
tô=n a)rchô=n.]--p. 1142, a. 25: [Greek: o( me\n ga\r nou=s tô=n
o(/rôn, ô(=n ou)/k e)sti lo/gos].--p. 1143, b. 1.]
[Footnote 75: Analyt. Post. I. ii. p. 72, a. 37: [Greek: to\n de\
me/llonta e(/xein tê\n e)pistê/mên tê\n di' a)podei/xeôs ou) mo/non
dei= ta\s a)rcha\s gnôri/zein kai\ ma=llon au)tai=s pisteu/ein ê)\
tô=| deiknume/nô|, a)lla\ mêd' a)/llo au)tô=| pisto/teron ei)=nai
mêde\ gnôrimô/teron tô=n a)ntikeime/nôn tai=s a)rchai=s, e)x ô(=n
e)/stai sullogismo\s o( tê=s e)nanti/as a)pa/tês, ei)/per dei= to\n
e)pista/menon a(plô=s a)meta/peiston ei)=nai.]]
Aristotle had inherited from Plato this doctrine of an infallible
Noûs or Intellect, enjoying complete immunity from error. But,
instead of connecting it (as Plato had done) with reminiscences of an
anterior life among the Ideas, he assigned to it a position as
terminus and correlate to the process of Induction.[76] The like
postulate and pretension passed afterwards to the Stoics, and various
other philosophical sects: they could not be satisfied without
finding infallibility somewhere. It was against this pretension that
the Academics and Sceptics entered their protest; contending, on
grounds sometimes sophistical but often very forcible, that it was
impossible to escape from the region of fallibility, and that no
criterion of truth, at once universal and imperative, could be set
up.
[Footnote 76: Ibid. iii. p. 72, b. 20-30. [Greek: kai\ ou) mo/non
e)pistê/mên a)lla\ kai\ a)rchê\n e)pistê/mês ei)=nai tina/ phamen,
ê(=| tou\s o(/rous gnôri/zomen.]
Themistius, p. 14: [Greek: ô(=n dê\ a)/rchei pa/lin o( nou=s ô(=|
tou\s o(/rous thêreu/omen, e)x ô(=n sugkei\tai ta\ a)xiô/mata.]
The Paraphrase of Themistius (pp. 100-104) is clear and instructive,
where he amplifies the last chapter, and explains [Greek: Nou=s] as
the generalizing or universalizing aptitude of the soul, growing up
gradually out of the particulars furnished by Sense and Induction.]
It is to be regretted that Aristotle should have contented himself
with proclaiming this Inductive process as an ideal, culminating in
the infallible Noûs; and that he should only have superficially
noticed those conditions under which it must be conducted in reality,
in order to avoid erroneous or uncertified results. This is a
deficiency however which has remained unsupplied until the present
century.[77]
[Footnote 77: Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Logic, Vol. III. Lect.
xix. p. 380, says:--"In regard to simple syllogisms, it was an
original dogma of the Platonic School, and an early dogma of the
Peripatetic, that philosophy (science strictly so-called) was only
conversant with, and was exclusively contained in, universals; and
the doctrine of Aristotle, which taught that all our general
knowledge is only an induction from an observation of particulars,
was too easily forgotten or perverted by his followers. It thus
obtained almost the force of an acknowledged principle, that
everything to be known must be known under some general form or
notion. Hence the exaggerated importance attributed to definition and
deductions, it not being considered that we only take out of a
general notion what we had previously placed therein, and that the
amplification of our knowledge is not to be sought for from above but
from below,--not from speculation about abstract generalities, but
from the observation of concrete particulars. But however erroneous
and irrational, the persuasion had its day and influence, and it
perhaps determined, as one of its effects, the total neglect of one
half, and that not the least important half, of the reasoning
process. For while men thought only of looking upward to the more
extensive notions, as the only objects and the only media of science,
they took little heed of the more comprehensive notions, and
absolutely contemned individuals, as objects which could neither be
scientifically known in themselves nor supply the conditions of
scientifically knowing aught besides. The Logic of Comprehension and
of Induction was therefore neglected or ignored,--the Logic of
Extension and Deduction exclusively cultivated, as alone affording
the rules by which we might evolve higher notions into their
subordinate concepts."
(Hamilton, in this passage, considers the Logic of _Induction_ to be
the same as the Logic of _Comprehension_.)]
CHAPTER IX.
TOPICA.
I.
In treating of the Analytica Posteriora I have already adverted, in
the way of contrast, to the Topica; and, in now approaching the
latter work, I must again bring the same contrast before the mind of
the reader.
The treatise called Topica (including that which bears the separate
title De Sophisticis Elenchis, but which is properly its Ninth or
last Book, winding up with a brief but memorable recapitulation of
the Analytica and Topica considered as one scheme) is of considerable
length, longer than the Prior and Posterior Analytics taken together.
It contains both a theory and precepts of Dialectic; also, an
analysis of the process called by Aristotle Sophistical Refutation,
with advice how to resist or neutralize it.
All through the works of Aristotle, there is nothing which he so
directly and emphatically asserts to be his own original performance,
as the design and execution of the Topica: _i.e._, the deduction of
Dialectic and Sophistic from the general theory of Syllogism. He had
to begin from the beginning, without any model to copy or any
predecessor to build upon: and in every sort of work, he observes
justly, the first or initial stages are the hardest.[1] In regard to
Rhetoric much had been done before him; there were not only masters
who taught it, but writers who theorized well or ill, and laid down
precepts about it; so that, in his treatise on that subject, he had
only to enlarge and improve upon pre-existing suggestions. But in
regard to Dialectic as he conceives it--in its contrast with
Demonstration and Science on the one hand, and in its analogy or
kinship with Rhetoric on the other--nothing whatever had been done.
There were, indeed, teachers of contentious dialogue, as well as of
Rhetoric;[2] but these teachers could do nothing better than
recommend to their students dialogues or orations ready made, to be
learnt by heart. Such a mode of teaching (he says), though speedy,
was altogether unsystematic. The student acquired no knowledge of the
art, being furnished only with specimens of art-results. It was as if
a master, professing to communicate the art of making the feet
comfortable, taught nothing about leather-cutting or shoe-making, but
furnished his pupils with different varieties of ready-made shoes;
thus supplying what they wanted for the protection of the feet, but
not imparting to them any power of providing such protection for
themselves.[3] "In regard to the process of syllogizing (says
Aristotle, including both Analytic and Dialectic) I found positively
nothing said before me: I had to work it out for myself by long and
laborious research."[4]
[Footnote 1: Aristot. Sophist. Elench. xxxiv. p. 183, b. 22: [Greek:
me/giston ga\r i)/sôs a)rchê\ panto/s, ô(/sper le/getai; dio\ kai\
chalepô/taton. o(/sô| ga\r kra/tiston tê=| duna/mei, tosou/tô|
mikro/taton o)\n tô=| mege/thei chalepô/tato/n e)stin o)phthê=nai.]]
[Footnote 2: Sophist. Elench. xxxiv. p. 183, b. 34: [Greek: tau/tês
de\ tê=s pragmatei/as ou) to\ me\n ê)=n to\ d' ou)k ê)=n
proexeirgasme/non, a)ll' ou)de\n pantelô=s u(pê=rchen. kai\ ga\r tô=n
peri\ tou\s e)ristikou\s lo/gous mistharnou/ntôn o(moi/a tis ê)=n ê(
pai/deusis tê=| Gorgi/ou pragmatei/a|; lo/gous ga\r oi( me\n
r(êtorikou\s oi( de\ e)rôtêti/kous e)di/dosan e)kmantha/nein, ei)s
ou(\s pleista/kis e)mpi/ptein ô)ê/thêsan e(ka/teroi tou\s a)llê/lôn
lo/gous.]]
[Footnote 3: Ibid. xxxiv. p. 184, a. 2.]
[Footnote 4: Ibid. a. 7: [Greek: kai\ peri\ me\n tô=n r(êtorikô=n
polla\ kai\ palaia\ ta\ lego/mena, peri\ de\ tou= sullogi/zesthai
pantelô=s ou)de\n ei)/chomen pro/teron a)/llo le/gein, a)ll' ê)\
tribê=| zêtou=ntes polu\n chro/non e)ponou=men.]]
This is one of the few passages, throughout the philosopher's varied
and multitudinous works, in which he alludes to his own speciality of
method. It is all the more interesting on that account. If we turn
back to Sokrates and Plato, we shall understand better what the
innovation operated by Aristotle was; what the position of Dialectic
had been before his time, and what it became afterwards.
In the minds of Sokrates and Plato, the great antithesis was between
Dialectic and Rhetoric--interchange of short question and answer
before a select audience, as contrasted with long continuous speech
addressed to a miscellaneous crowd with known established sentiments
and opinions, in the view of persuading them on some given
interesting point requiring decision. In such Dialectic Sokrates was
a consummate master; passing most of his long life in the
market-place and palæstra, and courting disputation with every one.
He made formal profession of ignorance, disclaimed all power of
teaching, wrote nothing at all, and applied himself almost
exclusively to the cross-examining _Elenchus_ by which he exposed and
humiliated the ablest men not less than the vulgar. Plato, along with
the other companions of Sokrates, imbibed the Dialectic of his master,
and gave perpetuity to it in those inimitable dialogues which are still
preserved to us from his pen. He composed nothing but dialogues; thus
giving expression to his own thoughts only under borrowed names, and
introducing that of Sokrates very generally as chief spokesman. But
Plato, though in some dialogues he puts into the mouth of his
spokesman the genuine Sokratic disclaimer of all power and all
purpose of teaching, yet does not do this in all. He sometimes
assumes the didactic function; though he still adheres to the form of
dialogue, even when it has become inconvenient and unsuitable. In the
Platonic Republic Sokrates is made to alternate his own peculiar vein
of cross-examination with a vein of dogmatic exposition not his own;
but both one and the other in the same style of short question and
answer. In the Leges becomes still more manifest the inconvenience of
combining the substance of dogmatic exposition with the form of
dialogue: the same remark may also be made about the Sophistes and
Politicus; in which two dialogues, moreover, the didactic process is
exhibited purely and exclusively as a logical partition,
systematically conducted, of a genus into its component species.
Long-continued speech, always depreciated by Plato in its rhetorical
manifestations, is foreign to his genius even for purposes of
philosophy: the very lecture on cosmogony which he assigns to Timæus,
and the mythical narrative (unfinished) delivered by Kritias, are
brought into something like the form of dialogue by a prefatory
colloquy specially adapted for that end.
It thus appears that, while in Sokrates the dialectic process is
exhibited in its maximum of perfection, but disconnected altogether
from the didactic, which is left unnoticed,--in Plato the didactic
process is recognized and postulated, but is nevertheless confounded
with or absorbed into the dialectic, and admitted only as one
particular, ulterior, phase and manifestation of it. At the same
time, while both Sokrates and Plato bring out forcibly the side of
antithesis between Rhetoric and Dialectic, they omit entirely to
notice the side of analogy or parallelism between them. On both these
points Aristotle has corrected the confusion, and improved upon the
discrimination, of his two predecessors. He has pointedly
distinguished the dialectic process from the didactic; and he has
gone a step farther, furnishing a separate theory and precepts both
for the one and for the other. Again, he has indicated the important
feature of analogy between Dialectic and Rhetoric, in which same
feature both of them contrast with Didactic--the point not seized
either by Sokrates or by Plato.
Plato, in his Sokratic dialogues or dialogues of Search, has given
admirable illustrative specimens of that which Sokrates understood
and practised orally as Dialectic. Aristotle, in his Topica, has in
his usual vein of philosophy theorized on this practice as an art. He
had himself composed dialogues, which seem as far as we can judge
from indirect and fragmentary evidence, to have been Ciceronian or
rhetorical colloquies--a long pleading _pro_ followed by a long
pleading _con_, rather than examples of Sokratic brachylogy and
cross-examination. But his theory given in the Topica applies to
genuine Sokratic fencing, not to the Ciceronian alternation of set
speeches. He disallows the conception of Plato, that Dialectic is a
process including not merely dispute but all full and efficacious
employment of general terms and ideas for purposes of teaching: he
treats this latter as a province by itself, under the head of
Analytic: and devotes the Topica to the explanation of argumentative
debate, pure and simple. He takes his departure from the Syllogism,
as the type of deductive reasoning generally; the conditions under
which syllogistic reasoning is valid and legitimate, having been
already explained in his treatise called Analytica Priora. So
obtained, and regulated by those conditions, the Syllogism may be
applied to one or other of two distinct and independent
purposes:--(1) To Demonstration or Scientific Teaching, which we
have had before us in the last two chapters, commenting on the
Analytica Posteriora; (2) To Dialectic, or Argumentative Debate,
which we are now about to enter on in the Topica.
The Dialectic Syllogism, explained in the Topica, has some points in
common with the Demonstrative Syllogism, treated in the Analytica
Posteriora. In both, the formal conditions are the same, and the
conclusions will certainly be true, if the premisses are true; in
both, the axioms of deductive reasoning are assumed, namely, the
maxims of Contradiction and Excluded Middle. But, in regard to the
subject-matter, the differences between them are important. The
Demonstrative Syllogism applies only to a small number of select
sciences, each having special _principia_ of its own, or primary,
undemonstrable truths, obtained in the first instance by induction
from particulars. The premisses being thus incontrovertibly certain,
the conclusions deduced are not less certain; there is no necessary
place for conflicting arguments or counter-syllogisms, although in
particular cases paralogisms may be committed, and erroneous
propositions or majors for syllogism may be assumed. On the contrary,
the Dialectic Syllogism applies to all matters without exception; the
premisses on which it proceeds are neither obtained by induction, nor
incontrovertibly certain, but are borrowed from some one among the
varieties of accredited or authoritative opinion. They may be
opinions held by the multitude of any particular country, or by an
intelligent majority, or by a particular school of philosophers or
wise individuals, or from transmission as a current proverb or dictum
of some ancient poet or seer. From any one of these sources the
dialectician may borrow premisses for syllogizing. But it often
happens that the premisses which they supply are disparate, or in
direct contradiction to each other; and none of them is entitled to
be considered as final or peremptory against the rest. Accordingly,
it is an essential feature of Dialectic as well as of Rhetoric that
they furnish means of establishing conclusions contrary or
contradictory, by syllogisms equally legitimate.[5] The dialectic
procedure is from its beginning intrinsically contentious, implying a
debate between two persons, one of whom sets up a thesis to defend,
while the other impugns it by interrogation: the assailant has gained
his point, if he can reduce the defendant to the necessity of
contradicting himself; while the defendant on his side has to avoid
giving any responses which may drive him to the necessity of such
contradiction.
[Footnote 5: Aristot. Rhetoric. I. i. p. 1355, a. 29: [Greek: e)/ti
de\ ta)nanti/a dei= du/nasthai pei/thein, katha/per kai\ e)n toi=s
sullogismoi=s, ou)ch o(/pôs a)mpho/tera pra/ttômen, (ou) ga\r dei=
ta\ phau=la pei/thein), a)ll' i(/na mê/te lantha/nê| pô=s e)/chei,
kai\ o(/pôs a)/llou chrôme/nou toi=s lo/gois mê\ dikai/ôs au)toi\
lu/ein e)/chômen. tô=n me\n ou)=n a)/llôn technô=n ou)demi/a
ta)nanti/a sullogi/zetai; ê( de\ dialektikê\ kai\ ê( r(êtorikê\
mo/nai tou=to poiou=sin; o(moi/ôs ga/r ei)sin a)mpho/terai tô=n
e)nanti/ôn.]]
Aristotle takes great pains to enforce the separation both of
Dialectic and Rhetoric from Science or Instruction with its purpose
of teaching or learning. He disapproves of those (seemingly intending
Plato) who seek to confound the two. Dialectic and Rhetoric (he says)
have for their province words and discourse, not facts or things:
they are not scientific or didactic processes, but powers or
accomplishments of discourse; and whoever tries to convert them into
means of teaching or learning particular subjects, abolishes their
characteristic feature and restricts their universality of
application.[6] Both of them deal not with scientific facts, but with
the sum total of accredited opinions, though each for its own
purpose: both of them lay hold of any one among the incoherent
aggregate of accepted generalities, suitable for the occasion; the
Dialectician trying to force his opponent into an inconsistency, the
Rhetor trying to persuade his auditors into a favourable decision.
Neither the one nor the other goes deeper than opinion for his
premisses, nor concerns himself about establishing by induction
primary or special _principia_, such as may serve for a basis of
demonstration.
[Footnote 6: Ibid. iv. 2, p. 1359, b. 12: [Greek: o(/sô| d' a)/n tis
ê)\ tê\n dialektikê\n ê)\ tau/tên (tê\n r(êtorikê\n) mê\ katha/per
a)\n duna/meis, a)ll' e)pistê/mas, peira=tai kataskeua/zein, lê/setai
tê\n phu/sin au)tô=n a)phani/sas, tô=| metabai/nein e)piskeua/zôn
ei)s e)pistê/mas u(pokeime/nôn tinô=n pragma/tôn, a)lla\ mê\ mo/non
lo/gôn.]]
In every society there are various floating opinions and beliefs,
each carrying with it a certain measure of authority, often
inconsistent with each other, not the same in different societies,
nor always the same even in the same society. Each youthful citizen,
as he grows to manhood, imbibes these opinions and beliefs insensibly
and without special or professional teaching.[7] The stock of
opinions thus transmitted would not be identical even at Athens and
Sparta: the difference would be still greater, if we compared Athens
with Rome, Alexandria, or Jerusalem. Such opinions all carry with
them more or less of authority, and it is from them that the
reasonings of common life, among unscientific men, are supplied. The
practice of dialectical discussion, prevalent in Athens during and
before the time of Aristotle, was only a more elaborate, improved,
and ingenious exhibition of this common talk; proceeding on the same
premisses, but bringing them together from a greater variety of
sources, handling them more cleverly, and having for its purpose to
convict an opponent of inconsistency. The dialecticians dwelt
exclusively in the region of these received opinions; and the purpose
of their debates was to prove inconsistency, or to repel the proof of
inconsistency, between one opinion and another.
[Footnote 7: For an acute and interesting description of this
unsystematic transmission of opinions, see, in the Protagoras of
Plato, the speech put into the mouth of Protagoras, pp. 323-325. See
also 'Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,' Vol. II. ch. xxi.
p. 45, seq.]
This dialectic debate, which Aristotle found current at Athens, he
tries in the Topica to define and reduce to system. The dialectician
must employ Syllogism; and we are first taught to distinguish the
Syllogism that he employs from others. The Dialectic syllogism is
discriminated on one side from the Demonstrative, on the other from
the Eristic (or litigious); also from the scientific Paralogism or
Pseudographeme. This discrimination is founded on the nature of the
evidence belonging to the premisses. The Demonstrative syllogism
(which we have already gone through in the Analytica Posteriora) has
premisses noway dependent upon opinion: it deduces conclusions from
true first principles, obtained by Induction in each science, and
different in each different science. The Dialectic syllogism does not
aspire to any such evidence, but borrows its premisses from Opinion
of some sort; accredited either by numbers, or by wise individuals,
or by some other authoritative holding. As this evidence is very
inferior to that of the demonstrative syllogism, so again it is
superior to that of the third variety--the Eristic syllogism. In this
third variety,[8] the premisses do not rest upon any real opinion,
but only on a fallacious appearance or simulation of opinion;
insomuch that they are at once detected as false, by any person even
of moderate understanding; whereas (according to Aristotle) no real
opinion ever carries with it such a merely superficial semblance, or
is ever so obviously and palpably false. A syllogism is called
Eristic also when it is faulty in form, though its premisses may be
borrowed from real opinion, or when it is both faulty in form and
false in the matter of the premisses. Still a fourth variety of
syllogism is the scientific Paralogism: where the premisses are not
borrowed from any opinion, real or simulated, but belong properly to
the particular science in which they are employed, yet nevertheless
are false or erroneous.[9]
[Footnote 8: Topic. I. p. 100, b. 23: [Greek: e)ristiko\s d' e)/sti
sullogismo\s o( e)k phainome/nôn e)ndo/xôn, mê\ o)/ntôn de/, kai\ o(
e)x e)ndo/xôn ê)\ phainome/nôn e)ndo/xôn phaino/menos. ou) ga\r pa=n
to\ phaino/menon e)/ndoxon kai\ e)/stin e)/ndoxon. ou)the\n ga\r tô=n
legome/nôn e)ndo/xôn e)pipo/laion e)/chei pantelô=s tê\n phantasi/an,
katha/per peri\ ta\s tô=n e)ristikô=n lo/gôn a)rcha\s sumbe/bêken
e)/chein; parachrê=ma ga\r kai\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu\ toi=s kai\ mikra\
sunora=n duname/nois kata/dêlos e)n au)toi=s ê( tou= pseu/dous e)sti\
phu/sis.]]
[Footnote 9: Ibid. i. p. 101, a. 5-17.]
Upon the classification of syllogisms here set forth by Aristotle, we
may remark that the distinction between the Demonstrative and the
Dialectic is true and important; but that between the Dialectic and
the Eristic is faint and unimportant; the class called Eristic
syllogisms being apparently introduced merely to create a difference,
real or supposed, between the Dialectician and the Sophist, and thus
to serve as a prelude to the last book of this treatise, entitled
Sophistici Elenchi. The class-title Eristic (or litigious) is founded
upon a supposition of dishonest intentions on the part of the
disputant; but it is unphilosophical to make this the foundation of a
class, and to rank the same syllogism in the class, or out of it,
according as the intentions of the disputant who employs it are
honest or dishonest. Besides, a portion of Aristotle's definition
tells us that the Eristic syllogism is one of which the premisses can
impose upon no one; being such that a very ordinary man can at once
detect their falsity. The dishonest disputant, surely, would argue to
little purpose, if he intentionally employed such premisses as these.
Lastly, according to another portion of Aristotle's definition, every
syllogism faulty in form, or yielding no legitimate conclusion at
all, will fall under the class Eristic, and this he himself in
another place explicitly states;[10] which would imply that the bad
syllogism must always emanate from litigious or dishonest intentions.
But in defining the Pseudographeme, immediately afterwards, Aristotle
does not imply that the false scientific premiss affords presumption
of litigious disposition on the part of those who advance it; nor
does there seem any greater propriety in throwing all bad dialectic
syllogisms under the general head of Eristic.
[Footnote 10: Topic. VIII. xii. p. 162, b. 4.]
The dialectician, then, will carry on debate only by means of
premisses sustained by real opinion; which not only always carry some
authority, but are assumed as being never obviously fallacious;
though often inconsistent with each other, and admitting of
argumentation _pro_ and _con_. These are what Aristotle calls
_Endoxa_; opposed to _Adoxa_, or propositions which are
discountenanced, or at least not countenanced, by opinion, and to
_Paradoxa_ (a peculiar variety of _Adoxa_),[11] or propositions
which, though having ingenious arguments in their favour, yet are
adverse to some proclaimed and wide-spread opinions, and thus have
the predominant authority of opinion against them.
[Footnote 11: Ibid. I. xi. p. 104, b. 24: [Greek: peri\ ô(=n lo/gon
e)/chomen e)nanti/on tai=s do/xais.]]
Of these three words, _Paradox_ is the only one that has obtained a
footing in modern languages, thanks to Cicero and the Latin authors.
If the word _Endox_ had obtained the like footing, we should be able
to keep more closely to the thought and views of Aristotle. As it is,
we are obliged to translate the Greek _Endoxon_ as Probable, and
_Adoxon_ as Improbable:[12] which, though not incorrect, is neither
suitable nor exactly coincident. Probable corresponds more nearly to
what Aristotle (both in this treatise and in the Analytica) announces
sometimes as [Greek: to\ ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu/]--that which happens in
most cases but not in all, as distinguished from the universal and
necessary on one side, and from the purely casual on the other;[13]
sometimes, also, as [Greek: to\ ei)ko/s] or [Greek: to\ sêmei=on].
Now this is a different idea from (though it has a point of analogy
with) the _Endoxon_: which is not necessarily true even in part, but
may be wholly untrue; which always has some considerations against
it, though there may be more in its favour; and which, lastly, may be
different, or even opposite, in different ages and different states
of society. When Josephus distinguished himself as a disputant in the
schools of Jerusalem on points of law and custom,[14] his arguments
must have been chiefly borrowed from the _Endoxa_ or prevalent
opinions of the time and place; but these must have differed widely
from the _Endoxa_ found and argued upon by the contemporaries of
Aristotle at Athens. The _Endoxon_ may indeed be rightly called
probable, because, whenever a proposition is fortified by a certain
body of opinion, Aristotle admits a certain presumption (greater or
less) that it is true. But such probability is not essential to the
_Endoxon_: it is only an accident or accompaniment (to use the
Aristotelian phrase), and by no means an universal accompaniment. The
essential feature of the _Endoxon_ is, that it has acquired a certain
amount of recognition among the mass of opinions and beliefs floating
and carrying authority at the actual time and place. The English word
whereby it is translated ought to express this idea, and nothing
more; just as the correlative word Paradox does express its
implication, approached from the other side. Unfortunately, in the
absence of Endox, we have no good word for the purpose.
[Footnote 12: Aristotle gives a double meaning of [Greek: a)/doxon]
(Topic. VIII. ix. ix. 160, b. 17):-- 1. That which involves absurd or
strange consequences ([Greek: a)/topa]). 2. That which affords
presumption of a bad disposition, such as others will
disapprove--[Greek: oi(=on o(/ti ê(donê\ ta)gatho\n kai\ to\
a)dikei=n be/ltion tou= a)dikei=sthai].]
[Footnote 13: Topic. II. vi. p. 112, b. 1: [Greek: e)pei\ de\ tô=n
pragma/tôn ta\ me\n e)x a)na/gkês e)sti/, ta\ d' ô(s e)pi\ to\ polu/,
ta\ d' o(po/ter' e)/tuchen], &c. Compare also Analyt. Post. I. xxx.,
et alib.]
[Footnote 14: See Josephus, De Vitâ Suâ, c. ii.]
It is within this wide field of floating opinions that dialectical
debate and rhetorical pleading are carried on. Dialectic supposes a
questioner or assailant, and a respondent or defendant. The
respondent selects and proclaims a problem or thesis, which he
undertakes to maintain: the assailant puts to him successive
questions, with the view of obtaining concessions which may serve as
premisses for a counter-syllogism, of which the conclusion is
contradictory or contrary to the thesis itself, or to some other
antecedent premiss which the respondent has already conceded. It is
the business of the respondent to avoid making any answers which may
serve as premisses for such a counter-syllogism. If he succeeds in
this, so as not to become implicated in any contradiction with
himself, he has baffled his assailant, and gained the victory. There
are, however, certain rules and conditions, binding on both parties,
under which the debate must be carried on. It is the purpose of the
Topica to indicate these rules; and, in accordance therewith, to
advise both parties as to the effective conduct of their respective
cases--as to the best thrusts and the best mode of parrying. The
assailant is supplied with a classified catalogue of materials for
questions, and with indications of the weak points which he is to
look out for in any new subject which may turn up for debate. He is
farther instructed how to shape, marshal, and disguise his questions,
in such a way that the respondent may least be able to foresee their
ultimate bearing. The respondent, on his side, is told what he ought
to look forward to and guard against. Such is the scope of the
present treatise; the entire process being considered in the large
and comprehensive spirit customary with Aristotle, and distributed
according to the Aristotelian terminology and classification.
It is plain that neither the direct purpose of the debaters, nor the
usual result of the debate, is to prove truth or to disprove
falsehood. Such may indeed be the result occasionally; but the only
certain result is, that an inconsistency is exposed in the
respondent's manner of defending his thesis, or that the assailant
fails in his purpose of showing up such inconsistency. Whichever way
the debate may turn, no certain inference can be drawn as to the
thesis itself: not merely as to whether it is true or false, but even
as to whether it consists or does not consist with other branches of
received opinions. Such being the case, what is the use or value of
dialectic debate, or of a methodized procedure for conducting it?
Aristotle answers this question, telling us that it is useful for
three purposes.[15] First, the debate is a valuable and stimulating
mental exercise; and, if a methodized procedure be laid down, both
parties will be able to conduct it more easily as well as more
efficaciously. Secondly, it is useful for our intercourse with the
multitude;[16] for the procedure directs us to note and remember the
opinions of the multitude, and such knowledge will facilitate our
intercourse with them: we shall converse with them out of their own
opinions, which we may thus be able beneficially to modify. Thirdly,
dialectic debate has an useful though indirect bearing even upon the
processes of science and philosophy, and upon the truths thereby
acquired.[17] For it accustoms us to study the difficulties on both
sides of every question, and thus assists us in detecting and
discriminating truth and falsehood. Moreover, apart from this mode of
usefulness, it opens a new road to the scrutiny of the first
_principia_ of each separate science. These _principia_ can never be
scrutinized through the truths of the science itself, which
presuppose them and are deduced from them. To investigate and verify
them, is the appropriate task of First Philosophy. But Dialectic
also, carrying investigation as it does everywhere, and familiarized
with the received opinions on both sides of every subject, suggests
many points of importance in regard to these _principia_.
[Footnote 15: Topic. I. ii. p. 101, a. 26: [Greek: e)/sti dê\ pro\s
tri/a, pro\s gumnasi/an, pro\s ta\s e)nteu/xeis, pro\s ta\s kata\
philosophi/an e)pistê/mas.]]
[Footnote 16: Ibid. a. 30: [Greek: pro\s de\ ta\s e)nteu/xeis, dio/ti
ta\s tô=n pollô=n katêrithmême/noi do/xas ou)k e)k tô=n a)llotri/ôn
a)ll' e)k tô=n oi)kei/ôn dogma/tôn o(milê/somen pro\s au)tou/s,
metabiba/zontes o(/ ti a)\n mê\ kalô=s phai/nôntai le/gein ê(mi=n.]]
[Footnote 17: Ibid. a. 34: [Greek: pro\s de\ ta\s kata\ philosophi/an
e)pistê/mas], &c.]
The three heads just enumerated illustrate the discriminating care of
Aristotle. The point of the first head is brought out often in the
Platonic Dialogues of Search: the stimulus brought to bear in
awakening dormant intellectual power, and in dissipating that false
persuasion of knowledge which is the general infirmity of mankind, is
frequently declared by Plato to be the most difficult, but the
indispensable, operation of the teacher upon his pupil. Under the
third head, Aristotle puts this point more justly than Plato, not as
a portion of teaching, nor as superseding direct teaching, but as a
preliminary thereunto; and it is a habit of his own to prefix this
antecedent survey of doubts and difficulties on both sides, as a
means of sharpening our insight into the dogmatic exposition which
immediately follows.
Under the second head, we find exhibited another characteristic
feature of Aristotle's mind--the value which he sets upon a copious
acquaintance with received opinions, whether correct or erroneous.
The philosophers of his day no longer talked publicly in the
market-place and with every one indiscriminately, as Sokrates had
done: scientific study, and the habit of written compositions
naturally conducted them into a life apart, among select companions.
Aristotle here indicates that such estrangement from the multitude
lessened their means of acting beneficially on the multitude, and in
the way of counteraction he prescribes dialectical exercise. His own
large and many-sided observation, extending to the most vulgar
phenomena, is visible throughout his works, and we know that he drew
up a collection of current proverbs.[18]
[Footnote 18: Diog. Laert. v. 26. Kephisodorus, the disciple of
Isokrates, in defending his master, depreciated this Aristotelian
collection; see in Athenæus II. lvi., comparing Schweighäuser's
Animadversiones I. p. 406.]
Again, what we read under the third head shows that, while Aristotle
everywhere declares Demonstration and teaching to be a process apart
from Dialectic, he at the same time recognizes the legitimate
function of the latter, for testing and verifying the _principia_ of
Demonstration:[19] which _principia_ cannot be reached by
Demonstration itself, since every demonstration presupposes them. He
does not mean that these _principia_ can be proved by Dialectic, for
Dialectic does not prove any thing; but it is necessary as a test or
scrutinizing process to assure us that all the objections capable of
being offered against them can be met by sufficient replies. In
respect of universal competence and applicability, Dialectic is the
counterpart, or rather the tentative companion and adjunct, of what
Aristotle calls First Philosophy or Ontology; to which last he
assigns the cognizance of _principia_, as we shall see when we treat
of the Metaphysica.[20] Dialectic (he repeats more than once) is not
a definite science or body of doctrine, but, like rhetoric or
medicine, a practical art or ability of dealing with the ever varying
situations of the dialogue; of imagining and enunciating the question
proper for attack, or the answer proper for defence, as the case may
be. As in the other arts, its resources are not unlimited. Nor can
the dialectician, any more than the rhetor or the physician, always
guarantee success. Each of them has an end to be accomplished; and if
he employs for its accomplishment the best means that the situation
permits, he must be considered a master of his own art and
procedure.[21] To detect truth, and to detect what is like truth,
belong (in Aristotle's judgment) to the same mental capacity. Mankind
have a natural tendency towards truth, and the common opinions
therefore are, in most cases, coincident with truth. Accordingly, the
man who divines well in regard to verisimilitude, will usually divine
well in regard to truth.[22]
[Footnote 19: Topic. I. ii. p. 101, b. 3: [Greek: e)xetastikê\ ga\r
ou)=sa pro\s ta\s a(pasô=n tô=n metho/dôn a)rcha\s o(do\n e)/chei.]]
[Footnote 20: Metaphys. [Greek: G]. iii. p. 1005, a. 20-b. 10;
[Greek: G]. ii. p. 1004, b. 15-30.]
[Footnote 21: Topic. I. iii. p. 101, b. 5: [Greek: e(/xomen de\
tele/ôs tê\n me/thodon, o(/tan o(moi/ôs e)/chômen ô(/sper e)pi\
r(êtorikê=s kai\ i)atrikê=s kai\ tô=n toiou/tôn duna/meôn. tou=to d'
e)sti\ to\ e)k tô=n e)ndechome/nôn poiei=n a(\ proairou/metha. ou)/te
ga\r o( r(êtoriko\s e)k panto\s tro/pou pei/sei, ou)/th' o(
i)atriko\s u(gia/sei; a)ll' e)a\n tô=n e)ndechome/nôn mêde\n
parali/pê|, i(kanô=s au)to\n e)/chein tê\n e)pistê/mên phê/somen.]
The word [Greek: e)pistê/mên] in the last line is used loosely, since
Aristotle, in the Rhetorica (p. 1369, b. 12), explicitly states that
Rhetoric and Dialectic are not to be treated as [Greek: e)pistê/mas]
but as mere [Greek: duna/meis].]
[Footnote 22: Rhetoric. I. i. p. 1355, a. 17.]
The subject-matter of dialectic debate, speaking generally, consists
of Propositions and Problems, to be propounded as questions by the
assailant and to be admitted or disallowed by the defendant. They
will relate either to _Expetenda_ and _Fugienda_, or they must bear,
at least indirectly, upon some point of scientific truth or observed
cognition.[23] They will be either ethical, physical, or logical;
class-terms which Aristotle declines to define, contenting himself
with giving an example to illustrate each of them, while adding that
the student should collect other similar examples, and gradually
familiarize himself with the full meaning of the general term,
through such inductive comparison of particulars.[24]
[Footnote 23: Topic. I, xi. p. 104, b. 2.]
[Footnote 24: Topic. I. xiv. p. 105, b. 20-29: [Greek: ai( me\n ga\r
ê)thikai\ prota/seis ei)si/n, ai( de\ phusikai/, ai( de\
logikai/.--poi=ai d' e(/kastai tô=n proeirême/nôn, o(rismô=| me\n
ou)k eu)pete\s a)podou=nai peri\ au)tô=n, tê=| de\ _dia\ tê=s
e)pagôgê=s sunêthei/a|_ peirate/on gnôri/zein e(ka/stên au)tô=n,
kata\ ta\ proeirême/na paradei/gmata e)piskopou=nta.]
This illustrates Aristotle's view of the process of Induction and its
results; the acquisition of the import of a general term, through
comparison of numerous particulars comprehended under it.
The term _logical_ does not exactly correspond with Aristotle's
[Greek: logikai/], but on the present occasion no better term
presents itself.]
But it is not every problem coming under one of these three heads
that is fit for dialectic debate. If a man propounds as subject for
debate, Whether we ought to honour the gods or to love our parents,
he deserves punishment instead of refutation: if he selects the
question, Whether snow is white or not, he must be supposed deficient
in perceptive power.[25] What all persons unanimously believe, is
unsuitable:[26] what no one believes is also unsuitable, since it
will not be conceded by any respondent. The problem must have some
doubts and difficulties, in order to afford scope for discussion; yet
it must not be one of which the premisses are far-fetched or
recondite, for that goes beyond the limits of dialectic exercise.[27]
It ought to be one on which opinions are known to be held, both in
the affirmative and in the negative; on which either the multitude
differ among themselves, the majority being on one side, while yet
there is an adverse minority; or some independent authority stands
opposed to the multitude, such as a philosopher of eminence, a
professional man or artist speaking on his own particular craft, a
geometer or a physician on the specialities of his department.
Matters such as these are the appropriate subjects for dialectic
debate; and new matters akin to them by way of analogy may be
imagined and will be perfectly admissible.[28] Even an ingenious
paradox or thesis adverse to prevailing opinions may serve the
purpose, as likely to obtain countenance from some authority, though
as yet we know of none.[29]
[Footnote 25: Ibid. xi. p. 105, a. 67: [Greek:
kola/seôs--ai)sthê/seôs, de/ontai]. Yet he considers the question,
Whether we ought rather to obey the laws of the state or the commands
of our parents, in case of discrepancy between the two,--as quite fit
for debate (xiv. p. 105, b. 22).]
[Footnote 26: Ibid. x. p. 104, a. 5.]
[Footnote 27: Ibid. xi. p. 105, a. 7: [Greek: ou)de\ dê\ ô(=n
su/neggus ê( a)po/deixis, ou)/d' ô(=n li/an po/r)r(ô; ta\ me\n ga\r
ou)k e)/chei a)pori/an, ta\ de\ **plei/on ê)\ kata\
gumnastikê/n.] The loose use of the word [Greek: a)po/deixis]
deserves note here: it is the technical term of the Analyt. Post.,
denoting that application of the syllogism which contrasts with
Dialectic altogether.
Aristotle here means only that problems falling within these limits
are the best for dialectic discussion; but, in his suggestions later
on, he includes problems for discussion involving the utmost
generalities of philosophy. For example, he often adverts to
dialectic debate on the Platonic Ideas or Forms (Topic. II. vii. p.
113, a. 25; V. vii. p. 137, b. 7; VI. vi. p. 143, b. 24. Compare also
I. xi. p. 104, b. 14.)]
[Footnote 28: Topic. I. x. p. 104, a. 11-37.]
[Footnote 29: Ibid. xi. p. 104, b. 24-28: [Greek: ê)\ peri\ ô(=n
lo/gon e)/chomen e)nanti/on tai=s do/xais--tou=to ga/r, ei) kai/ tini
mê\ dokei=, do/xeien a)\n dia\ to\ lo/gon e)/chein.]]
These conditions apply both to problems propounded for debate, and to
premisses tendered on either side during the discussion. Both the
interrogator and the respondent--the former having to put appropriate
questions, and the latter to make appropriate answers--must know and
keep in mind these varieties of existing opinion among the multitude
as well as among the special dissident authorities above indicated.
The dialectician ought to collect and catalogue such _Endoxa_, with
the opinions analogous to them, out of written treatises and
elsewhere;[30] distributing them under convenient heads, such as
those relating to good and evil generally, and to each special class
of good, &c. Aristotle, however, admonishes him that he is debating
problems not scientifically, but dialectically: having reference not
to truth, but to opinion.[31] If the interrogator were proceeding
scientifically and didactically, he would make use of all true and
ascertained propositions, whether the respondent conceded them or
not, as premisses for his syllogism. But in Dialectic he is dependent
on the concession of the respondent, and can construct his syllogisms
only from premisses that have been conceded to him.[32] Hence he must
keep as closely as he can to opinions carrying extrinsic authority,
as being those which the respondent will hesitate to disallow.[33]
[Footnote 30: Topic. I. xiv. p. 105, b. 1-18. [Greek: e)kle/gein de\
chrê\ kai\ e)k tô=n gegramme/nôn lo/gôn.]]
[Footnote 31: Ibid. b. 30: [Greek: pro\s me\n ou)=n philosophi/an
kat' a)lê/theian peri\ au)tô=n pragmateute/on, dialektikô=s de\ pro\s
do/xan.]]
[Footnote 32: Ibid. VIII. i. p. 155, b. 10: [Greek: pro\s e(/teron
ga\r pa=n to\ toiou=ton, tô=| de\ philoso/phô| kai\ zêtou=nti kath'
e(auto\n ou)de\n me/lei, e)a\n a)lêthê= me\n ê)=| kai\ gnô/rima di'
ô(=n o( sullogismo/s, mê\ thê=| d' au)ta\ o( a)pokrino/menos], &c.]
[Footnote 33: Ibid. i. p. 156, b. 20: [Greek: chrê/simon de\ kai\ to\
e)pile/gein o(/ti su/nêthes kai\ lego/menon to\ toiou=ton; _o)knou=si
ga\r kinei=n to\ ei)ôtho/s_, e)/nstasin mê\ e)/chontes.]]
Moreover, the form of the interrogation admissible in dialectic
debate is peculiar. The respondent is not bound to furnish any
information in his answer: he is bound only to admit, or to deny, a
proposition tendered to him. You must not ask him, What is the genus
of man? You must yourself declare the genus, and ask whether he
admits it, in one or other of the two following forms--(1) Is animal
the genus of man? (2) Is animal the genus of man, or not? to which
the response is an admission or a denial.[34]
[Footnote 34: Ibid. I. iv. p. 101, b. 30. The first of these two
forms Aristotle calls a [Greek: pro/tasis], the second he calls a
[Greek: pro/blêma]. But this distinction between these two words is
not steadily adhered to: it is differently declared in Topic. I. x.,
xi. p. 104, as Alexander has remarked in the Scholia, p. 258, b. 4,
Brand. Compare also De Interpretat. p. 20, b. 26; and Topic. VIII.
ii. p. 158, a. 14: [Greek: ou) dokei= de\ pa=n to\ katho/lou
dialektikê\ pro/tasis ei)=nai, oi(=on ti/ e)stin a)/nthrôpos, ê)\
posachô=s le/getai ta)gatho/n? e)/sti ga\r pro/tasis dialektikê\
pro\s ê(\n e)/stin a)pokri/nasthai nai\ ê)\ ou)/; pro\s de\ ta\s
ei)rême/nas ou)k e)/stin. dio\ ou) dialektika/ e)sti ta\ toiau=ta
tô=n e)rôtêma/tôn, a)\n mê\ au)to\s diori/sas ê)\ dielo/menos
ei)/pê|.]]
Dialectic procedure, both of the assailant and of the defendant, has
to do with propositions and problems; accordingly, Aristotle
introduces a general distribution of propositions under four heads.
The predicate must either be Genus, or Proprium, or Accident, of its
subject. But the Proprium divides itself again into two. It always
reciprocates with, or is co-extensive with, its subject; but
sometimes it declares the essence of the subject, sometimes it does
not. When it declares the essence of the subject, Aristotle calls it
the Definition; when it does not declare the essence of the subject,
although reciprocating therewith, he reserves for it the title of
Proprium. Every proposition, and every problem, the entire material
of Dialectic, will declare one of these four--Proprium, Definition,
Genus, or Accident.[35] The Differentia, as being attached to the
Genus, is ranked along with the Genus.[36]
[Footnote 35: Topic. I. iv. p. 101, b. 17-36.]
[Footnote 36: Ibid. b. 18: [Greek: tê\n diaphora\n ô(s ou)=san
genikê\n o(mou= tô=| ge/nei takte/on.]]
The above four general heads include all the Predicables, which were
distributed by subsequent logicians (from whom Porphyry borrowed)
into five heads instead of four--Genus, Species, Differentia,
Proprium, Accident; the Differentia being ranked as a separate item
in the quintuple distribution, and the Species substituted in place
of the Definition. It is under this quadruple classification that
Aristotle intends to consider propositions and problems as matters
for dialectic procedure: he will give argumentative suggestions
applicable to each of the four successively. It might be practicable
(he thinks) to range all the four under the single head of
Definition; since arguments impugning Genus, Proprium, and Accident,
are all of them good also against Definition. But such a
simplification would be perplexing and unmanageable in regard to
dialectic procedure.[37]
[Footnote 37: Topic. I. vi. p. 102, b. 27-38. [Greek: a)ll' ou) dia\
tou=to mi/an e)pi\ pa/ntôn katho/lou me/thodon zêtête/on; ou)/te ga\r
r(a/|dion eu(rei=n tou=t' e)sti/n, ei)/ th' eu(rethei/ê, pantelô=s
a)saphê\s kai\ du/schrêstos a)\n ei)/ê pro\s tê\n prokeime/nên
pragmatei/an.]]
That the quadruple classification is exhaustive, and that every
proposition or problem falls under one or other of the four heads,
may be shown in two ways. First, by Induction: survey and analyse as
many propositions as you will, all without exception will be found to
belong to one of the four.[38] Secondly, by the following Deductive
proof:--In every proposition the predicate is either co-extensive and
reciprocating with the subject, or it is not. If it does reciprocate,
it either declares the essence of the subject, or it does not: if the
former, it is the Definition; if the latter, it is a Proprium. But,
supposing the predicate not to reciprocate with the subject, it will
either declare something contained in the Definition, or it will not.
If it does contain a part of the Definition, that part must be either
a Genus or a Differentia, since these are the constituents of the
Definition. If it does not contain any such part, it must be an
Accident.[39] Hence it appears that every proposition must belong to
one or other of the four, and that the classification is exhaustive.
[Footnote 38: Ibid. viii. p. 103, b. 3: [Greek: mi/a me\n pi/stis ê(
dia\ tê=s e)pagôgê=s; ei) ga/r tis e)piskopoi/ê e(ka/stên tô=n
prota/seôn kai\ tô=n problêma/tôn, phai/noit' a)\n ê)\ a)po\ tou=
o(/rou ê)\] &c.]
[Footnote 39: Topic. I. **viii. p. 103, b. 6-19:
[Greek: a)/llê de\ pi/stis ê( dia\ sullogismou=].
It will be observed that Aristotle here resolves Definition into
Genus and Differentiæ--[Greek: e)peidê\ o( o(rismo\s e)k ge/nous kai\
diaphorô=n e)sti/n]. Moreover, though he does not recognize Species
as a separate head, yet in his definition of Genus he implies Species
as known--[Greek: ge/nos e)sti\ to\ kata\ pleio/nôn kai\
_diaphero/ntôn tô=| ei)/dei_ e)n tô=| ti/ e)sti katêgorou/menon] (p.
102, a. 31).
It thus appears that the quintuple classification is the real and
logical one; but the quadruple may perhaps be more suitable for the
Topica, with a view to dialectic procedure, since debates turn upon
the attack and defence of a Definition.]
Moreover, each of the four Predicables must fall under one or other
of the ten Categories or Predicaments. If the predicate be either of
Genus or Definition, declaring the essence of the subject, it may
fall under any one of the ten Categories; if of Proprium or Accident,
not declaring essence, it cannot belong to the first Category
([Greek: Ou)si/a]), but must fall under one of the remaining
nine.[40]
[Footnote 40: Ibid. ix. p. 103, b. 20-39.]
The notion of Sameness or Identity occurs so often in dialectic
debate, that Aristotle discriminates its three distinct senses or
grades: (1) _Numero_; (2) _Specie_; (3) _Genere_. Water from the same
spring is only _idem specie_, though the resemblance between two cups
of water from the same spring is far greater than that between water
from different sources. Even _Idem Numero_ has different
significations: sometimes there are complete synonyms; sometimes an
individual is called by its proprium, sometimes by its peculiar
temporary accident.[41]
[Footnote 41: Ibid. vii. p. 103, a. 6-39.]
Having thus classified dialectic propositions, Aristotle proceeds to
the combination of propositions, or dialectic discourse and argument.
This is of two sorts, either Induction or Syllogism; of both which we
have already heard in the Analytica. Induction is declared to be
plainer, more persuasive, nearer to sensible experience, and more
suitable to the many, than Syllogism; while this latter carries
greater compulsion and is more irresistible against professed
disputants.[42] A particular example is given to illustrate what
Induction is. But we remark that though it is always mentioned as an
argumentative procedure important and indispensable, yet neither here
nor elsewhere does Aristotle go into any discriminative analysis of
the conditions under which it is valid, as he does about Syllogism in
the Analytica Priora.
[Footnote 42: Ibid. xii. p. 105, a. 10-19: [Greek: po/sa tô=n lo/gôn
ei)/dê tô=n dialektikô=n], &c.]
What helps are available to give to the dialectician a ready and
abundant command of syllogisms? Four distinct helps may be named:[43]
(1) He must make a large collection of Propositions; (2) He must
study and discriminate the different senses in which the Terms of
these propositions are used; (3) He must detect and note Differences;
(4) He must investigate Resemblances.
[Footnote 43: Topic. I. xiii. p. 105, a. 21: [Greek: ta\ d' o)/rgana,
di' ô(=n eu)porê/somen tô=n sullogismô=n, e)sti\ te/ttara, e(/n me\n
to\ prota/seis labei=n, deu/teron de\ posachô=s e(/kaston le/getai
du/nasthai dielei=n, tri/ton ta\s diaphora\s eu(rei=n, te/tarton de\
ê( tou= o(moi/ou ske/psis.]
The term [Greek: o)/rgana], properly signifying _instruments_,
appears here by a strained metaphor. It means simply _helps_ or
_aids_, as may be seen by comparing Top. VIII. xiv. p. 163, b. 9.
Waitz says truly (Prolegg. ad Analyt. Post. p. 294): "unde fit, ut
[Greek: o)/rgana] dicat quæcunque ad aliquam rem faciendam adiumentum
afferant."]
1. About collecting Propositions, Aristotle has already indicated
that those wanted are such as declare _Endoxa_, and other modes of
thought cognate or **analogous to the _Endoxa_:[44] opinions
of the many, and opinions of any small sections or individuals
carrying authority. All such are to be collected (out of written
treatises as well as from personal enquiry); nor are individual
philosophers (like Empedokles) to be omitted, since a proposition is
likely enough to be conceded when put upon the authority of an
illustrious name.[45] If any proposition is currently admitted as
true in general or in most cases, it must be tendered with confidence
to the respondent as an universal principle; for he will probably
grant it, not being at first aware of the exceptions.[46] All
propositions must be registered in the most general terms possible,
and must then be resolved into their subordinate constituent
particulars, as far as the process of subdivision can be carried.[47]
[Footnote 44: Topic. I. xiv. p. 105, b. 4: [Greek: e)kle/gein mê\
mo/non ta\s ou)/sas e)ndo/xous, a)lla\ kai\ ta\s o(moi/as tau/tais.]]
[Footnote 45: Ibid. b. 17: [Greek: thei/ê ga\r a)/n tis to\ u(po/
tinos ei)rême/non e)ndo/xou].]
[Footnote 46: Ibid. b. 10: [Greek: o(/sa e)pi\ pa/ntôn ê)\ tô=n
plei/stôn phai/netai, lêpte/on ô(s a)rchê\n kai\ dokou=san the/sin;
tithe/asi ga\r oi( mê\ sunorô=ntes e)pi\ ti/nos ou)ch ou(/tôs.]]
[Footnote 47: Ibid. b. 31-37: [Greek: lêpte/on d' o(/ti ma/lista
katho/lou pa/sas ta\s prota/seis, kai\ tê\n mi/an polla\s
poiête/on--diairete/on, e(/ôs a)\n e)nde/chêtai diairei=n], &c.]
2. The propositions having been got together, they must be examined
in order to find out Equivocation or double meaning of terms. There
are various ways of going about this task. Sometimes the same
predicate is applied to two different subjects, but in different
senses; thus, courage and justice are both of them good, but in a
different way. Sometimes the same predicate is applied to two
different classes of subjects, each admitting of being defined; thus,
health is good in itself, and exercise is good as being among those
things that promote health.[48] Sometimes the equivocal meaning of a
term is perceived by considering its contrary; if we find that it has
two or more distinct contraries, we know at once that it has
different meanings. Sometimes, though there are not two distinct
contraries, yet the mere conjunction of the same adjective with two
substantives shows us at once that it cannot mean the same in
both[49] ([Greek: leukê\ phônê/--leuko\n chrô=ma]). In one sense, the
term may have an assignable contrary, while in another sense it may
have no contrary; showing that the two senses are distinct: for
example, the pleasure of drinking has for its contrary the pain of
thirst; but the pleasure of scientifically contemplating that the
diagonal of a square is incommensurable with the side, has no
contrary; hence, we see that pleasure is an equivocal term.[50] In
one sense, there may be a term intermediate between the two
contraries; in another sense, there may be none; or there may be two
distinct intermediate terms for the two distinct senses; or there may
be several intermediate terms in one of the senses, and only one or
none in the other: in each of these ways the equivocation is
revealed.[51] We must look also to the contradictory opposite (of a
term), which may perhaps have an obvious equivocation of meaning;
thus, [Greek: mê\ ble/pein] means sometimes to be blind, sometimes
not to be seeing actually, whence we discover that [Greek: ble/pein]
also has the same equivocation.[52] If a positive term is equivocal,
we know that the privative term correlating with it must also be
equivocal; thus, [Greek: to\ ai)stha/nesthai] has a double sense,
according as we speak with reference to mind or body; and this will
be alike true of the correlating privative--[Greek: to\ a)nai/sthêton
ei)=nai].[53] Farther, an equivocal term will have its derivatives
equivocal in the same manner; and conversely, if the derivative be
equivocal, the radical will be so likewise.[54] The term must also be
looked at in reference to the ten Categories: if its meanings fall
under more than one Category, we know that it is equivocal.[55] If it
comprehends two subjects which are not in the same genus, or in
genera not subordinate one to the other, this too will show that it
is equivocal.[56] The contrary, also, of the term must be looked at
with a view to the same inference.[57]
[Footnote 48: Topic. I. xv. p. 106, a. 1-8: [Greek: to\ de\
posachô=s, pragmateute/on mê\ mo/non o(/sa le/getai kath' e(/teron
tro/pon, a)lla\ kai\ tou\s lo/gous au)tôn peirate/on a)podido/nai.]]
[Footnote 49: Ibid. a. 9-35.]
[Footnote 50: Ibid. a. 36.]
[Footnote 51: Ibid. b. 4.]
[Footnote 52: Ibid. b. 13-20.]
[Footnote 53: Ibid. b. 21-28.]
[Footnote 54: Ibid. b. 28.]
[Footnote 55: Ibid. p. 107, a. 3-17.]
[Footnote 56: Ibid. a. 18.]
[Footnote 57: Ibid. a. 32-35.]
Again, it will be useful to bring together the same term in two
different conjunctions, and to compare the definitions of the two.
Define both of them, and then deduct what is peculiar to each
_definitum_: if the remainder be different, the term will be
equivocal; if the remainder be the same, the term will be univocal.
Thus, [Greek: leuko\n sô=ma] will be defined, a body having such and
such a colour: [Greek: leukê\ phônê/], a voice easily and distinctly
heard: deduct [Greek: sô=ma] from the first definition, and [Greek:
phônê\] from the second, the remainder will be totally disparate;
therefore, the term [Greek: leuko/n] is equivocal.[58] Sometimes,
also, the ambiguity may be found in definitions themselves, where the
same term is used to explain subjects that are not the same; whether
such use is admissible, has to be considered.[59] If the term be
univocal, two conjunctions of it may always be compared as to greater
or less, or in respect of likeness; whenever this cannot be, the term
is equivocal.[60] If, again, the term is used as a differentia for
two genera quite distinct and independent of each other, it must be
equivocal; for genera that are unconnected and not subordinate one to
the other, have their differentiæ also disparate.[61] And,
conversely, if the term be such that the differentiæ applied to it
are disparate, we may know it to be an equivocal term. The like, if
the term be used as a species in some of its conjunctions, and as a
differentia in others.[62]
[Footnote 58: Topic. I. xv. p. 107, a. 36-b. 3.]
[Footnote 59: Ibid. b. 8.]
[Footnote 60: Ibid. b. 13-18: [Greek: e)/ti ei) mê\ sumblêta\ kata\
to\ ma=llon ê)\ o(moi/ôs,--to\ ga\r sunô/numon pa=n sumblêto/n.]]
[Footnote 61: Ibid. b. 19-26.]
[Footnote 62: Ibid. b. 27-37.]
3. Aristotle has thus indicated, at considerable length, the points
to be looked for when we are examining whether a term is univocal or
equivocal. He is more concise when he touches on the last two out of
the four helps ([Greek: o)/rgana]) enumerated for supplying
syllogisms when needed,--viz. the study of Differences and of
Resemblances. In regard to the study of Differences, standing third,
while he remarks that, where these are wide and numerous, they are
sure without any precept to excite our attention, he advises that we
should study the differences of subjects that are nearly
allied,--those within the same genus, or comprehended in genera not
much removed from one another, such as, the distinction between
sensible perception and science. But he goes into no detail.[63]
[Footnote 63: Ibid. xvi. p. 107, b. 39.]
4. In regard to the study of Resemblances, he inverts the above
precept, and directs us to note especially the points of resemblance
between subjects of great apparent difference.[64] We must examine
what is the quality common to all species of the same genus--man,
horse, dog, &c.; for it is in this that they are similar. We may also
compare different genera with each other, in respect to the analogies
that are to be found in each: _e.g._, as science is to the
cognizable, so is perception to the perceivable; as sight is in the
eye, so is intellection in the soul; as [Greek: galê/nê] is in the
sea, so is [Greek: nênemi/a] in the air.[65]
[Footnote 64: Ibid. xvii. p. 108, a. 12: [Greek: ma/lista d' e)n
toi=s polu\ diestô=si gumna/zesthai dei=; r(a=|on ga\r e)pi\ tô=n
loipô=n dunêso/metha ta\ o(/moia sunora=n.]]
[Footnote 65: Topic. I. xvii. p. 108, a. 7.]
Such are the four distinct helps, towards facility of syllogizing,
enumerated by Aristotle. It will be observed that the third and
fourth (study of Resemblances and Differences) bear more upon matters
of fact and less upon words; while the second ([Greek: to\
posachô=s]), though doubtless also bearing on matters of fact and
deriving from thence its main real worth, yet takes its departure
from terms and propositions, and proceeds by comparing multiplied
varieties of these in regard to diversity of meaning. Upon this
ground it is, apparently, that Aristotle has given so much fuller
development to the second head than to the third and fourth; for, in
the Topica, he is dealing with propositions and
counter-propositions--with opinions and counter-opinions, not with
science and truth.
He proceeds to indicate the different ways in which these three helps
(the second, third, and fourth) further the purpose of the
dialectician--respondent as well as assailant. Unless the different
meanings of the term be discriminated, the respondent cannot know
clearly what he admits or what he denies; he may be thinking of
something different from what the assailant intends, and the
syllogisms constructed may turn upon a term only, not upon any
reality.[66] The respondent will be able to protect himself better
against being driven into contradiction, if he can distinguish the
various meanings of the same term; for he will thus know whether the
syllogisms brought against him touch the real matter which he has
admitted.[67] On the other hand, the assailant will have much
facility in driving his opponent into contradiction, if he (the
assailant) can distinguish the different meanings of the term, while
the respondent cannot do so; in those cases at least where the
proposition is true in one sense of the term and false in
another.[68] This manner of proceeding, however, is hardly consistent
with genuine Dialectic. No dialectician ought ever to found his
interrogations and his arguments upon a mere unanalysed term, unless
he can find absolutely nothing else to say in the debate.[69]
[Footnote 66: Ibid. xviii. p. 108, a. 22.]
[Footnote 67: Ibid. a. 26: [Greek: chrê/simon de\ kai\ pro\s to\ mê\
paralogisthê=nai kai\ pro\s to\ paralogi/sasthai. ei)do/tes ga\r
posachô=s le/getai ou) mê\ paralogisthô=men, a)ll' ei)dê/somen e)a\n
mê\ pro\s to\ au)to\ to\n lo/gon poiê=tai o( e)rôtô=n.]]
[Footnote 68: Ibid. a. 29: [Greek: au)toi/ te e)rôtô=ntes
dunêso/metha paralogi/sasthai e)a\n mê\ tugcha/nê| ei)dô\s o(
a)pokrino/menos posachô=s le/getai; tou=to d' ou)k e)pi\ pa/ntôn
dunato/n, a)ll' o(/tan ê)=| tô=n pollachô=s legome/nôn ta\ me\n
a)lêthê=, ta\ de\ pseudê=.]]
[Footnote 69: Topic. I. xviii. p. 108, a. 34: [Greek: dio\ pantelô=s
eu)labête/on toi=s dialektikoi=s to\ toiou=nton, to\ pro\s tou)/noma
diale/gesthai, _e)a\n mê/ tis a)/llôs e)xadunatê=| peri\ tou=
prokeime/nou diale/gesthai_.]]
The third help (an acquaintance with Differences) will be of much
avail on all occasions where we have to syllogize upon Same and
Different, and where we wish to ascertain the essence or definition
of any thing; for we ascertain this by exclusion of what is foreign
thereunto, founded on the appropriate differences in each case.[70]
[Footnote 70: Ibid. b. 2.]
Lastly, the fourth help (the intelligent survey of Resemblances)
serves us in different ways:--(1) Towards the construction of
inductive arguments; (2) Towards syllogizing founded upon assumption;
(3) Towards the declaration of definitions. As to the inductive
argument, it is founded altogether on a repetition of similar
particulars, whereby the universal is obtained.[71] As to the
syllogizing from an assumption, the knowledge of resemblances is
valuable, because we are entitled to assume, as an _Endoxon_ or a
doctrine conformable to common opinion, that what happens in any one
of a string of similar cases will happen also in all the rest. We lay
down this as the major proposition of a syllogism; and thus, if we
can lay hold of any one similar case, we can draw inference from it
to the matter actually in debate.[72] Again, as to the declaration of
definitions, when we have once discovered what is the same in all
particular cases, we shall have ascertained to what genus the subject
before us belongs;[73] for that one of the common predicates which is
most of the essence, will be the genus. Even where the two matters
compared are more disparate than we can rank in the same genus, the
knowledge of resemblances will enable us to discover useful
analogies, and thus to obtain a definition at least approximative.
Thus, as the point is in a line, so is the unit in numbers; each of
them is a _principium_; this, therefore, is a common genus, which
will serve as a tolerable definition. Indeed this is the definition
of them commonly given by philosophers; who call the unit
_principium_ of number, and the point _principium_ of a line, thus
putting one and the other into a genus common to both.[74]
[Footnote 71: Ibid. b. 9.]
[Footnote 72: Ibid. b. 12: [Greek: pro\s de\ tou\s e)x u(pothe/seôs
sullogsismou/s, _dio/ti e)/ndoxo/n e)stin_, ô(/s pote e)ph' e(no\s
tô=n o(moi/ôn e)/chei, ou(/tôs kai\ e)i\ tô=n loipô=n; ô(/ste pro\s
o(/ ti a)\n au)tô=n eu)porô=men diale/gesthai,
_prodiomologêso/metha_, ô(/s pote e)pi\ tou/tôn e)/chei, ou(/tô kai\
e)pi\ tou= prokeime/nou e)/chein. dei/xantes de\ e)kei=no kai\
**to\ prokei/menon _e)x u(pothe/seôs dedeicho/tes e)so/metha;
u(pothe/menoi_ ga/r, ô(/s pote e)pi\ tou/tôn e)/chei,
ou(/tô kai\ e)pi\ tou= prokeime/nou e)/chein, tê\n a)po/deixin
pepoiê/metha.] For [Greek: to\ e)x u(pothe/seôs], compare Topic. III.
vi. p. 119, b. 35.]
[Footnote 73: Topic. I. xviii. p. 108, b. 19.]
[Footnote 74: Topic. I. xviii. p. 108, b. 27: [Greek: ô(/ste to\
koino\n e)pi\ pa/ntôn ge/nos a)podi/dontes _do/xomen ou)k a)llotri/ôs
o(ri/zesthai_.] It will be recollected that all the work of Dialectic
(as Aristotle tells us often) has reference to [Greek: do/xa] and not
to scientific truth. "We shall _seem to define_ not in a manner
departing from the reality of the subject" is, therefore, an
appropriate dialectic artifice.]
II.
The First Book of the Topica, which we have thus gone through, was
entitled by some ancient commentators [Greek: ta\ pro\ tô=n
To/pôn]--matters preliminary to the _Loci_. This is quite true, as a
description of its contents; for Aristotle in the last words of the
book, distinctly announces that he is about to enumerate the _Loci_
towards which the four above-mentioned _Organa_ will be useful.[75]
[Footnote 75: Ibid. p. 108, b. 32: [Greek: oi( de\ to/poi pro\s ou(\s
chrê/sima ta\ lechthe/nta oi(/de ei)si/n.]]
_Locus_ ([Greek: to/pos]) is a place in which many arguments
pertinent to one and the same dialectical purpose, may be found--
_sedes argumentorum_. In each _locus_, the arguments contained
therein look at the thesis from the same point of view; and the
_locus_ implies nothing distinct from the arguments, except this
manner of view common to them all. In fact, the metaphor is a
convenient one for designating the relation of every Universal
generally to its particulars: the Universal is not a new particular,
nor any adjunct superimposed upon all its particulars, but simply a
_place_ in which all known similar particulars may be found grouped
together, and in which there is room for an indefinite number of new
ones. If we wish to arm the student with a large command of
dialectical artifices, we cannot do better than discriminate the
various groups of arguments, indicating the point of view common to
each group, and the circumstances in which it becomes applicable. By
this means, whenever he is called upon to deal with a new debate, he
will consider the thesis in reference to each one of these different
_loci_, and will be able to apply arguments out of each of them,
according as the case may admit.
The four _Helps_ ([Greek: o)/rgana]) explained in the last book
differ from the _Loci_ in being of wider and more undefined bearing:
they are directions for preparatory study, rather than for dealing
with any particular situation of a given problem; though it must be
confessed that, when Aristotle proceeds to specify the manner in
which the three last-mentioned helps are useful, he makes
considerable approach towards the greater detail and
particularization of the _Loci_. In entering now upon these, he
reverts to that quadruple classification of propositions and problems
(according to the four Predicables), noted at the beginning of the
treatise, in which the predicate is either Definition, Proprium,
Genus, or Accident, of the subject. He makes a fourfold distribution
of _Loci_, according as they bear upon one or other of these four. In
the Second and Third Books, we find those which bear upon
propositions predicating Accident; in the Fourth Book, we pass to
Genus; in the Fifth, to Proprium; in the Sixth and Seventh, to
Definition.
The problem or thesis propounded for debate may have two faults on
which it may be impugned: either it may be untrue; or it may be
expressed in a way departing from the received phraseology.[76] It
will be universal, or particular, or indefinite; and either
affirmative or negative; but, in most cases, the respondent propounds
for debate an affirmative universal, and not a negative or a
particular.[77] Aristotle therefore begins with those _loci_ that are
useful for refuting an Affirmative Universal; though, in general, the
same arguments are available for attack and defence both of the
universal and of the particular; for if you can overthrow the
particular, you will have overthrown the universal along with it,
while if you can defend the universal, this will include the defence
of the particular. As the thesis propounded is usually affirmative,
the assailant undertakes the negative side or the work of refutation.
And this indeed (as Eudemus, the pupil of Aristotle, remarked, after
his master[78]) is the principal function and result of dialectic
exercise; which refutes much and proves very little, according to the
analogy of the Platonic Dialogues of Search.
[Footnote 76: Topic. II. i. p. 109, a. 27: [Greek: diori/sasthai de\
dei= kai\ ta\s a(marti/as ta\s e)n toi=s problê/masin, o(/ti ei)si\
dittai/, ê)\ tô=| pseu/desthai, ê)\ tô=| parabai/nein tê\n keime/nên
le/xin.]
Alexander remarks (Schol. p. 264, b. 23, Br.) that [Greek: pro/blêma]
here means, not the interrogation, but [Greek: to\ ô(risme/non ê)/dê
kai\ kei/menon--ou(= proi+/statai/ tis, o(/n o( dialektiko\s
e)le/gchein e)picheirei=].]
[Footnote 77: Topic. II. i. p. 109, a. 8: [Greek: dia\ to\ ma=llon
ta\s the/seis komi/zein e)n tô=| u(pa/rchein ê)\ mê/, tou\s de\
dialegome/nous a)naskeua/zein.]]
[Footnote 78: Alexander ap. Schol. p. 264, a. 27, Br.: [Greek: o(/ti
de\ oi)keio/teron tô=| dialektikô=| to\ a)naskeua/zein tou=
kataskeua/zein, e)n tô=| prô/tô| tô=n e)pigraphome/nôn Eu)dêmei/ôn
A)nalutikô=n (e)pigra/phetai de\ au)to\ kai\ Eu)dê/mou u(pe\r tô=n
A)nalutikô=n) ou(/tôs le/getai, o(/ti o( dialektiko\s a(\ me\n
kataskeua/zei mikra/ e)sti, to\ de\ polu\ tê=s duna/meôs au)tou=
pro\s to\ a)nairei=n ti e)sti/n.]]
Aristotle takes the four heads--Accident, Genus, Proprium, and
Definition, in the order here enumerated. The thesis of which the
predicate is enunciated as Accident, affirms the least, is easiest to
defend, and hardest to upset.[79] When we enunciate Genus or
Proprium, we affirm, not merely that the predicate belongs to the
subject (which is all that is affirmed in the case of Accident), but,
also something more--that it belongs to the subject in a certain
manner and relation. And when we enunciate Definition, we affirm all
this and something reaching yet farther--that it declares the whole
essence of the _definitum_, and is convertible therewith.
Accordingly, the thesis of Definition, affirming as it does so very
much, presents the most points of attack and is by far the hardest to
defend.[80] Next in point of difficulty, for the respondent, comes
the Proprium.
[Footnote 79: Topic. VII. v. p. 155, a. 27: [Greek: r(a=|ston de\
pa/ntôn kataskeua/sai to\ sumbebêko/s--a)naskeua/zein de\
chalepô/taton to\ sumbebêko/s, o(/ti e)la/chista e)n au)tô=|
de/dotai; ou) ga\r prossêmai/nei e)n tô=| sumbebêko/ti pô=s
u(pa/rchei, ô(/st' e)pi\ me\n tô=n a)/llôn dichô=s e)/stin a)nelei=n,
ê)\ dei/xanta o(/ti ou)ch u(pa/rchei ê)\ o(/ti ou)ch ou(/tôs
u(parchei, e)pi\ de\ tou= sumbebêko/tos ou)k e)/stin a)nelei=n a)ll'
ê)\ dei/xanta o(/ti ou)ch u(pa/rchei.]]
[Footnote 80: Topic. VII. v. p. 155, a. 3. [Greek: pa/ntôn r(a=|ston
o(/ron a)naskeua/sai; plei=sta ga\r e)n au)tô=| ta\ dedome/na pollô=n
ei)rême/nôn.] a. 23: [Greek: tô=n d' a)/llôn to\ i)/dion ma/lista
toiou=ton.]]
Beginning thus with the thesis enunciating Accident, Aristotle
enumerates no less than thirty-seven distinct _loci_ or argumentative
points of view bearing upon it. Most of them suggest modes of
assailing the thesis; but there are also occasionally intimations to
the respondent how he may best defend himself. In this numerous list
there are indeed some items repetitions of each other, or at least
not easily distinguishable.[81] As it would be tedious to enumerate
them all, I shall select some of the most marked and illustrative.
[Footnote 81: Aristotle himself admits the repetition in some cases,
Topic. II. ii. p. 110, a. 12: the fourth _locus_ is identical
substantially with the second _locus_.
Theophrastus distinguished [Greek: para/ggelma] as the general
precept, from [Greek: to/pos] or _locus_, as any proposition
specially applying the precept to a particular case (Schol. p. 264,
b. 38).]
1. The respondent has enunciated a certain predicate as belonging in
the way of accident, to a given subject. Perhaps it may belong to the
subject; yet not as accident, but under some one of the other three
Predicables. Perhaps he may have enunciated (either by explicit
discrimination, or at least by implication contained in his
phraseology) the genus as if it were an accident,--an error not
unfrequently committed.[82] Thus, if he has said, To be a colour is
an accident of white, he has affirmed explicitly the genus as if it
were an accident. And he has affirmed the same by implication, if he
has said, White (or whiteness) is coloured. For this is a form of
words not proper for the affirmation of a genus respecting its
species, in which case the genus itself ought to stand as a literal
predicate (White is a colour), and not to be replaced by one of its
derivatives (White is coloured). Nor can the proposition be intended
to be taken as affirming either proprium or definition; for in both
these the predicate would reciprocate and be co-extensive with the
subject, whereas in the present case there are obviously many other
subjects of which it may be predicated that they are coloured.[83] In
saying, White is coloured, the respondent cannot mean to affirm
either genus, proprium, or definition; therefore he must mean to
affirm _accident_. The assailant will show that this is erroneous.
[Footnote 82: Topic. II. ii. p. 109, a. 34: [Greek: ei(=s me\n dê\
to/pos to\ e)pible/pein ei) to\ kat' a)/llon tina\ tro/pon u(pa/rchon
ô(s sumbebêko\s a)pode/dôken. a(marta/netai de\ ma/lista tou=to peri\
ta\ ge/nê, oi(=on ei)/ tis tô=| leukô=| phai/ê sumbebêke/nai
chrô/mati ei)=nai; ou) ga\r sumbe/bêke tô=| leukô=| chrô/mati
ei)=nai, a)lla\ ge/nos au)tou= to\ chrô=ma/ e)stin.]]
[Footnote 83: We may find cases in which Aristotle has not been
careful to maintain the strict logical sense of [Greek: sumbebêko/s]
or [Greek: sumbe/bêken] where he applies these terms to Genus or
Proprium: _e.g._ Topic. II. iii. p. 110, b. 24; Soph. El. vi. p. 168,
b. 1.]
2. Suppose the thesis set up by the respondent to be an universal
affirmative, or an universal negative. You (the interrogator or
assailant) should review the particulars contained under these
universals. Review them not at once as separate individuals, but as
comprised in subordinate genera and species; beginning from the
highest, and descending down to the lowest species which is not
farther divisible except into individuals. Thus, if the thesis
propounded be, The cognition of opposites is one and the same
cognition; you will investigate whether this can be truly predicated
respecting all the primary species of _Opposita_: respecting _Relata_
and _Correlata_, respecting Contraries, respecting Contradictories,
respecting _Habitus_ and _Privatio_. If, by going thus far, you
obtain no result favourable to your purpose,[84] you must proceed
farther, and subdivide until you come to the lowest species:--Is the
cognition of just and unjust one and the same? that of double and
half? of sight and blindness? of existence and non-existence? If in
all, or in any one, of these cases you can show that the universal
thesis does not hold, you will have gained your point of refuting it.
On the other hand, if, when you have enumerated many particulars, the
thesis is found to hold in all, the respondent is entitled to require
you to grant it as an universal proposition, unless you can produce a
satisfactory counter-example. If you decline this challenge, you will
be considered an unreasonable debater.[85]
[Footnote 84: Topic. II. ii. p. 109, b. 20: [Greek: ka)\n e)pi\
tou/tôn mê/pô phanero\n ê)=|, pa/lin tau=ta diairete/on me/chri tô=n
a)to/môn, oi(=on ei) tô=n dikai/ôn kai\ a)di/kôn], &c.]
[Footnote 85: Ibid. b. 25-30. [Greek: e)a\n ga\r mêde/teron tou/tôn
poiê=|, a)/topos phanei=tai mê\ tithei/s.]]
3. You will find it useful to define both the accident predicated in
the thesis, and the subject respecting which it is predicated, or at
least one of them: you will see then whether these definitions reveal
anything false in the affirmation of the thesis. Thus, if the thesis
affirms that it is possible to do injustice to a god, you will define
what is meant by doing injustice. The definition is--hurting
intentionally: you can thus refute the thesis by showing that no
injustice to a god can possibly be done; for a god cannot be
hurt.[86] Or let the thesis maintained be, The virtuous man is
envious. You define envy, and you find that it is--vexation felt by
reason of the manifest success of some meritorious man. Upon this
definition it is plain that the virtuous man cannot feel envy: he
would be worthless, if he did feel it. Perhaps some of the terms
employed in your definition may themselves require definition; if so,
you will repeat the process of defining until you come to something
plain and clear.[87] Such an analysis will often bring out some error
at first unperceived in the thesis.
[Footnote 86: Topic. II. ii. p. 109, b. 34: [Greek: ou) ga\r
e)nde/chetai bla/ptesthai to\n theo/n.]]
[Footnote 87: Ibid. p. 110, a. 4: [Greek: lamba/nein de\ kai\ a)nti\
tô=n e)n toi=s lo/gois o)noma/tôn lo/gous, kai\ mê\ a)phi/stasthai
e(/ôs a)\n ei)s gnô/rimon e)/lthê|.]]
4. It will be advisable, both for assailant and respondent, to
discriminate those cases in which the authority of the multitude is
conclusive from those in which it is not. Thus, in regard to the
meaning of terms and in naming objects, we must speak like the
multitude; but, when the question is as to what objects deserve to be
denominated so and so, we must not feel bound by the multitude, if
there be any special dissentient authority.[88] That which produces
good health we must call wholesome, as the multitude do; but, in
calling this or that substance wholesome, the physician must be our
guide.
[Footnote 88: Ibid. a. 14-22.]
5. Aristotle gives more than one suggestion as to those cases in
which the terms of the thesis have a double or triple sense, yet in
which the thesis is propounded either as an universal affirmative or
as an universal negative. If the respondent is himself not aware of
the double sense of his thesis, while you (the questioner) are aware
of it, you will prove the point which you are seeking to establish
against him in one or other of the two senses, if you cannot prove it
in both. If he is aware of it in the double sense, he will insist
that you have chosen the sense which he did not intend.[89] This mode
of procedure will be available to the respondent as well as to you;
but it will be harder to him, since his thesis is universal. For, in
order to make good an universal thesis, he must obtain your assent to
a preliminary assumption or convention, that, if he can prove it in
one sense of the terms, it shall be held proved in both; and, unless
the proposition be so plausible that you are disposed to grant him
this, he will not succeed in the procedure.[90] But you on your side,
as refuting, do not require any such preliminary convention or
acquiescence; for, if you prove the negative in any single case, you
succeed in overthrowing the universal affirmative, while, if you
prove the affirmative in any single case, you succeed in overthrowing
the universal negative.[91] Such procedure, however, is to be adopted
only when you can find no argument applicable to the equivocal thesis
in all its separate meanings; this last sort of argument, wherever it
can be found, being always better.[92]
[Footnote 89: Topic. II. iii. p. 110, a. 24.]
[Footnote 90: Ibid. a. 37: [Greek: kataskeua/zousi de\
prodiomologête/on o(/ti ei) o(tô|ou=n u(pa/rchei, panti\ u(pa/rchei,
a)\n pithano\n ê)=| to\ a)xi/ôma; ou) ga\r a)po/chrê pro\s to\
dei=xai o(/ti panti\ u(pa/rchei to\ e)ph' e(no\s dialechthê=nai.]]
[Footnote 91: Topic. II. iii. p. 110, a. 32: [Greek: plê\n
a)naskeua/zonti me\n ou)de\n dei= e)x o(mologi/as diale/gesthai].]
[Footnote 92: Ibid. b. 4.]
In cases where the double meaning is manifest, the two meanings must
be distinguished by both parties, and the argument conducted
accordingly. Where the term has two or more meanings (not equivocal
but) related to each other by analogy, we must deal with each of
these meanings distinctly and separately.[93] If our purpose is to
refute, we select any one of them in which the proposition is
inadmissible, neglecting the others: if our purpose is to prove, we
choose any one in which the proposition is true, neglecting the
others.[94]
[Footnote 93: Topic. II. iii. p. 110, b. 16-p. 111, a. 7. This
_locus_ is very obscurely stated by Aristotle.]
[Footnote 94: Ibid. p. 110, b. 29-32: [Greek: e)a\n boulô/metha
kataskeua/sai, ta\ toiau=ta prooiste/on o(/sa e)nde/chetai, kai\
diairete/on _ei)s tau=ta mo/non_ o(/sa kai\ chrê/sima pro\s to\
kataskeua/sai; a)\n d' a)naskeua/sai, o(/sa mê\ e)nde/chetai, _ta\
de\ loipa\ paraleipte/on_.]
Aristotle's precepts indicate the way of managing the debate _with a
view to success._]
6. Observe that a predicate which belongs to the genus does not
necessarily belong to any one of its species, but that any predicate
which belongs to one of the species does belong also to the genus; on
the other hand, that any predicate which can be denied of the genus
may be denied also of all its contained species, but that any
predicate which can be denied of some one or some portion of the
contained species cannot for that reason be denied of the genus. You
may thus prove from one species to the genus, and disprove from the
genus to each one species; but not _vice versâ_. Thus, if the
respondent grants that there exist cognitions both estimable and
worthless, you are warranted in inferring that there exist habits of
mind estimable and worthless; for cognition is a species under the
genus habit of mind. But if the negative were granted, that there
exist no cognitions both estimable and worthless, you could not for
that reason infer that there are no habits of mind estimable and
worthless. So, if it were granted to you that there are judgments
correct and erroneous, you could not for that reason infer that there
were perceptions of sense correct and erroneous; perceiving by sense
being a species under the genus judging. But, if it were granted that
there were no judgments correct and erroneous, you might thence infer
the like negative about perceptions of sense.[95]
[Footnote 95: Topic. II. iv. p. 111, a. 14-32. [Greek: nu=n me\n
ou)=n e)k tou= ge/nous peri\ to\ ei)=dos ê( a)po/deixis; to\ ga\r
kri/nein ge/nos tou= ai)stha/nesthai; o( ga\r ai)sthano/menos kri/nei
pôs--o( me\n ou)=n pro/teros to/pos pseudê/s e)sti pro\s to\
kataskeua/sai, o( de\ deu/teros a)lêthê/s.--pro\s de\ to\
a)naskeua/zein o( me\n pro/teros a)lêthê/s, o( de\ deu/teros
pseudê/s.]
It is here a point deserving attention, that Aristotle ranks [Greek:
to\ ai)stha/nesthai] as a species under the genus [Greek: to\
kri/nein]. This is a notable circumstance in the Aristotelian
psychology.]
7. Keep in mind also that if there be any subject of which you can
affirm the genus, of that same subject you must be able to affirm one
or other of the species contained under the genus. Thus, if science
be a predicate applicable, grammar, music, or some other of the
special sciences must also be applicable: if any man can be called
truly a scientific man, he must be a grammarian, a musician, or some
other specialist. Accordingly, if the thesis set up by your
respondent be, The soul is moved, you must examine whether any one of
the known varieties of motion can be truly predicated of the soul,
_e.g._, increase, destruction, generation, &c. If none of these
special predicates is applicable to the soul, neither is the generic
predicate applicable to it; and you will thus have refuted the
thesis. This _locus_ may serve as a precept for proof as well as for
refutation; for, equally, if the soul be moved in any one species of
motion, it is moved, and, if the soul be not moved in any species of
motion, it is not moved.[96]
[Footnote 96: Topic. II. iv. p. 111, a. 33-b. 11.]
8. Where the thesis itself presents no obvious hold for
interrogation, turn over the various definitions that have been
proposed of its constituent terms; one or other of these definitions
will often afford matter for attack.[97] Look also to the antecedents
and consequents of the thesis--what must be assumed and what will
follow, if the thesis be granted. If you can disprove the consequent
of the proposition, you will have disproved the proposition itself.
On the other hand, if the antecedent of the proposition be proved,
the proposition itself will be proved also.[98] Examine also whether
the proposition be not true at some times, and false at other times.
The thesis, What takes nourishment grows necessarily, is true not
always, but only for a certain time: animals take nourishment during
all their lives, but grow only during a part of their lives. Or, if a
man should say that knowing is remembering, this is incorrect; for we
remember nothing but events past, whereas we know not only these, but
present and future also.[99]
[Footnote 97: Ibid. b. 12-16.]
[Footnote 98: Ibid. b. 17-23.]
[Footnote 99: Topic. II. iv. p. 111, b. 24-31.]
9. It is a sophistical procedure (so Aristotle terms it) to transfer
the debate to some point on which we happen to be well provided with
arguments, lying apart from the thesis defended. Such transfer,
however, may be sometimes necessary. In other cases it is not really
but only apparently necessary; in still other cases it is purely
gratuitous, neither really nor apparently necessary. It is really
necessary, when the respondent, having denied some proposition
perfectly relevant to his thesis, stands to his denial and accepts
the debate upon it, the proposition being one on which a good stock
of arguments may be found against him; also, when you are
endeavouring to disprove the thesis by an induction of negative
analogies.[100] It is only apparently, and not really, necessary, when
the proposition in debate is not perfectly relevant to the thesis,
but merely has the semblance of being so. It is neither really nor
apparently necessary, when there does not exist even this semblance
of relevance, and when some other way is open of bringing
bye-confutation to bear on the respondent. You ought to avoid
entirely such a procedure in this last class of cases; for it is an
abuse of the genuine purpose of Dialectic. If you do resort to it,
the respondent should grant your interrogations, but at the same time
notify that they are irrelevant to the thesis. Such notification will
render his concessions rather troublesome than advantageous for your
purpose.[101]
[Footnote 100: Ibid. v. p. 111, b. 32-p. 112, a. 2: [Greek: e)/ti o(
sophistiko\s tro/pos, to\ a)/gein ei)s toiou=ton pro\s o(\
eu)porê/somen e)picheirêma/tôn], &c.]
[Footnote 101: Ibid. p. 112, a. 2-15. [Greek: dei= d' eu)labei=sthai
to\n e)/schaton tô=n r(êthe/ntôn tro/pôn; pantelô=s ga\r
a)pêrtême/nos kai\ a)llo/trios e)/oiken ei)=nai tê=s dialektikê=s.]
The epithet [Greek: sophistiko\s tro/pos] is probably intended by
Aristotle to apply only to this last class of cases.
This paragraph is very obscure, and is not much elucidated by the
long Scholion of Alexander (pp. 267-268, Br.).]
10. You will recollect that every proposition laid down or granted by
the respondent carries with it by implication many other
propositions; since every affirmation has necessary consequences,
more or fewer. Whoever says that Sokrates is a man, has said also
that he is an animal, that he is a living creature, biped, capable of
acquiring knowledge. If you can disprove any of these necessary
consequences, you will have disproved the thesis itself. You must
take care, however, that you fix upon some one of the consequences
which is really easier, and not more difficult, to refute than the
thesis itself.[102]
[Footnote 102: Topic. II. v. p. 112, a. 16-23.]
11. Perhaps the thesis set up by the respondent may be of such a
nature that one or other of two contrary predicates must belong to
the subject; _e.g._, either health or sickness. In that case, if you
are provided with arguments bearing on one of the two contraries, the
same arguments will also serve indirectly for proof, or for disproof,
of the other. Thus, if you show that one of the two contraries does
belong to the subject, the same arguments prove that the other does
not; _vice versâ_, if you show that one of them does not belong, it
follows that the other does.[103]
[Footnote 103: Topic. II. vi. p. 112, a. 25-31. [Greek: dê=lon ou)=n
o(/ti pro\s a)mphô chrê/simos o( to/pos.]]
12. You may find it advantageous, in attacking the thesis, to
construe the terms in their strict etymological sense, rather than in
the sense which common **usage gives them.[104]
[Footnote 104: Ibid. a. 32-38: [Greek: e)/ti to\ e)picheirei=n
metaphe/ronta tou)/noma e)pi\ to\n lo/gon, ô(s ma/lista prosê=kon
e)klamba/nein ê)\ ô(s kei=tai tou)/noma.]
The illustrative examples which follow prove that [Greek: lo/gon]
here means the etymological origin, and not the definition, which is
its more usual meaning.]
13. The predicate may belong to its subject either necessarily, or
usually, or by pure hazard. You will take notice in which of these
three ways the respondent affirms it, and whether that which he
chooses is conformable to the fact. If he affirms it as necessary,
when it is really either usual or casual, the thesis will be open to
your attacks. If he affirms it without clearly distinguishing in
which of the three senses he intends it to be understood, you are at
liberty to construe it in that one of the three senses which best
suits your argument.[105]
[Footnote 105: Ibid. b. 1-20. This _locus_ seems unsuitable in that
part of the Topica where Aristotle professes to deal with theses
[Greek: tou= symbebêko/tos], or theses affirming or denying
_accidental_ predicates. It is one of the suppositions here that the
respondent affirms the predicate as _necessary_.]
14. Perhaps the thesis may have predicate and subject exactly
synonymous, so that the same thing will be affirmed as an accident of
itself. On this ground it will be assailable.[106]
[Footnote 106: Ibid. b. 21-26.]
15. Sometimes the thesis will have more than one proposition contrary
to it. If so, you may employ in arguing against it that one among its
various contraries which is most convenient for your purpose.[107]
Perhaps the predicate (accidental) of the thesis may have some
contrary: if it has, you will examine whether that contrary belongs
to the subject of the thesis; and, should such be the case, you may
use it as an argument to refute the thesis itself.[108] Or the
predicate of the thesis may be such that, if the thesis be granted,
it will follow as a necessary consequence that contrary predicates
must belong to the same subject. Thus, if the thesis be that the
Platonic Ideas exist _in us_, it follows necessarily that they are
both in motion and at rest; both perceivable by sense, and cogitable
by intellect.[109] As these two predicates (those constituting the
first pair as well as the second pair) are contrary to each other,
and cannot both belong to the same subject, this may be used as an
argument against the thesis from which such consequence follows.
[Footnote 107: Ibid. vii. p. 112, b. 28-p. 113, a. 19. [Greek: dê=lon
ou)=n e)k tô=n ei)rême/nôn o(/ti tô=| au)tô=| plei/ona e)nanti/a
sumbai/nei gi/nesthai.--lamba/nein ou)=n tô=n e)nanti/ôn o(po/teron
a)\n ê)=| pro\s tê\n the/sin chrê/simon.]]
[Footnote 108: Ibid. viii. p. 113, a. 20-23.]
[Footnote 109: Topic. II. viii. p. 113, a. 24-32: [Greek: ê)\ ei)/ ti
toiou=ton ei)/rêtai kata/ tinos, ou(= o)/ntos a)na/gkê ta\ e)nanti/a
u(pa/rchein; oi(=on ei) ta\s i)de/as e)n ê(mi=n e)/phêsen ei)=nai;
kinei=sthai/ te ga\r kai\ ê)remei=n au)ta\s sumbê/setai, e)/ti de\
ai)sthêta\s kai\ noêta\s ei)=nai.] Aristotle then proceeds to state
how this consequence arises. Those who affirm the Platonic Ideas,
assign to them as fundamental characteristic, that they are at rest
and cogitable. But, if the Ideas exist _in us_, they must be
moveable, because _we_ are moved; they must also be perceivable by
sense, because it is through vision only that we discriminate and
know differences of form. Waitz observes (in regard to the last pair,
[Greek: kai\ ai)sthêtai/]): "Nam singulæ ideæ certam quandam rerum
speciem et formam exprimunt: species autem et forma oculis cernitur."
I do not clearly see, however, that this is a consequence of
affirming Ideas to be [Greek: e)n ê(mi=n]; it is equally true if they
are _not_ [Greek: e)n ê(mi=n].]
16. We know that whatever is the recipient of one of two contraries,
is capable also of becoming recipient of the other. If, therefore,
the predicate of the thesis has any contrary, you will examine
whether the subject of the thesis is capable of receiving such
contrary. If not, you have an argument against the thesis. Let the
thesis be, The appetitive principle is ignorant. If this be true,
that principle must be capable of knowledge.[110] Since this last is
not generally admitted, you have an argument against the thesis.
[Footnote 110: Topic. II. vii. p. 113, a. 33-b. 10.]
17. We recognize four varieties of _Opposita_: (1) Contradictory; (2)
Contrary; (3) _Habitus_ and _Privatio_; (4) _Relata_. You will
consider how the relation in each of these four varieties bears upon
the thesis in debate.
In regard to Contradictories, you are entitled, converting the terms
of the thesis, to deny the predicate of the converted proposition
respecting the negation of the subject. Thus, if man is an animal,
you are entitled to infer, What is not an animal is not a man. You
will prove this to be an universal rule by Induction; that is, by
citing a multitude of particular cases in which it is indisputably
true, without possibility of finding any one case in which it does
not apply. If you can prove or disprove the converted obverse of the
thesis--What is not an animal is not a man--you will have proved or
disproved, the thesis itself, Man is an animal. This _locus_ is
available both for assailant and respondent.[111]
[Footnote 111: Ibid. viii. p. 113, b. 15-26: [Greek: e)pei\ d' ai(
a)ntithe/sis te/ssares, skopei=n e)k me\n tô=n a)ntipha/seôn e)k tê=s
a)kolouthê/seôs kai\ a)nairou=nti kai\ kataskeua/zonti; _lamba/nein
d' e)x e)pagôgê=s_, oi(=on ei) o( a)/nthrôpos zô=|on, to\ mê\ zô=|on
ou)k a)/nthrôpos; _o(moi/ôs de\ kai\ e)pi\ tô=n a)/llôn--e)pi\
pa/ntôn ou)=n to\ toiou=ton a)xiôte/on_.]
Aristotle's declaration, that this great logical rule can only be
proved by Induction, deserves notice. I have remarked the same thing
about his rules for the conversion of propositions, in the beginning
of the Analytica Priora. See above, p. 145, seq.]
In regard to Contraries, you will study the thesis, to see whether
the contrary of the predicate can be truly affirmed respecting the
contrary of the subject, or whether the contrary of the subject can
be truly affirmed respecting the contrary of the predicate. This last
alternative occurs sometimes, but not often; in general the first
alternative is found to be true. You must make good your point here
also by Induction, or by repetition of particular examples. This
_locus_ will serve either for the purpose of refutation or for that
of defence, according to circumstances. If neither of the two
alternatives above-mentioned is found correct, this is an argument
against the thesis.[112]