text:
Am uitat parola
Creaza cont nou
RHETORIC by Aristotle
Importanta istorica a conceptiei filosofice a lui Socrate
NASTEREA FILOZOFIEI ORACULARE - Radacinile aristotelice ale hegelianismului
Cucuta pentru invingator
Ascetism si estetism in filosofia morala a secolelor XIX si XX
Aristotel - strainul din cetate
RHETORIC by Aristotle
translated by W. Rhys Roberts
Book I
RHETORIC the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with
such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men
and belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use,
more or less, of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to
discuss statements and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to
attack others. Ordinary people do this either at random or through
practice and from acquired habit. Both ways being possible, the
subject can plainly be handled systematically, for it is possible to
inquire the reason why some speakers succeed through practice and
others spontaneously; and every one will at once agree that such an
inquiry is the function of an art.
Now, the framers of the current treatises on rhetoric have
constructed but a small portion of that art. The modes of persuasion
are the only true constituents of the art: everything else is merely
accessory. These writers, however, say nothing about enthymemes, which
are the substance of rhetorical persuasion, but deal mainly with
non-essentials. The arousing of prejudice, pity, anger, and similar
emotions has nothing to do with the essential facts, but is merely a
personal appeal to the man who is judging the case. Consequently if
the rules for trials which are now laid down some states-especially in
well-governed states-were applied everywhere, such people would have
nothing to say. All men, no doubt, think that the laws should
prescribe such rules, but some, as in the court of Areopagus, give
practical effect to their thoughts and forbid talk about
non-essentials. This is sound law and custom. It is not right to
pervert the judge by moving him to anger or envy or pity-one might
as well warp a carpenter's rule before using it. Again, a litigant has
clearly nothing to do but to show that the alleged fact is so or is
not so, that it has or has not happened. As to whether a thing is
important or unimportant, just or unjust, the judge must surely refuse
to take his instructions from the litigants: he must decide for
himself all such points as the law-giver has not already defined for
Now, it is of great moment that well-drawn laws should themselves
define all the points they possibly can and leave as few as may be
to the decision of the judges; and this for several reasons. First, to
find one man, or a few men, who are sensible persons and capable of
legislating and administering justice is easier than to find a large
number. Next, laws are made after long consideration, whereas
decisions in the courts are given at short notice, which makes it hard
for those who try the case to satisfy the claims of justice and
expediency. The weightiest reason of all is that the decision of the
lawgiver is not particular but prospective and general, whereas
members of the assembly and the jury find it their duty to decide on
definite cases brought before them. They will often have allowed
themselves to be so much influenced by feelings of friendship or
hatred or self-interest that they lose any clear vision of the truth
and have their judgement obscured by considerations of personal
pleasure or pain. In general, then, the judge should, we say, be
allowed to decide as few things as possible. But questions as to
whether something has happened or has not happened, will be or will
not be, is or is not, must of necessity be left to the judge, since
the lawgiver cannot foresee them. If this is so, it is evident that
any one who lays down rules about other matters, such as what must
be the contents of the 'introduction' or the 'narration' or any of the
other divisions of a speech, is theorizing about non-essentials as
if they belonged to the art. The only question with which these
writers here deal is how to put the judge into a given frame of
mind. About the orator's proper modes of persuasion they have
nothing to tell us; nothing, that is, about how to gain skill in
Hence it comes that, although the same systematic principles apply
to political as to forensic oratory, and although the former is a
nobler business, and fitter for a citizen, than that which concerns
the relations of private individuals, these authors say nothing
about political oratory, but try, one and all, to write treatises on
the way to plead in court. The reason for this is that in political
oratory there is less inducement to talk about nonessentials.
Political oratory is less given to unscrupulous practices than
forensic, because it treats of wider issues. In a political debate the
man who is forming a judgement is making a decision about his own
vital interests. There is no need, therefore, to prove anything except
that the facts are what the supporter of a measure maintains they are.
In forensic oratory this is not enough; to conciliate the listener
is what pays here. It is other people's affairs that are to be
decided, so that the judges, intent on their own satisfaction and
listening with partiality, surrender themselves to the disputants
instead of judging between them. Hence in many places, as we have said
already, irrelevant speaking is forbidden in the law-courts: in the
public assembly those who have to form a judgement are themselves well
able to guard against that.
It is clear, then, that rhetorical study, in its strict sense, is
concerned with the modes of persuasion. Persuasion is clearly a sort
of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a
thing to have been demonstrated. The orator's demonstration is an
enthymeme, and this is, in general, the most effective of the modes of
persuasion. The enthymeme is a sort of syllogism, and the
consideration of syllogisms of all kinds, without distinction, is
the business of dialectic, either of dialectic as a whole or of one of
its branches. It follows plainly, therefore, that he who is best
able to see how and from what elements a syllogism is produced will
also be best skilled in the enthymeme, when he has further learnt what
its subject-matter is and in what respects it differs from the
syllogism of strict logic. The true and the approximately true are
apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men have
a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do
arrive at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth
is likely to make a good guess at probabilities.
It has now been shown that the ordinary writers on rhetoric treat of
non-essentials; it has also been shown why they have inclined more
towards the forensic branch of oratory.
Rhetoric is useful (1) because things that are true and things
that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites,
so that if the decisions of judges are not what they ought to be,
the defeat must be due to the speakers themselves, and they must be
blamed accordingly. Moreover, (2) before some audiences not even the
possession of the exactest knowledge will make it easy for what we say
to produce conviction. For argument based on knowledge implies
instruction, and there are people whom one cannot instruct. Here,
then, we must use, as our modes of persuasion and argument, notions
possessed by everybody, as we observed in the Topics when dealing with
the way to handle a popular audience. Further, (3) we must be able
to employ persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed, on
opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice
employ it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is
wrong), but in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and
that, if another man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to
confute him. No other of the arts draws opposite conclusions:
dialectic and rhetoric alone do this. Both these arts draw opposite
conclusions impartially. Nevertheless, the underlying facts do not
lend themselves equally well to the contrary views. No; things that
are true and things that are better are, by their nature,
practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in. Again,
(4) it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being
unable to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to
defend himself with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech
is more distinctive of a human being than the use of his limbs. And if
it be objected that one who uses such power of speech unjustly might
do great harm, that is a charge which may be made in common against
all good things except virtue, and above all against the things that
are most useful, as strength, health, wealth, generalship. A man can
confer the greatest of benefits by a right use of these, and inflict
the greatest of injuries by using them wrongly.
It is clear, then, that rhetoric is not bound up with a single
definite class of subjects, but is as universal as dialectic; it is
clear, also, that it is useful. It is clear, further, that its
function is not simply to succeed in persuading, but rather to
discover the means of coming as near such success as the circumstances
of each particular case allow. In this it resembles all other arts.
For example, it is not the function of medicine simply to make a man
quite healthy, but to put him as far as may be on the road to
health; it is possible to give excellent treatment even to those who
can never enjoy sound health. Furthermore, it is plain that it is
the function of one and the same art to discern the real and the
apparent means of persuasion, just as it is the function of
dialectic to discern the real and the apparent syllogism. What makes a
man a 'sophist' is not his faculty, but his moral purpose. In
rhetoric, however, the term 'rhetorician' may describe either the
speaker's knowledge of the art, or his moral purpose. In dialectic
it is different: a man is a 'sophist' because he has a certain kind of
moral purpose, a 'dialectician' in respect, not of his moral
purpose, but of his faculty.
Let us now try to give some account of the systematic principles
of Rhetoric itself-of the right method and means of succeeding in
the object we set before us. We must make as it were a fresh start,
and before going further define what rhetoric is.
Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given
case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of
any other art. Every other art can instruct or persuade about its
own particular subject-matter; for instance, medicine about what is
healthy and unhealthy, geometry about the properties of magnitudes,
arithmetic about numbers, and the same is true of the other arts and
sciences. But rhetoric we look upon as the power of observing the
means of persuasion on almost any subject presented to us; and that is
why we say that, in its technical character, it is not concerned
with any special or definite class of subjects.
Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the art of
rhetoric and some do not. By the latter I mean such things as are
not supplied by the speaker but are there at the outset-witnesses,
evidence given under torture, written contracts, and so on. By the
former I mean such as we can ourselves construct by means of the
principles of rhetoric. The one kind has merely to be used, the
other has to be invented.
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are
three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the
speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of
mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words
of the speech itself. Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal
character when the speech is so spoken as to make us think him
credible. We believe good men more fully and more readily than others:
this is true generally whatever the question is, and absolutely true
where exact certainty is impossible and opinions are divided. This
kind of persuasion, like the others, should be achieved by what the
speaker says, not by what people think of his character before he
begins to speak. It is not true, as some writers assume in their
treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the
speaker contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the
contrary, his character may almost be called the most effective
means of persuasion he possesses. Secondly, persuasion may come
through the hearers, when the speech stirs their emotions. Our
judgements when we are pleased and friendly are not the same as when
we are pained and hostile. It is towards producing these effects, as
we maintain, that present-day writers on rhetoric direct the whole
of their efforts. This subject shall be treated in detail when we come
to speak of the emotions. Thirdly, persuasion is effected through
the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth
by means of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in question.
There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The
man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1)
to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in
their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions-that is, to
name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in which
they are excited. It thus appears that rhetoric is an offshoot of
dialectic and also of ethical studies. Ethical studies may fairly be
called political; and for this reason rhetoric masquerades as
political science, and the professors of it as political
experts-sometimes from want of education, sometimes from
ostentation, sometimes owing to other human failings. As a matter of
fact, it is a branch of dialectic and similar to it, as we said at the
outset. Neither rhetoric nor dialectic is the scientific study of
any one separate subject: both are faculties for providing
arguments. This is perhaps a sufficient account of their scope and
of how they are related to each other.
With regard to the persuasion achieved by proof or apparent proof:
just as in dialectic there is induction on the one hand and
syllogism or apparent syllogism on the other, so it is in rhetoric.
The example is an induction, the enthymeme is a syllogism, and the
apparent enthymeme is an apparent syllogism. I call the enthymeme a
rhetorical syllogism, and the example a rhetorical induction. Every
one who effects persuasion through proof does in fact use either
enthymemes or examples: there is no other way. And since every one who
proves anything at all is bound to use either syllogisms or inductions
(and this is clear to us from the Analytics), it must follow that
enthymemes are syllogisms and examples are inductions. The
difference between example and enthymeme is made plain by the passages
in the Topics where induction and syllogism have already been
discussed. When we base the proof of a proposition on a number of
similar cases, this is induction in dialectic, example in rhetoric;
when it is shown that, certain propositions being true, a further
and quite distinct proposition must also be true in consequence,
whether invariably or usually, this is called syllogism in
dialectic, enthymeme in rhetoric. It is plain also that each of
these types of oratory has its advantages. Types of oratory, I say:
for what has been said in the Methodics applies equally well here;
in some oratorical styles examples prevail, in others enthymemes;
and in like manner, some orators are better at the former and some
at the latter. Speeches that rely on examples are as persuasive as the
other kind, but those which rely on enthymemes excite the louder
applause. The sources of examples and enthymemes, and their proper
uses, we will discuss later. Our next step is to define the
processes themselves more clearly.
A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly
self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other
statements that are so. In either case it is persuasive because
there is somebody whom it persuades. But none of the arts theorize
about individual cases. Medicine, for instance, does not theorize
about what will help to cure Socrates or Callias, but only about
what will help to cure any or all of a given class of patients: this
alone is business: individual cases are so infinitely various that
no systematic knowledge of them is possible. In the same way the
theory of rhetoric is concerned not with what seems probable to a
given individual like Socrates or Hippias, but with what seems
probable to men of a given type; and this is true of dialectic also.
Dialectic does not construct its syllogisms out of any haphazard
materials, such as the fancies of crazy people, but out of materials
that call for discussion; and rhetoric, too, draws upon the regular
subjects of debate. The duty of rhetoric is to deal with such
matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems to guide us,
in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a complicated
argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning. The subjects of our
deliberation are such as seem to present us with alternative
possibilities: about things that could not have been, and cannot now
or in the future be, other than they are, nobody who takes them to
be of this nature wastes his time in deliberation.
It is possible to form syllogisms and draw conclusions from the
results of previous syllogisms; or, on the other hand, from
premisses which have not been thus proved, and at the same time are so
little accepted that they call for proof. Reasonings of the former
kind will necessarily be hard to follow owing to their length, for
we assume an audience of untrained thinkers; those of the latter
kind will fail to win assent, because they are based on premisses that
are not generally admitted or believed.
The enthymeme and the example must, then, deal with what is in the
main contingent, the example being an induction, and the enthymeme a
syllogism, about such matters. The enthymeme must consist of few
propositions, fewer often than those which make up the normal
syllogism. For if any of these propositions is a familiar fact,
there is no need even to mention it; the hearer adds it himself. Thus,
to show that Dorieus has been victor in a contest for which the
prize is a crown, it is enough to say 'For he has been victor in the
Olympic games', without adding 'And in the Olympic games the prize
is a crown', a fact which everybody knows.
There are few facts of the 'necessary' type that can form the
basis of rhetorical syllogisms. Most of the things about which we make
decisions, and into which therefore we inquire, present us with
alternative possibilities. For it is about our actions that we
deliberate and inquire, and all our actions have a contingent
character; hardly any of them are determined by necessity. Again,
conclusions that state what is merely usual or possible must be
drawn from premisses that do the same, just as 'necessary' conclusions
must be drawn from 'necessary' premisses; this too is clear to us from
the Analytics. It is evident, therefore, that the propositions forming
the basis of enthymemes, though some of them may be 'necessary',
will most of them be only usually true. Now the materials of
enthymemes are Probabilities and Signs, which we can see must
correspond respectively with the propositions that are generally and
those that are necessarily true. A Probability is a thing that usually
happens; not, however, as some definitions would suggest, anything
whatever that usually happens, but only if it belongs to the class
of the 'contingent' or 'variable'. It bears the same relation to
that in respect of which it is probable as the universal bears to
the particular. Of Signs, one kind bears the same relation to the
statement it supports as the particular bears to the universal, the
other the same as the universal bears to the particular. The
infallible kind is a 'complete proof' (tekmerhiou); the fallible
kind has no specific name. By infallible signs I mean those on which
syllogisms proper may be based: and this shows us why this kind of
Sign is called 'complete proof': when people think that what they have
said cannot be refuted, they then think that they are bringing forward
a 'complete proof', meaning that the matter has now been
demonstrated and completed (peperhasmeuou); for the word 'perhas'
has the same meaning (of 'end' or 'boundary') as the word 'tekmarh' in
the ancient tongue. Now the one kind of Sign (that which bears to
the proposition it supports the relation of particular to universal)
may be illustrated thus. Suppose it were said, 'The fact that Socrates
was wise and just is a sign that the wise are just'. Here we certainly
have a Sign; but even though the proposition be true, the argument
is refutable, since it does not form a syllogism. Suppose, on the
other hand, it were said, 'The fact that he has a fever is a sign that
he is ill', or, 'The fact that she is giving milk is a sign that she
has lately borne a child'. Here we have the infallible kind of Sign,
the only kind that constitutes a complete proof, since it is the
only kind that, if the particular statement is true, is irrefutable.
The other kind of Sign, that which bears to the proposition it
supports the relation of universal to particular, might be illustrated
by saying, 'The fact that he breathes fast is a sign that he has a
fever'. This argument also is refutable, even if the statement about
the fast breathing be true, since a man may breathe hard without
having a fever.
It has, then, been stated above what is the nature of a Probability,
of a Sign, and of a complete proof, and what are the differences
between them. In the Analytics a more explicit description has been
given of these points; it is there shown why some of these
reasonings can be put into syllogisms and some cannot.
The 'example' has already been described as one kind of induction;
and the special nature of the subject-matter that distinguishes it
from the other kinds has also been stated above. Its relation to the
proposition it supports is not that of part to whole, nor whole to
part, nor whole to whole, but of part to part, or like to like. When
two statements are of the same order, but one is more familiar than
the other, the former is an 'example'. The argument may, for instance,
be that Dionysius, in asking as he does for a bodyguard, is scheming
to make himself a despot. For in the past Peisistratus kept asking for
a bodyguard in order to carry out such a scheme, and did make
himself a despot as soon as he got it; and so did Theagenes at Megara;
and in the same way all other instances known to the speaker are
made into examples, in order to show what is not yet known, that
Dionysius has the same purpose in making the same request: all these
being instances of the one general principle, that a man who asks
for a bodyguard is scheming to make himself a despot. We have now
described the sources of those means of persuasion which are popularly
supposed to be demonstrative.
There is an important distinction between two sorts of enthymemes
that has been wholly overlooked by almost everybody-one that also
subsists between the syllogisms treated of in dialectic. One sort of
enthymeme really belongs to rhetoric, as one sort of syllogism
really belongs to dialectic; but the other sort really belongs to
other arts and faculties, whether to those we already exercise or to
those we have not yet acquired. Missing this distinction, people
fail to notice that the more correctly they handle their particular
subject the further they are getting away from pure rhetoric or
dialectic. This statement will be clearer if expressed more fully. I
mean that the proper subjects of dialectical and rhetorical syllogisms
are the things with which we say the regular or universal Lines of
Argument are concerned, that is to say those lines of argument that
apply equally to questions of right conduct, natural science,
politics, and many other things that have nothing to do with one
another. Take, for instance, the line of argument concerned with
'the more or less'. On this line of argument it is equally easy to
base a syllogism or enthymeme about any of what nevertheless are
essentially disconnected subjects-right conduct, natural science, or
anything else whatever. But there are also those special Lines of
Argument which are based on such propositions as apply only to
particular groups or classes of things. Thus there are propositions
about natural science on which it is impossible to base any
enthymeme or syllogism about ethics, and other propositions about
ethics on which nothing can be based about natural science. The same
principle applies throughout. The general Lines of Argument have no
special subject-matter, and therefore will not increase our
understanding of any particular class of things. On the other hand,
the better the selection one makes of propositions suitable for
special Lines of Argument, the nearer one comes, unconsciously, to
setting up a science that is distinct from dialectic and rhetoric. One
may succeed in stating the required principles, but one's science will
be no longer dialectic or rhetoric, but the science to which the
principles thus discovered belong. Most enthymemes are in fact based
upon these particular or special Lines of Argument; comparatively
few on the common or general kind. As in the therefore, so in this
work, we must distinguish, in dealing with enthymemes, the special and
the general Lines of Argument on which they are to be founded. By
special Lines of Argument I mean the propositions peculiar to each
several class of things, by general those common to all classes alike.
We may begin with the special Lines of Argument. But, first of all,
let us classify rhetoric into its varieties. Having distinguished
these we may deal with them one by one, and try to discover the
elements of which each is composed, and the propositions each must
Rhetoric falls into three divisions, determined by the three classes
of listeners to speeches. For of the three elements in
speech-making--speaker, subject, and person addressed--it is the
last one, the hearer, that determines the speech's end and object. The
hearer must be either a judge, with a decision to make about things
past or future, or an observer. A member of the assembly decides about
future events, a juryman about past events: while those who merely
decide on the orator's skill are observers. From this it follows
that there are three divisions of oratory-(1) political, (2) forensic,
and (3) the ceremonial oratory of display.
Political speaking urges us either to do or not to do something: one
of these two courses is always taken by private counsellors, as well
as by men who address public assemblies. Forensic speaking either
attacks or defends somebody: one or other of these two things must
always be done by the parties in a case. The ceremonial oratory of
display either praises or censures somebody. These three kinds of
rhetoric refer to three different kinds of time. The political
orator is concerned with the future: it is about things to be done
hereafter that he advises, for or against. The party in a case at
law is concerned with the past; one man accuses the other, and the
other defends himself, with reference to things already done. The
ceremonial orator is, properly speaking, concerned with the present,
since all men praise or blame in view of the state of things
existing at the time, though they often find it useful also to
recall the past and to make guesses at the future.
Rhetoric has three distinct ends in view, one for each of its
three kinds. The political orator aims at establishing the
expediency or the harmfulness of a proposed course of action; if he
urges its acceptance, he does so on the ground that it will do good;
if he urges its rejection, he does so on the ground that it will do
harm; and all other points, such as whether the proposal is just or
unjust, honourable or dishonourable, he brings in as subsidiary and
relative to this main consideration. Parties in a law-case aim at
establishing the justice or injustice of some action, and they too
bring in all other points as subsidiary and relative to this one.
Those who praise or attack a man aim at proving him worthy of honour
or the reverse, and they too treat all other considerations with
reference to this one.
That the three kinds of rhetoric do aim respectively at the three
ends we have mentioned is shown by the fact that speakers will
sometimes not try to establish anything else. Thus, the litigant
will sometimes not deny that a thing has happened or that he has
done harm. But that he is guilty of injustice he will never admit;
otherwise there would be no need of a trial. So too, political orators
often make any concession short of admitting that they are
recommending their hearers to take an inexpedient course or not to
take an expedient one. The question whether it is not unjust for a
city to enslave its innocent neighbours often does not trouble them at
all. In like manner those who praise or censure a man do not
consider whether his acts have been expedient or not, but often make
it a ground of actual praise that he has neglected his own interest to
do what was honourable. Thus, they praise Achilles because he
championed his fallen friend Patroclus, though he knew that this meant
death, and that otherwise he need not die: yet while to die thus was
the nobler thing for him to do, the expedient thing was to live on.
It is evident from what has been said that it is these three
subjects, more than any others, about which the orator must be able to
have propositions at his command. Now the propositions of Rhetoric are
Complete Proofs, Probabilities, and Signs. Every kind of syllogism
is composed of propositions, and the enthymeme is a particular kind of
syllogism composed of the aforesaid propositions.
Since only possible actions, and not impossible ones, can ever
have been done in the past or the present, and since things which have
not occurred, or will not occur, also cannot have been done or be
going to be done, it is necessary for the political, the forensic, and
the ceremonial speaker alike to be able to have at their command
propositions about the possible and the impossible, and about
whether a thing has or has not occurred, will or will not occur.
Further, all men, in giving praise or blame, in urging us to accept or
reject proposals for action, in accusing others or defending
themselves, attempt not only to prove the points mentioned but also to
show that the good or the harm, the honour or disgrace, the justice or
injustice, is great or small, either absolutely or relatively; and
therefore it is plain that we must also have at our command
propositions about greatness or smallness and the greater or the
lesser-propositions both universal and particular. Thus, we must be
able to say which is the greater or lesser good, the greater or lesser
act of justice or injustice; and so on.
Such, then, are the subjects regarding which we are inevitably bound
to master the propositions relevant to them. We must now discuss
each particular class of these subjects in turn, namely those dealt
with in political, in ceremonial, and lastly in legal, oratory.
First, then, we must ascertain what are the kinds of things, good or
bad, about which the political orator offers counsel. For he does
not deal with all things, but only with such as may or may not take
place. Concerning things which exist or will exist inevitably, or
which cannot possibly exist or take place, no counsel can be given.
Nor, again, can counsel be given about the whole class of things which
may or may not take place; for this class includes some good things
that occur naturally, and some that occur by accident; and about these
it is useless to offer counsel. Clearly counsel can only be given on
matters about which people deliberate; matters, namely, that
ultimately depend on ourselves, and which we have it in our power to
set going. For we turn a thing over in our mind until we have
reached the point of seeing whether we can do it or not.
Now to enumerate and classify accurately the usual subjects of
public business, and further to frame, as far as possible, true
definitions of them is a task which we must not attempt on the present
occasion. For it does not belong to the art of rhetoric, but to a more
instructive art and a more real branch of knowledge; and as it is,
rhetoric has been given a far wider subject-matter than strictly
belongs to it. The truth is, as indeed we have said already, that
rhetoric is a combination of the science of logic and of the ethical
branch of politics; and it is partly like dialectic, partly like
sophistical reasoning. But the more we try to make either dialectic
rhetoric not, what they really are, practical faculties, but sciences,
the more we shall inadvertently be destroying their true nature; for
we shall be re-fashioning them and shall be passing into the region of
sciences dealing with definite subjects rather than simply with
words and forms of reasoning. Even here, however, we will mention
those points which it is of practical importance to distinguish, their
fuller treatment falling naturally to political science.
The main matters on which all men deliberate and on which
political speakers make speeches are some five in number: ways and
means, war and peace, national defence, imports and exports, and
As to Ways and Means, then, the intending speaker will need to
know the number and extent of the country's sources of revenue, so
that, if any is being overlooked, it may be added, and, if any is
defective, it may be increased. Further, he should know all the
expenditure of the country, in order that, if any part of it is
superfluous, it may be abolished, or, if any is too large, it may be
reduced. For men become richer not only by increasing their existing
wealth but also by reducing their expenditure. A comprehensive view of
these questions cannot be gained solely from experience in home
affairs; in order to advise on such matters a man must be keenly
interested in the methods worked out in other lands.
As to Peace and War, he must know the extent of the military
strength of his country, both actual and potential, and also the
mature of that actual and potential strength; and further, what wars
his country has waged, and how it has waged them. He must know these
facts not only about his own country, but also about neighbouring
countries; and also about countries with which war is likely, in order
that peace may be maintained with those stronger than his own, and
that his own may have power to make war or not against those that
are weaker. He should know, too, whether the military power of another
country is like or unlike that of his own; for this is a matter that
may affect their relative strength. With the same end in view he must,
besides, have studied the wars of other countries as well as those
of his own, and the way they ended; similar causes are likely to
have similar results.
With regard to National Defence: he ought to know all about the
methods of defence in actual use, such as the strength and character
of the defensive force and the positions of the forts-this last
means that he must be well acquainted with the lie of the country-in
order that a garrison may be increased if it is too small or removed
if it is not wanted, and that the strategic points may be guarded with
special care.
With regard to the Food Supply: he must know what outlay will meet
the needs of his country; what kinds of food are produced at home
and what imported; and what articles must be exported or imported.
This last he must know in order that agreements and commercial
treaties may be made with the countries concerned. There are,
indeed, two sorts of state to which he must see that his countrymen
give no cause for offence, states stronger than his own, and states
with which it is advantageous to trade.
But while he must, for security's sake, be able to take all this
into account, he must before all things understand the subject of
legislation; for it is on a country's laws that its whole welfare
depends. He must, therefore, know how many different forms of
constitution there are; under what conditions each of these will
prosper and by what internal developments or external attacks each
of them tends to be destroyed. When I speak of destruction through
internal developments I refer to the fact that all constitutions,
except the best one of all, are destroyed both by not being pushed far
enough and by being pushed too far. Thus, democracy loses its
vigour, and finally passes into oligarchy, not only when it is not
pushed far enough, but also when it is pushed a great deal too far;
just as the aquiline and the snub nose not only turn into normal noses
by not being aquiline or snub enough, but also by being too
violently aquiline or snub arrive at a condition in which they no
longer look like noses at all. It is useful, in framing laws, not only
to study the past history of one's own country, in order to understand
which constitution is desirable for it now, but also to have a
knowledge of the constitutions of other nations, and so to learn for
what kinds of nation the various kinds of constitution are suited.
From this we can see that books of travel are useful aids to
legislation, since from these we may learn the laws and customs of
different races. The political speaker will also find the researches
of historians useful. But all this is the business of political
science and not of rhetoric.
These, then, are the most important kinds of information which the
political speaker must possess. Let us now go back and state the
premisses from which he will have to argue in favour of adopting or
rejecting measures regarding these and other matters.
It may be said that every individual man and all men in common aim
at a certain end which determines what they choose and what they
avoid. This end, to sum it up briefly, is happiness and its
constituents. Let us, then, by way of illustration only, ascertain
what is in general the nature of happiness, and what are the
elements of its constituent parts. For all advice to do things or
not to do them is concerned with happiness and with the things that
make for or against it; whatever creates or increases happiness or
some part of happiness, we ought to do; whatever destroys or hampers
happiness, or gives rise to its opposite, we ought not to do.
We may define happiness as prosperity combined with virtue; or as
independence of life; or as the secure enjoyment of the maximum of
pleasure; or as a good condition of property and body, together with
the power of guarding one's property and body and making use of
them. That happiness is one or more of these things, pretty well
everybody agrees.
From this definition of happiness it follows that its constituent
parts are:-good birth, plenty of friends, good friends, wealth, good
children, plenty of children, a happy old age, also such bodily
excellences as health, beauty, strength, large stature, athletic
powers, together with fame, honour, good luck, and virtue. A man
cannot fail to be completely independent if he possesses these
internal and these external goods; for besides these there are no
others to have. (Goods of the soul and of the body are internal.
Good birth, friends, money, and honour are external.) Further, we
think that he should possess resources and luck, in order to make
his life really secure. As we have already ascertained what
happiness in general is, so now let us try to ascertain what of
these parts of it is.
Now good birth in a race or a state means that its members are
indigenous or ancient: that its earliest leaders were distinguished
men, and that from them have sprung many who were distinguished for
qualities that we admire.
The good birth of an individual, which may come either from the male
or the female side, implies that both parents are free citizens, and
that, as in the case of the state, the founders of the line have
been notable for virtue or wealth or something else which is highly
prized, and that many distinguished persons belong to the family,
men and women, young and old.
The phrases 'possession of good children' and 'of many children'
bear a quite clear meaning. Applied to a community, they mean that its
young men are numerous and of good a quality: good in regard to bodily
excellences, such as stature, beauty, strength, athletic powers; and
also in regard to the excellences of the soul, which in a young man
are temperance and courage. Applied to an individual, they mean that
his own children are numerous and have the good qualities we have
described. Both male and female are here included; the excellences
of the latter are, in body, beauty and stature; in soul,
self-command and an industry that is not sordid. Communities as well
as individuals should lack none of these perfections, in their women
as well as in their men. Where, as among the Lacedaemonians, the state
of women is bad, almost half of human life is spoilt.
The constituents of wealth are: plenty of coined money and
territory; the ownership of numerous, large, and beautiful estates;
also the ownership of numerous and beautiful implements, live stock,
and slaves. All these kinds of property are our own, are secure,
gentlemanly, and useful. The useful kinds are those that are
productive, the gentlemanly kinds are those that provide enjoyment. By
'productive' I mean those from which we get our income; by
'enjoyable', those from which we get nothing worth mentioning except
the use of them. The criterion of 'security' is the ownership of
property in such places and under such Conditions that the use of it
is in our power; and it is 'our own' if it is in our own power to
dispose of it or keep it. By 'disposing of it' I mean giving it away
or selling it. Wealth as a whole consists in using things rather
than in owning them; it is really the activity-that is, the use-of
property that constitutes wealth.
Fame means being respected by everybody, or having some quality that
is desired by all men, or by most, or by the good, or by the wise.
Honour is the token of a man's being famous for doing good. it is
chiefly and most properly paid to those who have already done good;
but also to the man who can do good in future. Doing good refers
either to the preservation of life and the means of life, or to
wealth, or to some other of the good things which it is hard to get
either always or at that particular place or time-for many gain honour
for things which seem small, but the place and the occasion account
for it. The constituents of honour are: sacrifices; commemoration,
in verse or prose; privileges; grants of land; front seats at civic
celebrations; state burial; statues; public maintenance; among
foreigners, obeisances and giving place; and such presents as are
among various bodies of men regarded as marks of honour. For a present
is not only the bestowal of a piece of property, but also a token of
honour; which explains why honour-loving as well as money-loving
persons desire it. The present brings to both what they want; it is
a piece of property, which is what the lovers of money desire; and
it brings honour, which is what the lovers of honour desire.
The excellence of the body is health; that is, a condition which
allows us, while keeping free from disease, to have the use of our
bodies; for many people are 'healthy' as we are told Herodicus was;
and these no one can congratulate on their 'health', for they have
to abstain from everything or nearly everything that men do.-Beauty
varies with the time of life. In a young man beauty is the
possession of a body fit to endure the exertion of running and of
contests of strength; which means that he is pleasant to look at;
and therefore all-round athletes are the most beautiful, being
naturally adapted both for contests of strength and for speed also.
For a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the exertion of warfare,
together with a pleasant but at the same time formidable appearance.
For an old man, it is to be strong enough for such exertion as is
necessary, and to be free from all those deformities of old age
which cause pain to others. Strength is the power of moving some one
else at will; to do this, you must either pull, push, lift, pin, or
grip him; thus you must be strong in all of those ways or at least
in some. Excellence in size is to surpass ordinary people in height,
thickness, and breadth by just as much as will not make one's
movements slower in consequence. Athletic excellence of the body
consists in size, strength, and swiftness; swiftness implying
strength. He who can fling forward his legs in a certain way, and move
them fast and far, is good at running; he who can grip and hold down
is good at wrestling; he who can drive an adversary from his ground
with the right blow is a good boxer: he who can do both the last is
a good pancratiast, while he who can do all is an 'all-round' athlete.
Happiness in old age is the coming of old age slowly and painlessly;
for a man has not this happiness if he grows old either quickly, or
tardily but painfully. It arises both from the excellences of the body
and from good luck. If a man is not free from disease, or if he is
strong, he will not be free from suffering; nor can he continue to
live a long and painless life unless he has good luck. There is,
indeed, a capacity for long life that is quite independent of health
or strength; for many people live long who lack the excellences of the
body; but for our present purpose there is no use in going into the
details of this.
The terms 'possession of many friends' and 'possession of good
friends' need no explanation; for we define a 'friend' as one who will
always try, for your sake, to do what he takes to be good for you. The
man towards whom many feel thus has many friends; if these are
worthy men, he has good friends.
'Good luck' means the acquisition or possession of all or most, or
the most important, of those good things which are due to luck. Some
of the things that are due to luck may also be due to artificial
contrivance; but many are independent of art, as for example those
which are due to nature-though, to be sure, things due to luck may
actually be contrary to nature. Thus health may be due to artificial
contrivance, but beauty and stature are due to nature. All such good
things as excite envy are, as a class, the outcome of good luck.
Luck is also the cause of good things that happen contrary to
reasonable expectation: as when, for instance, all your brothers are
ugly, but you are handsome yourself; or when you find a treasure
that everybody else has overlooked; or when a missile hits the next
man and misses you; or when you are the only man not to go to a
place you have gone to regularly, while the others go there for the
first time and are killed. All such things are reckoned pieces of good
As to virtue, it is most closely connected with the subject of
Eulogy, and therefore we will wait to define it until we come to
discuss that subject.
It is now plain what our aims, future or actual, should be in
urging, and what in depreciating, a proposal; the latter being the
opposite of the former. Now the political or deliberative orator's aim
is utility: deliberation seeks to determine not ends but the means
to ends, i.e. what it is most useful to do. Further, utility is a good
thing. We ought therefore to assure ourselves of the main facts
about Goodness and Utility in general.
We may define a good thing as that which ought to be chosen for
its own sake; or as that for the sake of which we choose something
else; or as that which is sought after by all things, or by all things
that have sensation or reason, or which will be sought after by any
things that acquire reason; or as that which must be prescribed for
a given individual by reason generally, or is prescribed for him by
his individual reason, this being his individual good; or as that
whose presence brings anything into a satisfactory and
self-sufficing condition; or as self-sufficiency; or as what produces,
maintains, or entails characteristics of this kind, while preventing
and destroying their opposites. One thing may entail another in either
of two ways-(1) simultaneously, (2) subsequently. Thus learning
entails knowledge subsequently, health entails life simultaneously.
Things are productive of other things in three senses: first as
being healthy produces health; secondly, as food produces health;
and thirdly, as exercise does-i.e. it does so usually. All this
being settled, we now see that both the acquisition of good things and
the removal of bad things must be good; the latter entails freedom
from the evil things simultaneously, while the former entails
possession of the good things subsequently. The acquisition of a
greater in place of a lesser good, or of a lesser in place of a
greater evil, is also good, for in proportion as the greater exceeds
the lesser there is acquisition of good or removal of evil. The
virtues, too, must be something good; for it is by possessing these
that we are in a good condition, and they tend to produce good works
and good actions. They must be severally named and described
elsewhere. Pleasure, again, must be a good thing, since it is the
nature of all animals to aim at it. Consequently both pleasant and
beautiful things must be good things, since the former are
productive of pleasure, while of the beautiful things some are
pleasant and some desirable in and for themselves.
The following is a more detailed list of things that must be good.
Happiness, as being desirable in itself and sufficient by itself,
and as being that for whose sake we choose many other things. Also
justice, courage, temperance, magnanimity, magnificence, and all
such qualities, as being excellences of the soul. Further, health,
beauty, and the like, as being bodily excellences and productive of
many other good things: for instance, health is productive both of
pleasure and of life, and therefore is thought the greatest of
goods, since these two things which it causes, pleasure and life,
are two of the things most highly prized by ordinary people. Wealth,
again: for it is the excellence of possession, and also productive
of many other good things. Friends and friendship: for a friend is
desirable in himself and also productive of many other good things.
So, too, honour and reputation, as being pleasant, and productive of
many other good things, and usually accompanied by the presence of the
good things that cause them to be bestowed. The faculty of speech
and action; since all such qualities are productive of what is good.
Further-good parts, strong memory, receptiveness, quickness of
intuition, and the like, for all such faculties are productive of what
is good. Similarly, all the sciences and arts. And life: since, even
if no other good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself.
And justice, as the cause of good to the community.
The above are pretty well all the things admittedly good. In dealing
with things whose goodness is disputed, we may argue in the
following ways:-That is good of which the contrary is bad. That is
good the contrary of which is to the advantage of our enemies; for
example, if it is to the particular advantage of our enemies that we
should be cowards, clearly courage is of particular value to our
countrymen. And generally, the contrary of that which our enemies
desire, or of that at which they rejoice, is evidently valuable. Hence
the passage beginning:
Surely would Priam exult.
This principle usually holds good, but not always, since it may well
be that our interest is sometimes the same as that of our enemies.
Hence it is said that 'evils draw men together'; that is, when the
same thing is hurtful to them both.
Further: that which is not in excess is good, and that which is
greater than it should be is bad. That also is good on which much
labour or money has been spent; the mere fact of this makes it seem
good, and such a good is assumed to be an end-an end reached through a
long chain of means; and any end is a good. Hence the lines beginning:
And for Priam (and Troy-town's folk) should
they leave behind them a boast;
Oh, it were shame
To have tarried so long and return empty-handed
as erst we came;
and there is also the proverb about 'breaking the pitcher at the
That which most people seek after, and which is obviously an
object of contention, is also a good; for, as has been shown, that
is good which is sought after by everybody, and 'most people' is taken
to be equivalent to 'everybody'. That which is praised is good,
since no one praises what is not good. So, again, that which is
praised by our enemies [or by the worthless] for when even those who
have a grievance think a thing good, it is at once felt that every one
must agree with them; our enemies can admit the fact only because it
is evident, just as those must be worthless whom their friends censure
and their enemies do not. (For this reason the Corinthians conceived
themselves to be insulted by Simonides when he wrote:
Against the Corinthians hath Ilium no complaint.)
Again, that is good which has been distinguished by the favour of
a discerning or virtuous man or woman, as Odysseus was distinguished
by Athena, Helen by Theseus, Paris by the goddesses, and Achilles by
Homer. And, generally speaking, all things are good which men
deliberately choose to do; this will include the things already
mentioned, and also whatever may be bad for their enemies or good
for their friends, and at the same time practicable. Things are
'practicable' in two senses: (1) it is possible to do them, (2) it
is easy to do them. Things are done 'easily' when they are done either
without pain or quickly: the 'difficulty' of an act lies either in its
painfulness or in the long time it takes. Again, a thing is good if it
is as men wish; and they wish to have either no evil at an or at least
a balance of good over evil. This last will happen where the penalty
is either imperceptible or slight. Good, too, are things that are a
man's very own, possessed by no one else, exceptional; for this
increases the credit of having them. So are things which befit the
possessors, such as whatever is appropriate to their birth or
capacity, and whatever they feel they ought to have but lack-such
things may indeed be trifling, but none the less men deliberately make
them the goal of their action. And things easily effected; for these
are practicable (in the sense of being easy); such things are those in
which every one, or most people, or one's equals, or one's inferiors
have succeeded. Good also are the things by which we shall gratify our
friends or annoy our enemies; and the things chosen by those whom we
admire: and the things for which we are fitted by nature or
experience, since we think we shall succeed more easily in these:
and those in which no worthless man can succeed, for such things bring
greater praise: and those which we do in fact desire, for what we
desire is taken to be not only pleasant but also better. Further, a
man of a given disposition makes chiefly for the corresponding things:
lovers of victory make for victory, lovers of honour for honour,
money-loving men for money, and so with the rest. These, then, are the
sources from which we must derive our means of persuasion about Good
and Utility.
Since, however, it often happens that people agree that two things
are both useful but do not agree about which is the more so, the
next step will be to treat of relative goodness and relative utility.
A thing which surpasses another may be regarded as being that
other thing plus something more, and that other thing which is
surpassed as being what is contained in the first thing. Now to call a
thing 'greater' or 'more' always implies a comparison of it with one
that is 'smaller' or 'less', while 'great' and 'small', 'much' and
'little', are terms used in comparison with normal magnitude. The
'great' is that which surpasses the normal, the 'small' is that
which is surpassed by the normal; and so with 'many' and 'few'.
Now we are applying the term 'good' to what is desirable for its own
sake and not for the sake of something else; to that at which all
things aim; to what they would choose if they could acquire
understanding and practical wisdom; and to that which tends to produce
or preserve such goods, or is always accompanied by them. Moreover,
that for the sake of which things are done is the end (an end being
that for the sake of which all else is done), and for each
individual that thing is a good which fulfils these conditions in
regard to himself. It follows, then, that a greater number of goods is
a greater good than one or than a smaller number, if that one or
that smaller number is included in the count; for then the larger
number surpasses the smaller, and the smaller quantity is surpassed as
being contained in the larger.
Again, if the largest member of one class surpasses the largest
member of another, then the one class surpasses the other; and if
one class surpasses another, then the largest member of the one
surpasses the largest member of the other. Thus, if the tallest man is
taller than the tallest woman, then men in general are taller than
women. Conversely, if men in general are taller than women, then the
tallest man is taller than the tallest woman. For the superiority of
class over class is proportionate to the superiority possessed by
their largest specimens. Again, where one good is always accompanied
by another, but does not always accompany it, it is greater than the
other, for the use of the second thing is implied in the use of the
first. A thing may be accompanied by another in three ways, either
simultaneously, subsequently, or potentially. Life accompanies
health simultaneously (but not health life), knowledge accompanies the
act of learning subsequently, cheating accompanies sacrilege
potentially, since a man who has committed sacrilege is always capable
of cheating. Again, when two things each surpass a third, that which
does so by the greater amount is the greater of the two; for it must
surpass the greater as well as the less of the other two. A thing
productive of a greater good than another is productive of is itself a
greater good than that other. For this conception of 'productive of
a greater' has been implied in our argument. Likewise, that which is
produced by a greater good is itself a greater good; thus, if what
is wholesome is more desirable and a greater good than what gives
pleasure, health too must be a greater good than pleasure. Again, a
thing which is desirable in itself is a greater good than a thing
which is not desirable in itself, as for example bodily strength
than what is wholesome, since the latter is not pursued for its own
sake, whereas the former is; and this was our definition of the
good. Again, if one of two things is an end, and the other is not, the
former is the greater good, as being chosen for its own sake and not
for the sake of something else; as, for example, exercise is chosen
for the sake of physical well-being. And of two things that which
stands less in need of the other, or of other things, is the greater
good, since it is more self-sufficing. (That which stands 'less' in
need of others is that which needs either fewer or easier things.)
So when one thing does not exist or cannot come into existence without
a second, while the second can exist without the first, the second
is the better. That which does not need something else is more
self-sufficing than that which does, and presents itself as a
greater good for that reason. Again, that which is a beginning of
other things is a greater good than that which is not, and that
which is a cause is a greater good than that which is not; the
reason being the same in each case, namely that without a cause and
a beginning nothing can exist or come into existence. Again, where
there are two sets of consequences arising from two different
beginnings or causes, the consequences of the more important beginning
or cause are themselves the more important; and conversely, that
beginning or cause is itself the more important which has the more
important consequences. Now it is plain, from all that has been
said, that one thing may be shown to be more important than another
from two opposite points of view: it may appear the more important (1)
because it is a beginning and the other thing is not, and also (2)
because it is not a beginning and the other thing is-on the ground
that the end is more important and is not a beginning. So Leodamas,
when accusing Callistratus, said that the man who prompted the deed
was more guilty than the doer, since it would not have been done if he
had not planned it. On the other hand, when accusing Chabrias he
said that the doer was worse than the prompter, since there would have
been no deed without some one to do it; men, said he, plot a thing
only in order to carry it out.
Further, what is rare is a greater good than what is plentiful.
Thus, gold is a better thing than iron, though less useful: it is
harder to get, and therefore better worth getting. Reversely, it may
be argued that the plentiful is a better thing than the rare,
because we can make more use of it. For what is often useful surpasses
what is seldom useful, whence the saying:
The best of things is water.
More generally: the hard thing is better than the easy, because it
is rarer: and reversely, the easy thing is better than the hard, for
it is as we wish it to be. That is the greater good whose contrary
is the greater evil, and whose loss affects us more. Positive goodness
and badness are more important than the mere absence of goodness and
badness: for positive goodness and badness are ends, which the mere
absence of them cannot be. Further, in proportion as the functions
of things are noble or base, the things themselves are good or bad:
conversely, in proportion as the things themselves are good or bad,
their functions also are good or bad; for the nature of results
corresponds with that of their causes and beginnings, and conversely
the nature of causes and beginnings corresponds with that of their
results. Moreover, those things are greater goods, superiority in
which is more desirable or more honourable. Thus, keenness of sight is
more desirable than keenness of smell, sight generally being more
desirable than smell generally; and similarly, unusually great love of
friends being more honourable than unusually great love of money,
ordinary love of friends is more honourable than ordinary love of
money. Conversely, if one of two normal things is better or nobler
than the other, an unusual degree of that thing is better or nobler
than an unusual degree of the other. Again, one thing is more
honourable or better than another if it is more honourable or better
to desire it; the importance of the object of a given instinct
corresponds to the importance of the instinct itself; and for the same
reason, if one thing is more honourable or better than another, it
is more honourable and better to desire it. Again, if one science is
more honourable and valuable than another, the activity with which
it deals is also more honourable and valuable; as is the science, so
is the reality that is its object, each science being authoritative in
its own sphere. So, also, the more valuable and honourable the
object of a science, the more valuable and honourable the science
itself is-in consequence. Again, that which would be judged, or
which has been judged, a good thing, or a better thing than
something else, by all or most people of understanding, or by the
majority of men, or by the ablest, must be so; either without
qualification, or in so far as they use their understanding to form
their judgement. This is indeed a general principle, applicable to all
other judgements also; not only the goodness of things, but their
essence, magnitude, and general nature are in fact just what knowledge
and understanding will declare them to be. Here the principle is
applied to judgements of goodness, since one definition of 'good'
was 'what beings that acquire understanding will choose in any given
case': from which it clearly follows that that thing is hetter which
understanding declares to be so. That, again, is a better thing
which attaches to better men, either absolutely, or in virtue of their
being better; as courage is better than strength. And that is a
greater good which would be chosen by a better man, either absolutely,
or in virtue of his being better: for instance, to suffer wrong rather
than to do wrong, for that would be the choice of the juster man.
Again, the pleasanter of two things is the better, since all things
pursue pleasure, and things instinctively desire pleasurable sensation
for its own sake; and these are two of the characteristics by which
the 'good' and the 'end' have been defined. One pleasure is greater
than another if it is more unmixed with pain, or more lasting.
Again, the nobler thing is better than the less noble, since the noble
is either what is pleasant or what is desirable in itself. And those
things also are greater goods which men desire more earnestly to bring
about for themselves or for their friends, whereas those things
which they least desire to bring about are greater evils. And those
things which are more lasting are better than those which are more
fleeting, and the more secure than the less; the enjoyment of the
lasting has the advantage of being longer, and that of the secure
has the advantage of suiting our wishes, being there for us whenever
we like. Further, in accordance with the rule of co-ordinate terms and
inflexions of the same stem, what is true of one such related word
is true of all. Thus if the action qualified by the term 'brave' is
more noble and desirable than the action qualified by the term
'temperate', then 'bravery' is more desirable than 'temperance' and
'being brave' than 'being temperate'. That, again, which is chosen
by all is a greater good than that which is not, and that chosen by
the majority than that chosen by the minority. For that which all
desire is good, as we have said;' and so, the more a thing is desired,
the better it is. Further, that is the better thing which is
considered so by competitors or enemies, or, again, by authorized
judges or those whom they select to represent them. In the first two
cases the decision is virtually that of every one, in the last two
that of authorities and experts. And sometimes it may be argued that
what all share is the better thing, since it is a dishonour not to
share in it; at other times, that what none or few share is better,
since it is rarer. The more praiseworthy things are, the nobler and
therefore the better they are. So with the things that earn greater
honours than others-honour is, as it were, a measure of value; and the
things whose absence involves comparatively heavy penalties; and the
things that are better than others admitted or believed to be good.
Moreover, things look better merely by being divided into their parts,
since they then seem to surpass a greater number of things than
before. Hence Homer says that Meleager was roused to battle by the
thought of
All horrors that light on a folk whose city
is ta'en of their foes,
When they slaughter the men, when the burg is
wasted with ravening flame,
When strangers are haling young children to thraldom,
(fair women to shame.)
The same effect is produced by piling up facts in a climax after the
manner of Epicharmus. The reason is partly the same as in the case
of division (for combination too makes the impression of great
superiority), and partly that the original thing appears to be the
cause and origin of important results. And since a thing is better
when it is harder or rarer than other things, its superiority may be
due to seasons, ages, places, times, or one's natural powers. When a
man accomplishes something beyond his natural power, or beyond his
years, or beyond the measure of people like him, or in a special
way, or at a special place or time, his deed will have a high degree
of nobleness, goodness, and justice, or of their opposites. Hence
the epigram on the victor at the Olympic games:
In time past, hearing a Yoke on my shoulders,
of wood unshaven,
I carried my loads of fish from, Argos to Tegea town.
So Iphicrates used to extol himself by describing the low estate
from which he had risen. Again, what is natural is better than what is
acquired, since it is harder to come by. Hence the words of Homer:
I have learnt from none but mysell.
And the best part of a good thing is particularly good; as when
Pericles in his funeral oration said that the country's loss of its
young men in battle was 'as if the spring were taken out of the year'.
So with those things which are of service when the need is pressing;
for example, in old age and times of sickness. And of two things
that which leads more directly to the end in view is the better. So
too is that which is better for people generally as well as for a
particular individual. Again, what can be got is better than what
cannot, for it is good in a given case and the other thing is not. And
what is at the end of life is better than what is not, since those
things are ends in a greater degree which are nearer the end. What
aims at reality is better than what aims at appearance. We may
define what aims at appearance as what a man will not choose if nobody
is to know of his having it. This would seem to show that to receive
benefits is more desirable than to confer them, since a man will
choose the former even if nobody is to know of it, but it is not the
general view that he will choose the latter if nobody knows of it.
What a man wants to be is better than what a man wants to seem, for in
aiming at that he is aiming more at reality. Hence men say that
justice is of small value, since it is more desirable to seem just
than to be just, whereas with health it is not so. That is better than
other things which is more useful than they are for a number of
different purposes; for example, that which promotes life, good
life, pleasure, and noble conduct. For this reason wealth and health
are commonly thought to be of the highest value, as possessing all
these advantages. Again, that is better than other things which is
accompanied both with less pain and with actual pleasure; for here
there is more than one advantage; and so here we have the good of
feeling pleasure and also the good of not feeling pain. And of two
good things that is the better whose addition to a third thing makes a
better whole than the addition of the other to the same thing will
make. Again, those things which we are seen to possess are better than
those which we are not seen to possess, since the former have the
air of reality. Hence wealth may be regarded as a greater good if
its existence is known to others. That which is dearly prized is
better than what is not-the sort of thing that some people have only
one of, though others have more like it. Accordingly, blinding a
one-eyed man inflicts worse injury than half-blinding a man with two
eyes; for the one-eyed man has been robbed of what he dearly prized.
The grounds on which we must base our arguments, when we are
speaking for or against a proposal, have now been set forth more or
less completely.
The most important and effective qualification for success in
persuading audiences and speaking well on public affairs is to
understand all the forms of government and to discriminate their
respective customs, institutions, and interests. For all men are
persuaded by considerations of their interest, and their interest lies
in the maintenance of the established order. Further, it rests with
the supreme authority to give authoritative decisions, and this varies
with each form of government; there are as many different supreme
authorities as there are different forms of government. The forms of
government are four-democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy. The
supreme right to judge and decide always rests, therefore, with either
a part or the whole of one or other of these governing powers.
A Democracy is a form of government under which the citizens
distribute the offices of state among themselves by lot, whereas under
oligarchy there is a property qualification, under aristocracy one
of education. By education I mean that education which is laid down by
the law; for it is those who have been loyal to the national
institutions that hold office under an aristocracy. These are bound to
be looked upon as 'the best men', and it is from this fact that this
form of government has derived its name ('the rule of the best').
Monarchy, as the word implies, is the constitution a in which one
man has authority over all. There are two forms of monarchy: kingship,
which is limited by prescribed conditions, and 'tyranny', which is not
limited by anything.
We must also notice the ends which the various forms of government
pursue, since people choose in practice such actions as will lead to
the realization of their ends. The end of democracy is freedom; of
oligarchy, wealth; of aristocracy, the maintenance of education and
national institutions; of tyranny, the protection of the tyrant. It is
clear, then, that we must distinguish those particular customs,
institutions, and interests which tend to realize the ideal of each
constitution, since men choose their means with reference to their
ends. But rhetorical persuasion is effected not only by
demonstrative but by ethical argument; it helps a speaker to
convince us, if we believe that he has certain qualities himself,
namely, goodness, or goodwill towards us, or both together. Similarly,
we should know the moral qualities characteristic of each form of
government, for the special moral character of each is bound to
provide us with our most effective means of persuasion in dealing with
it. We shall learn the qualities of governments in the same way as
we learn the qualities of individuals, since they are revealed in
their deliberate acts of choice; and these are determined by the end
that inspires them.
We have now considered the objects, immediate or distant, at which
we are to aim when urging any proposal, and the grounds on which we
are to base our arguments in favour of its utility. We have also
briefly considered the means and methods by which we shall gain a good
knowledge of the moral qualities and institutions peculiar to the
various forms of government-only, however, to the extent demanded by
the present occasion; a detailed account of the subject has been given
in the Politics.
We have now to consider Virtue and Vice, the Noble and the Base,
since these are the objects of praise and blame. In doing so, we shall
at the same time be finding out how to make our hearers take the
required view of our own characters-our second method of persuasion.
The ways in which to make them trust the goodness of other people
are also the ways in which to make them trust our own. Praise,
again, may be serious or frivolous; nor is it always of a human or
divine being but often of inanimate things, or of the humblest of
the lower animals. Here too we must know on what grounds to argue, and
must, therefore, now discuss the subject, though by way of
illustration only.
The Noble is that which is both desirable for its own sake and
also worthy of praise; or that which is both good and also pleasant
because good. If this is a true definition of the Noble, it follows
that virtue must be noble, since it is both a good thing and also
praiseworthy. Virtue is, according to the usual view, a faculty of
providing and preserving good things; or a faculty of conferring
many great benefits, and benefits of all kinds on all occasions. The
forms of Virtue are justice, courage, temperance, magnificence,
magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, prudence, wisdom. If virtue is
a faculty of beneficence, the highest kinds of it must be those
which are most useful to others, and for this reason men honour most
the just and the courageous, since courage is useful to others in war,
justice both in war and in peace. Next comes liberality; liberal
people let their money go instead of fighting for it, whereas other
people care more for money than for anything else. Justice is the
virtue through which everybody enjoys his own possessions in
accordance with the law; its opposite is injustice, through which
men enjoy the possessions of others in defiance of the law. Courage is
the virtue that disposes men to do noble deeds in situations of
danger, in accordance with the law and in obedience to its commands;
cowardice is the opposite. Temperance is the virtue that disposes us
to obey the law where physical pleasures are concerned; incontinence
is the opposite. Liberality disposes us to spend money for others'
good; illiberality is the opposite. Magnanimity is the virtue that
disposes us to do good to others on a large scale; [its opposite is
meanness of spirit]. Magnificence is a virtue productive of
greatness in matters involving the spending of money. The opposites of
these two are smallness of spirit and meanness respectively.
Prudence is that virtue of the understanding which enables men to come
to wise decisions about the relation to happiness of the goods and
evils that have been previously mentioned.
The above is a sufficient account, for our present purpose, of
virtue and vice in general, and of their various forms. As to
further aspects of the subject, it is not difficult to discern the
facts; it is evident that things productive of virtue are noble, as
tending towards virtue; and also the effects of virtue, that is, the
signs of its presence and the acts to which it leads. And since the
signs of virtue, and such acts as it is the mark of a virtuous man
to do or have done to him, are noble, it follows that all deeds or
signs of courage, and everything done courageously, must be noble
things; and so with what is just and actions done justly. (Not,
however, actions justly done to us; here justice is unlike the other
virtues; 'justly' does not always mean 'nobly'; when a man is
punished, it is more shameful that this should be justly than unjustly
done to him). The same is true of the other virtues. Again, those
actions are noble for which the reward is simply honour, or honour
more than money. So are those in which a man aims at something
desirable for some one else's sake; actions good absolutely, such as
those a man does for his country without thinking of himself;
actions good in their own nature; actions that are not good simply for
the individual, since individual interests are selfish. Noble also are
those actions whose advantage may be enjoyed after death, as opposed
to those whose advantage is enjoyed during one's lifetime: for the
latter are more likely to be for one's own sake only. Also, all
actions done for the sake of others, since less than other actions are
done for one's own sake; and all successes which benefit others and
not oneself; and services done to one's benefactors, for this is just;
and good deeds generally, since they are not directed to one's own
profit. And the opposites of those things of which men feel ashamed,
for men are ashamed of saying, doing, or intending to do shameful
things. So when Alcacus said
Something I fain would say to thee,
Only shame restraineth me,
Sappho wrote
If for things good and noble thou wert yearning,
If to speak baseness were thy tongue not burning,
No load of shame would on thine eyelids weigh;
What thou with honour wishest thou wouldst say.
Those things, also, are noble for which men strive anxiously,
without feeling fear; for they feel thus about the good things which
lead to fair fame. Again, one quality or action is nobler than another
if it is that of a naturally finer being: thus a man's will be
nobler than a woman's. And those qualities are noble which give more
pleasure to other people than to their possessors; hence the nobleness
of justice and just actions. It is noble to avenge oneself on one's
enemies and not to come to terms with them; for requital is just,
and the just is noble; and not to surrender is a sign of courage.
Victory, too, and honour belong to the class of noble things, since
they are desirable even when they yield no fruits, and they prove
our superiority in good qualities. Things that deserve to be
remembered are noble, and the more they deserve this, the nobler
they are. So are the things that continue even after death; those
which are always attended by honour; those which are exceptional;
and those which are possessed by one person alone-these last are
more readily remembered than others. So again are possessions that
bring no profit, since they are more fitting than others for a
gentleman. So are the distinctive qualities of a particular people,
and the symbols of what it specially admires, like long hair in
Sparta, where this is a mark of a free man, as it is not easy to
perform any menial task when one's hair is long. Again, it is noble
not to practise any sordid craft, since it is the mark of a free man
not to live at another's beck and call. We are also to assume when
we wish either to praise a man or blame him that qualities closely
allied to those which he actually has are identical with them; for
instance, that the cautious man is cold-blooded and treacherous, and
that the stupid man is an honest fellow or the thick-skinned man a
good-tempered one. We can always idealize any given man by drawing
on the virtues akin to his actual qualities; thus we may say that
the passionate and excitable man is 'outspoken'; or that the
arrogant man is 'superb' or 'impressive'. Those who run to extremes
will be said to possess the corresponding good qualities; rashness
will be called courage, and extravagance generosity. That will be what
most people think; and at the same time this method enables an
advocate to draw a misleading inference from the motive, arguing
that if a man runs into danger needlessly, much more will he do so
in a noble cause; and if a man is open-handed to any one and every
one, he will be so to his friends also, since it is the extreme form
of goodness to be good to everybody.
We must also take into account the nature of our particular audience
when making a speech of praise; for, as Socrates used to say, 'it is
not difficult to praise the Athenians to an Athenian audience.' If the
audience esteems a given quality, we must say that our hero has that
quality, no matter whether we are addressing Scythians or Spartans
or philosophers. Everything, in fact, that is esteemed we are to
represent as noble. After all, people regard the two things as much
the same.
All actions are noble that are appropriate to the man who does them:
if, for instance, they are worthy of his ancestors or of his own
past career. For it makes for happiness, and is a noble thing, that he
should add to the honour he already has. Even inappropriate actions
are noble if they are better and nobler than the appropriate ones
would be; for instance, if one who was just an average person when all
went well becomes a hero in adversity, or if he becomes better and
easier to get on with the higher he rises. Compare the saying of
lphicrates, 'Think what I was and what I am'; and the epigram on the
victor at the Olympic games,
In time past, bearing a yoke on my shoulders,
of wood unshaven,
and the encomium of Simonides,
A woman whose father, whose husband, whose
brethren were princes all.
Since we praise a man for what he has actually done, and fine
actions are distinguished from others by being intentionally good,
we must try to prove that our hero's noble acts are intentional.
This is all the easier if we can make out that he has often acted so
before, and therefore we must assert coincidences and accidents to
have been intended. Produce a number of good actions, all of the
same kind, and people will think that they must have been intended,
and that they prove the good qualities of the man who did them.
Praise is the expression in words of the eminence of a man's good
qualities, and therefore we must display his actions as the product of
such qualities. Encomium refers to what he has actually done; the
mention of accessories, such as good birth and education, merely helps
to make our story credible-good fathers are likely to have good
sons, and good training is likely to produce good character. Hence
it is only when a man has already done something that we bestow
encomiums upon him. Yet the actual deeds are evidence of the doer's
character: even if a man has not actually done a given good thing,
we shall bestow praise on him, if we are sure that he is the sort of
man who would do it. To call any one blest is, it may be added, the
same thing as to call him happy; but these are not the same thing as
to bestow praise and encomium upon him; the two latter are a part of
'calling happy', just as goodness is a part of happiness.
To praise a man is in one respect akin to urging a course of action.
The suggestions which would be made in the latter case become
encomiums when differently expressed. When we know what action or
character is required, then, in order to express these facts as
suggestions for action, we have to change and reverse our form of
words. Thus the statement 'A man should be proud not of what he owes
to fortune but of what he owes to himself', if put like this,
amounts to a suggestion; to make it into praise we must put it thus,
'Since he is proud not of what he owes to fortune but of what he
owes to himself.' Consequently, whenever you want to praise any one,
think what you would urge people to do; and when you want to urge
the doing of anything, think what you would praise a man for having
done. Since suggestion may or may not forbid an action, the praise
into which we convert it must have one or other of two opposite
forms of expression accordingly.
There are, also, many useful ways of heightening the effect of
praise. We must, for instance, point out that a man is the only one,
or the first, or almost the only one who has done something, or that
he has done it better than any one else; all these distinctions are
honourable. And we must, further, make much of the particular season
and occasion of an action, arguing that we could hardly have looked
for it just then. If a man has often achieved the same success, we
must mention this; that is a strong point; he himself, and not luck,
will then be given the credit. So, too, if it is on his account that
observances have been devised and instituted to encourage or honour
such achievements as his own: thus we may praise Hippolochus because
the first encomium ever made was for him, or Harmodius and
Aristogeiton because their statues were the first to be put up in
the market-place. And we may censure bad men for the opposite reason.
Again, if you cannot find enough to say of a man himself, you may
pit him against others, which is what Isocrates used to do owing to
his want of familiarity with forensic pleading. The comparison
should be with famous men; that will strengthen your case; it is a
noble thing to surpass men who are themselves great. It is only
natural that methods of 'heightening the effect' should be attached
particularly to speeches of praise; they aim at proving superiority
over others, and any such superiority is a form of nobleness. Hence if
you cannot compare your hero with famous men, you should at least
compare him with other people generally, since any superiority is held
to reveal excellence. And, in general, of the lines of argument
which are common to all speeches, this 'heightening of effect' is most
suitable for declamations, where we take our hero's actions as
admitted facts, and our business is simply to invest these with
dignity and nobility. 'Examples' are most suitable to deliberative
speeches; for we judge of future events by divination from past
events. Enthymemes are most suitable to forensic speeches; it is our
doubts about past events that most admit of arguments showing why a
thing must have happened or proving that it did happen.
The above are the general lines on which all, or nearly all,
speeches of praise or blame are constructed. We have seen the sort
of thing we must bear in mind in making such speeches, and the
materials out of which encomiums and censures are made. No special
treatment of censure and vituperation is needed. Knowing the above
facts, we know their contraries; and it is out of these that
speeches of censure are made.
We have next to treat of Accusation and Defence, and to enumerate
and describe the ingredients of the syllogisms used therein. There are
three things we must ascertain first, the nature and number of the
incentives to wrong-doing; second, the state of mind of wrongdoers;
third, the kind of persons who are wronged, and their condition. We
will deal with these questions in order. But before that let us define
the act of 'wrong-doing'.
We may describe 'wrong-doing' as injury voluntarily inflicted
contrary to law. 'Law' is either special or general. By special law
I mean that written law which regulates the life of a particular
community; by general law, all those unwritten principles which are
supposed to be acknowledged everywhere. We do things 'voluntarily'
when we do them consciously and without constraint. (Not all voluntary
acts are deliberate, but all deliberate acts are conscious-no one is
ignorant of what he deliberately intends.) The causes of our
deliberately intending harmful and wicked acts contrary to law are (1)
vice, (2) lack of self-control. For the wrongs a man does to others
will correspond to the bad quality or qualities that he himself
possesses. Thus it is the mean man who will wrong others about
money, the profligate in matters of physical pleasure, the
effeminate in matters of comfort, and the coward where danger is
concerned-his terror makes him abandon those who are involved in the
same danger. The ambitious man does wrong for sake of honour, the
quick-tempered from anger, the lover of victory for the sake of
victory, the embittered man for the sake of revenge, the stupid man
because he has misguided notions of right and wrong, the shameless man
because he does not mind what people think of him; and so with the
rest-any wrong that any one does to others corresponds to his
particular faults of character.
However, this subject has already been cleared up in part in our
discussion of the virtues and will be further explained later when
we treat of the emotions. We have now to consider the motives and
states of mind of wrongdoers, and to whom they do wrong.
Let us first decide what sort of things people are trying to get
or avoid when they set about doing wrong to others. For it is plain
that the prosecutor must consider, out of all the aims that can ever
induce us to do wrong to our neighbours, how many, and which, affect
his adversary; while the defendant must consider how many, and
which, do not affect him. Now every action of every person either is
or is not due to that person himself. Of those not due to himself some
are due to chance, the others to necessity; of these latter, again,
some are due to compulsion, the others to nature. Consequently all
actions that are not due to a man himself are due either to chance
or to nature or to compulsion. All actions that are due to a man
himself and caused by himself are due either to habit or to rational
or irrational craving. Rational craving is a craving for good, i.e.
a wish-nobody wishes for anything unless he thinks it good. Irrational
craving is twofold, viz. anger and appetite.
Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes:
chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite. It
is superfluous further to distinguish actions according to the
doers' ages, moral states, or the like; it is of course true that, for
instance, young men do have hot tempers and strong appetites; still,
it is not through youth that they act accordingly, but through anger
or appetite. Nor, again, is action due to wealth or poverty; it is
of course true that poor men, being short of money, do have an
appetite for it, and that rich men, being able to command needless
pleasures, do have an appetite for such pleasures: but here, again,
their actions will be due not to wealth or poverty but to appetite.
Similarly, with just men, and unjust men, and all others who are
said to act in accordance with their moral qualities, their actions
will really be due to one of the causes mentioned-either reasoning
or emotion: due, indeed, sometimes to good dispositions and good
emotions, and sometimes to bad; but that good qualities should be
followed by good emotions, and bad by bad, is merely an accessory
fact-it is no doubt true that the temperate man, for instance, because
he is temperate, is always and at once attended by healthy opinions
and appetites in regard to pleasant things, and the intemperate man by
unhealthy ones. So we must ignore such distinctions. Still we must
consider what kinds of actions and of people usually go together;
for while there are no definite kinds of action associated with the
fact that a man is fair or dark, tall or short, it does make a
difference if he is young or old, just or unjust. And, generally
speaking, all those accessory qualities that cause distinctions of
human character are important: e.g. the sense of wealth or poverty, of
being lucky or unlucky. This shall be dealt with later-let us now deal
first with the rest of the subject before us.
The things that happen by chance are all those whose cause cannot be
determined, that have no purpose, and that happen neither always nor
usually nor in any fixed way. The definition of chance shows just what
they are. Those things happen by nature which have a fixed and
internal cause; they take place uniformly, either always or usually.
There is no need to discuss in exact detail the things that happen
contrary to nature, nor to ask whether they happen in some sense
naturally or from some other cause; it would seem that chance is at
least partly the cause of such events. Those things happen through
compulsion which take place contrary to the desire or reason of the
doer, yet through his own agency. Acts are done from habit which men
do because they have often done them before. Actions are due to
reasoning when, in view of any of the goods already mentioned, they
appear useful either as ends or as means to an end, and are
performed for that reason: 'for that reason,' since even licentious
persons perform a certain number of useful actions, but because they
are pleasant and not because they are useful. To passion and anger are
due all acts of revenge. Revenge and punishment are different
things. Punishment is inflicted for the sake of the person punished;
revenge for that of the punisher, to satisfy his feelings. (What anger
is will be made clear when we come to discuss the emotions.)
Appetite is the cause of all actions that appear pleasant. Habit,
whether acquired by mere familiarity or by effort, belongs to the
class of pleasant things, for there are many actions not naturally
pleasant which men perform with pleasure, once they have become used
to them. To sum up then, all actions due to ourselves either are or
seem to be either good or pleasant. Moreover, as all actions due to
ourselves are done voluntarily and actions not due to ourselves are
done involuntarily, it follows that all voluntary actions must
either be or seem to be either good or pleasant; for I reckon among
goods escape from evils or apparent evils and the exchange of a
greater evil for a less (since these things are in a sense
positively desirable), and likewise I count among pleasures escape
from painful or apparently painful things and the exchange of a
greater pain for a less. We must ascertain, then, the number and
nature of the things that are useful and pleasant. The useful has been
previously examined in connexion with political oratory; let us now
proceed to examine the pleasant. Our various definitions must be
regarded as adequate, even if they are not exact, provided they are
We may lay it down that Pleasure is a movement, a movement by
which the soul as a whole is consciously brought into its normal state
of being; and that Pain is the opposite. If this is what pleasure
is, it is clear that the pleasant is what tends to produce this
condition, while that which tends to destroy it, or to cause the
soul to be brought into the opposite state, is painful. It must
therefore be pleasant as a rule to move towards a natural state of
being, particularly when a natural process has achieved the complete
recovery of that natural state. Habits also are pleasant; for as
soon as a thing has become habitual, it is virtually natural; habit is
a thing not unlike nature; what happens often is akin to what
happens always, natural events happening always, habitual events
often. Again, that is pleasant which is not forced on us; for force is
unnatural, and that is why what is compulsory, painful, and it has
been rightly said
All that is done on compulsion is bitterness unto the soul.
So all acts of concentration, strong effort, and strain are
necessarily painful; they all involve compulsion and force, unless
we are accustomed to them, in which case it is custom that makes
them pleasant. The opposites to these are pleasant; and hence ease,
freedom from toil, relaxation, amusement, rest, and sleep belong to
the class of pleasant things; for these are all free from any
element of compulsion. Everything, too, is pleasant for which we
have the desire within us, since desire is the craving for pleasure.
Of the desires some are irrational, some associated with reason. By
irrational I mean those which do not arise from any opinion held by
the mind. Of this kind are those known as 'natural'; for instance,
those originating in the body, such as the desire for nourishment,
namely hunger and thirst, and a separate kind of desire answering to
each kind of nourishment; and the desires connected with taste and sex
and sensations of touch in general; and those of smell, hearing, and
vision. Rational desires are those which we are induced to have; there
are many things we desire to see or get because we have been told of
them and induced to believe them good. Further, pleasure is the
consciousness through the senses of a certain kind of emotion; but
imagination is a feeble sort of sensation, and there will always be in
the mind of a man who remembers or expects something an image or
picture of what he remembers or expects. If this is so, it is clear
that memory and expectation also, being accompanied by sensation,
may be accompanied by pleasure. It follows that anything pleasant is
either present and perceived, past and remembered, or future and
expected, since we perceive present pleasures, remember past ones, and
expect future ones. Now the things that are pleasant to remember are
not only those that, when actually perceived as present, were
pleasant, but also some things that were not, provided that their
results have subsequently proved noble and good. Hence the words
Sweet 'tis when rescued to remember pain,
Even his griefs are a joy long after to one that remembers
All that he wrought and endured.
The reason of this is that it is pleasant even to be merely free
from evil. The things it is pleasant to expect are those that when
present are felt to afford us either great delight or great but not
painful benefit. And in general, all the things that delight us when
they are present also do so, as a rule, when we merely remember or
expect them. Hence even being angry is pleasant-Homer said of wrath
Sweeter it is by far than the honeycomb dripping with sweetness-
for no one grows angry with a person on whom there is no prospect of
taking vengeance, and we feel comparatively little anger, or none at
all, with those who are much our superiors in power. Some pleasant
feeling is associated with most of our appetites we are enjoying
either the memory of a past pleasure or the expectation of a future
one, just as persons down with fever, during their attacks of
thirst, enjoy remembering the drinks they have had and looking forward
to having more. So also a lover enjoys talking or writing about his
loved one, or doing any little thing connected with him; all these
things recall him to memory and make him actually present to the eye
of imagination. Indeed, it is always the first sign of love, that
besides enjoying some one's presence, we remember him when he is gone,
and feel pain as well as pleasure, because he is there no longer.
Similarly there is an element of pleasure even in mourning and
lamentation for the departed. There is grief, indeed, at his loss, but
pleasure in remembering him and as it were seeing him before us in his
deeds and in his life. We can well believe the poet when he says
He spake, and in each man's heart he awakened
the love of lament.
Revenge, too, is pleasant; it is pleasant to get anything that it is
painful to fail to get, and angry people suffer extreme pain when they
fail to get their revenge; but they enjoy the prospect of getting
it. Victory also is pleasant, and not merely to 'bad losers', but to
every one; the winner sees himself in the light of a champion, and
everybody has a more or less keen appetite for being that. The
pleasantness of victory implies of course that combative sports and
intellectual contests are pleasant (since in these it often happens
that some one wins) and also games like knuckle-bones, ball, dice, and
draughts. And similarly with the serious sports; some of these
become pleasant when one is accustomed to them; while others are
pleasant from the first, like hunting with hounds, or indeed any
kind of hunting. For where there is competition, there is victory.
That is why forensic pleading and debating contests are pleasant to
those who are accustomed to them and have the capacity for them.
Honour and good repute are among the most pleasant things of all; they
make a man see himself in the character of a fine fellow, especially
when he is credited with it by people whom he thinks good judges.
His neighbours are better judges than people at a distance; his
associates and fellow-countrymen better than strangers; his
contemporaries better than posterity; sensible persons better than
foolish ones; a large number of people better than a small number:
those of the former class, in each case, are the more likely to be
good judges of him. Honour and credit bestowed by those whom you think
much inferior to yourself-e.g. children or animals-you do not value:
not for its own sake, anyhow: if you do value it, it is for some other
reason. Friends belong to the class of pleasant things; it is pleasant
to love-if you love wine, you certainly find it delightful: and it
is pleasant to be loved, for this too makes a man see himself as the
possessor of goodness, a thing that every being that has a feeling for
it desires to possess: to be loved means to be valued for one's own
personal qualities. To be admired is also pleasant, simply because
of the honour implied. Flattery and flatterers are pleasant: the
flatterer is a man who, you believe, admires and likes To do the
same thing often is pleasant, since, as we saw, anything habitual is
pleasant. And to change is also pleasant: change means an approach
to nature, whereas invariable repetition of anything causes the
excessive prolongation of a settled condition: therefore, says the
Change is in all things sweet.
That is why what comes to us only at long intervals is pleasant,
whether it be a person or a thing; for it is a change from what we had
before, and, besides, what comes only at long intervals has the
value of rarity. Learning things and wondering at things are also
pleasant as a rule; wondering implies the desire of learning, so
that the object of wonder is an object of desire; while in learning
one is brought into one's natural condition. Conferring and
receiving benefits belong to the class of pleasant things; to
receive a benefit is to get what one desires; to confer a benefit
implies both posses sion and superiority, both of which are things
we try to attain. It is because beneficent acts are pleasant that
people find it pleasant to put their neighbours straight again and
to supply what they lack. Again, since learning and wondering are
pleasant, it follows that such things as acts of imitation must be
pleasant-for instance, painting, sculpture, poetry and every product
of skilful imitation; this latter, even if the object imitated is
not itself pleasant; for it is not the object itself which here
gives delight; the spectator draws inferences ('That is a
so-and-so') and thus learns something fresh. Dramatic turns of fortune
and hairbreadth escapes from perils are pleasant, because we feel
all such things are wonderful.
And since what is natural is pleasant, and things akin to each other
seem natural to each other, therefore all kindred and similar things
are usually pleasant to each other; for instance, one man, horse, or
young person is pleasant to another man, horse, or young person. Hence
the proverbs 'mate delights mate', 'like to like', 'beast knows
beast', 'jackdaw to jackdaw', and the rest of them. But since
everything like and akin to oneself is pleasant, and since every man
is himself more like and akin to himself than any one else is, it
follows that all of us must be more or less fond of ourselves. For all
this resemblance and kinship is present particularly in the relation
of an individual to himself. And because we are all fond of ourselves,
it follows that what is our own is pleasant to all of us, as for
instance our own deeds and words. That is why we are usually fond of
our flatterers, [our lovers,] and honour; also of our children, for
our children are our own work. It is also pleasant to complete what is
defective, for the whole thing thereupon becomes our own work. And
since power over others is very pleasant, it is pleasant to be thought
wise, for practical wisdom secures us power over others. (Scientific
wisdom is also pleasant, because it is the knowledge of many wonderful
things.) Again, since most of us are ambitious, it must be pleasant to
disparage our neighbours as well as to have power over them. It is
pleasant for a man to spend his time over what he feels he can do
best; just as the poet says,
To that he bends himself,
To that each day allots most time, wherein
He is indeed the best part of himself.
Similarly, since amusement and every kind of relaxation and laughter
too belong to the class of pleasant things, it follows that
ludicrous things are pleasant, whether men, words, or deeds. We have
discussed the ludicrous separately in the treatise on the Art of
So much for the subject of pleasant things: by considering their
opposites we can easily see what things are unpleasant.
The above are the motives that make men do wrong to others; we are
next to consider the states of mind in which they do it, and the
persons to whom they do it.
They must themselves suppose that the thing can be done, and done by
them: either that they can do it without being found out, or that if
they are found out they can escape being punished, or that if they are
punished the disadvantage will be less than the gain for themselves or
those they care for. The general subject of apparent possibility and
impossibility will be handled later on, since it is relevant not
only to forensic but to all kinds of speaking. But it may here be said
that people think that they can themselves most easily do wrong to
others without being punished for it if they possess eloquence, or
practical ability, or much legal experience, or a large body of
friends, or a great deal of money. Their confidence is greatest if
they personally possess the advantages mentioned: but even without
them they are satisfied if they have friends or supporters or partners
who do possess them: they can thus both commit their crimes and escape
being found out and punished for committing them. They are also
safe, they think, if they are on good terms with their victims or with
the judges who try them. Their victims will in that case not be on
their guard against being wronged, and will make some arrangement with
them instead of prosecuting; while their judges will favour them
because they like them, either letting them off altogether or imposing
light sentences. They are not likely to be found out if their
appearance contradicts the charges that might be brought against them:
for instance, a weakling is unlikely to be charged with violent
assault, or a poor and ugly man with adultery. Public and open
injuries are the easiest to do, because nobody could at all suppose
them possible, and therefore no precautions are taken. The same is
true of crimes so great and terrible that no man living could be
suspected of them: here too no precautions are taken. For all men
guard against ordinary offences, just as they guard against ordinary
diseases; but no one takes precautions against a disease that nobody
has ever had. You feel safe, too, if you have either no enemies or a
great many; if you have none, you expect not to be watched and
therefore not to be detected; if you have a great many, you will be
watched, and therefore people will think you can never risk an attempt
on them, and you can defend your innocence by pointing out that you
could never have taken such a risk. You may also trust to hide your
crime by the way you do it or the place you do it in, or by some
convenient means of disposal.
You may feel that even if you are found out you can stave off a
trial, or have it postponed, or corrupt your judges: or that even if
you are sentenced you can avoid paying damages, or can at least
postpone doing so for a long time: or that you are so badly off that
you will have nothing to lose. You may feel that the gain to be got by
wrong-doing is great or certain or immediate, and that the penalty
is small or uncertain or distant. It may be that the advantage to be
gained is greater than any possible retribution: as in the case of
despotic power, according to the popular view. You may consider your
crimes as bringing you solid profit, while their punishment is nothing
more than being called bad names. Or the opposite argument may
appeal to you: your crimes may bring you some credit (thus you may,
incidentally, be avenging your father or mother, like Zeno), whereas
the punishment may amount to a fine, or banishment, or something of
that sort. People may be led on to wrong others by either of these
motives or feelings; but no man by both-they will affect people of
quite opposite characters. You may be encouraged by having often
escaped detection or punishment already; or by having often tried
and failed; for in crime, as in war, there are men who will always
refuse to give up the struggle. You may get your pleasure on the
spot and the pain later, or the gain on the spot and the loss later.
That is what appeals to weak-willed persons--and weakness of will
may be shown with regard to all the objects of desire. It may on the
contrary appeal to you as it does appeal to self-controlled and
sensible people--that the pain and loss are immediate, while the
pleasure and profit come later and last longer. You may feel able to
make it appear that your crime was due to chance, or to necessity,
or to natural causes, or to habit: in fact, to put it generally, as if
you had failed to do right rather than actually done wrong. You may be
able to trust other people to judge you equitably. You may be
stimulated by being in want: which may mean that you want necessaries,
as poor people do, or that you want luxuries, as rich people do. You
may be encouraged by having a particularly good reputation, because
that will save you from being suspected: or by having a particularly
bad one, because nothing you are likely to do will make it worse.
The above, then, are the various states of mind in which a man
sets about doing wrong to others. The kind of people to whom he does
wrong, and the ways in which he does it, must be considered next.
The people to whom he does it are those who have what he wants
himself, whether this means necessities or luxuries and materials
for enjoyment. His victims may be far off or near at hand. If they are
near, he gets his profit quickly; if they are far off, vengeance is
slow, as those think who plunder the Carthaginians. They may be
those who are trustful instead of being cautious and watchful, since
all such people are easy to elude. Or those who are too easy-going
to have enough energy to prosecute an offender. Or sensitive people,
who are not apt to show fight over questions of money. Or those who
have been wronged already by many people, and yet have not prosecuted;
such men must surely be the proverbial 'Mysian prey'. Or those who
have either never or often been wronged before; in neither case will
they take precautions; if they have never been wronged they think they
never will, and if they have often been wronged they feel that
surely it cannot happen again. Or those whose character has been
attacked in the past, or is exposed to attack in the future: they will
be too much frightened of the judges to make up their minds to
prosecute, nor can they win their case if they do: this is true of
those who are hated or unpopular. Another likely class of victim is
those who their injurer can pretend have, themselves or through
their ancestors or friends, treated badly, or intended to treat badly,
the man himself, or his ancestors, or those he cares for; as the
proverb says, 'wickedness needs but a pretext'. A man may wrong his
enemies, because that is pleasant: he may equally wrong his friends,
because that is easy. Then there are those who have no friends, and
those who lack eloquence and practical capacity; these will either not
attempt to prosecute, or they will come to terms, or failing that they
will lose their case. There are those whom it does not pay to waste
time in waiting for trial or damages, such as foreigners and small
farmers; they will settle for a trifle, and always be ready to leave
off. Also those who have themselves wronged others, either often, or
in the same way as they are now being wronged themselves-for it is
felt that next to no wrong is done to people when it is the same wrong
as they have often themselves done to others: if, for instance, you
assault a man who has been accustomed to behave with violence to
others. So too with those who have done wrong to others, or have meant
to, or mean to, or are likely to do so; there is something fine and
pleasant in wronging such persons, it seems as though almost no
wrong were done. Also those by doing wrong to whom we shall be
gratifying our friends, or those we admire or love, or our masters, or
in general the people by reference to whom we mould our lives. Also
those whom we may wrong and yet be sure of equitable treatment. Also
those against whom we have had any grievance, or any previous
differences with them, as Callippus had when he behaved as he did to
Dion: here too it seems as if almost no wrong were being done. Also
those who are on the point of being wronged by others if we fail to
wrong them ourselves, since here we feel we have no time left for
thinking the matter over. So Aenesidemus is said to have sent the
'cottabus' prize to Gelon, who had just reduced a town to slavery,
because Gelon had got there first and forestalled his own attempt.
Also those by wronging whom we shall be able to do many righteous
acts; for we feel that we can then easily cure the harm done. Thus
Jason the Thessalian said that it is a duty to do some unjust acts
in order to be able to do many just ones.
Among the kinds of wrong done to others are those that are done
universally, or at least commonly: one expects to be forgiven for
doing these. Also those that can easily be kept dark, as where
things that can rapidly be consumed like eatables are concerned, or
things that can easily be changed in shape, colour, or combination, or
things that can easily be stowed away almost anywhere-portable objects
that you can stow away in small corners, or things so like others of
which you have plenty already that nobody can tell the difference.
There are also wrongs of a kind that shame prevents the victim
speaking about, such as outrages done to the women in his household or
to himself or to his sons. Also those for which you would be thought
very litigious to prosecute any one-trifling wrongs, or wrongs for
which people are usually excused.
The above is a fairly complete account of the circumstances under
which men do wrong to others, of the sort of wrongs they do, of the
sort of persons to whom they do them, and of their reasons for doing
It will now be well to make a complete classification of just and
unjust actions. We may begin by observing that they have been
defined relatively to two kinds of law, and also relatively to two
classes of persons. By the two kinds of law I mean particular law
and universal law. Particular law is that which each community lays
down and applies to its own members: this is partly written and partly
unwritten. Universal law is the law of Nature. For there really is, as
every one to some extent divines, a natural justice and injustice that
is binding on all men, even on those who have no association or
covenant with each other. It is this that Sophocles' Antigone
clearly means when she says that the burial of Polyneices was a just
act in spite of the prohibition: she means that it was just by nature.
Not of to-day or yesterday it is,
But lives eternal: none can date its birth.
And so Empedocles, when he bids us kill no living creature, says
that doing this is not just for some people while unjust for others,
Nay, but, an all-embracing law, through the realms of the sky
Unbroken it stretcheth, and over the earth's immensity.
And as Alcidamas says in his Messeniac Oration....
The actions that we ought to do or not to do have also been
divided into two classes as affecting either the whole community or
some one of its members. From this point of view we can perform just
or unjust acts in either of two ways-towards one definite person, or
towards the community. The man who is guilty of adultery or assault is
doing wrong to some definite person; the man who avoids service in the
army is doing wrong to the community.
Thus the whole class of unjust actions may be divided into two
classes, those affecting the community, and those affecting one or
more other persons. We will next, before going further, remind
ourselves of what 'being wronged' means. Since it has already been
settled that 'doing a wrong' must be intentional, 'being wronged' must
consist in having an injury done to you by some one who intends to
do it. In order to be wronged, a man must (1) suffer actual harm,
(2) suffer it against his will. The various possible forms of harm are
clearly explained by our previous, separate discussion of goods and
evils. We have also seen that a voluntary action is one where the doer
knows what he is doing. We now see that every accusation must be of an
action affecting either the community or some individual. The doer
of the action must either understand and intend the action, or not
understand and intend it. In the former case, he must be acting either
from deliberate choice or from passion. (Anger will be discussed
when we speak of the passions the motives for crime and the state of
mind of the criminal have already been discussed.) Now it often
happens that a man will admit an act, but will not admit the
prosecutor's label for the act nor the facts which that label implies.
He will admit that he took a thing but not that he 'stole' it; that he
struck some one first, but not that he committed 'outrage'; that he
had intercourse with a woman, but not that he committed 'adultery';
that he is guilty of theft, but not that he is guilty of
'sacrilege', the object stolen not being consecrated; that he has
encroached, but not that he has 'encroached on State lands'; that he
has been in communication with the enemy, but not that he has been
guilty of 'treason'. Here therefore we must be able to distinguish
what is theft, outrage, or adultery, from what is not, if we are to be
able to make the justice of our case clear, no matter whether our
aim is to establish a man's guilt or to establish his innocence.
Wherever such charges are brought against a man, the question is
whether he is or is not guilty of a criminal offence. It is deliberate
purpose that constitutes wickedness and criminal guilt, and such names
as 'outrage' or 'theft' imply deliberate purpose as well as the mere
action. A blow does not always amount to 'outrage', but only if it
is struck with some such purpose as to insult the man struck or
gratify the striker himself. Nor does taking a thing without the
owner's knowledge always amount to 'theft', but only if it is taken
with the intention of keeping it and injuring the owner. And as with
these charges, so with all the others.
We saw that there are two kinds of right and wrong conduct towards
others, one provided for by written ordinances, the other by
unwritten. We have now discussed the kind about which the laws have
something to say. The other kind has itself two varieties. First,
there is the conduct that springs from exceptional goodness or
badness, and is visited accordingly with censure and loss of honour,
or with praise and increase of honour and decorations: for instance,
gratitude to, or requital of, our benefactors, readiness to help our
friends, and the like. The second kind makes up for the defects of a
community's written code of law. This is what we call equity; people
regard it as just; it is, in fact, the sort of justice which goes
beyond the written law. Its existence partly is and partly is not
intended by legislators; not intended, where they have noticed no
defect in the law; intended, where find themselves unable to define
things exactly, and are obliged to legislate as if that held good
always which in fact only holds good usually; or where it is not
easy to be complete owing to the endless possible cases presented,
such as the kinds and sizes of weapons that may be used to inflict
wounds-a lifetime would be too short to make out a complete list of
these. If, then, a precise statement is impossible and yet legislation
is necessary, the law must be expressed in wide terms; and so, if a
man has no more than a finger-ring on his hand when he lifts it to
strike or actually strikes another man, he is guilty of a criminal act
according to the unwritten words of the law; but he is innocent
really, and it is equity that declares him to be so. From this
definition of equity it is plain what sort of actions, and what sort
of persons, are equitable or the reverse. Equity must be applied to
forgivable actions; and it must make us distinguish between criminal
acts on the one hand, and errors of judgement, or misfortunes, on
the other. (A 'misfortune' is an act, not due to moral badness, that
has unexpected results: an 'error of judgement' is an act, also not
due to moral badness, that has results that might have been
expected: a 'criminal act' has results that might have been
expected, but is due to moral badness, for that is the source of all
actions inspired by our appetites.) Equity bids us be merciful to
the weakness of human nature; to think less about the laws than
about the man who framed them, and less about what he said than
about what he meant; not to consider the actions of the accused so
much as his intentions, nor this or that detail so much as the whole
story; to ask not what a man is now but what he has always or
usually been. It bids us remember benefits rather than injuries, and
benefits received rather than benefits conferred; to be patient when
we are wronged; to settle a dispute by negotiation and not by force;
to prefer arbitration to motion-for an arbitrator goes by the equity
of a case, a judge by the strict law, and arbitration was invented
with the express purpose of securing full power for equity.
The above may be taken as a sufficient account of the nature of
The worse of two acts of wrong done to others is that which is
prompted by the worse disposition. Hence the most trifling acts may be
the worst ones; as when Callistratus charged Melanopus with having
cheated the temple-builders of three consecrated half-obols. The
converse is true of just acts. This is because the greater is here
potentially contained in the less: there is no crime that a man who
has stolen three consecrated half-obols would shrink from
committing. Sometimes, however, the worse act is reckoned not in
this way but by the greater harm that it does. Or it may be because no
punishment for it is severe enough to be adequate; or the harm done
may be incurable-a difficult and even hopeless crime to defend; or the
sufferer may not be able to get his injurer legally punished, a fact
that makes the harm incurable, since legal punishment and chastisement
are the proper cure. Or again, the man who has suffered wrong may have
inflicted some fearful punishment on himself; then the doer of the
wrong ought in justice to receive a still more fearful punishment.
Thus Sophocles, when pleading for retribution to Euctemon, who had cut
his own throat because of the outrage done to him, said he would not
fix a penalty less than the victim had fixed for himself. Again, a
man's crime is worse if he has been the first man, or the only man, or
almost the only man, to commit it: or if it is by no means the first
time he has gone seriously wrong in the same way: or if his crime
has led to the thinking-out and invention of measures to prevent and
punish similar crimes-thus in Argos a penalty is inflicted on a man on
whose account a law is passed, and also on those on whose account
the prison was built: or if a crime is specially brutal, or
specially deliberate: or if the report of it awakes more terror than
pity. There are also such rhetorically effective ways of putting it as
the following: That the accused has disregarded and broken not one but
many solemn obligations like oaths, promises, pledges, or rights of
intermarriage between states-here the crime is worse because it
consists of many crimes; and that the crime was committed in the
very place where criminals are punished, as for example perjurers
do-it is argued that a man who will commit a crime in a law-court
would commit it anywhere. Further, the worse deed is that which
involves the doer in special shame; that whereby a man wrongs his
benefactors-for he does more than one wrong, by not merely doing
them harm but failing to do them good; that which breaks the unwritten
laws of justice-the better sort of man will be just without being
forced to be so, and the written laws depend on force while the
unwritten ones do not. It may however be argued otherwise, that the
crime is worse which breaks the written laws: for the man who
commits crimes for which terrible penalties are provided will not
hesitate over crimes for which no penalty is provided at all.-So much,
then, for the comparative badness of criminal actions.
There are also the so-called 'non-technical' means of persuasion;
and we must now take a cursory view of these, since they are specially
characteristic of forensic oratory. They are five in number: laws,
witnesses, contracts, tortures, oaths.
First, then, let us take laws and see how they are to be used in
persuasion and dissuasion, in accusation and defence. If the written
law tells against our case, clearly we must appeal to the universal
law, and insist on its greater equity and justice. We must argue
that the juror's oath 'I will give my verdict according to honest
opinion' means that one will not simply follow the letter of the
written law. We must urge that the principles of equity are
permanent and changeless, and that the universal law does not change
either, for it is the law of nature, whereas written laws often do
change. This is the bearing the lines in Sophocles' Antigone, where
Antigone pleads that in burying her brother she had broken Creon's
law, but not the unwritten law:
Not of to-day or yesterday they are,
But live eternal: (none can date their birth.)
Not I would fear the wrath of any man
(And brave God's vengeance) for defying these.
We shall argue that justice indeed is true and profitable, but
that sham justice is not, and that consequently the written law is
not, because it does not fulfil the true purpose of law. Or that
justice is like silver, and must be assayed by the judges, if the
genuine is to be distinguished from the counterfeit. Or that the
better a man is, the more he will follow and abide by the unwritten
law in preference to the written. Or perhaps that the law in
question contradicts some other highly-esteemed law, or even
contradicts itself. Thus it may be that one law will enact that all
contracts must be held binding, while another forbids us ever to
make illegal contracts. Or if a law is ambiguous, we shall turn it
about and consider which construction best fits the interests of
justice or utility, and then follow that way of looking at it. Or
if, though the law still exists, the situation to meet which it was
passed exists no longer, we must do our best to prove this and to
combat the law thereby. If however the written law supports our
case, we must urge that the oath 'to give my verdict according to my
honest opinion' not meant to make the judges give a verdict that is
contrary to the law, but to save them from the guilt of perjury if
they misunderstand what the law really means. Or that no one chooses
what is absolutely good, but every one what is good for himself. Or
that not to use the laws is as ahas to have no laws at all. Or that,
as in the other arts, it does not pay to try to be cleverer than the
doctor: for less harm comes from the doctor's mistakes than from the
growing habit of disobeying authority. Or that trying to be cleverer
than the laws is just what is forbidden by those codes of law that are
accounted best.-So far as the laws are concerned, the above discussion
is probably sufficient.
As to witnesses, they are of two kinds, the ancient and the
recent; and these latter, again, either do or do not share in the
risks of the trial. By 'ancient' witnesses I mean the poets and all
other notable persons whose judgements are known to all. Thus the
Athenians appealed to Homer as a witness about Salamis; and the men of
Tenedos not long ago appealed to Periander of Corinth in their dispute
with the people of Sigeum; and Cleophon supported his accusation of
Critias by quoting the elegiac verse of Solon, maintaining that
discipline had long been slack in the family of Critias, or Solon
would never have written,
Pray thee, bid the red-haired Critias do what
his father commands him.
These witnesses are concerned with past events. As to future
events we shall also appeal to soothsayers: thus Themistocles quoted
the oracle about 'the wooden wall' as a reason for engaging the
enemy's fleet. Further, proverbs are, as has been said, one form of
evidence. Thus if you are urging somebody not to make a friend of an
old man, you will appeal to the proverb,
Never show an old man kindness.
Or if you are urging that he who has made away with fathers should
also make away with their sons, quote,
Fool, who slayeth the father and leaveth his sons to avenge him.
'Recent' witnesses are well-known people who have expressed their
opinions about some disputed matter: such opinions will be useful
support for subsequent disputants on the same oints: thus Eubulus used
in the law-courts against the reply Plato had made to Archibius, 'It
has become the regular custom in this country to admit that one is a
scoundrel'. There are also those witnesses who share the risk of
punishment if their evidence is pronounced false. These are valid
witnesses to the fact that an action was or was not done, that
something is or is not the case; they are not valid witnesses to the
quality of an action, to its being just or unjust, useful or
harmful. On such questions of quality the opinion of detached
persons is highly trustworthy. Most trustworthy of all are the
'ancient' witnesses, since they cannot be corrupted.
In dealing with the evidence of witnesses, the following are
useful arguments. If you have no witnesses on your side, you will
argue that the judges must decide from what is probable; that this
is meant by 'giving a verdict in accordance with one's honest
opinion'; that probabilities cannot be bribed to mislead the court;
and that probabilities are never convicted of perjury. If you have
witnesses, and the other man has not, you will argue that
probabilities cannot be put on their trial, and that we could do
without the evidence of witnesses altogether if we need do no more
than balance the pleas advanced on either side.
The evidence of witnesses may refer either to ourselves or to our
opponent; and either to questions of fact or to questions of
personal character: so, clearly, we need never be at a loss for useful
evidence. For if we have no evidence of fact supporting our own case
or telling against that of our opponent, at least we can always find
evidence to prove our own worth or our opponent's worthlessness. Other
arguments about a witness-that he is a friend or an enemy or
neutral, or has a good, bad, or indifferent reputation, and any
other such distinctions-we must construct upon the same general
lines as we use for the regular rhetorical proofs.
Concerning contracts argument can be so far employed as to
increase or diminish their importance and their credibility; we
shall try to increase both if they tell in our favour, and to diminish
both if they tell in favour of our opponent. Now for confirming or
upsetting the credibility of contracts the procedure is just the
same as for dealing with witnesses, for the credit to be attached to
contracts depends upon the character of those who have signed them
or have the custody of them. The contract being once admitted genuine,
we must insist on its importance, if it supports our case. We may
argue that a contract is a law, though of a special and limited
kind; and that, while contracts do not of course make the law binding,
the law does make any lawful contract binding, and that the law itself
as a whole is a of contract, so that any one who disregards or
repudiates any contract is repudiating the law itself. Further, most
business relations-those, namely, that are voluntary-are regulated
by contracts, and if these lose their binding force, human intercourse
ceases to exist. We need not go very deep to discover the other
appropriate arguments of this kind. If, however, the contract tells
against us and for our opponents, in the first place those arguments
are suitable which we can use to fight a law that tells against us. We
do not regard ourselves as bound to observe a bad law which it was a
mistake ever to pass: and it is ridiculous to suppose that we are
bound to observe a bad and mistaken contract. Again, we may argue that
the duty of the judge as umpire is to decide what is just, and
therefore he must ask where justice lies, and not what this or that
document means. And that it is impossible to pervert justice by
fraud or by force, since it is founded on nature, but a party to a
contract may be the victim of either fraud or force. Moreover, we must
see if the contract contravenes either universal law or any written
law of our own or another country; and also if it contradicts any
other previous or subsequent contract; arguing that the subsequent
is the binding contract, or else that the previous one was right and
the subsequent one fraudulent-whichever way suits us. Further, we must
consider the question of utility, noting whether the contract is
against the interest of the judges or not; and so on-these arguments
are as obvious as the others.
Examination by torture is one form of evidence, to which great
weight is often attached because it is in a sense compulsory. Here
again it is not hard to point out the available grounds for magnifying
its value, if it happens to tell in our favour, and arguing that it is
the only form of evidence that is infallible; or, on the other hand,
for refuting it if it tells against us and for our opponent, when we
may say what is true of torture of every kind alike, that people under
its compulsion tell lies quite as often as they tell the truth,
sometimes persistently refusing to tell the truth, sometimes
recklessly making a false charge in order to be let off sooner. We
ought to be able to quote cases, familiar to the judges, in which this
sort of thing has actually happened. [We must say that evidence
under torture is not trustworthy, the fact being that many men whether
thick-witted, tough-skinned, or stout of heart endure their ordeal
nobly, while cowards and timid men are full of boldness till they
see the ordeal of these others: so that no trust can be placed in
evidence under torture.]
In regard to oaths, a fourfold division can be made. A man may
either both offer and accept an oath, or neither, or one without the
other-that is, he may offer an oath but not accept one, or accept an
oath but not offer one. There is also the situation that arises when
an oath has already been sworn either by himself or by his opponent.
If you refuse to offer an oath, you may argue that men do not
hesitate to perjure themselves; and that if your opponent does
swear, you lose your money, whereas, if he does not, you think the
judges will decide against him; and that the risk of an unfavourable
verdict is prefer, able, since you trust the judges and do not trust
If you refuse to accept an oath, you may argue that an oath is
always paid for; that you would of course have taken it if you had
been a rascal, since if you are a rascal you had better make something
by it, and you would in that case have to swear in order to succeed.
Thus your refusal, you argue, must be due to high principle, not to
fear of perjury: and you may aptly quote the saying of Xenophanes,
'Tis not fair that he who fears not God
should challenge him who doth.
It is as if a strong man were to challenge a weakling to strike, or be
struck by, him.
If you agree to accept an oath, you may argue that you trust
yourself but not your opponent; and that (to invert the remark of
Xenophanes) the fair thing is for the impious man to offer the oath
and for the pious man to accept it; and that it would be monstrous
if you yourself were unwilling to accept an oath in a case where you
demand that the judges should do so before giving their verdict. If
you wish to offer an oath, you may argue that piety disposes you to
commit the issue to the gods; and that your opponent ought not to want
other judges than himself, since you leave the decision with him;
and that it is outrageous for your opponents to refuse to swear
about this question, when they insist that others should do so.
Now that we see how we are to argue in each case separately, we
see also how we are to argue when they occur in pairs, namely, when
you are willing to accept the oath but not to offer it; to offer it
but not to accept it; both to accept and to offer it; or to do
neither. These are of course combinations of the cases already
mentioned, and so your arguments also must be combinations of the
arguments already mentioned.
If you have already sworn an oath that contradicts your present one,
you must argue that it is not perjury, since perjury is a crime, and a
crime must be a voluntary action, whereas actions due to the force
or fraud of others are involuntary. You must further reason from
this that perjury depends on the intention and not on the spoken
words. But if it is your opponent who has already sworn an oath that
contradicts his present one, you must say that if he does not abide by
his oaths he is the enemy of society, and that this is the reason
why men take an oath before administering the laws. 'My opponents
insist that you, the judges, must abide by the oath you have sworn,
and yet they are not abiding by their own oaths.' And there are
other arguments which may be used to magnify the importance of the
oath. [So much, then, for the 'non-technical' modes of persuasion.]
Book II
WE have now considered the materials to be used in supporting or
opposing a political measure, in pronouncing eulogies or censures, and
for prosecution and defence in the law courts. We have considered
the received opinions on which we may best base our arguments so as to
convince our hearers-those opinions with which our enthymemes deal,
and out of which they are built, in each of the three kinds of
oratory, according to what may be called the special needs of each.
But since rhetoric exists to affect the giving of decisions-the
hearers decide between one political speaker and another, and a
legal verdict is a decision-the orator must not only try to make the
argument of his speech demonstrative and worthy of belief; he must
also make his own character look right and put his hearers, who are to
decide, into the right frame of mind. Particularly in political
oratory, but also in lawsuits, it adds much to an orator's influence
that his own character should look right and that he should be thought
to entertain the right feelings towards his hearers; and also that his
hearers themselves should be in just the right frame of mind. That the
orator's own character should look right is particularly important
in political speaking: that the audience should be in the right
frame of mind, in lawsuits. When people are feeling friendly and
placable, they think one sort of thing; when they are feeling angry or
hostile, they think either something totally different or the same
thing with a different intensity: when they feel friendly to the man
who comes before them for judgement, they regard him as having done
little wrong, if any; when they feel hostile, they take the opposite
view. Again, if they are eager for, and have good hopes of, a thing
that will be pleasant if it happens, they think that it certainly will
happen and be good for them: whereas if they are indifferent or
annoyed, they do not think so.
There are three things which inspire confidence in the orator's
own character-the three, namely, that induce us to believe a thing
apart from any proof of it: good sense, good moral character, and
goodwill. False statements and bad advice are due to one or more of
the following three causes. Men either form a false opinion through
want of good sense; or they form a true opinion, but because of
their moral badness do not say what they really think; or finally,
they are both sensible and upright, but not well disposed to their
hearers, and may fail in consequence to recommend what they know to be
the best course. These are the only possible cases. It follows that
any one who is thought to have all three of these good qualities
will inspire trust in his audience. The way to make ourselves
thought to be sensible and morally good must be gathered from the
analysis of goodness already given: the way to establish your own
goodness is the same as the way to establish that of others. Good will
and friendliness of disposition will form part of our discussion of
the emotions, to which we must now turn.
The Emotions are all those feelings that so change men as to
affect their judgements, and that are also attended by pain or
pleasure. Such are anger, pity, fear and the like, with their
opposites. We must arrange what we have to say about each of them
under three heads. Take, for instance, the emotion of anger: here we
must discover (1) what the state of mind of angry people is, (2) who
the people are with whom they usually get angry, and (3) on what
grounds they get angry with them. It is not enough to know one or even
two of these points; unless we know all three, we shall be unable to
arouse anger in any one. The same is true of the other emotions. So
just as earlier in this work we drew up a list of useful
propositions for the orator, let us now proceed in the same way to
analyse the subject before us.
Anger may be defined as an impulse, accompanied by pain, to a
conspicuous revenge for a conspicuous slight directed without
justification towards what concerns oneself or towards what concerns
one's friends. If this is a proper definition of anger, it must always
be felt towards some particular individual, e.g. Cleon, and not
'man' in general. It must be felt because the other has done or
intended to do something to him or one of his friends. It must
always be attended by a certain pleasure-that which arises from the
expectation of revenge. For since nobody aims at what he thinks he
cannot attain, the angry man is aiming at what he can attain, and
the belief that you will attain your aim is pleasant. Hence it has
been well said about wrath,
Sweeter it is by far than the honeycomb
dripping with sweetness,
And spreads through the hearts of men.
It is also attended by a certain pleasure because the thoughts dwell
upon the act of vengeance, and the images then called up cause
pleasure, like the images called up in dreams.
Now slighting is the actively entertained opinion of something as
obviously of no importance. We think bad things, as well as good ones,
have serious importance; and we think the same of anything that
tends to produce such things, while those which have little or no such
tendency we consider unimportant. There are three kinds of
slighting-contempt, spite, and insolence. (1) Contempt is one kind
of slighting: you feel contempt for what you consider unimportant, and
it is just such things that you slight. (2) Spite is another kind;
it is a thwarting another man's wishes, not to get something
yourself but to prevent his getting it. The slight arises just from
the fact that you do not aim at something for yourself: clearly you do
not think that he can do you harm, for then you would be afraid of him
instead of slighting him, nor yet that he can do you any good worth
mentioning, for then you would be anxious to make friends with him.
(3) Insolence is also a form of slighting, since it consists in
doing and saying things that cause shame to the victim, not in order
that anything may happen to yourself, or because anything has happened
to yourself, but simply for the pleasure involved. (Retaliation is not
'insolence', but vengeance.) The cause of the pleasure thus enjoyed by
the insolent man is that he thinks himself greatly superior to
others when ill-treating them. That is why youths and rich men are
insolent; they think themselves superior when they show insolence. One
sort of insolence is to rob people of the honour due to them; you
certainly slight them thus; for it is the unimportant, for good or
evil, that has no honour paid to it. So Achilles says in anger:
He hath taken my prize for himself
and hath done me dishonour,
Like an alien honoured by none,
meaning that this is why he is angry. A man expects to be specially
respected by his inferiors in birth, in capacity, in goodness, and
generally in anything in which he is much their superior: as where
money is concerned a wealthy man looks for respect from a poor man;
where speaking is concerned, the man with a turn for oratory looks for
respect from one who cannot speak; the ruler demands the respect of
the ruled, and the man who thinks he ought to be a ruler demands the
respect of the man whom he thinks he ought to be ruling. Hence it
has been said
Great is the wrath of kings, whose father is Zeus almighty,
Yea, but his rancour abideth long afterward also,
their great resentment being due to their great superiority. Then
again a man looks for respect from those who he thinks owe him good
treatment, and these are the people whom he has treated or is treating
well, or means or has meant to treat well, either himself, or
through his friends, or through others at his request.
It will be plain by now, from what has been said, (1) in what
frame of mind, (2) with what persons, and (3) on what grounds people
grow angry. (1) The frame of mind is that of one in which any pain
is being felt. In that condition, a man is always aiming at something.
Whether, then, another man opposes him either directly in any way,
as by preventing him from drinking when he is thirsty, or
indirectly, the act appears to him just the same; whether some one
works against him, or fails to work with him, or otherwise vexes him
while he is in this mood, he is equally angry in all these cases.
Hence people who are afflicted by sickness or poverty or love or
thirst or any other unsatisfied desires are prone to anger and
easily roused: especially against those who slight their present
distress. Thus a sick man is angered by disregard of his illness, a
poor man by disregard of his poverty, a man aging war by disregard
of the war he is waging, a lover by disregard of his love, and so
throughout, any other sort of slight being enough if special slights
are wanting. Each man is predisposed, by the emotion now controlling
him, to his own particular anger. Further, we are angered if we happen
to be expecting a contrary result: for a quite unexpected evil is
specially painful, just as the quite unexpected fulfilment of our
wishes is specially pleasant. Hence it is plain what seasons, times,
conditions, and periods of life tend to stir men easily to anger,
and where and when this will happen; and it is plain that the more
we are under these conditions the more easily we are stirred.
These, then, are the frames of mind in which men are easily
stirred to anger. The persons with whom we get angry are those who
laugh, mock, or jeer at us, for such conduct is insolent. Also those
who inflict injuries upon us that are marks of insolence. These
injuries must be such as are neither retaliatory nor profitable to the
doers: for only then will they be felt to be due to insolence. Also
those who speak ill of us, and show contempt for us, in connexion with
the things we ourselves most care about: thus those who are eager to
win fame as philosophers get angry with those who show contempt for
their philosophy; those who pride themselves upon their appearance get
angry with those who show contempt for their appearance and so on in
other cases. We feel particularly angry on this account if we
suspect that we are in fact, or that people think we are, lacking
completely or to any effective extent in the qualities in question.
For when we are convinced that we excel in the qualities for which
we are jeered at, we can ignore the jeering. Again, we are angrier
with our friends than with other people, since we feel that our
friends ought to treat us well and not badly. We are angry with
those who have usually treated us with honour or regard, if a change
comes and they behave to us otherwise: for we think that they feel
contempt for us, or they would still be behaving as they did before.
And with those who do not return our kindnesses or fail to return them
adequately, and with those who oppose us though they are our
inferiors: for all such persons seem to feel contempt for us; those
who oppose us seem to think us inferior to themselves, and those who
do not return our kindnesses seem to think that those kindnesses
were conferred by inferiors. And we feel particularly angry with men
of no account at all, if they slight us. For, by our hypothesis, the
anger caused by the slight is felt towards people who are not
justified in slighting us, and our inferiors are not thus justified.
Again, we feel angry with friends if they do not speak well of us or
treat us well; and still more, if they do the contrary; or if they
do not perceive our needs, which is why Plexippus is angry with
Meleager in Antiphon's play; for this want of perception shows that
they are slighting us-we do not fail to perceive the needs of those
for whom we care. Again we are angry with those who rejoice at our
misfortunes or simply keep cheerful in the midst of our misfortunes,
since this shows that they either hate us or are slighting us. Also
with those who are indifferent to the pain they give us: this is why
we get angry with bringers of bad news. And with those who listen to
stories about us or keep on looking at our weaknesses; this seems like
either slighting us or hating us; for those who love us share in all
our distresses and it must distress any one to keep on looking at
his own weaknesses. Further, with those who slight us before five
classes of people: namely, (1) our rivals, (2) those whom we admire,
(3) those whom we wish to admire us, (4) those for whom we feel
reverence, (5) those who feel reverence for us: if any one slights
us before such persons, we feel particularly angry. Again, we feel
angry with those who slight us in connexion with what we are as
honourable men bound to champion-our parents, children, wives, or
subjects. And with those who do not return a favour, since such a
slight is unjustifiable. Also with those who reply with humorous
levity when we are speaking seriously, for such behaviour indicates
contempt. And with those who treat us less well than they treat
everybody else; it is another mark of contempt that they should
think we do not deserve what every one else deserves. Forgetfulness,
too, causes anger, as when our own names are forgotten, trifling as
this may be; since forgetfulness is felt to be another sign that we
are being slighted; it is due to negligence, and to neglect us is to
slight us.
The persons with whom we feel anger, the frame of mind in which we
feel it, and the reasons why we feel it, have now all been set
forth. Clearly the orator will have to speak so as to bring his
hearers into a frame of mind that will dispose them to anger, and to
represent his adversaries as open to such charges and possessed of
such qualities as do make people angry.
Since growing calm is the opposite of growing angry, and calmness
the opposite of anger, we must ascertain in what frames of mind men
are calm, towards whom they feel calm, and by what means they are made
so. Growing calm may be defined as a settling down or quieting of
anger. Now we get angry with those who slight us; and since
slighting is a voluntary act, it is plain that we feel calm towards
those who do nothing of the kind, or who do or seem to do it
involuntarily. Also towards those who intended to do the opposite of
what they did do. Also towards those who treat themselves as they have
treated us: since no one can be supposed to slight himself. Also
towards those who admit their fault and are sorry: since we accept
their grief at what they have done as satisfaction, and cease to be
angry. The punishment of servants shows this: those who contradict
us and deny their offence we punish all the more, but we cease to be
incensed against those who agree that they deserved their
punishment. The reason is that it is shameless to deny what is
obvious, and those who are shameless towards us slight us and show
contempt for us: anyhow, we do not feel shame before those of whom
we are thoroughly contemptuous. Also we feel calm towards those who
humble themselves before us and do not gainsay us; we feel that they
thus admit themselves our inferiors, and inferiors feel fear, and
nobody can slight any one so long as he feels afraid of him. That
our anger ceases towards those who humble themselves before us is
shown even by dogs, who do not bite people when they sit down. We also
feel calm towards those who are serious when we are serious, because
then we feel that we are treated seriously and not contemptuously.
Also towards those who have done us more kindnesses than we have
done them. Also towards those who pray to us and beg for mercy,
since they humble themselves by doing so. Also towards those who do
not insult or mock at or slight any one at all, or not any worthy
person or any one like ourselves. In general, the things that make
us calm may be inferred by seeing what the opposites are of those that
make us angry. We are not angry with people we fear or respect, as
long as we fear or respect them; you cannot be afraid of a person
and also at the same time angry with him. Again, we feel no anger,
or comparatively little, with those who have done what they did
through anger: we do not feel that they have done it from a wish to
slight us, for no one slights people when angry with them, since
slighting is painless, and anger is painful. Nor do we grow angry with
those who reverence us.
As to the frame of mind that makes people calm, it is plainly the
opposite to that which makes them angry, as when they are amusing
themselves or laughing or feasting; when they are feeling prosperous
or successful or satisfied; when, in fine, they are enjoying freedom
from pain, or inoffensive pleasure, or justifiable hope. Also when
time has passed and their anger is no longer fresh, for time puts an
end to anger. And vengeance previously taken on one person puts an end
to even greater anger felt against another person. Hence
Philocrates, being asked by some one, at a time when the public was
angry with him, 'Why don't you defend yourself?' did right to reply,
'The time is not yet.' 'Why, when is the time?' 'When I see someone
else calumniated.' For men become calm when they have spent their
anger on somebody else. This happened in the case of Ergophilus:
though the people were more irritated against him than against
Callisthenes, they acquitted him because they had condemned
Callisthenes to death the day before. Again, men become calm if they
have convicted the offender; or if he has already suffered worse
things than they in their anger would have themselves inflicted upon
him; for they feel as if they were already avenged. Or if they feel
that they themselves are in the wrong and are suffering justly (for
anger is not excited by what is just), since men no longer think
then that they are suffering without justification; and anger, as we
have seen, means this. Hence we ought always to inflict a
preliminary punishment in words: if that is done, even slaves are less
aggrieved by the actual punishment. We also feel calm if we think that
the offender will not see that he is punished on our account and
because of the way he has treated us. For anger has to do with
individuals. This is plain from the definition. Hence the poet has
well written:
Say that it was Odysseus, sacker of cities,
implying that Odysseus would not have considered himself avenged
unless the Cyclops perceived both by whom and for what he had been
blinded. Consequently we do not get angry with any one who cannot be
aware of our anger, and in particular we cease to be angry with people
once they are dead, for we feel that the worst has been done to
them, and that they will neither feel pain nor anything else that we
in our anger aim at making them feel. And therefore the poet has
well made Apollo say, in order to put a stop to the anger of
Achilles against the dead Hector,
For behold in his fury he doeth despite to the senseless clay.
It is now plain that when you wish to calm others you must draw upon
these lines of argument; you must put your hearers into the
corresponding frame of mind, and represent those with whom they are
angry as formidable, or as worthy of reverence, or as benefactors,
or as involuntary agents, or as much distressed at what they have
Let us now turn to Friendship and Enmity, and ask towards whom these
feelings are entertained, and why. We will begin by defining and
friendly feeling. We may describe friendly feeling towards any one
as wishing for him what you believe to be good things, not for your
own sake but for his, and being inclined, so far as you can, to
bring these things about. A friend is one who feels thus and excites
these feelings in return: those who think they feel thus towards
each other think themselves friends. This being assumed, it follows
that your friend is the sort of man who shares your pleasure in what
is good and your pain in what is unpleasant, for your sake and for
no other reason. This pleasure and pain of his will be the token of
his good wishes for you, since we all feel glad at getting what we
wish for, and pained at getting what we do not. Those, then, are
friends to whom the same things are good and evil; and those who
are, moreover, friendly or unfriendly to the same people; for in
that case they must have the same wishes, and thus by wishing for each
other what they wish for themselves, they show themselves each other's
friends. Again, we feel friendly to those who have treated us well,
either ourselves or those we care for, whether on a large scale, or
readily, or at some particular crisis; provided it was for our own
sake. And also to those who we think wish to treat us well. And also
to our friends' friends, and to those who like, or are liked by, those
whom we like ourselves. And also to those who are enemies to those
whose enemies we are, and dislike, or are disliked by, those whom we
dislike. For all such persons think the things good which we think
good, so that they wish what is good for us; and this, as we saw, is
what friends must do. And also to those who are willing to treat us
well where money or our personal safety is concerned: and therefore we
value those who are liberal, brave, or just. The just we consider to
be those who do not live on others; which means those who work for
their living, especially farmers and others who work with their own
hands. We also like temperate men, because they are not unjust to
others; and, for the same reason, those who mind their own business.
And also those whose friends we wish to be, if it is plain that they
wish to be our friends: such are the morally good, and those well
thought of by every one, by the best men, or by those whom we admire
or who admire us. And also those with whom it is pleasant to live
and spend our days: such are the good-tempered, and those who are
not too ready to show us our mistakes, and those who are not
cantankerous or quarrelsome-such people are always wanting to fight
us, and those who fight us we feel wish for the opposite of what we
wish for ourselves-and those who have the tact to make and take a
joke; here both parties have the same object in view, when they can
stand being made fun of as well as do it prettily themselves. And we
also feel friendly towards those who praise such good qualities as
we possess, and especially if they praise the good qualities that we
are not too sure we do possess. And towards those who are cleanly in
their person, their dress, and all their way of life. And towards
those who do not reproach us with what we have done amiss to them or
they have done to help us, for both actions show a tendency to
criticize us. And towards those who do not nurse grudges or store up
grievances, but are always ready to make friends again; for we take it
that they will behave to us just as we find them behaving to every one
else. And towards those who are not evil speakers and who are aware of
neither their neighbours' bad points nor our own, but of our good ones
only, as a good man always will be. And towards those who do not try
to thwart us when we are angry or in earnest, which would mean being
ready to fight us. And towards those who have some serious feeling
towards us, such as admiration for us, or belief in our goodness, or
pleasure in our company; especially if they feel like this about
qualities in us for which we especially wish to be admired,
esteemed, or liked. And towards those who are like ourselves in
character and occupation, provided they do not get in our way or
gain their living from the same source as we do-for then it will be
a case of 'potter against potter':
Potter to potter and builder to builder begrudge their reward.
And those who desire the same things as we desire, if it is possible
for us both to share them together; otherwise the same trouble
arises here too. And towards those with whom we are on such terms
that, while we respect their opinions, we need not blush before them
for doing what is conventionally wrong: as well as towards those
before whom we should be ashamed to do anything really wrong. Again,
our rivals, and those whom we should like to envy us--though without
ill-feeling--either we like these people or at least we wish them to
like us. And we feel friendly towards those whom we help to secure
good for themselves, provided we are not likely to suffer heavily by
it ourselves. And those who feel as friendly to us when we are not
with them as when we are-which is why all men feel friendly towards
those who are faithful to their dead friends. And, speaking generally,
towards those who are really fond of their friends and do not desert
them in trouble; of all good men, we feel most friendly to those who
show their goodness as friends. Also towards those who are honest with
us, including those who will tell us of their own weak points: it
has just said that with our friends we are not ashamed of what is
conventionally wrong, and if we do have this feeling, we do not love
them; if therefore we do not have it, it looks as if we did love them.
We also like those with whom we do not feel frightened or
uncomfortable-nobody can like a man of whom he feels frightened.
Friendship has various forms-comradeship, intimacy, kinship, and so
Things that cause friendship are: doing kindnesses; doing them
unasked; and not proclaiming the fact when they are done, which
shows that they were done for our own sake and not for some other
Enmity and Hatred should clearly be studied by reference to their
opposites. Enmity may be produced by anger or spite or calumny. Now
whereas anger arises from offences against oneself, enmity may arise
even without that; we may hate people merely because of what we take
to be their character. Anger is always concerned with individuals-a
Callias or a Socrates-whereas hatred is directed also against classes:
we all hate any thief and any informer. Moreover, anger can be cured
by time; but hatred cannot. The one aims at giving pain to its object,
the other at doing him harm; the angry man wants his victims to
feel; the hater does not mind whether they feel or not. All painful
things are felt; but the greatest evils, injustice and folly, are
the least felt, since their presence causes no pain. And anger is
accompanied by pain, hatred is not; the angry man feels pain, but
the hater does not. Much may happen to make the angry man pity those
who offend him, but the hater under no circumstances wishes to pity
a man whom he has once hated: for the one would have the offenders
suffer for what they have done; the other would have them cease to
It is plain from all this that we can prove people to be friends
or enemies; if they are not, we can make them out to be so; if they
claim to be so, we can refute their claim; and if it is disputed
whether an action was due to anger or to hatred, we can attribute it
to whichever of these we prefer.
To turn next to Fear, what follows will show things and persons of
which, and the states of mind in which, we feel afraid. Fear may be
defined as a pain or disturbance due to a mental picture of some
destructive or painful evil in the future. Of destructive or painful
evils only; for there are some evils, e.g. wickedness or stupidity,
the prospect of which does not frighten us: I mean only such as amount
to great pains or losses. And even these only if they appear not
remote but so near as to be imminent: we do not fear things that are a
very long way off: for instance, we all know we shall die, but we
are not troubled thereby, because death is not close at hand. From
this definition it will follow that fear is caused by whatever we feel
has great power of destroying or of harming us in ways that tend to
cause us great pain. Hence the very indications of such things are
terrible, making us feel that the terrible thing itself is close at
hand; the approach of what is terrible is just what we mean by
'danger'. Such indications are the enmity and anger of people who have
power to do something to us; for it is plain that they have the will
to do it, and so they are on the point of doing it. Also injustice
in possession of power; for it is the unjust man's will to do evil
that makes him unjust. Also outraged virtue in possession of power;
for it is plain that, when outraged, it always has the will to
retaliate, and now it has the power to do so. Also fear felt by
those who have the power to do something to us, since such persons are
sure to be ready to do it. And since most men tend to be bad-slaves to
greed, and cowards in danger-it is, as a rule, a terrible thing to
be at another man's mercy; and therefore, if we have done anything
horrible, those in the secret terrify us with the thought that they
may betray or desert us. And those who can do us wrong are terrible to
us when we are liable to be wronged; for as a rule men do wrong to
others whenever they have the power to do it. And those who have
been wronged, or believe themselves to be wronged, are terrible; for
they are always looking out for their opportunity. Also those who have
done people wrong, if they possess power, since they stand in fear
of retaliation: we have already said that wickedness possessing
power is terrible. Again, our rivals for a thing cause us fear when we
cannot both have it at once; for we are always at war with such men.
We also fear those who are to be feared by stronger people than
ourselves: if they can hurt those stronger people, still more can they
hurt us; and, for the same reason, we fear those whom those stronger
people are actually afraid of. Also those who have destroyed people
stronger than we are. Also those who are attacking people weaker
than we are: either they are already formidable, or they will be so
when they have thus grown stronger. Of those we have wronged, and of
our enemies or rivals, it is not the passionate and outspoken whom
we have to fear, but the quiet, dissembling, unscrupulous; since we
never know when they are upon us, we can never be sure they are at a
safe distance. All terrible things are more terrible if they give us
no chance of retrieving a blunder either no chance at all, or only one
that depends on our enemies and not ourselves. Those things are also
worse which we cannot, or cannot easily, help. Speaking generally,
anything causes us to feel fear that when it happens to, or threatens,
others cause us to feel pity.
The above are, roughly, the chief things that are terrible and are
feared. Let us now describe the conditions under which we ourselves
feel fear. If fear is associated with the expectation that something
destructive will happen to us, plainly nobody will be afraid who
believes nothing can happen to him; we shall not fear things that we
believe cannot happen to us, nor people who we believe cannot
inflict them upon us; nor shall we be afraid at times when we think
ourselves safe from them. It follows therefore that fear is felt by
those who believe something to be likely to happen to them, at the
hands of particular persons, in a particular form, and at a particular
time. People do not believe this when they are, or think they a are,
in the midst of great prosperity, and are in consequence insolent,
contemptuous, and reckless-the kind of character produced by wealth,
physical strength, abundance of friends, power: nor yet when they feel
they have experienced every kind of horror already and have grown
callous about the future, like men who are being flogged and are
already nearly dead-if they are to feel the anguish of uncertainty,
there must be some faint expectation of escape. This appears from
the fact that fear sets us thinking what can be done, which of
course nobody does when things are hopeless. Consequently, when it
is advisable that the audience should be frightened, the orator must
make them feel that they really are in danger of something, pointing
out that it has happened to others who were stronger than they are,
and is happening, or has happened, to people like themselves, at the
hands of unexpected people, in an unexpected form, and at an
unexpected time.
Having now seen the nature of fear, and of the things that cause it,
and the various states of mind in which it is felt, we can also see
what Confidence is, about what things we feel it, and under what
conditions. It is the opposite of fear, and what causes it is the
opposite of what causes fear; it is, therefore, the expectation
associated with a mental picture of the nearness of what keeps us safe
and the absence or remoteness of what is terrible: it may be due
either to the near presence of what inspires confidence or to the
absence of what causes alarm. We feel it if we can take steps-many, or
important, or both-to cure or prevent trouble; if we have neither
wronged others nor been wronged by them; if we have either no rivals
at all or no strong ones; if our rivals who are strong are our friends
or have treated us well or been treated well by us; or if those
whose interest is the same as ours are the more numerous party, or the
stronger, or both.
As for our own state of mind, we feel confidence if we believe we
have often succeeded and never suffered reverses, or have often met
danger and escaped it safely. For there are two reasons why human
beings face danger calmly: they may have no experience of it, or
they may have means to deal with it: thus when in danger at sea people
may feel confident about what will happen either because they have
no experience of bad weather, or because their experience gives them
the means of dealing with it. We also feel confident whenever there is
nothing to terrify other people like ourselves, or people weaker
than ourselves, or people than whom we believe ourselves to be
stronger-and we believe this if we have conquered them, or conquered
others who are as strong as they are, or stronger. Also if we
believe ourselves superior to our rivals in the number and
importance of the advantages that make men formidable-wealth, physical
strength, strong bodies of supporters, extensive territory, and the
possession of all, or the most important, appliances of war. Also if
we have wronged no one, or not many, or not those of whom we are
afraid; and generally, if our relations with the gods are
satisfactory, as will be shown especially by signs and oracles. The
fact is that anger makes us confident-that anger is excited by our
knowledge that we are not the wrongers but the wronged, and that the
divine power is always supposed to be on the side of the wronged. Also
when, at the outset of an enterprise, we believe that we cannot and
shall not fail, or that we shall succeed completely.-So much for the
causes of fear and confidence.
We now turn to Shame and Shamelessness; what follows will explain
the things that cause these feelings, and the persons before whom, and
the states of mind under which, they are felt. Shame may be defined as
pain or disturbance in regard to bad things, whether present, past, or
future, which seem likely to involve us in discredit; and
shamelessness as contempt or indifference in regard to these same
bad things. If this definition be granted, it follows that we feel
shame at such bad things as we think are disgraceful to ourselves or
to those we care for. These evils are, in the first place, those due
to moral badness. Such are throwing away one's shield or taking to
flight; for these bad things are due to cowardice. Also, withholding a
deposit or otherwise wronging people about money; for these acts are
due to injustice. Also, having carnal intercourse with forbidden
persons, at wrong times, or in wrong places; for these things are
due to licentiousness. Also, making profit in petty or disgraceful
ways, or out of helpless persons, e.g. the poor, or the dead-whence
the proverb 'He would pick a corpse's pocket'; for all this is due
to low greed and meanness. Also, in money matters, giving less help
than you might, or none at all, or accepting help from those worse off
than yourself; so also borrowing when it will seem like begging;
begging when it will seem like asking the return of a favour; asking
such a return when it will seem like begging; praising a man in
order that it may seem like begging; and going on begging in spite
of failure: all such actions are tokens of meanness. Also, praising
people to their face, and praising extravagantly a man's good points
and glozing over his weaknesses, and showing extravagant sympathy with
his grief when you are in his presence, and all that sort of thing;
all this shows the disposition of a flatterer. Also, refusing to
endure hardships that are endured by people who are older, more
delicately brought up, of higher rank, or generally less capable of
endurance than ourselves: for all this shows effeminacy. Also,
accepting benefits, especially accepting them often, from another man,
and then abusing him for conferring them: all this shows a mean,
ignoble disposition. Also, talking incessantly about yourself,
making loud professions, and appropriating the merits of others; for
this is due to boastfulness. The same is true of the actions due to
any of the other forms of badness of moral character, of the tokens of
such badness, &c.: they are all disgraceful and shameless. Another
sort of bad thing at which we feel shame is, lacking a share in the
honourable things shared by every one else, or by all or nearly all
who are like ourselves. By 'those like ourselves' I mean those of
our own race or country or age or family, and generally those who
are on our own level. Once we are on a level with others, it is a
disgrace to be, say, less well educated than they are; and so with
other advantages: all the more so, in each case, if it is seen to be
our own fault: wherever we are ourselves to blame for our present,
past, or future circumstances, it follows at once that this is to a
greater extent due to our moral badness. We are moreover ashamed of
having done to us, having had done, or being about to have done to
us acts that involve us in dishonour and reproach; as when we
surrender our persons, or lend ourselves to vile deeds, e.g. when we
submit to outrage. And acts of yielding to the lust of others are
shameful whether willing or unwilling (yielding to force being an
instance of unwillingness), since unresisting submission to them is
due to unmanliness or cowardice.
These things, and others like them, are what cause the feeling of
shame. Now since shame is a mental picture of disgrace, in which we
shrink from the disgrace itself and not from its consequences, and
we only care what opinion is held of us because of the people who form
that opinion, it follows that the people before whom we feel shame are
those whose opinion of us matters to us. Such persons are: those who
admire us, those whom we admire, those by whom we wish to be
admired, those with whom we are competing, and those whose opinion
of us we respect. We admire those, and wish those to admire us, who
possess any good thing that is highly esteemed; or from whom we are
very anxious to get something that they are able to give us-as a lover
feels. We compete with our equals. We respect, as true, the views of
sensible people, such as our elders and those who have been well
educated. And we feel more shame about a thing if it is done openly,
before all men's eyes. Hence the proverb, 'shame dwells in the
eyes'. For this reason we feel most shame before those who will always
be with us and those who notice what we do, since in both cases eyes
are upon us. We also feel it before those not open to the same
imputation as ourselves: for it is plain that their opinions about
it are the opposite of ours. Also before those who are hard on any one
whose conduct they think wrong; for what a man does himself, he is
said not to resent when his neighbours do it: so that of course he
does resent their doing what he does not do himself. And before
those who are likely to tell everybody about you; not telling others
is as good as not be lieving you wrong. People are likely to tell
others about you if you have wronged them, since they are on the
look out to harm you; or if they speak evil of everybody, for those
who attack the innocent will be still more ready to attack the guilty.
And before those whose main occupation is with their neighbours'
failings-people like satirists and writers of comedy; these are really
a kind of evil-speakers and tell-tales. And before those who have
never yet known us come to grief, since their attitude to us has
amounted to admiration so far: that is why we feel ashamed to refuse
those a favour who ask one for the first time-we have not as yet
lost credit with them. Such are those who are just beginning to wish
to be our friends; for they have seen our best side only (hence the
appropriateness of Euripides' reply to the Syracusans): and such
also are those among our old acquaintances who know nothing to our
discredit. And we are ashamed not merely of the actual shameful
conduct mentioned, but also of the evidences of it: not merely, for
example, of actual sexual intercourse, but also of its evidences;
and not merely of disgraceful acts but also of disgraceful talk.
Similarly we feel shame not merely in presence of the persons
mentioned but also of those who will tell them what we have done, such
as their servants or friends. And, generally, we feel no shame
before those upon whose opinions we quite look down as untrustworthy
(no one feels shame before small children or animals); nor are we
ashamed of the same things before intimates as before strangers, but
before the former of what seem genuine faults, before the latter of
what seem conventional ones.
The conditions under which we shall feel shame are these: first,
having people related to us like those before whom, as has been
said, we feel shame. These are, as was stated, persons whom we admire,
or who admire us, or by whom we wish to be admired, or from whom we
desire some service that we shall not obtain if we forfeit their
good opinion. These persons may be actually looking on (as Cydias
represented them in his speech on land assignments in Samos, when he
told the Athenians to imagine the Greeks to be standing all around
them, actually seeing the way they voted and not merely going to
hear about it afterwards): or again they may be near at hand, or may
be likely to find out about what we do. This is why in misfortune we
do not wish to be seen by those who once wished themselves like us;
for such a feeling implies admiration. And men feel shame when they
have acts or exploits to their credit on which they are bringing
dishonour, whether these are their own, or those of their ancestors,
or those of other persons with whom they have some close connexion.
Generally, we feel shame before those for whose own misconduct we
should also feel it-those already mentioned; those who take us as
their models; those whose teachers or advisers we have been; or
other people, it may be, like ourselves, whose rivals we are. For
there are many things that shame before such people makes us do or
leave undone. And we feel more shame when we are likely to be
continually seen by, and go about under the eyes of, those who know of
our disgrace. Hence, when Antiphon the poet was to be cudgelled to
death by order of Dionysius, and saw those who were to perish with him
covering their faces as they went through the gates, he said, 'Why
do you cover your faces? Is it lest some of these spectators should
see you to-morrow?'
So much for Shame; to understand Shamelessness, we need only
consider the converse cases, and plainly we shall have all we need.
To take Kindness next: the definition of it will show us towards
whom it is felt, why, and in what frames of mind. Kindness-under the
influence of which a man is said to 'be kind' may be defined as
helpfulness towards some one in need, not in return for anything,
nor for the advantage of the helper himself, but for that of the
person helped. Kindness is great if shown to one who is in great need,
or who needs what is important and hard to get, or who needs it at
an important and difficult crisis; or if the helper is the only, the
first, or the chief person to give the help. Natural cravings
constitute such needs; and in particular cravings, accompanied by
pain, for what is not being attained. The appetites are cravings for
this kind: sexual desire, for instance, and those which arise during
bodily injuries and in dangers; for appetite is active both in
danger and in pain. Hence those who stand by us in poverty or in
banishment, even if they do not help us much, are yet really kind to
us, because our need is great and the occasion pressing; for instance,
the man who gave the mat in the Lyceum. The helpfulness must therefore
meet, preferably, just this kind of need; and failing just this
kind, some other kind as great or greater. We now see to whom, why,
and under what conditions kindness is shown; and these facts must form
the basis of our arguments. We must show that the persons helped
are, or have been, in such pain and need as has been described, and
that their helpers gave, or are giving, the kind of help described, in
the kind of need described. We can also see how to eliminate the
idea of kindness and make our opponents appear unkind: we may maintain
that they are being or have been helpful simply to promote their own
interest-this, as has been stated, is not kindness; or that their
action was accidental, or was forced upon them; or that they were
not doing a favour, but merely returning one, whether they know this
or not-in either case the action is a mere return, and is therefore
not a kindness even if the doer does not know how the case stands.
In considering this subject we must look at all the categories: an act
may be an act of kindness because (1) it is a particular thing, (2) it
has a particular magnitude or (3) quality, or (4) is done at a
particular time or (5) place. As evidence of the want of kindness,
we may point out that a smaller service had been refused to the man in
need; or that the same service, or an equal or greater one, has been
given to his enemies; these facts show that the service in question
was not done for the sake of the person helped. Or we may point out
that the thing desired was worthless and that the helper knew it: no
one will admit that he is in need of what is worthless.
So much for Kindness and Unkindness. Let us now consider Pity,
asking ourselves what things excite pity, and for what persons, and in
what states of our mind pity is felt. Pity may be defined as a feeling
of pain caused by the sight of some evil, destructive or painful,
which befalls one who does not deserve it, and which we might expect
to befall ourselves or some friend of ours, and moreover to befall
us soon. In order to feel pity, we must obviously be capable of
supposing that some evil may happen to us or some friend of ours,
and moreover some such evil as is stated in our definition or is
more or less of that kind. It is therefore not felt by those
completely ruined, who suppose that no further evil can befall them,
since the worst has befallen them already; nor by those who imagine
themselves immensely fortunate-their feeling is rather presumptuous
insolence, for when they think they possess all the good things of
life, it is clear that the impossibility of evil befalling them will
be included, this being one of the good things in question. Those
who think evil may befall them are such as have already had it
befall them and have safely escaped from it; elderly men, owing to
their good sense and their experience; weak men, especially men
inclined to cowardice; and also educated people, since these can
take long views. Also those who have parents living, or children, or
wives; for these are our own, and the evils mentioned above may easily
befall them. And those who neither moved by any courageous emotion
such as anger or confidence (these emotions take no account of the
future), nor by a disposition to presumptuous insolence (insolent men,
too, take no account of the possibility that something evil will
happen to them), nor yet by great fear (panic-stricken people do not
feel pity, because they are taken up with what is happening to
themselves); only those feel pity who are between these two
extremes. In order to feel pity we must also believe in the goodness
of at least some people; if you think nobody good, you will believe
that everybody deserves evil fortune. And, generally, we feel pity
whenever we are in the condition of remembering that similar
misfortunes have happened to us or ours, or expecting them to happen
in the future.
So much for the mental conditions under which we feel pity. What
we pity is stated clearly in the definition. All unpleasant and
painful things excite pity if they tend to destroy pain and
annihilate; and all such evils as are due to chance, if they are
serious. The painful and destructive evils are: death in its various
forms, bodily injuries and afflictions, old age, diseases, lack of
food. The evils due to chance are: friendlessness, scarcity of friends
(it is a pitiful thing to be torn away from friends and companions),
deformity, weakness, mutilation; evil coming from a source from
which good ought to have come; and the frequent repetition of such
misfortunes. Also the coming of good when the worst has happened: e.g.
the arrival of the Great King's gifts for Diopeithes after his
death. Also that either no good should have befallen a man at all,
or that he should not be able to enjoy it when it has.
The grounds, then, on which we feel pity are these or like these.
The people we pity are: those whom we know, if only they are not
very closely related to us-in that case we feel about them as if we
were in danger ourselves. For this reason Amasis did not weep, they
say, at the sight of his son being led to death, but did weep when
he saw his friend begging: the latter sight was pitiful, the former
terrible, and the terrible is different from the pitiful; it tends
to cast out pity, and often helps to produce the opposite of pity.
Again, we feel pity when the danger is near ourselves. Also we pity
those who are like us in age, character, disposition, social standing,
or birth; for in all these cases it appears more likely that the
same misfortune may befall us also. Here too we have to remember the
general principle that what we fear for ourselves excites our pity
when it happens to others. Further, since it is when the sufferings of
others are close to us that they excite our pity (we cannot remember
what disasters happened a hundred centuries ago, nor look forward to
what will happen a hundred centuries hereafter, and therefore feel
little pity, if any, for such things): it follows that those who
heighten the effect of their words with suitable gestures, tones,
dress, and dramatic action generally, are especially successful in
exciting pity: they thus put the disasters before our eyes, and make
them seem close to us, just coming or just past. Anything that has
just happened, or is going to happen soon, is particularly piteous: so
too therefore are the tokens and the actions of sufferers-the garments
and the like of those who have already suffered; the words and the
like of those actually suffering-of those, for instance, who are on
the point of death. Most piteous of all is it when, in such times of
trial, the victims are persons of noble character: whenever they are
so, our pity is especially excited, because their innocence, as well
as the setting of their misfortunes before our eyes, makes their
misfortunes seem close to ourselves.
Most directly opposed to pity is the feeling called Indignation.
Pain at unmerited good fortune is, in one sense, opposite to pain at
unmerited bad fortune, and is due to the same moral qualities. Both
feelings are associated with good moral character; it is our duty both
to feel sympathy and pity for unmerited distress, and to feel
indignation at unmerited prosperity; for whatever is undeserved is
unjust, and that is why we ascribe indignation even to the gods. It
might indeed be thought that envy is similarly opposed to pity, on the
ground that envy it closely akin to indignation, or even the same
thing. But it is not the same. It is true that it also is a disturbing
pain excited by the prosperity of others. But it is excited not by the
prosperity of the undeserving but by that of people who are like us or
equal with us. The two feelings have this in common, that they must be
due not to some untoward thing being likely to befall ourselves, but
only to what is happening to our neighbour. The feeling ceases to be
envy in the one case and indignation in the other, and becomes fear,
if the pain and disturbance are due to the prospect of something bad
for ourselves as the result of the other man's good fortune. The
feelings of pity and indignation will obviously be attended by the
converse feelings of satisfaction. If you are pained by the
unmerited distress of others, you will be pleased, or at least not
pained, by their merited distress. Thus no good man can be pained by
the punishment of parricides or murderers. These are things we are
bound to rejoice at, as we must at the prosperity of the deserving;
both these things are just, and both give pleasure to any honest
man, since he cannot help expecting that what has happened to a man
like him will happen to him too. All these feelings are associated
with the same type of moral character. And their contraries are
associated with the contrary type; the man who is delighted by others'
misfortunes is identical with the man who envies others' prosperity.
For any one who is pained by the occurrence or existence of a given
thing must be pleased by that thing's non-existence or destruction. We
can now see that all these feelings tend to prevent pity (though
they differ among themselves, for the reasons given), so that all
are equally useful for neutralizing an appeal to pity.
We will first consider Indignation-reserving the other emotions
for subsequent discussion-and ask with whom, on what grounds, and in
what states of mind we may be indignant. These questions are really
answered by what has been said already. Indignation is pain caused
by the sight of undeserved good fortune. It is, then, plain to begin
with that there are some forms of good the sight of which cannot cause
it. Thus a man may be just or brave, or acquire moral goodness: but we
shall not be indignant with him for that reason, any more than we
shall pity him for the contrary reason. Indignation is roused by the
sight of wealth, power, and the like-by all those things, roughly
speaking, which are deserved by good men and by those who possess
the goods of nature-noble birth, beauty, and so on. Again, what is
long established seems akin to what exists by nature; and therefore we
feel more indignation at those possessing a given good if they have as
a matter of fact only just got it and the prosperity it brings with
it. The newly rich give more offence than those whose wealth is of
long standing and inherited. The same is true of those who have office
or power, plenty of friends, a fine family, &c. We feel the same
when these advantages of theirs secure them others. For here again,
the newly rich give us more offence by obtaining office through
their riches than do those whose wealth is of long standing; and so in
all other cases. The reason is that what the latter have is felt to be
really their own, but what the others have is not; what appears to
have been always what it is is regarded as real, and so the
possessions of the newly rich do not seem to be really their own.
Further, it is not any and every man that deserves any given kind of
good; there is a certain correspondence and appropriateness in such
things; thus it is appropriate for brave men, not for just men, to
have fine weapons, and for men of family, not for parvenus, to make
distinguished marriages. Indignation may therefore properly be felt
when any one gets what is not appropriate for him, though he may be
a good man enough. It may also be felt when any one sets himself up
against his superior, especially against his superior in some
particular respect-whence the lines
Only from battle he shrank with Aias Telamon's son;
Zeus had been angered with him,
had he fought with a mightier one;
but also, even apart from that, when the inferior in any sense
contends with his superior; a musician, for instance, with a just man,
for justice is a finer thing than music.
Enough has been said to make clear the grounds on which, and the
persons against whom, Indignation is felt-they are those mentioned,
and others like him. As for the people who feel it; we feel it if we
do ourselves deserve the greatest possible goods and moreover have
them, for it is an injustice that those who are not our equals
should have been held to deserve as much as we have. Or, secondly,
we feel it if we are really good and honest people; our judgement is
then sound, and we loathe any kind of injustice. Also if we are
ambitious and eager to gain particular ends, especially if we are
ambitious for what others are getting without deserving to get it.
And, generally, if we think that we ourselves deserve a thing and that
others do not, we are disposed to be indignant with those others so
far as that thing is concerned. Hence servile, worthless,
unambitious persons are not inclined to Indignation, since there is
nothing they can believe themselves to deserve.
From all this it is plain what sort of men those are at whose
misfortunes, distresses, or failures we ought to feel pleased, or at
least not pained: by considering the facts described we see at once
what their contraries are. If therefore our speech puts the judges
in such a frame of mind as that indicated and shows that those who
claim pity on certain definite grounds do not deserve to secure pity
but do deserve not to secure it, it will be impossible for the
judges to feel pity.
To take Envy next: we can see on what grounds, against what persons,
and in what states of mind we feel it. Envy is pain at the sight of
such good fortune as consists of the good things already mentioned; we
feel it towards our equals; not with the idea of getting something for
ourselves, but because the other people have it. We shall feel it if
we have, or think we have, equals; and by 'equals' I mean equals in
birth, relationship, age, disposition, distinction, or wealth. We feel
envy also if we fall but a little short of having everything; which is
why people in high place and prosperity feel it-they think every one
else is taking what belongs to themselves. Also if we are
exceptionally distinguished for some particular thing, and
especially if that thing is wisdom or good fortune. Ambitious men
are more envious than those who are not. So also those who profess
wisdom; they are ambitious to be thought wise. Indeed, generally,
those who aim at a reputation for anything are envious on this
particular point. And small-minded men are envious, for everything
seems great to them. The good things which excite envy have already
been mentioned. The deeds or possessions which arouse the love of
reputation and honour and the desire for fame, and the various gifts
of fortune, are almost all subject to envy; and particularly if we
desire the thing ourselves, or think we are entitled to it, or if
having it puts us a little above others, or not having it a little
below them. It is clear also what kind of people we envy; that was
included in what has been said already: we envy those who are near
us in time, place, age, or reputation. Hence the line:
Ay, kin can even be jealous of their kin.
Also our fellow-competitors, who are indeed the people just
mentioned-we do not compete with men who lived a hundred centuries
ago, or those not yet born, or the dead, or those who dwell near the
Pillars of Hercules, or those whom, in our opinion or that of
others, we take to be far below us or far above us. So too we
compete with those who follow the same ends as ourselves: we compete
with our rivals in sport or in love, and generally with those who
are after the same things; and it is therefore these whom we are bound
to envy beyond all others. Hence the saying:
Potter against potter.
We also envy those whose possession of or success in a thing is a
reproach to us: these are our neighbours and equals; for it is clear
that it is our own fault we have missed the good thing in question;
this annoys us, and excites envy in us. We also envy those who have
what we ought to have, or have got what we did have once. Hence old
men envy younger men, and those who have spent much envy those who
have spent little on the same thing. And men who have not got a thing,
or not got it yet, envy those who have got it quickly. We can also see
what things and what persons give pleasure to envious people, and in
what states of mind they feel it: the states of mind in which they
feel pain are those under which they will feel pleasure in the
contrary things. If therefore we ourselves with whom the decision
rests are put into an envious state of mind, and those for whom our
pity, or the award of something desirable, is claimed are such as have
been described, it is obvious that they will win no pity from us.
We will next consider Emulation, showing in what follows its
causes and objects, and the state of mind in which it is felt.
Emulation is pain caused by seeing the presence, in persons whose
nature is like our own, of good things that are highly valued and
are possible for ourselves to acquire; but it is felt not because
others have these goods, but because we have not got them ourselves.
It is therefore a good feeling felt by good persons, whereas envy is a
bad feeling felt by bad persons. Emulation makes us take steps to
secure the good things in question, envy makes us take steps to stop
our neighbour having them. Emulation must therefore tend to be felt by
persons who believe themselves to deserve certain good things that
they have not got, it being understood that no one aspires to things
which appear impossible. It is accordingly felt by the young and by
persons of lofty disposition. Also by those who possess such good
things as are deserved by men held in honour-these are wealth,
abundance of friends, public office, and the like; on the assumption
that they ought to be good men, they are emulous to gain such goods
because they ought, in their belief, to belong to men whose state of
mind is good. Also by those whom all others think deserving. We also
feel it about anything for which our ancestors, relatives, personal
friends, race, or country are specially honoured, looking upon that
thing as really our own, and therefore feeling that we deserve to have
it. Further, since all good things that are highly honoured are
objects of emulation, moral goodness in its various forms must be such
an object, and also all those good things that are useful and
serviceable to others: for men honour those who are morally good,
and also those who do them service. So with those good things our
possession of which can give enjoyment to our neighbours-wealth and
beauty rather than health. We can see, too, what persons are the
objects of the feeling. They are those who have these and similar
things-those already mentioned, as courage, wisdom, public office.
Holders of public office-generals, orators, and all who possess such
powers-can do many people a good turn. Also those whom many people
wish to be like; those who have many acquaintances or friends; those
whom admire, or whom we ourselves admire; and those who have been
praised and eulogized by poets or prose-writers. Persons of the
contrary sort are objects of contempt: for the feeling and notion of
contempt are opposite to those of emulation. Those who are such as
to emulate or be emulated by others are inevitably disposed to be
contemptuous of all such persons as are subject to those bad things
which are contrary to the good things that are the objects of
emulation: despising them for just that reason. Hence we often despise
the fortunate, when luck comes to them without their having those good
things which are held in honour.
This completes our discussion of the means by which the several
emotions may be produced or dissipated, and upon which depend the
persuasive arguments connected with the emotions.
Let us now consider the various types of human character, in
relation to the emotions and moral qualities, showing how they
correspond to our various ages and fortunes. By emotions I mean anger,
desire, and the like; these we have discussed already. By moral
qualities I mean virtues and vices; these also have been discussed
already, as well as the various things that various types of men
tend to will and to do. By ages I mean youth, the prime of life, and
old age. By fortune I mean birth, wealth, power, and their
opposites-in fact, good fortune and ill fortune.
To begin with the Youthful type of character. Young men have
strong passions, and tend to gratify them indiscriminately. Of the
bodily desires, it is the sexual by which they are most swayed and
in which they show absence of self-control. They are changeable and
fickle in their desires, which are violent while they last, but
quickly over: their impulses are keen but not deep-rooted, and are
like sick people's attacks of hunger and thirst. They are
hot-tempered, and quick-tempered, and apt to give way to their
anger; bad temper often gets the better of them, for owing to their
love of honour they cannot bear being slighted, and are indignant if
they imagine themselves unfairly treated. While they love honour, they
love victory still more; for youth is eager for superiority over
others, and victory is one form of this. They love both more than they
love money, which indeed they love very little, not having yet
learnt what it means to be without it-this is the point of Pittacus'
remark about Amphiaraus. They look at the good side rather than the
bad, not having yet witnessed many instances of wickedness. They trust
others readily, because they have not yet often been cheated. They are
sanguine; nature warms their blood as though with excess of wine;
and besides that, they have as yet met with few disappointments. Their
lives are mainly spent not in memory but in expectation; for
expectation refers to the future, memory to the past, and youth has
a long future before it and a short past behind it: on the first day
of one's life one has nothing at all to remember, and can only look
forward. They are easily cheated, owing to the sanguine disposition
just mentioned. Their hot tempers and hopeful dispositions make them
more courageous than older men are; the hot temper prevents fear,
and the hopeful disposition creates confidence; we cannot feel fear so
long as we are feeling angry, and any expectation of good makes us
confident. They are shy, accepting the rules of society in which
they have been trained, and not yet believing in any other standard of
honour. They have exalted notions, because they have not yet been
humbled by life or learnt its necessary limitations; moreover, their
hopeful disposition makes them think themselves equal to great
things-and that means having exalted notions. They would always rather
do noble deeds than useful ones: their lives are regulated more by
moral feeling than by reasoning; and whereas reasoning leads us to
choose what is useful, moral goodness leads us to choose what is
noble. They are fonder of their friends, intimates, and companions
than older men are, because they like spending their days in the
company of others, and have not yet come to value either their friends
or anything else by their usefulness to themselves. All their mistakes
are in the direction of doing things excessively and vehemently.
They disobey Chilon's precept by overdoing everything, they love too
much and hate too much, and the same thing with everything else.
They think they know everything, and are always quite sure about it;
this, in fact, is why they overdo everything. If they do wrong to
others, it is because they mean to insult them, not to do them
actual harm. They are ready to pity others, because they think every
one an honest man, or anyhow better than he is: they judge their
neighbour by their own harmless natures, and so cannot think he
deserves to be treated in that way. They are fond of fun and therefore
witty, wit being well-bred insolence.
Such, then is the character of the Young. The character of Elderly
Men-men who are past their prime-may be said to be formed for the most
part of elements that are the contrary of all these. They have lived
many years; they have often been taken in, and often made mistakes;
and life on the whole is a bad business. The result is that they are
sure about nothing and under-do everything. They 'think', but they
never 'know'; and because of their hesitation they always add a
'possibly'or a 'perhaps', putting everything this way and nothing
positively. They are cynical; that is, they tend to put the worse
construction on everything. Further, their experience makes them
distrustful and therefore suspicious of evil. Consequently they
neither love warmly nor hate bitterly, but following the hint of
Bias they love as though they will some day hate and hate as though
they will some day love. They are small-minded, because they have been
humbled by life: their desires are set upon nothing more exalted or
unusual than what will help them to keep alive. They are not generous,
because money is one of the things they must have, and at the same
time their experience has taught them how hard it is to get and how
easy to lose. They are cowardly, and are always anticipating danger;
unlike that of the young, who are warm-blooded, their temperament is
chilly; old age has paved the way for cowardice; fear is, in fact, a
form of chill. They love life; and all the more when their last day
has come, because the object of all desire is something we have not
got, and also because we desire most strongly that which we need
most urgently. They are too fond of themselves; this is one form
that small-mindedness takes. Because of this, they guide their lives
too much by considerations of what is useful and too little by what is
noble-for the useful is what is good for oneself, and the noble what
is good absolutely. They are not shy, but shameless rather; caring
less for what is noble than for what is useful, they feel contempt for
what people may think of them. They lack confidence in the future;
partly through experience-for most things go wrong, or anyhow turn out
worse than one expects; and partly because of their cowardice. They
live by memory rather than by hope; for what is left to them of life
is but little as compared with the long past; and hope is of the
future, memory of the past. This, again, is the cause of their
loquacity; they are continually talking of the past, because they
enjoy remembering it. Their fits of anger are sudden but feeble. Their
sensual passions have either altogether gone or have lost their
vigour: consequently they do not feel their passions much, and their
actions are inspired less by what they do feel than by the love of
gain. Hence men at this time of life are often supposed to have a
self-controlled character; the fact is that their passions have
slackened, and they are slaves to the love of gain. They guide their
lives by reasoning more than by moral feeling; reasoning being
directed to utility and moral feeling to moral goodness. If they wrong
others, they mean to injure them, not to insult them. Old men may feel
pity, as well as young men, but not for the same reason. Young men
feel it out of kindness; old men out of weakness, imagining that
anything that befalls any one else might easily happen to them, which,
as we saw, is a thought that excites pity. Hence they are querulous,
and not disposed to jesting or laughter-the love of laughter being the
very opposite of querulousness.
Such are the characters of Young Men and Elderly Men. People
always think well of speeches adapted to, and reflecting, their own
character: and we can now see how to compose our speeches so as to
adapt both them and ourselves to our audiences.
As for Men in their Prime, clearly we shall find that they have a
character between that of the young and that of the old, free from the
extremes of either. They have neither that excess of confidence
which amounts to rashness, nor too much timidity, but the right amount
of each. They neither trust everybody nor distrust everybody, but
judge people correctly. Their lives will be guided not by the sole
consideration either of what is noble or of what is useful, but by
both; neither by parsimony nor by prodigality, but by what is fit
and proper. So, too, in regard to anger and desire; they will be brave
as well as temperate, and temperate as well as brave; these virtues
are divided between the young and the old; the young are brave but
intemperate, the old temperate but cowardly. To put it generally,
all the valuable qualities that youth and age divide between them
are united in the prime of life, while all their excesses or defects
are replaced by moderation and fitness. The body is in its prime
from thirty to five-and-thirty; the mind about forty-nine.
So much for the types of character that distinguish youth, old
age, and the prime of life. We will now turn to those Gifts of Fortune
by which human character is affected. First let us consider Good
Birth. Its effect on character is to make those who have it more
ambitious; it is the way of all men who have something to start with
to add to the pile, and good birth implies ancestral distinction.
The well-born man will look down even on those who are as good as
his own ancestors, because any far-off distinction is greater than the
same thing close to us, and better to boast about. Being well-born,
which means coming of a fine stock, must be distinguished from
nobility, which means being true to the family nature-a quality not
usually found in the well-born, most of whom are poor creatures. In
the generations of men as in the fruits of the earth, there is a
varying yield; now and then, where the stock is good, exceptional
men are produced for a while, and then decadence sets in. A clever
stock will degenerate towards the insane type of character, like the
descendants of Alcibiades or of the elder Dionysius; a steady stock
towards the fatuous and torpid type, like the descendants of Cimon,
Pericles, and Socrates.
The type of character produced by Wealth lies on the surface for all
to see. Wealthy men are insolent and arrogant; their possession of
wealth affects their understanding; they feel as if they had every
good thing that exists; wealth becomes a sort of standard of value for
everything else, and therefore they imagine there is nothing it cannot
buy. They are luxurious and ostentatious; luxurious, because of the
luxury in which they live and the prosperity which they display;
ostentatious and vulgar, because, like other people's, their minds are
regularly occupied with the object of their love and admiration, and
also because they think that other people's idea of happiness is the
same as their own. It is indeed quite natural that they should be
affected thus; for if you have money, there are always plenty of
people who come begging from you. Hence the saying of Simonides
about wise men and rich men, in answer to Hiero's wife, who asked
him whether it was better to grow rich or wise. 'Why, rich,' he
said; 'for I see the wise men spending their days at the rich men's
doors.' Rich men also consider themselves worthy to hold public
office; for they consider they already have the things that give a
claim to office. In a word, the type of character produced by wealth
is that of a prosperous fool. There is indeed one difference between
the type of the newly-enriched and those who have long been rich:
the newly-enriched have all the bad qualities mentioned in an
exaggerated and worse form--to be newly-enriched means, so to speak,
no education in riches. The wrongs they do others are not meant to
injure their victims, but spring from insolence or self-indulgence,
e.g. those that end in assault or in adultery.
As to Power: here too it may fairly be said that the type of
character it produces is mostly obvious enough. Some elements in
this type it shares with the wealthy type, others are better. Those in
power are more ambitious and more manly in character than the wealthy,
because they aspire to do the great deeds that their power permits
them to do. Responsibility makes them more serious: they have to
keep paying attention to the duties their position involves. They
are dignified rather than arrogant, for the respect in which they
are held inspires them with dignity and therefore with
moderation-dignity being a mild and becoming form of arrogance. If
they wrong others, they wrong them not on a small but on a great
Good fortune in certain of its branches produces the types of
character belonging to the conditions just described, since these
conditions are in fact more or less the kinds of good fortune that are
regarded as most important. It may be added that good fortune leads us
to gain all we can in the way of family happiness and bodily
advantages. It does indeed make men more supercilious and more
reckless; but there is one excellent quality that goes with
it-piety, and respect for the divine power, in which they believe
because of events which are really the result of chance.
This account of the types of character that correspond to
differences of age or fortune may end here; for to arrive at the
opposite types to those described, namely, those of the poor, the
unfortunate, and the powerless, we have only to ask what the
opposite qualities are.
The use of persuasive speech is to lead to decisions. (When we
know a thing, and have decided about it, there is no further use in
speaking about it.) This is so even if one is addressing a single
person and urging him to do or not to do something, as when we scold a
man for his conduct or try to change his views: the single person is
as much your 'judge' as if he were one of many; we may say, without
qualification, that any one is your judge whom you have to persuade.
Nor does it matter whether we are arguing against an actual opponent
or against a mere proposition; in the latter case we still have to use
speech and overthrow the opposing arguments, and we attack these as we
should attack an actual opponent. Our principle holds good of
ceremonial speeches also; the 'onlookers' for whom such a speech is
put together are treated as the judges of it. Broadly speaking,
however, the only sort of person who can strictly be called a judge is
the man who decides the issue in some matter of public controversy;
that is, in law suits and in political debates, in both of which there
are issues to be decided. In the section on political oratory an
account has already been given of the types of character that mark the
different constitutions.
The manner and means of investing speeches with moral character
may now be regarded as fully set forth.
Each of the main divisions of oratory has, we have seen, its own
distinct purpose. With regard to each division, we have noted the
accepted views and propositions upon which we may base our
arguments-for political, for ceremonial, and for forensic speaking. We
have further determined completely by what means speeches may be
invested with the required moral character. We are now to proceed to
discuss the arguments common to all oratory. All orators, besides
their special lines of argument, are bound to use, for instance, the
topic of the Possible and Impossible; and to try to show that a
thing has happened, or will happen in future. Again, the topic of Size
is common to all oratory; all of us have to argue that things are
bigger or smaller than they seem, whether we are making political
speeches, speeches of eulogy or attack, or prosecuting or defending in
the law-courts. Having analysed these subjects, we will try to say
what we can about the general principles of arguing by 'enthymeme' and
'example', by the addition of which we may hope to complete the
project with which we set out. Of the above-mentioned general lines of
argument, that concerned with Amplification is-as has been already
said-most appropriate to ceremonial speeches; that concerned with
the Past, to forensic speeches, where the required decision is
always about the past; that concerned with Possibility and the Future,
to political speeches.
Let us first speak of the Possible and Impossible. It may
plausibly be argued: That if it is possible for one of a pair of
contraries to be or happen, then it is possible for the other: e.g. if
a man can be cured, he can also fall ill; for any two contraries are
equally possible, in so far as they are contraries. That if of two
similar things one is possible, so is the other. That if the harder of
two things is possible, so is the easier. That if a thing can come
into existence in a good and beautiful form, then it can come into
existence generally; thus a house can exist more easily than a
beautiful house. That if the beginning of a thing can occur, so can
the end; for nothing impossible occurs or begins to occur; thus the
commensurability of the diagonal of a square with its side neither
occurs nor can begin to occur. That if the end is possible, so is
the beginning; for all things that occur have a beginning. That if
that which is posterior in essence or in order of generation can
come into being, so can that which is prior: thus if a man can come
into being, so can a boy, since the boy comes first in order of
generation; and if a boy can, so can a man, for the man also is first.
That those things are possible of which the love or desire is natural;
for no one, as a rule, loves or desires impossibilities. That things
which are the object of any kind of science or art are possible and
exist or come into existence. That anything is possible the first step
in whose production depends on men or things which we can compel or
persuade to produce it, by our greater strength, our control of
them, or our friendship with them. That where the parts are
possible, the whole is possible; and where the whole is possible,
the parts are usually possible. For if the slit in front, the
toe-piece, and the upper leather can be made, then shoes can be
made; and if shoes, then also the front slit and toe-piece. That if
a whole genus is a thing that can occur, so can the species; and if
the species can occur, so can the genus: thus, if a sailing vessel can
be made, so also can a trireme; and if a trireme, then a sailing
vessel also. That if one of two things whose existence depends on each
other is possible, so is the other; for instance, if 'double', then
'half', and if 'half', then 'double'. That if a thing can be
produced without art or preparation, it can be produced still more
certainly by the careful application of art to it. Hence Agathon has
To some things we by art must needs attain,
Others by destiny or luck we gain.
That if anything is possible to inferior, weaker, and stupider
people, it is more so for their opposites; thus Isocrates said that it
would be a strange thing if he could not discover a thing that
Euthynus had found out. As for Impossibility, we can clearly get
what we want by taking the contraries of the arguments stated above.
Questions of Past Fact may be looked at in the following ways:
First, that if the less likely of two things has occurred, the more
likely must have occurred also. That if one thing that usually follows
another has happened, then that other thing has happened; that, for
instance, if a man has forgotten a thing, he has also once learnt
it. That if a man had the power and the wish to do a thing, he has
done it; for every one does do whatever he intends to do whenever he
can do it, there being nothing to stop him. That, further, he has done
the thing in question either if he intended it and nothing external
prevented him; or if he had the power to do it and was angry at the
time; or if he had the power to do it and his heart was set upon
it-for people as a rule do what they long to do, if they can; bad
people through lack of self-control; good people, because their hearts
are set upon good things. Again, that if a thing was 'going to
happen', it has happened; if a man was 'going to do something', he has
done it, for it is likely that the intention was carried out. That
if one thing has happened which naturally happens before another or
with a view to it, the other has happened; for instance, if it has
lightened, it has also thundered; and if an action has been attempted,
it has been done. That if one thing has happened which naturally
happens after another, or with a view to which that other happens,
then that other (that which happens first, or happens with a view to
this thing) has also happened; thus, if it has thundered it has
lightened, and if an action has been done it has been attempted. Of
all these sequences some are inevitable and some merely usual. The
arguments for the non-occurrence of anything can obviously be found by
considering the opposites of those that have been mentioned.
How questions of Future Fact should be argued is clear from the same
considerations: That a thing will be done if there is both the power
and the wish to do it; or if along with the power to do it there is
a craving for the result, or anger, or calculation, prompting it. That
the thing will be done, in these cases, if the man is actually setting
about it, or even if he means to do it later-for usually what we
mean to do happens rather than what we do not mean to do. That a thing
will happen if another thing which naturally happens before it has
already happened; thus, if it is clouding over, it is likely to
rain. That if the means to an end have occurred, then the end is
likely to occur; thus, if there is a foundation, there will be a
For arguments about the Greatness and Smallness of things, the
greater and the lesser, and generally great things and small, what
we have already said will show the line to take. In discussing
deliberative oratory we have spoken about the relative greatness of
various goods, and about the greater and lesser in general. Since
therefore in each type oratory the object under discussion is some
kind of good-whether it is utility, nobleness, or justice-it is
clear that every orator must obtain the materials of amplification
through these channels. To go further than this, and try to
establish abstract laws of greatness and superiority, is to argue
without an object; in practical life, particular facts count more than
Enough has now been said about these questions of possibility and
the reverse, of past or future fact, and of the relative greatness
or smallness of things.
The special forms of oratorical argument having now been
discussed, we have next to treat of those which are common to all
kinds of oratory. These are of two main kinds, 'Example' and
'Enthymeme'; for the 'Maxim' is part of an enthymeme.
We will first treat of argument by Example, for it has the nature of
induction, which is the foundation of reasoning. This form of argument
has two varieties; one consisting in the mention of actual past facts,
the other in the invention of facts by the speaker. Of the latter,
again, there are two varieties, the illustrative parallel and the
fable (e.g. the fables of Aesop, those from Libya). As an instance
of the mention of actual facts, take the following. The speaker may
argue thus: 'We must prepare for war against the king of Persia and
not let him subdue Egypt. For Darius of old did not cross the Aegean
until he had seized Egypt; but once he had seized it, he did cross.
And Xerxes, again, did not attack us until he had seized Egypt; but
once he had seized it, he did cross. If therefore the present king
seizes Egypt, he also will cross, and therefore we must not let him.'
The illustrative parallel is the sort of argument Socrates used:
e.g. 'Public officials ought not to be selected by lot. That is like
using the lot to select athletes, instead of choosing those who are
fit for the contest; or using the lot to select a steersman from among
a ship's crew, as if we ought to take the man on whom the lot falls,
and not the man who knows most about it.'
Instances of the fable are that of Stesichorus about Phalaris, and
that of Aesop in defence of the popular leader. When the people of
Himera had made Phalaris military dictator, and were going to give him
a bodyguard, Stesichorus wound up a long talk by telling them the
fable of the horse who had a field all to himself. Presently there
came a stag and began to spoil his pasturage. The horse, wishing to
revenge himself on the stag, asked a man if he could help him to do
so. The man said, 'Yes, if you will let me bridle you and get on to
your back with javelins in my hand'. The horse agreed, and the man
mounted; but instead of getting his revenge on the stag, the horse
found himself the slave of the man. 'You too', said Stesichorus, 'take
care lest your desire for revenge on your enemies, you meet the same
fate as the horse. By making Phalaris military dictator, you have
already let yourselves be bridled. If you let him get on to your backs
by giving him a bodyguard, from that moment you will be his slaves.'
Aesop, defending before the assembly at Samos a poular leader who
was being tried for his life, told this story: A fox, in crossing a
river, was swept into a hole in the rocks; and, not being able to
get out, suffered miseries for a long time through the swarms of fleas
that fastened on her. A hedgehog, while roaming around, noticed the
fox; and feeling sorry for her asked if he might remove the fleas. But
the fox declined the offer; and when the hedgehog asked why, she
replied, 'These fleas are by this time full of me and not sucking much
blood; if you take them away, others will come with fresh appetites
and drink up all the blood I have left.' 'So, men of Samos', said
Aesop, 'my client will do you no further harm; he is wealthy
already. But if you put him to death, others will come along who are
not rich, and their peculations will empty your treasury completely.'
Fables are suitable for addresses to popular assemblies; and they
have one advantage-they are comparatively easy to invent, whereas it
is hard to find parallels among actual past events. You will in fact
frame them just as you frame illustrative parallels: all you require
is the power of thinking out your analogy, a power developed by
intellectual training. But while it is easier to supply parallels by
inventing fables, it is more valuable for the political speaker to
supply them by quoting what has actually happened, since in most
respects the future will be like what the past has been.
Where we are unable to argue by Enthymeme, we must try to
demonstrate our point by this method of Example, and to convince our
hearers thereby. If we can argue by Enthymeme, we should use our
Examples as subsequent supplementary evidence. They should not precede
the Enthymemes: that will give the argument an inductive air, which
only rarely suits the conditions of speech-making. If they follow
the enthymemes, they have the effect of witnesses giving evidence, and
this alway tells. For the same reason, if you put your examples
first you must give a large number of them; if you put them last, a
single one is sufficient; even a single witness will serve if he is
a good one. It has now been stated how many varieties of argument by
Example there are, and how and when they are to be employed.
We now turn to the use of Maxims, in order to see upon what subjects
and occasions, and for what kind of speaker, they will appropriately
form part of a speech. This will appear most clearly when we have
defined a maxim. It is a statement; not a particular fact, such as the
character of lphicrates, but of a general kind; nor is it about any
and every subject--e.g. 'straight is the contrary of curved' is not
a maxim--but only about questions of practical conduct, courses of
conduct to be chosen or avoided. Now an Enthymeme is a syllogism
dealing with such practical subjects. It is therefore roughly true
that the premisses or conclusions of Enthymemes, considered apart from
the rest of the argument, are Maxims: e.g.
Never should any man whose wits are sound
Have his sons taught more wisdom than their fellows.
Here we have a Maxim; add the reason or explanation, and the whole
thing is an Enthymeme; thus-
It makes them idle; and therewith they earn
Ill-will and jealousy throughout the city.
There is no man in all things prosperous,
There is no man among us all is free,
are maxims; but the latter, taken with what follows it, is an
For all are slaves of money or of chance.
From this definition of a maxim it follows that there are four kinds
of maxims. In the first Place, the maxim may or may not have a
supplement. Proof is needed where the statement is paradoxical or
disputable; no supplement is wanted where the statement contains
nothing paradoxical, either because the view expressed is already a
known truth, e.g.
Chiefest of blessings is health for a man, as it seemeth to me,
this being the general opinion: or because, as soon as the view is
stated, it is clear at a glance, e.g.
No love is true save that which loves for ever.
Of the Maxims that do have a supplement attached, some are part of
an Enthymeme, e.g.
Never should any man whose wits are sound, &c.
Others have the essential character of Enthymemes, but are not
stated as parts of Enthymemes; these latter are reckoned the best;
they are those in which the reason for the view expressed is simply
implied, e.g.
O mortal man, nurse not immortal wrath.
To say 'it is not right to nurse immortal wrath' is a maxim; the
added words 'mortal man' give the reason. Similarly, with the words
Mortal creatures ought to cherish mortal, not immortal thoughts.
What has been said has shown us how many kinds of Maxims there
are, and to what subjects the various kinds are appropriate. They must
not be given without supplement if they express disputed or
paradoxical views: we must, in that case, either put the supplement
first and make a maxim of the conclusion, e.g. you might say, 'For
my part, since both unpopularity and idleness are undesirable, I
hold that it is better not to be educated'; or you may say this first,
and then add the previous clause. Where a statement, without being
paradoxical, is not obviously true, the reason should be added as
concisely as possible. In such cases both laconic and enigmatic
sayings are suitable: thus one might say what Stesichorus said to
the Locrians, 'Insolence is better avoided, lest the cicalas chirp
on the ground'.
The use of Maxims is appropriate only to elderly men, and in
handling subjects in which the speaker is experienced. For a young man
to use them is-like telling stories-unbecoming; to use them in
handling things in which one has no experience is silly and
ill-bred: a fact sufficiently proved by the special fondness of
country fellows for striking out maxims, and their readiness to air
To declare a thing to be universally true when it is not is most
appropriate when working up feelings of horror and indignation in
our hearers; especially by way of preface, or after the facts have
been proved. Even hackneyed and commonplace maxims are to be used,
if they suit one's purpose: just because they are commonplace, every
one seems to agree with them, and therefore they are taken for
truth. Thus, any one who is calling on his men to risk an engagement
without obtaining favourable omens may quote
One omen of all is hest, that we fight for our fatherland.
Or, if he is calling on them to attack a stronger force-
The War-God showeth no favour.
Or, if he is urging people to destroy the innocent children of their
Fool, who slayeth the father and leaveth his sons to avenge him.
Some proverbs are also maxims, e.g. the proverb 'An Attic
neighbour'. You are not to avoid uttering maxims that contradict
such sayings as have become public property (I mean such sayings as
'know thyself' and 'nothing in excess') if doing so will raise your
hearers' opinion of your character, or convey an effect of strong
emotion--e.g. an angry speaker might well say, 'It is not true that we
ought to know ourselves: anyhow, if this man had known himself, he
would never have thought himself fit for an army command.' It will
raise people's opinion of our character to say, for instance, 'We
ought not to follow the saying that bids us treat our friends as
future enemies: much better to treat our enemies as future friends.'
The moral purpose should be implied partly by the very wording of
our maxim. Failing this, we should add our reason: e.g. having said
'We should treat our friends, not as the saying advises, but as if
they were going to be our friends always', we should add 'for the
other behaviour is that of a traitor': or we might put it, I
disapprove of that saying. A true friend will treat his friend as if
he were going to be his friend for ever'; and again, 'Nor do I approve
of the saying "nothing in excess": we are bound to hate bad men
excessively.' One great advantage of Maxims to a speaker is due to the
want of intelligence in his hearers, who love to hear him succeed in
expressing as a universal truth the opinions which they hold
themselves about particular cases. I will explain what I mean by this,
indicating at the same time how we are to hunt down the maxims
required. The maxim, as has been already said, a general statement and
people love to hear stated in general terms what they already
believe in some particular connexion: e.g. if a man happens to have
bad neighbours or bad children, he will agree with any one who tells
him, 'Nothing is more annoying than having neighbours', or, 'Nothing
is more foolish than to be the parent of children.' The orator has
therefore to guess the subjects on which his hearers really hold views
already, and what those views are, and then must express, as general
truths, these same views on these same subjects. This is one advantage
of using maxims. There is another which is more important-it invests a
speech with moral character. There is moral character in every
speech in which the moral purpose is conspicuous: and maxims always
produce this effect, because the utterance of them amounts to a
general declaration of moral principles: so that, if the maxims are
sound, they display the speaker as a man of sound moral character.
So much for the Maxim-its nature, varieties, proper use, and
We now come to the Enthymemes, and will begin the subject with
some general consideration of the proper way of looking for them,
and then proceed to what is a distinct question, the lines of argument
to be embodied in them. It has already been pointed out that the
Enthymeme is a syllogism, and in what sense it is so. We have also
noted the differences between it and the syllogism of dialectic.
Thus we must not carry its reasoning too far back, or the length of
our argument will cause obscurity: nor must we put in all the steps
that lead to our conclusion, or we shall waste words in saying what is
manifest. It is this simplicity that makes the uneducated more
effective than the educated when addressing popular audiences-makes
them, as the poets tell us, 'charm the crowd's ears more finely'.
Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue
from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions. We must not,
therefore, start from any and every accepted opinion, but only from
those we have defined-those accepted by our judges or by those whose
authority they recognize: and there must, moreover, be no doubt in the
minds of most, if not all, of our judges that the opinions put forward
really are of this sort. We should also base our arguments upon
probabilities as well as upon certainties.
The first thing we have to remember is this. Whether our argument
concerns public affairs or some other subject, we must know some, if
not all, of the facts about the subject on which we are to speak and
argue. Otherwise we can have no materials out of which to construct
arguments. I mean, for instance, how could we advise the Athenians
whether they should go to war or not, if we did not know their
strength, whether it was naval or military or both, and how great it
is; what their revenues amount to; who their friends and enemies
are; what wars, too, they have waged, and with what success; and so
on? Or how could we eulogize them if we knew nothing about the
sea-fight at Salamis, or the battle of Marathon, or what they did
for the Heracleidae, or any other facts like that? All eulogy is based
upon the noble deeds--real or imaginary--that stand to the credit of
those eulogized. On the same principle, invectives are based on
facts of the opposite kind: the orator looks to see what base
deeds--real or imaginary--stand to the discredit of those he is
attacking, such as treachery to the cause of Hellenic freedom, or
the enslavement of their gallant allies against the barbarians
(Aegina, Potidaea, &c.), or any other misdeeds of this kind that are
recorded against them. So, too, in a court of law: whether we are
prosecuting or defending, we must pay attention to the existing
facts of the case. It makes no difference whether the subject is the
Lacedaemonians or the Athenians, a man or a god; we must do the same
thing. Suppose it to be Achilles whom we are to advise, to praise or
blame, to accuse or defend; here too we must take the facts, real or
imaginary; these must be our material, whether we are to praise or
blame him for the noble or base deeds he has done, to accuse or defend
him for his just or unjust treatment of others, or to advise him about
what is or is not to his interest. The same thing applies to any
subject whatever. Thus, in handling the question whether justice is or
is not a good, we must start with the real facts about justice and
goodness. We see, then, that this is the only way in which any one
ever proves anything, whether his arguments are strictly cogent or
not: not all facts can form his basis, but only those that bear on the
matter in hand: nor, plainly, can proof be effected otherwise by means
of the speech. Consequently, as appears in the Topics, we must first
of all have by us a selection of arguments about questions that may
arise and are suitable for us to handle; and then we must try to think
out arguments of the same type for special needs as they emerge; not
vaguely and indefinitely, but by keeping our eyes on the actual
facts of the subject we have to speak on, and gathering in as many
of them as we can that bear closely upon it: for the more actual facts
we have at our command, the more easily we prove our case; and the
more closely they bear on the subject, the more they will seem to
belong to that speech only instead of being commonplaces. By
'commonplaces' I mean, for example, eulogy of Achilles because he is a
human being or a demi-god, or because he joined the expedition against
Troy: these things are true of many others, so that this kind of
eulogy applies no better to Achilles than to Diomede. The special
facts here needed are those that are true of Achilles alone; such
facts as that he slew Hector, the bravest of the Trojans, and Cycnus
the invulnerable, who prevented all the Greeks from landing, and again
that he was the youngest man who joined the expedition, and was not
bound by oath to join it, and so on.
Here, again, we have our first principle of selection of
Enthymemes-that which refers to the lines of argument selected. We
will now consider the various elementary classes of enthymemes. (By an
'elementary class' of enthymeme I mean the same thing as a 'line of
argument'.) We will begin, as we must begin, by observing that there
are two kinds of enthymemes. One kind proves some affirmative or
negative proposition; the other kind disproves one. The difference
between the two kinds is the same as that between syllogistic proof
and disproof in dialectic. The demonstrative enthymeme is formed by
the conjunction of compatible propositions; the refutative, by the
conjunction of incompatible propositions.
We may now be said to have in our hands the lines of argument for
the various special subjects that it is useful or necessary to handle,
having selected the propositions suitable in various cases. We have,
in fact, already ascertained the lines of argument applicable to
enthymemes about good and evil, the noble and the base, justice and
injustice, and also to those about types of character, emotions, and
moral qualities. Let us now lay hold of certain facts about the
whole subject, considered from a different and more general point of
view. In the course of our discussion we will take note of the
distinction between lines of proof and lines of disproof: and also
of those lines of argument used in what seems to be enthymemes, but
are not, since they do not represent valid syllogisms. Having made all
this clear, we will proceed to classify Objections and Refutations,
showing how they can be brought to bear upon enthymemes.
1. One line of positive proof is based upon consideration of the
opposite of the thing in question. Observe whether that opposite has
the opposite quality. If it has not, you refute the original
proposition; if it has, you establish it. E.g. 'Temperance is
beneficial; for licentiousness is hurtful'. Or, as in the Messenian
speech, 'If war is the cause of our present troubles, peace is what we
need to put things right again'. Or-
For if not even evil-doers should
Anger us if they meant not what they did,
Then can we owe no gratitude to such
As were constrained to do the good they did us.
Since in this world liars may win belief,
Be sure of the opposite likewise-that this world
Hears many a true word and believes it not.
2. Another line of proof is got by considering some modification
of the key-word, and arguing that what can or cannot be said of the
one, can or cannot be said of the other: e.g. 'just' does not always
mean 'beneficial', or 'justly' would always mean 'beneficially',
whereas it is not desirable to be justly put to death.
3. Another line of proof is based upon correlative ideas. If it is
true that one man noble or just treatment to another, you argue that
the other must have received noble or just treatment; or that where it
is right to command obedience, it must have been right to obey the
command. Thus Diomedon, the tax-farmer, said of the taxes: 'If it is
no disgrace for you to sell them, it is no disgrace for us to buy
them'. Further, if 'well' or 'justly' is true of the person to whom
a thing is done, you argue that it is true of the doer. But it is
possible to draw a false conclusion here. It may be just that A should
be treated in a certain way, and yet not just that he should be so
treated by B. Hence you must ask yourself two distinct questions:
(1) Is it right that A should be thus treated? (2) Is it right that
B should thus treat him? and apply your results properly, according as
your answers are Yes or No. Sometimes in such a case the two answers
differ: you may quite easily have a position like that in the Alcmaeon
of Theodectes:
And was there none to loathe thy mother's crime?
to which question Alcmaeon in reply says,
Why, there are two things to examine here.
And when Alphesiboea asks what he means, he rejoins:
They judged her fit to die, not me to slay her.
Again there is the lawsuit about Demosthenes and the men who killed
Nicanor; as they were judged to have killed him justly, it was thought
that he was killed justly. And in the case of the man who was killed
at Thebes, the judges were requested to decide whether it was unjust
that he should be killed, since if it was not, it was argued that it
could not have been unjust to kill him.
4. Another line of proof is the 'a fortiori'. Thus it may be
argued that if even the gods are not omniscient, certainly human
beings are not. The principle here is that, if a quality does not in
fact exist where it is more likely to exist, it clearly does not exist
where it is less likely. Again, the argument that a man who strikes
his father also strikes his neighbours follows from the principle
that, if the less likely thing is true, the more likely thing is
true also; for a man is less likely to strike his father than to
strike his neighbours. The argument, then, may run thus. Or it may
be urged that, if a thing is not true where it is more likely, it is
not true where it is less likely; or that, if it is true where it is
less likely, it is true where it is more likely: according as we
have to show that a thing is or is not true. This argument might
also be used in a case of parity, as in the lines:
Thou hast pity for thy sire, who has lost his sons:
Hast none for Oeneus, whose brave son is dead?
And, again, 'if Theseus did no wrong, neither did Paris'; or 'the sons
of Tyndareus did no wrong, neither did Paris'; or 'if Hector did
well to slay Patroclus, Paris did well to slay Achilles'. And 'if
other followers of an art are not bad men, neither are
philosophers'. And 'if generals are not bad men because it often
happens that they are condemned to death, neither are sophists'. And
the remark that 'if each individual among you ought to think of his
own city's reputation, you ought all to think of the reputation of
Greece as a whole'.
5. Another line of argument is based on considerations of time. Thus
Iphicrates, in the case against Harmodius, said, 'if before doing
the deed I had bargained that, if I did it, I should have a statue,
you would have given me one. Will you not give me one now that I
have done the deed? You must not make promises when you are
expecting a thing to be done for you, and refuse to fulfil them when
the thing has been done.' And, again, to induce the Thebans to let
Philip pass through their territory into Attica, it was argued that
'if he had insisted on this before he helped them against the
Phocians, they would have promised to do it. It is monstrous,
therefore, that just because he threw away his advantage then, and
trusted their honour, they should not let him pass through now'.
6. Another line is to apply to the other speaker what he has said
against yourself. It is an excellent turn to give to a debate, as
may be seen in the Teucer. It was employed by Iphicrates in his
reply to Aristophon. 'Would you', he asked, 'take a bribe to betray
the fleet?' 'No', said Aristophon; and Iphicrates replied, 'Very good:
if you, who are Aristophon, would not betray the fleet, would I, who
am Iphicrates?' Only, it must be recognized beforehand that the
other man is more likely than you are to commit the crime in question.
Otherwise you will make yourself ridiculous; it is Aristeides who is
prosecuting, you cannot say that sort of thing to him. The purpose
is to discredit the prosecutor, who as a rule would have it appear
that his character is better than that of the defendant, a
pretension which it is desirable to upset. But the use of such an
argument is in all cases ridiculous if you are attacking others for
what you do or would do yourself, or are urging others to do what
you neither do nor would do yourself.
7. Another line of proof is secured by defining your terms. Thus,
'What is the supernatural? Surely it is either a god or the work of
a god. Well, any one who believes that the work of a god exists,
cannot help also believing that gods exist.' Or take the argument of
Iphicrates, 'Goodness is true nobility; neither Harmodius nor
Aristogeiton had any nobility before they did a noble deed'. He also
argued that he himself was more akin to Harmodius and Aristogeiton
than his opponent was. 'At any rate, my deeds are more akin to those
of Harmodius and Aristogeiton than yours are'. Another example may
be found in the Alexander. 'Every one will agree that by incontinent
people we mean those who are not satisfied with the enjoyment of one
love.' A further example is to be found in the reason given by
Socrates for not going to the court of Archelaus. He said that 'one is
insulted by being unable to requite benefits, as well as by being
unable to requite injuries'. All the persons mentioned define their
term and get at its essential meaning, and then use the result when
reasoning on the point at issue.
8. Another line of argument is founded upon the various senses of
a word. Such a word is 'rightly', as has been explained in the Topics.
Another line is based upon logical division. Thus, 'All men do wrong
from one of three motives, A, B, or C: in my case A and B are out of
the question, and even the accusers do not allege C'.
10. Another line is based upon induction. Thus from the case of
the woman of Peparethus it might be argued that women everywhere can
settle correctly the facts about their children. Another example of
this occurred at Athens in the case between the orator Mantias and his
son, when the boy's mother revealed the true facts: and yet another at
Thebes, in the case between Ismenias and Stilbon, when Dodonis
proved that it was Ismenias who was the father of her son
Thettaliscus, and he was in consequence always regarded as being so. A
further instance of induction may be taken from the Law of Theodectes:
'If we do not hand over our horses to the care of men who have
mishandled other people's horses, nor ships to those who have
wrecked other people's ships, and if this is true of everything else
alike, then men who have failed to secure other people's safety are
not to be employed to secure our own.' Another instance is the
argument of Alcidamas: 'Every one honours the wise'. Thus the
Parians have honoured Archilochus, in spite of his bitter tongue;
the Chians Homer, though he was not their countryman; the Mytilenaeans
Sappho, though she was a woman; the Lacedaemonians actually made
Chilon a member of their senate, though they are the least literary of
men; the Italian Greeks honoured Pythagoras; the inhabitants of
Lampsacus gave public burial to Anaxagoras, though he was an alien,
and honour him even to this day. (It may be argued that peoples for
whom philosophers legislate are always prosperous) on the ground
that the Athenians became prosperous under Solon's laws and the
Lacedaemonians under those of Lycurgus, while at Thebes no sooner
did the leading men become philosophers than the country began to
11. Another line of argument is founded upon some decision already
pronounced, whether on the same subject or on one like it or
contrary to it. Such a proof is most effective if every one has always
decided thus; but if not every one, then at any rate most people; or
if all, or most, wise or good men have thus decided, or the actual
judges of the present question, or those whose authority they
accept, or any one whose decision they cannot gainsay because he has
complete control over them, or those whom it is not seemly to gainsay,
as the gods, or one's father, or one's teachers. Thus Autocles said,
when attacking Mixidemides, that it was a strange thing that the Dread
Goddesses could without loss of dignity submit to the judgement of the
Areopagus, and yet Mixidemides could not. Or as Sappho said, 'Death is
an evil thing; the gods have so judged it, or they would die'. Or
again as Aristippus said in reply to Plato when he spoke somewhat
too dogmatically, as Aristippus thought: 'Well, anyhow, our friend',
meaning Socrates, 'never spoke like that'. And Hegesippus, having
previously consulted Zeus at Olympia, asked Apollo at Delphi
'whether his opinion was the same as his father's', implying that it
would be shameful for him to contradict his father. Thus too Isocrates
argued that Helen must have been a good woman, because Theseus decided
that she was; and Paris a good man, because the goddesses chose him
before all others; and Evagoras also, says Isocrates, was good,
since when Conon met with his misfortune he betook himself to Evagoras
without trying any one else on the way.
12. Another line of argument consists in taking separately the parts
of a subject. Such is that given in the Topics: 'What sort of motion
is the soul? for it must be this or that.' The Socrates of
Theodectes provides an example: 'What temple has he profaned? What
gods recognized by the state has he not honoured?'
13. Since it happens that any given thing usually has both good
and bad consequences, another line of argument consists in using those
consequences as a reason for urging that a thing should or should
not be done, for prosecuting or defending any one, for eulogy or
censure. E.g. education leads both to unpopularity, which is bad,
and to wisdom, which is good. Hence you either argue, 'It is therefore
not well to be educated, since it is not well to be unpopular': or you
answer, 'No, it is well to be educated, since it is well to be
wise'. The Art of Rhetoric of Callippus is made up of this line of
argument, with the addition of those of Possibility and the others
of that kind already described.
14. Another line of argument is used when we have to urge or
discourage a course of action that may be done in either of two
opposite ways, and have to apply the method just mentioned to both.
The difference between this one and the last is that, whereas in the
last any two things are contrasted, here the things contrasted are
opposites. For instance, the priestess enjoined upon her son not to
take to public speaking: 'For', she said, 'if you say what is right,
men will hate you; if you say what is wrong, the gods will hate
you.' The reply might be, 'On the contrary, you ought to take to
public speaking: for if you say what is right the gods will love
you; if you say what is wrong, men will love you.' This amounts to the
proverbial 'buying the marsh with the salt'. It is just this
situation, viz. when each of two opposites has both a good and a bad
consequence opposite respectively to each other, that has been
termed divarication.
15. Another line of argument is this: The things people approve of
openly are not those which they approve of secretly: openly, their
chief praise is given to justice and nobleness; but in their hearts
they prefer their own advantage. Try, in face of this, to establish
the point of view which your opponent has not adopted. This is the
most effective of the forms of argument that contradict common
16. Another line is that of rational correspondence. E.g.
Iphicrates, when they were trying to compel his son, a youth under the
prescribed age, to perform one of the state duties because he was
tall, said 'If you count tall boys men, you will next be voting
short men boys'. And Theodectes in his Law said, 'You make citizens of
such mercenaries as Strabax and Charidemus, as a reward of their
merits; will you not make exiles of such citizens as those who have
done irreparable harm among the mercenaries?'
17. Another line is the argument that if two results are the same
their antecedents are also the same. For instance, it was a saying
of Xenophanes that to assert that the gods had birth is as impious
as to say that they die; the consequence of both statements is that
there is a time when the gods do not exist. This line of proof assumes
generally that the result of any given thing is always the same:
e.g. 'you are going to decide not about Isocrates, but about the value
of the whole profession of philosophy.' Or, 'to give earth and
water' means slavery; or, 'to share in the Common Peace' means obeying
orders. We are to make either such assumptions or their opposite, as
suits us best.
18. Another line of argument is based on the fact that men do not
always make the same choice on a later as on an earlier occasion,
but reverse their previous choice. E.g. the following enthymeme: 'When
we were exiles, we fought in order to return; now we have returned, it
would be strange to choose exile in order not to have to fight.' one
occasion, that is, they chose to be true to their homes at the cost of
fighting, and on the other to avoid fighting at the cost of
deserting their homes.
19. Another line of argument is the assertion that some possible
motive for an event or state of things is the real one: e.g. that a
gift was given in order to cause pain by its withdrawal. This notion
underlies the lines:
God gives to many great prosperity,
Not of good God towards them, but to make
The ruin of them more conspicuous.
Or take the passage from the Meleager of Antiphon:
To slay no boar, but to be witnesses
Of Meleager's prowess unto Greece.
Or the argument in the Ajax of Theodectes, that Diomede chose out
Odysseus not to do him honour, but in order that his companion might
be a lesser man than himself-such a motive for doing so is quite
20. Another line of argument is common to forensic and
deliberative oratory, namely, to consider inducements and
deterrents, and the motives people have for doing or avoiding the
actions in question. These are the conditions which make us bound to
act if they are for us, and to refrain from action if they are against
us: that is, we are bound to act if the action is possible, easy,
and useful to ourselves or our friends or hurtful to our enemies; this
is true even if the action entails loss, provided the loss is
outweighed by the solid advantage. A speaker will urge action by
pointing to such conditions, and discourage it by pointing to the
opposite. These same arguments also form the materials for
accusation or defence-the deterrents being pointed out by the defence,
and the inducements by the prosecution. As for the defence,...This
topic forms the whole Art of Rhetoric both of Pamphilus and of
21. Another line of argument refers to things which are supposed
to happen and yet seem incredible. We may argue that people could
not have believed them, if they had not been true or nearly true: even
that they are the more likely to be true because they are
incredible. For the things which men believe are either facts or
probabilities: if, therefore, a thing that is believed is improbable
and even incredible, it must be true, since it is certainly not
believed because it is at all probable or credible. An example is what
Androcles of the deme Pitthus said in his well-known arraignment of
the law. The audience tried to shout him down when he observed that
the laws required a law to set them right. 'Why', he went on, 'fish
need salt, improbable and incredible as this might seem for
creatures reared in salt water; and olive-cakes need oil, incredible
as it is that what produces oil should need it.'
22. Another line of argument is to refute our opponent's case by
noting any contrasts or contradictions of dates, acts, or words that
it anywhere displays; and this in any of the three following
connexions. (1) Referring to our opponent's conduct, e.g. 'He says
he is devoted to you, yet he conspired with the Thirty.' (2) Referring
to our own conduct, e.g. 'He says I am litigious, and yet he cannot
prove that I have been engaged in a single lawsuit.' (3) Referring
to both of us together, e.g. 'He has never even lent any one a
penny, but I have ransomed quite a number of you.'
23. Another line that is useful for men and causes that have been
really or seemingly slandered, is to show why the facts are not as
supposed; pointing out that there is a reason for the false impression
given. Thus a woman, who had palmed off her son on another woman,
was thought to be the lad's mistress because she embraced him; but
when her action was explained the charge was shown to be groundless.
Another example is from the Ajax of Theodectes, where Odysseus tells
Ajax the reason why, though he is really braver than Ajax, he is not
thought so.
24. Another line of argument is to show that if the cause is
present, the effect is present, and if absent, absent. For by
proving the cause you at once prove the effect, and conversely nothing
can exist without its cause. Thus Thrasybulus accused Leodamas of
having had his name recorded as a criminal on the slab in the
Acropolis, and of erasing the record in the time of the Thirty
Tyrants: to which Leodamas replied, 'Impossible: for the Thirty
would have trusted me all the more if my quarrel with the commons
had been inscribed on the slab.'
25. Another line is to consider whether the accused person can
take or could have taken a better course than that which he is
recommending or taking, or has taken. If he has not taken this
better course, it is clear that he is not guilty, since no one
deliberately and consciously chooses what is bad. This argument is,
however, fallacious, for it often becomes clear after the event how
the action could have been done better, though before the event this
was far from clear.
26. Another line is, when a contemplated action is inconsistent with
any past action, to examine them both together. Thus, when the
people of Elea asked Xenophanes if they should or should not sacrifice
to Leucothea and mourn for her, he advised them not to mourn for her
if they thought her a goddess, and not to sacrifice to her if they
thought her a mortal woman.
27. Another line is to make previous mistakes the grounds of
accusation or defence. Thus, in the Medea of Carcinus the accusers
allege that Medea has slain her children; 'at all events', they say,
'they are not to be seen'-Medea having made the mistake of sending her
children away. In defence she argues that it is not her children,
but Jason, whom she would have slain; for it would have been a mistake
on her part not to do this if she had done the other. This special
line of argument for enthymeme forms the whole of the Art of
Rhetoric in use before Theodorus.
Another line is to draw meanings from names. Sophocles, for
instance, says,
O steel in heart as thou art steel in name.
This line of argument is common in praises of the gods. Thus, too,
Conon called Thrasybulus rash in counsel. And Herodicus said of
Thrasymachus, 'You are always bold in battle'; of Polus, 'you are
always a colt'; and of the legislator Draco that his laws were those
not of a human being but of a dragon, so savage were they. And, in
Euripides, Hecuba says of Aphrodite,
Her name and Folly's (aphrosuns) lightly begin alike,
and Chaeremon writes
Pentheus-a name foreshadowing grief (penthos) to come.
The Refutative Enthymeme has a greater reputation than the
Demonstrative, because within a small space it works out two
opposing arguments, and arguments put side by side are clearer to
the audience. But of all syllogisms, whether refutative or
demonstrative, those are most applauded of which we foresee the
conclusions from the beginning, so long as they are not obvious at
first sight-for part of the pleasure we feel is at our own intelligent
anticipation; or those which we follow well enough to see the point of
them as soon as the last word has been uttered.
Besides genuine syllogisms, there may be syllogisms that look
genuine but are not; and since an enthymeme is merely a syllogism of a
particular kind, it follows that, besides genuine enthymemes, there
may be those that look genuine but are not.
1. Among the lines of argument that form the Spurious Enthymeme
the first is that which arises from the particular words employed.
(a) One variety of this is when-as in dialectic, without having gone
through any reasoning process, we make a final statement as if it were
the conclusion of such a process, 'Therefore so-and-so is not true',
'Therefore also so-and-so must be true'-so too in rhetoric a compact
and antithetical utterance passes for an enthymeme, such language
being the proper province of enthymeme, so that it is seemingly the
form of wording here that causes the illusion mentioned. In order to
produce the effect of genuine reasoning by our form of wording it is
useful to summarize the results of a number of previous reasonings: as
'some he saved-others he avenged-the Greeks he freed'. Each of these
statements has been previously proved from other facts; but the mere
collocation of them gives the impression of establishing some fresh
(b) Another variety is based on the use of similar words for
different things; e.g. the argument that the mouse must be a noble
creature, since it gives its name to the most august of all
religious rites-for such the Mysteries are. Or one may introduce, into
a eulogy of the dog, the dog-star; or Pan, because Pindar said:
O thou blessed one!
Thou whom they of Olympus call
The hound of manifold shape
That follows the Mother of Heaven:
or we may argue that, because there is much disgrace in there not
being a dog about, there is honour in being a dog. Or that Hermes is
readier than any other god to go shares, since we never say 'shares
all round' except of him. Or that speech is a very excellent thing,
since good men are not said to be worth money but to be worthy of
esteem-the phrase 'worthy of esteem' also having the meaning of 'worth
2. Another line is to assert of the whole what is true of the parts,
or of the parts what is true of the whole. A whole and its parts are
supposed to be identical, though often they are not. You have
therefore to adopt whichever of these two lines better suits your
purpose. That is how Euthydemus argues: e.g. that any one knows that
there is a trireme in the Peiraeus, since he knows the separate
details that make up this statement. There is also the argument that
one who knows the letters knows the whole word, since the word is
the same thing as the letters which compose it; or that, if a double
portion of a certain thing is harmful to health, then a single portion
must not be called wholesome, since it is absurd that two good
things should make one bad thing. Put thus, the enthymeme is
refutative; put as follows; demonstrative: 'For one good thing
cannot be made up of two bad things.' The whole line of argument is
fallacious. Again, there is Polycrates' saying that Thrasybulus put
down thirty tyrants, where the speaker adds them up one by one. Or the
argument in the Orestes of Theodectes, where the argument is from part
to whole:
'Tis right that she who slays her lord should die.
'It is right, too, that the son should avenge his father. Very good:
these two things are what Orestes has done.' Still, perhaps the two
things, once they are put together, do not form a right act. The
fallacy might also be said to be due to omission, since the speaker
fails to say by whose hand a husband-slayer should die.
3. Another line is the use of indignant language, whether to support
your own case or to overthrow your opponent's. We do this when we
paint a highly-coloured picture of the situation without having proved
the facts of it: if the defendant does so, he produces an impression
of his innocence; and if the prosecutor goes into a passion, he
produces an impression of the defendant's guilt. Here there is no
genuine enthymeme: the hearer infers guilt or innocence, but no
proof is given, and the inference is fallacious accordingly.
4. Another line is to use a 'Sign', or single instance, as certain
evidence; which, again, yields no valid proof. Thus, it might be
said that lovers are useful to their countries, since the love of
Harmodius and Aristogeiton caused the downfall of the tyrant
Hipparchus. Or, again, that Dionysius is a thief, since he is a
vicious man-there is, of course, no valid proof here; not every
vicious man is a thief, though every thief is a vicious man.
5. Another line represents the accidental as essential. An
instance is what Polycrates says of the mice, that they 'came to the
rescue' because they gnawed through the bowstrings. Or it might be
maintained that an invitation to dinner is a great honour, for it
was because he was not invited that Achilles was 'angered' with the
Greeks at Tenedos? As a fact, what angered him was the insult
involved; it was a mere accident that this was the particular form
that the insult took.
6. Another is the argument from consequence. In the Alexander, for
instance, it is argued that Paris must have had a lofty disposition,
since he despised society and lived by himself on Mount Ida: because
lofty people do this kind of thing, therefore Paris too, we are to
suppose, had a lofty soul. Or, if a man dresses fashionably and
roams around at night, he is a rake, since that is the way rakes
behave. Another similar argument points out that beggars sing and
dance in temples, and that exiles can live wherever they please, and
that such privileges are at the disposal of those we account happy and
therefore every one might be regarded as happy if only he has those
privileges. What matters, however, is the circumstances under which
the privileges are enjoyed. Hence this line too falls under the head
of fallacies by omission.
7. Another line consists in representing as causes things which
are not causes, on the ground that they happened along with or
before the event in question. They assume that, because B happens
after A, it happens because of A. Politicians are especially fond of
taking this line. Thus Demades said that the policy of Demosthenes was
the cause of all the mischief, 'for after it the war occurred'.
8. Another line consists in leaving out any mention of time and
circumstances. E.g. the argument that Paris was justified in taking
Helen, since her father left her free to choose: here the freedom
was presumably not perpetual; it could only refer to her first choice,
beyond which her father's authority could not go. Or again, one
might say that to strike a free man is an act of wanton outrage; but
it is not so in every case-only when it is unprovoked.
9. Again, a spurious syllogism may, as in 'eristical' discussions,
be based on the confusion of the absolute with that which is not
absolute but particular. As, in dialectic, for instance, it may be
argued that what-is-not is, on the ground that what-is-not is
what-is-not: or that the unknown can be known, on the ground that it
can be known to he unknown: so also in rhetoric a spurious enthymeme
may be based on the confusion of some particular probability with
absolute probability. Now no particular probability is universally
probable: as Agathon says,
One might perchance say that was probable-
That things improbable oft will hap to men.
For what is improbable does happen, and therefore it is probable
that improbable things will happen. Granted this, one might argue that
'what is improbable is probable'. But this is not true absolutely. As,
in eristic, the imposture comes from not adding any clause
specifying relationship or reference or manner; so here it arises
because the probability in question is not general but specific. It is
of this line of argument that Corax's Art of Rhetoric is composed.
If the accused is not open to the charge-for instance if a weakling be
tried for violent assault-the defence is that he was not likely to
do such a thing. But if he is open to the charge-i.e. if he is a
strong man-the defence is still that he was not likely to do such a
thing, since he could be sure that people would think he was likely to
do it. And so with any other charge: the accused must be either open
or not open to it: there is in either case an appearance of probable
innocence, but whereas in the latter case the probability is
genuine, in the former it can only be asserted in the special sense
mentioned. This sort of argument illustrates what is meant by making
the worse argument seem the better. Hence people were right in
objecting to the training Protagoras undertook to give them. It was
a fraud; the probability it handled was not genuine but spurious,
and has a place in no art except Rhetoric and Eristic.
Enthymemes, genuine and apparent, have now been described; the
next subject is their Refutation.
An argument may be refuted either by a counter-syllogism or by
bringing an objection. It is clear that counter-syllogisms can be
built up from the same lines of arguments as the original
syllogisms: for the materials of syllogisms are the ordinary
opinions of men, and such opinions often contradict each other.
Objections, as appears in the Topics, may be raised in four
ways-either by directly attacking your opponent's own statement, or by
putting forward another statement like it, or by putting forward a
statement contrary to it, or by quoting previous decisions.
1. By 'attacking your opponent's own statement' I mean, for
instance, this: if his enthymeme should assert that love is always
good, the objection can be brought in two ways, either by making the
general statement that 'all want is an evil', or by making the
particular one that there would be no talk of 'Caunian love' if
there were not evil loves as well as good ones.
2. An objection 'from a contrary statement' is raised when, for
instance, the opponent's enthymeme having concluded that a good man
does good to all his friends, you object, 'That proves nothing, for
a bad man does not do evil to all his friends'.
3. An example of an objection 'from a like statement' is, the
enthymeme having shown that ill-used men always hate their
ill-users, to reply, 'That proves nothing, for well-used men do not
always love those who used them well'.
4. The 'decisions' mentioned are those proceeding from well-known
men; for instance, if the enthymeme employed has concluded that
'that allowance ought to be made for drunken offenders, since they did
not know what they were doing', the objection will be, 'Pittacus,
then, deserves no approval, or he would not have prescribed
specially severe penalties for offences due to drunkenness'.
Enthymemes are based upon one or other of four kinds of alleged
fact: (1) Probabilities, (2) Examples, (3) Infallible Signs, (4)
Ordinary Signs. (1) Enthymemes based upon Probabilities are those
which argue from what is, or is supposed to be, usually true. (2)
Enthymemes based upon Example are those which proceed by induction
from one or more similar cases, arrive at a general proposition, and
then argue deductively to a particular inference. (3) Enthymemes based
upon Infallible Signs are those which argue from the inevitable and
invariable. (4) Enthymemes based upon ordinary Signs are those which
argue from some universal or particular proposition, true or false.
Now (1) as a Probability is that which happens usually but not
always, Enthymemes founded upon Probabilities can, it is clear, always
be refuted by raising some objection. The refutation is not always
genuine: it may be spurious: for it consists in showing not that
your opponent's premiss is not probable, but Only in showing that it
is not inevitably true. Hence it is always in defence rather than in
accusation that it is possible to gain an advantage by using this
fallacy. For the accuser uses probabilities to prove his case: and
to refute a conclusion as improbable is not the same thing as to
refute it as not inevitable. Any argument based upon what usually
happens is always open to objection: otherwise it would not be a
probability but an invariable and necessary truth. But the judges
think, if the refutation takes this form, either that the accuser's
case is not probable or that they must not decide it; which, as we
said, is a false piece of reasoning. For they ought to decide by
considering not merely what must be true but also what is likely to be
true: this is, indeed, the meaning of 'giving a verdict in
accordance with one's honest opinion'. Therefore it is not enough
for the defendant to refute the accusation by proving that the
charge is not hound to be true: he must do so by showing that it is
not likely to be true. For this purpose his objection must state
what is more usually true than the statement attacked. It may do so in
either of two ways: either in respect of frequency or in respect of
exactness. It will be most convincing if it does so in both
respects; for if the thing in question both happens oftener as we
represent it and happens more as we represent it, the probability is
particularly great.
(2) Fallible Signs, and Enthymemes based upon them, can be refuted
even if the facts are correct, as was said at the outset. For we
have shown in the Analytics that no Fallible Sign can form part of a
valid logical proof.
(3) Enthymemes depending on examples may be refuted in the same
way as probabilities. If we have a negative instance, the argument
is refuted, in so far as it is proved not inevitable, even though
the positive examples are more similar and more frequent. And if the
positive examples are more numerous and more frequent, we must contend
that the present case is dissimilar, or that its conditions are
dissimilar, or that it is different in some way or other.
(4) It will be impossible to refute Infallible Signs, and Enthymemes
resting on them, by showing in any way that they do not form a valid
logical proof: this, too, we see from the Analytics. All we can do
is to show that the fact alleged does not exist. If there is no
doubt that it does, and that it is an Infallible Sign, refutation
now becomes impossible: for this is equivalent to a demonstration
which is clear in every respect.
Amplification and Depreciation are not an element of enthymeme. By
'an element of enthymeme' I mean the same thing as a line of
enthymematic argument-a general class embracing a large number of
particular kinds of enthymeme. Amplification and Depreciation are
one kind of enthymeme, viz. the kind used to show that a thing is
great or small; just as there are other kinds used to show that a
thing is good or bad, just or unjust, and anything else of the sort.
All these things are the subject-matter of syllogisms and
enthymemes; none of these is the line of argument of an enthymeme;
no more, therefore, are Amplification and Depreciation. Nor are
Refutative Enthymemes a different species from Constructive. For it is
clear that refutation consists either in offering positive proof or in
raising an objection. In the first case we prove the opposite of our
adversary's statements. Thus, if he shows that a thing has happened,
we show that it has not; if he shows that it has not happened, we show
that it has. This, then, could not be the distinction if there were
one, since the same means are employed by both parties, enthymemes
being adduced to show that the fact is or is not so-and-so. An
objection, on the other hand, is not an enthymeme at all, as was
said in the Topics, consists in stating some accepted opinion from
which it will be clear that our opponent has not reasoned correctly or
has made a false assumption.
Three points must be studied in making a speech; and we have now
completed the account of (1) Examples, Maxims, Enthymemes, and in
general the thought-element the way to invent and refute arguments. We
have next to discuss (2) Style, and (3) Arrangement.
Book III
IN making a speech one must study three points: first, the means
of producing persuasion; second, the style, or language, to be used;
third, the proper arrangement of the various parts of the speech. We
have already specified the sources of persuasion. We have shown that
these are three in number; what they are; and why there are only these
three: for we have shown that persuasion must in every case be
effected either (1) by working on the emotions of the judges
themselves, (2) by giving them the right impression of the speakers'
character, or (3) by proving the truth of the statements made.
Enthymemes also have been described, and the sources from which they
should be derived; there being both special and general lines of
argument for enthymemes.
Our next subject will be the style of expression. For it is not
enough to know what we ought to say; we must also say it as we
ought; much help is thus afforded towards producing the right
impression of a speech. The first question to receive attention was
naturally the one that comes first naturally-how persuasion can be
produced from the facts themselves. The second is how to set these
facts out in language. A third would be the proper method of delivery;
this is a thing that affects the success of a speech greatly; but
hitherto the subject has been neglected. Indeed, it was long before it
found a way into the arts of tragic drama and epic recitation: at
first poets acted their tragedies themselves. It is plain that
delivery has just as much to do with oratory as with poetry. (In
connexion with poetry, it has been studied by Glaucon of Teos among
others.) It is, essentially, a matter of the right management of the
voice to express the various emotions-of speaking loudly, softly, or
between the two; of high, low, or intermediate pitch; of the various
rhythms that suit various subjects. These are the three
things-volume of sound, modulation of pitch, and rhythm-that a speaker
bears in mind. It is those who do bear them in mind who usually win
prizes in the dramatic contests; and just as in drama the actors now
count for more than the poets, so it is in the contests of public
life, owing to the defects of our political institutions. No
systematic treatise upon the rules of delivery has yet been
composed; indeed, even the study of language made no progress till
late in the day. Besides, delivery is-very properly-not regarded as an
elevated subject of inquiry. Still, the whole business of rhetoric
being concerned with appearances, we must pay attention to the subject
of delivery, unworthy though it is, because we cannot do without it.
The right thing in speaking really is that we should be satisfied
not to annoy our hearers, without trying to delight them: we ought
in fairness to fight our case with no help beyond the bare facts:
nothing, therefore, should matter except the proof of those facts.
Still, as has been already said, other things affect the result
considerably, owing to the defects of our hearers. The arts of
language cannot help having a small but real importance, whatever it
is we have to expound to others: the way in which a thing is said does
affect its intelligibility. Not, however, so much importance as people
think. All such arts are fanciful and meant to charm the hearer.
Nobody uses fine language when teaching geometry.
When the principles of delivery have been worked out, they will
produce the same effect as on the stage. But only very slight attempts
to deal with them have been made and by a few people, as by
Thrasymachus in his 'Appeals to Pity'. Dramatic ability is a natural
gift, and can hardly be systematically taught. The principles of
good diction can be so taught, and therefore we have men of ability in
this direction too, who win prizes in their turn, as well as those
speakers who excel in delivery-speeches of the written or literary
kind owe more of their effect to their direction than to their
It was naturally the poets who first set the movement going; for
words represent things, and they had also the human voice at their
disposal, which of all our organs can best represent other things.
Thus the arts of recitation and acting were formed, and others as
well. Now it was because poets seemed to win fame through their fine
language when their thoughts were simple enough, that the language
of oratorical prose at first took a poetical colour, e.g. that of
Gorgias. Even now most uneducated people think that poetical
language makes the finest discourses. That is not true: the language
of prose is distinct from that of poetry. This is shown by the state
of things to-day, when even the language of tragedy has altered its
character. Just as iambics were adopted, instead of tetrameters,
because they are the most prose-like of all metres, so tragedy has
given up all those words, not used in ordinary talk, which decorated
the early drama and are still used by the writers of hexameter
poems. It is therefore ridiculous to imitate a poetical manner which
the poets themselves have dropped; and it is now plain that we have
not to treat in detail the whole question of style, but may confine
ourselves to that part of it which concerns our present subject,
rhetoric. The other--the poetical--part of it has been discussed in
the treatise on the Art of Poetry.
We may, then, start from the observations there made, including
the definition of style. Style to be good must be clear, as is
proved by the fact that speech which fails to convey a plain meaning
will fail to do just what speech has to do. It must also be
appropriate, avoiding both meanness and undue elevation; poetical
language is certainly free from meanness, but it is not appropriate to
prose. Clearness is secured by using the words (nouns and verbs alike)
that are current and ordinary. Freedom from meanness, and positive
adornment too, are secured by using the other words mentioned in the
Art of Poetry. Such variation from what is usual makes the language
appear more stately. People do not feel towards strangers as they do
towards their own countrymen, and the same thing is true of their
feeling for language. It is therefore well to give to everyday
speech an unfamiliar air: people like what strikes them, and are
struck by what is out of the way. In verse such effects are common,
and there they are fitting: the persons and things there spoken of are
comparatively remote from ordinary life. In prose passages they are
far less often fitting because the subject-matter is less exalted.
Even in poetry, it is not quite appropriate that fine language
should be used by a slave or a very young man, or about very trivial
subjects: even in poetry the style, to be appropriate, must
sometimes be toned down, though at other times heightened. We can
now see that a writer must disguise his art and give the impression of
speaking naturally and not artificially. Naturalness is persuasive,
artificiality is the contrary; for our hearers are prejudiced and
think we have some design against them, as if we were mixing their
wines for them. It is like the difference between the quality of
Theodorus' voice and the voices of all other actors: his really
seems to be that of the character who is speaking, theirs do not. We
can hide our purpose successfully by taking the single words of our
composition from the speech of ordinary life. This is done in poetry
by Euripides, who was the first to show the way to his successors.
Language is composed of nouns and verbs. Nouns are of the various
kinds considered in the treatise on Poetry. Strange words, compound
words, and invented words must be used sparingly and on few occasions:
on what occasions we shall state later. The reason for this
restriction has been already indicated: they depart from what is
suitable, in the direction of excess. In the language of prose,
besides the regular and proper terms for things, metaphorical terms
only can be used with advantage. This we gather from the fact that
these two classes of terms, the proper or regular and the
metaphorical-these and no others-are used by everybody in
conversation. We can now see that a good writer can produce a style
that is distinguished without being obtrusive, and is at the same time
clear, thus satisfying our definition of good oratorical prose.
Words of ambiguous meaning are chiefly useful to enable the sophist to
mislead his hearers. Synonyms are useful to the poet, by which I
mean words whose ordinary meaning is the same, e.g. 'porheueseai'
(advancing) and 'badizein' (proceeding); these two are ordinary
words and have the same meaning.
In the Art of Poetry, as we have already said, will be found
definitions of these kinds of words; a classification of Metaphors;
and mention of the fact that metaphor is of great value both in poetry
and in prose. Prose-writers must, however, pay specially careful
attention to metaphor, because their other resources are scantier than
those of poets. Metaphor, moreover, gives style clearness, charm,
and distinction as nothing else can: and it is not a thing whose use
can be taught by one man to another. Metaphors, like epithets, must be
fitting, which means that they must fairly correspond to the thing
signified: failing this, their inappropriateness will be
conspicuous: the want of harmony between two things is emphasized by
their being placed side by side. It is like having to ask ourselves
what dress will suit an old man; certainly not the crimson cloak
that suits a young man. And if you wish to pay a compliment, you
must take your metaphor from something better in the same line; if
to disparage, from something worse. To illustrate my meaning: since
opposites are in the same class, you do what I have suggested if you
say that a man who begs 'prays', and a man who prays 'begs'; for
praying and begging are both varieties of asking. So Iphicrates called
Callias a 'mendicant priest' instead of a 'torch-bearer', and
Callias replied that Iphicrates must be uninitiated or he would have
called him not a 'mendicant priest' but a 'torch-bearer'. Both are
religious titles, but one is honourable and the other is not. Again,
somebody calls actors 'hangers-on of Dionysus', but they call
themselves 'artists': each of these terms is a metaphor, the one
intended to throw dirt at the actor, the other to dignify him. And
pirates now call themselves 'purveyors'. We can thus call a crime a
mistake, or a mistake a crime. We can say that a thief 'took' a thing,
or that he 'plundered' his victim. An expression like that of
Euripides' Telephus,
King of the oar, on Mysia's coast he landed,
is inappropriate; the word 'king' goes beyond the dignity of the
subject, and so the art is not concealed. A metaphor may be amiss
because the very syllables of the words conveying it fail to
indicate sweetness of vocal utterance. Thus Dionysius the Brazen in
his elegies calls poetry 'Calliope's screech'. Poetry and screeching
are both, to be sure, vocal utterances. But the metaphor is bad,
because the sounds of 'screeching', unlike those of poetry, are
discordant and unmeaning. Further, in using metaphors to give names to
nameless things, we must draw them not from remote but from kindred
and similar things, so that the kinship is clearly perceived as soon
as the words are said. Thus in the celebrated riddle
I marked how a man glued bronze with fire to another man's body,
the process is nameless; but both it and gluing are a kind of
application, and that is why the application of the cupping-glass is
here called a 'gluing'. Good riddles do, in general, provide us with
satisfactory metaphors: for metaphors imply riddles, and therefore a
good riddle can furnish a good metaphor. Further, the materials of
metaphors must be beautiful; and the beauty, like the ugliness, of all
words may, as Licymnius says, lie in their sound or in their
meaning. Further, there is a third consideration-one that upsets the
fallacious argument of the sophist Bryson, that there is no such thing
as foul language, because in whatever words you put a given thing your
meaning is the same. This is untrue. One term may describe a thing
more truly than another, may be more like it, and set it more
intimately before our eyes. Besides, two different words will
represent a thing in two different lights; so on this ground also
one term must be held fairer or fouler than another. For both of two
terms will indicate what is fair, or what is foul, but not simply
their fairness or their foulness, or if so, at any rate not in an
equal degree. The materials of metaphor must be beautiful to the
ear, to the understanding, to the eye or some other physical sense. It
is better, for instance, to say 'rosy-fingered morn', than
'crimson-fingered' or, worse still, 'red-fingered morn'. The
epithets that we apply, too, may have a bad and ugly aspect, as when
Orestes is called a 'mother-slayer'; or a better one, as when he is
called his 'father's avenger'. Simonides, when the victor in the
mule-race offered him a small fee, refused to write him an ode,
because, he said, it was so unpleasant to write odes to half-asses:
but on receiving an adequate fee, he wrote
Hail to you, daughters of storm-footed steeds?
though of course they were daughters of asses too. The same effect
is attained by the use of diminutives, which make a bad thing less bad
and a good thing less good. Take, for instance, the banter of
Aristophanes in the Babylonians where he uses 'goldlet' for 'gold',
'cloaklet' for 'cloak', 'scoffiet' for 'scoff, and 'plaguelet'. But
alike in using epithets and in using diminutives we must be wary and
must observe the mean.
Bad taste in language may take any of four forms:
(1) The misuse of compound words. Lycophron, for instance, talks
of the 'many visaged heaven' above the 'giant-crested earth', and
again the 'strait-pathed shore'; and Gorgias of the 'pauper-poet
flatterer' and 'oath-breaking and over-oath-keeping'. Alcidamas uses
such expressions as 'the soul filling with rage and face becoming
flame-flushed', and 'he thought their enthusiasm would be
issue-fraught' and 'issue-fraught he made the persuasion of his
words', and 'sombre-hued is the floor of the sea'.The way all these
words are compounded makes them, we feel, fit for verse only. This,
then, is one form in which bad taste is shown.
(2) Another is the employment of strange words. For instance,
Lycophron talks of 'the prodigious Xerxes' and 'spoliative Sciron';
Alcidamas of 'a toy for poetry' and 'the witlessness of nature', and
says 'whetted with the unmitigated temper of his spirit'.
(3) A third form is the use of long, unseasonable, or frequent
epithets. It is appropriate enough for a poet to talk of 'white milk',
in prose such epithets are sometimes lacking in appropriateness or,
when spread too thickly, plainly reveal the author turning his prose
into poetry. Of course we must use some epithets, since they lift
our style above the usual level and give it an air of distinction. But
we must aim at the due mean, or the result will be worse than if we
took no trouble at all; we shall get something actually bad instead of
something merely not good. That is why the epithets of Alcidamas
seem so tasteless; he does not use them as the seasoning of the
meat, but as the meat itself, so numerous and swollen and aggressive
are they. For instance, he does not say 'sweat', but 'the moist
sweat'; not 'to the Isthmian games', but 'to the world-concourse of
the Isthmian games'; not 'laws', but 'the laws that are monarchs of
states'; not 'at a run', but 'his heart impelling him to speed of
foot'; not 'a school of the Muses', but 'Nature's school of the
Muses had he inherited'; and so 'frowning care of heart', and
'achiever' not of 'popularity' but of 'universal popularity', and
'dispenser of pleasure to his audience', and 'he concealed it' not
'with boughs' but 'with boughs of the forest trees', and 'he
clothed' not 'his body' but 'his body's nakedness', and 'his soul's
desire was counter imitative' (this's at one and the same time a
compound and an epithet, so that it seems a poet's effort), and 'so
extravagant the excess of his wickedness'. We thus see how the
inappropriateness of such poetical language imports absurdity and
tastelessness into speeches, as well as the obscurity that comes
from all this verbosity-for when the sense is plain, you only
obscure and spoil its clearness by piling up words.
The ordinary use of compound words is where there is no term for a
thing and some compound can be easily formed, like 'pastime'
(chronotribein); but if this is much done, the prose character
disappears entirely. We now see why the language of compounds is
just the thing for writers of dithyrambs, who love sonorous noises;
strange words for writers of epic poetry, which is a proud and stately
affair; and metaphor for iambic verse, the metre which (as has been
already' said) is widely used to-day.
(4) There remains the fourth region in which bad taste may be shown,
metaphor. Metaphors like other things may be inappropriate. Some are
so because they are ridiculous; they are indeed used by comic as
well as tragic poets. Others are too grand and theatrical; and
these, if they are far-fetched, may also be obscure. For instance,
Gorgias talks of 'events that are green and full of sap', and says
'foul was the deed you sowed and evil the harvest you reaped'. That is
too much like poetry. Alcidamas, again, called philosophy 'a
fortress that threatens the power of law', and the Odyssey 'a goodly
looking-glass of human life',' talked about 'offering no such toy to
poetry': all these expressions fail, for the reasons given, to carry
the hearer with them. The address of Gorgias to the swallow, when
she had let her droppings fall on him as she flew overhead, is in
the best tragic manner. He said, 'Nay, shame, O Philomela'.
Considering her as a bird, you could not call her act shameful;
considering her as a girl, you could; and so it was a good gibe to
address her as what she was once and not as what she is.
The Simile also is a metaphor; the difference is but slight. When
the poet says of Achilles that he
Leapt on the foe as a lion,
this is a simile; when he says of him 'the lion leapt', it is a
metaphor-here, since both are courageous, he has transferred to
Achilles the name of 'lion'. Similes are useful in prose as well as in
verse; but not often, since they are of the nature of poetry. They are
to be employed just as metaphors are employed, since they are really
the same thing except for the difference mentioned.
The following are examples of similes. Androtion said of Idrieus
that he was like a terrier let off the chain, that flies at you and
bites you-Idrieus too was savage now that he was let out of his
chains. Theodamas compared Archidamus to an Euxenus who could not do
geometry-a proportional simile, implying that Euxenus is an Archidamus
who can do geometry. In Plato's Republic those who strip the dead
are compared to curs which bite the stones thrown at them but do not
touch the thrower, and there is the simile about the Athenian
people, who are compared to a ship's captain who is strong but a
little deaf; and the one about poets' verses, which are likened to
persons who lack beauty but possess youthful freshness-when the
freshness has faded the charm perishes, and so with verses when broken
up into prose. Pericles compared the Samians to children who take
their pap but go on crying; and the Boeotians to holm-oaks, because
they were ruining one another by civil wars just as one oak causes
another oak's fall. Demosthenes said that the Athenian people were
like sea-sick men on board ship. Again, Demosthenes compared the
political orators to nurses who swallow the bit of food themselves and
then smear the children's lips with the spittle. Antisthenes
compared the lean Cephisodotus to frankincense, because it was his
consumption that gave one pleasure. All these ideas may be expressed
either as similes or as metaphors; those which succeed as metaphors
will obviously do well also as similes, and similes, with the
explanation omitted, will appear as metaphors. But the proportional
metaphor must always apply reciprocally to either of its co-ordinate
terms. For instance, if a drinking-bowl is the shield of Dionysus, a
shield may fittingly be called the drinking-bowl of Ares.
Such, then, are the ingredients of which speech is composed. The
foundation of good style is correctness of language, which falls under
five heads. (1) First, the proper use of connecting words, and the
arrangement of them in the natural sequence which some of them
require. For instance, the connective 'men' (e.g. ego men) requires
the correlative de (e.g. o de). The answering word must be brought
in before the first has been forgotten, and not be widely separated
from it; nor, except in the few cases where this is appropriate, is
another connective to be introduced before the one required.
Consider the sentence, 'But as soon as he told me (for Cleon had
come begging and praying), took them along and set out.' In this
sentence many connecting words are inserted in front of the one
required to complete the sense; and if there is a long interval before
'set out', the result is obscurity. One merit, then, of good style
lies in the right use of connecting words. (2) The second lies in
calling things by their own special names and not by vague general
ones. (3) The third is to avoid ambiguities; unless, indeed, you
definitely desire to be ambiguous, as those do who have nothing to say
but are pretending to mean something. Such people are apt to put
that sort of thing into verse. Empedocles, for instance, by his long
circumlocutions imposes on his hearers; these are affected in the same
way as most people are when they listen to diviners, whose ambiguous
utterances are received with nods of acquiescence-
Croesus by crossing the Halys will ruin a mighty realm.
Diviners use these vague generalities about the matter in hand
because their predictions are thus, as a rule, less likely to be
falsified. We are more likely to be right, in the game of 'odd and
even', if we simply guess 'even' or 'odd' than if we guess at the
actual number; and the oracle-monger is more likely to be right if
he simply says that a thing will happen than if he says when it will
happen, and therefore he refuses to add a definite date. All these
ambiguities have the same sort of effect, and are to be avoided unless
we have some such object as that mentioned. (4) A fourth rule is to
observe Protagoras' classification of nouns into male, female, and
inanimate; for these distinctions also must be correctly given.
'Upon her arrival she said her say and departed (e d elthousa kai
dialechtheisa ocheto).' (5) A fifth rule is to express plurality,
fewness, and unity by the correct wording, e.g. 'Having come, they
struck me (oi d elthontes etupton me).'
It is a general rule that a written composition should be easy to
read and therefore easy to deliver. This cannot be so where there
are many connecting words or clauses, or where punctuation is hard, as
in the writings of Heracleitus. To punctuate Heracleitus is no easy
task, because we often cannot tell whether a particular word belongs
to what precedes or what follows it. Thus, at the outset of his
treatise he says, 'Though this truth is always men understand it not',
where it is not clear with which of the two clauses the word
'always' should be joined by the punctuation. Further, the following
fact leads to solecism, viz. that the sentence does not work out
properly if you annex to two terms a third which does not suit them
both. Thus either 'sound' or 'colour' will fail to work out properly
with some verbs: 'perceive' will apply to both, 'see' will not.
Obscurity is also caused if, when you intend to insert a number of
details, you do not first make your meaning clear; for instance, if
you say, 'I meant, after telling him this, that and the other thing,
to set out', rather than something of this kind 'I meant to set out
after telling him; then this, that, and the other thing occurred.'
The following suggestions will help to give your language
impressiveness. (1) Describe a thing instead of naming it: do not
say 'circle', but 'that surface which extends equally from the
middle every way'. To achieve conciseness, do the opposite-put the
name instead of the description. When mentioning anything ugly or
unseemly, use its name if it is the description that is ugly, and
describe it if it is the name that is ugly. (2) Represent things
with the help of metaphors and epithets, being careful to avoid
poetical effects. (3) Use plural for singular, as in poetry, where one
Unto havens Achaean,
though only one haven is meant, and
Here are my letter's many-leaved folds.
(4) Do not bracket two words under one article, but put one
article with each; e.g. 'that wife of ours.' The reverse to secure
conciseness; e.g. 'our wife.' Use plenty of connecting words;
conversely, to secure conciseness, dispense with connectives, while
still preserving connexion; e.g. 'having gone and spoken', and 'having
gone, I spoke', respectively. (6) And the practice of Antimachus, too,
is useful-to describe a thing by mentioning attributes it does not
possess; as he does in talking of Teumessus
There is a little wind-swept knoll...
A subject can be developed indefinitely along these lines. You may
apply this method of treatment by negation either to good or to bad
qualities, according to which your subject requires. It is from this
source that the poets draw expressions such as the 'stringless' or
'lyreless' melody, thus forming epithets out of negations. This device
is popular in proportional metaphors, as when the trumpet's note is
called 'a lyreless melody'.
Your language will be appropriate if it expresses emotion and
character, and if it corresponds to its subject. 'Correspondence to
subject' means that we must neither speak casually about weighty
matters, nor solemnly about trivial ones; nor must we add ornamental
epithets to commonplace nouns, or the effect will be comic, as in
the works of Cleophon, who can use phrases as absurd as 'O queenly
fig-tree'. To express emotion, you will employ the language of anger
in speaking of outrage; the language of disgust and discreet
reluctance to utter a word when speaking of impiety or foulness; the
language of exultation for a tale of glory, and that of humiliation
for a tale of and so in all other cases.
This aptness of language is one thing that makes people believe in
the truth of your story: their minds draw the false conclusion that
you are to be trusted from the fact that others behave as you do
when things are as you describe them; and therefore they take your
story to be true, whether it is so or not. Besides, an emotional
speaker always makes his audience feel with him, even when there is
nothing in his arguments; which is why many speakers try to
overwhelm their audience by mere noise.
Furthermore, this way of proving your story by displaying these
signs of its genuineness expresses your personal character. Each class
of men, each type of disposition, will have its own appropriate way of
letting the truth appear. Under 'class' I include differences of
age, as boy, man, or old man; of sex, as man or woman; of nationality,
as Spartan or Thessalian. By 'dispositions' I here mean those
dispositions only which determine the character of a man's for it is
not every disposition that does this. If, then, a speaker uses the
very words which are in keeping with a particular disposition, he will
reproduce the corresponding character; for a rustic and an educated
man will not say the same things nor speak in the same way. Again,
some impression is made upon an audience by a device which
speech-writers employ to nauseous excess, when they say 'Who does
not know this?' or 'It is known to everybody.' The hearer is ashamed
of his ignorance, and agrees with the speaker, so as to have a share
of the knowledge that everybody else possesses.
All the variations of oratorical style are capable of being used
in season or out of season. The best way to counteract any
exaggeration is the well-worn device by which the speaker puts in some
criticism of himself; for then people feel it must be all right for
him to talk thus, since he certainly knows what he is doing.
Further, it is better not to have everything always just corresponding
to everything else-your hearers will see through you less easily thus.
I mean for instance, if your words are harsh, you should not extend
this harshness to your voice and your countenance and have
everything else in keeping. If you do, the artificial character of
each detail becomes apparent; whereas if you adopt one device and
not another, you are using art all the same and yet nobody notices it.
(To be sure, if mild sentiments are expressed in harsh tones and harsh
sentiments in mild tones, you become comparatively unconvincing.)
Compound words, fairly plentiful epithets, and strange words best suit
an emotional speech. We forgive an angry man for talking about a wrong
as 'heaven-high' or 'colossal'; and we excuse such language when the
speaker has his hearers already in his hands and has stirred them
deeply either by praise or blame or anger or affection, as
Isocrates, for instance, does at the end of his Panegyric, with his
'name and fame' and 'in that they brooked'. Men do speak in this
strain when they are deeply stirred, and so, once the audience is in a
like state of feeling, approval of course follows. This is why such
language is fitting in poetry, which is an inspired thing. This
language, then, should be used either under stress of emotion, or
ironically, after the manner of Gorgias and of the passages in the
The form of a prose composition should be neither metrical nor
destitute of rhythm. The metrical form destroys the hearer's trust
by its artificial appearance, and at the same time it diverts his
attention, making him watch for metrical recurrences, just as children
catch up the herald's question, 'Whom does the freedman choose as
his advocate?', with the answer 'Cleon!' On the other hand,
unrhythmical language is too unlimited; we do not want the limitations
of metre, but some limitation we must have, or the effect will be
vague and unsatisfactory. Now it is number that limits all things; and
it is the numerica
Document Info
Accesari: 3442
Comenteaza documentul:
Nu esti inregistrat
Trebuie sa fii utilizator inregistrat pentru a putea comenta
Creaza cont nou
A fost util?
Daca documentul a fost util si crezi ca merita
sa adaugi un link catre el la tine in site
Copiaza codul:
in pagina web a site-ului tau.
RHETORIC by Aristotle
eCoduri.com - coduri postale, contabile, CAEN sau bancare
Politica de confidentialitate
Termenii si conditii de utilizare
SCRIGROUP Int. 2024