Aristotle

by George Grote

VIII.

The Eighth Book of the Topica brings our attention back to the general considerations contained in the First. In the intervening part of the treatise we have had the quadruple distribution of dialectical problems, with the enumeration of those Loci of argument which bear upon each or all: we are now invited to study the application of these distinctions in practice, and with this view to look once more both at the persons and the purposes of dialectical debate. What is the order of procedure most suitable, first, for the questioner or assailant; next, for the respondent or defender?[363] This order of procedure marks the distinctive line of separation between the dialectician and the man of science or philosopher: to both of them the Loci of arguments are alike available, though each of them deals with those arguments in his own way, and in an arrangement suitable for his purpose.[364] The dialectician, being engaged in debate, must shape his questions, and regulate his march as questioner, according to the concessions obtained or likely to be obtained from his respondent; who, if a question be asked having an obvious refutative bearing on the thesis, will foresee the consequences of answering in the affirmative, and will refuse to grant what is asked. On the contrary, the philosopher, who pursues investigation with a view to his own satisfaction alone, is under no similar restriction. He looks out at once for such premisses as conduct straight to a conclusion; and, the more obvious their bearing on the conclusion is, the more scientific will the syllogism be, and the better will he be pleased.[365]

[363] Ibid. VIII. i. p. 155, b. 3: μετὰ δὲ ταῦτα περὶ τάξεως, καὶ πῶς δεῖ ἐρωτᾶν, λεκτέον.

[364] Topic. VIII. i. p. 155, b. 7: μέχρι μὲν οὖν τοῦ εὑρεῖν τὸν τόπον, ὁμοίως τοῦ φιλοσόφου καὶ τοῦ διαλεκτικοῦ ἡ σκέψις, τὸ δ’ ἤδη ταῦτα τάττειν καὶ ἐρωτηματίζειν ἴδιον τοῦ διαλεκτικοῦ.

[365] Ibid. b. 10-16.

In the praxis dialectica (as has already been stated) two talkers are assumed — the respondent who sets up a thesis which he undertakes to defend, and a questioner who interrogates with a view to impugn it; or at least with a view to compel the other to answer in an inconsistent or contradictory manner. We are to assume, farther, a circle of listeners, who serve to a certain extent as guarantees against any breach of the rules of debate.[366] Three distinct purposes may be supposed in the debate. 1. You as a questioner may be a teacher, and the respondent a learner; your purpose is to teach what you know, while he wishes to learn from you what he does not know. 2. You engage in an intellectual contest or duel with the respondent, each of you seeking only victory over the other, though subject on both sides to observance of the rules of debate. 3. You neither seek to teach, nor to conquer; you and the respondent have both the same purpose — to test the argumentative consequences of different admissions, and to acquire a larger command of the chains of reasoning pro and con, bearing on some given topic.[367]

[366] Ibid. ii. p. 158, a. 10.

[367] Ibid. v. p. 159, a. 26: οὐ γὰρ οἱ αὐτοὶ σκοποὶ τοῖς διδάσκουσιν ἢ μανθάνουσι καὶ τοῖς ἀγνωνιζομένοις, οὐδὲ τούτοις τε καὶ τοῖς διατρίβουσι μετ’ ἀλλήλων σκέψις χάριν.

According as the aim of the talkers is one or other of these three, the good or bad conduct of the dialogue, on the part both of questioner and of respondent, must be differently appreciated. Of each of the three, specimens may be found in Plato, though not carefully severed but running one into the other. Aristotle appears to have been the first to formulate the distinction theoretically, and to prescribe for the practice of each separately. He tells us particularly that no one before him had clearly distinguished the third head, and prescribed for it apart from the second. The merit of having first done this he expressly claims for the Topica.[368]

[368] Topic. VIII. v. p. 159, a. 25-37: ἐπεὶ δ’ ἐστὶν ἀδιόριστα τοῖς γυμνασίας καὶ πείρας ἕνεκα τοὺς λόγους ποιουμένοις — ἐν δὲ ταῖς διαλεκτικαῖς συνόδοις τοῖς μὴ ἀγῶνος χάριν ἀλλὰ πείρας καὶ σκέψεως τοὺς λόγους ποιουμένοις, οὐ διήρθρωταί πω τίνος δεῖ στοχάζεσθαι τὸν ἀποκρινόμενον καὶ ὁποῖα διδόναι καὶ ποῖα μή, πρὸς τὸ καλῶς ἢ μὴ καλῶς φυλάττειν τὴν θέσιν. ἐπεὶ οὖν οὐδὲν ἔχομεν παραδεδομένον ὑπ’ ἄλλων, αὐτοί τι πειραθῶμεν εἰπεῖν.

Both the questioner and the respondent have a duty towards the dialogue; their common purpose is to conduct it well, not only obeying the peremptory rules, but displaying, over and above, skill for the attainment of their separate ends. Under the first and third heads, both may be alike successful. Under the second or contentious head, indeed, one only of the two can gain the victory; yet, still, even the defeated party may exhibit the maximum of skill which his position admits. This is sufficient for his credit; so that the common work will still be well performed.[369] But a partner who performs his own part so as to obstruct instead of forwarding this common work — who conducts the debate in a spirit of ill-tempered contention rather than of regular Dialectic — deserves censure.[370]

[369] Ibid. xi. p. 161, a. 19-b. 10: οὐ γὰρ ἔστιν ἐπὶ θατέρῳ μόνον τὸ λαλῶς ἐπιτελεσθῆναι τὸ κοινὸν ἔργον — ἐπεὶ δὲ φαῦλος κοινωνὸς ὁ ἐμποδίζων τὸ κοινὸν ἔργον, δῆλον ὅτι καὶ ἐν λόγῳ. Compare Topica, I. iii. p. 101, b. 8.

[370] Ibid. a. 33: διαλεκτικῶς καὶ μὴ ἐριστικῶς. — b. 2-18.

Having thus in view the dialogue as a partnership for common profit, Aristotle administers counsel to the questioning as well as to the responding partner. You as questioner have to deal with a thesis set up by the respondent. You see at once what the syllogism is that is required to prove the contrary or contradictory of that thesis; and your business is so to shape your questions as to induce the respondent to concede the premisses necessary towards that syllogism. If you ask him at once and directly to concede these premisses, he sees your drift and answers in the negative. You must therefore begin your approaches from a greater distance. You must ask questions bearing only indirectly and remotely upon your ultimate conclusion.[371] These outlying and preparatory questions will fall under four principal heads. Either (1) they will be inductive particulars, multiplied in order that you may obtain assent to an universal comprising them all; or (2) they will be put for the purpose of giving dignity to your discourse; or (3) they will be shaped with a view to conceal or keep out of sight the ultimate conclusion that you aim at; or (4), lastly, they will be introduced to make your whole argument clearer.[372] The third of these four general heads — the head of questions for the purpose of concealment — comes out principally in dialectical contests for victory. In those it is of supreme importance, and the result depends much on the employment of it; but even in other dialectical debates you must employ it to a certain extent.[373]

[371] Topic. VIII. i. p. 155, b. 29: τὰς μὲν οὖν ἀναγκαίας, δι’ ὧν ὁ συλλογισμός, οὐκ εὐθὺς αὐτὰς προτατέον, ἀλλ’ ἀποστατέον ὅτι ἀνωτάτω, &c.

[372] Topic. VIII. i. p. 155, b. 20.

[373] Ibid. b. 26.

Aristotle goes at great length into the means of Concealment. Suppose the proposition which you desire to get conceded is, The science of two contraries is the same. You will find it useful to commence by a question more general: e.g., Is the science of two opposites the same? If the respondent answers in the affirmative, you will deduce from his concession, by syllogism, the conclusion which you desire. If he answers in the negative, you must then try to arrive at your end by a string of questions respecting particular contraries or opposites; which if the respondent grants successively, you will bring in your general question ultimately as the inductive result from those concessions.[374] Your particulars must be selected from obvious matters of sense and notoriety. You are likely to obtain in this way admissions which will serve as premisses for several different prosyllogisms, not indeed sufficient by themselves, yet valuable as conditions and preliminaries to the final syllogism whereby the thesis is refuted. For, when the questions are put in this way, the respondent will not see your drift nor the consequences of his own concessions; so that he will more readily concede what you want.[375] The better to conceal your purpose, you will refrain from drawing out any of these prosyllogisms clearly at once; you will not even put the major and minor premiss of any one of them in immediate sequence; but you will confound the order of them intentionally, stating first a premiss belonging to one, and next a premiss belonging to another.[376] The respondent, thus kept in the dark, answers in the affirmative to each of your questions successively. At length you find that you have obtained a sufficient number of concessions from him, to enable you to prove the syllogism contradictory of his thesis. You inform him of this; and it shows the perfect skill and success of your procedure, when he expresses surprise at the announcement, and asks on what premisses you reckon.[377]

[374] Ibid. b. 34: ἂν δὲ μὴ τιθῇ, δι’ ἐπαγωγῆς ληπτέον, προτείναντα ἐπὶ τῶν κατὰ μέρος ἐναντίων.

[375] Ibid. p. 156, a. 7: κρύπτοντα δὲ προσυλλογίζεσθαι δι’ ὧν ὁ συλλογισμὸς τοῦ ἐξ ἀρχῆς μέλλει γίνεσθαι, καὶ ταῦτα ὡς πλεῖστα.

[376] Ibid. a. 23: χρήσιμον δὲ καὶ τὸ μὴ συνεχῆ τὰ ἀξιώματα λαμβάνειν ἐξ ὧν οἱ συλλογισμοί, ἀλλ’ ἐναλλὰξ τὸ πρὸς ἕτερον καὶ ἕτερον συμπέρασμα.

[377] Topic. VIII. i. p. 156, a. 13: καθόλου δ’ εἰπεῖν, οὕτω δεῖ ἐρωτᾶν τὸν κρυπτικῶς πυνθανόμενον, ὥστ’ ἠρωτημένου τοῦ παντὸς λόγου καὶ εἰπόντος τὸ συμπέρασμα ζητεῖσθαι τὸ διὰ τί.

There are also other manœuvres serving your purpose of concealment, and preventing the respondent from seeing beforehand the full pertinence of your questions. Thus, if you wish to obtain the definition of your major, you will do well to ask the definition, not of the term itself but, of some one among its conjugates. You will put your question, as if the answer were of little importance in itself, and as if you did not care whether it was given in the affirmative or in the negative;[378] you will sometimes even suggest objections to that which you are seeming to aim at. All this will give you the air of a candid disputant; it will throw the respondent off his guard, and make him more ready to answer as he really thinks, without alarm for the consequences.[379] When you wish to get a certain premiss conceded, you will put the question first upon a different premiss analogous to it. In putting your question, you will add that the answer which you desire is a matter of course, familiar and admitted by every one; for respondents are shy of contradicting any received belief, unless they have present to their minds a clear instance adverse to it.[380] You will never manifest apparent earnestness about an answer; which would make the respondent less willing to concede it.[381] You will postpone until the last the premiss which you wish to obtain, and will begin by putting questions the answers to which serve as remote premisses behind it, only in the end conducting to it as consequence. Generally speaking, questioners do the reverse, putting first the questions about which they are most anxious; while most respondents, aware of this habit, are most intractable in regard to the first questions, except some presumptuous and ill-tempered disputants, who concede what is asked at first but afterwards become obstinate in denegation.[382] You will throw in some irrelevant questions with a view to lengthen the procedure, like fallacious geometers who complicate a diagram by drawing unnecessary lines. Amidst a multitude of premisses falsehood is more likely to escape detection; and thus, also, you may perhaps be able to slip in, unperceived and in a corner, some important premiss, which, if put as a separate question by itself, would certainly not have been granted.[383]

[378] Ibid. b. 6: ἁπλῶς δ’ εἰπεῖν, ὅτι μάλιστα ποιεῖν ἄδηλον, πότερον τὸ προτεινόμενον ἢ τὸ ἀντικείμενον βούλεται λαβεῖν· ἀδήλου γὰρ ὄντος τοῦ πρὸς τὸν λόγον χρησίμου, μᾶλλον τὸ δοκοῦν αὑτοῖς τιθέασιν.

[379] Ibid. b. 18: δεῖ δὲ καὶ αὐτόν ποτε αὑτῷ ἔνστασιν φέρειν· ἀνυπόπτως γὰρ ἔχουσιν οἱ ἀποκρινόμενοι πρὸς τοὺς δοκοῦντας δικαίως ἐπιχειρεῖν.

[380] Ibid. b. 10, 20: χρήσιμον δὲ καὶ τὸ ἐπιλέγειν ὅτι σύνηθες καὶ λεγόμενον τὸ τοιοῦτον· ὀκνοῦσι γὰρ κινεῖν τὸ εἰωθός, ἔνστασιν μὴ ἔχοντες.

[381] Ibid. b. 23: ἔτι τὸ μὴ σπουδάζειν.

[382] Ibid. b. 30-39: καὶ τὸ ἐπ’ ἐσχάτῳ ἐρωτᾶν ὃ μάλιστα βούλεται λαβεῖν· &c.

[383] Topic. VIII. i. p. 157, a. 1-5: ἔτι τὸ μηκύνειν καὶ παρεμβάλλειν τὰ μηδὲν χρήσιμα πρὸς τὸν λόγον, καθάπερ οἱ ψευδογραφοῦντες· πολλῶν γὰρ ὄντων ἄδηλον ἐν ὁποίῳ τὸ ψεῦδος. διὸ καὶ λανθάνουσιν ἐνίοτε οἱ ἐρωτῶντες ἐν παραβύστῳ προστιθέντες ἃ καθ’ αὑτὰ προτεινόμενα οὐκ ἂν τεθείη.

Such are the multifarious suggestions addressed by Aristotle to the questioner for concealing his method of attack;[384] Concealment being the third of the four general heads relating to the treatment of premisses not immediately necessary for proof of the final refutative conclusion. On the other three general heads — Induction from particulars to an universal, Dignity, Clearness — Aristotle goes into less detail. For Clearness, he recommends that examples should be introduced; especially familiar examples, taken from well-known poets like Homer, not from obscure poets like Chœrilus.[385]

[384] Ibid. a. 6: εἰς μὲν οὖν πρύψιν τοῖς εἰρημένοις χρηστέον, &c.

[385] Ibid. a. 14.

In regard to Induction, Aristotle points out an embarrassment often arising from the want of suitable universal names. When, after having obtained an affirmative answer about several similar particulars, you wish to put a question generalizing the result, you will sometimes find no universal term fitting the position. You are obliged to say: Will it not be so in all such cases? and this lets in a serious difficulty, how to know what other cases are like, and what are not. Here the respondent will often dispute your right to include this or that other particular.[386] You will do well to coin a new universal term fitting the situation.

[386] Ibid. ii. p. 157, a. 18-33. διὸ πειρατέον ἐπὶ πάντων τῶν τοιούτων ὀνοματοποιεῖν αὐτόν, &c.

If the respondent answers in the affirmative to several questions of similar particulars, but answers in the negative when you sum them up in an universal comprehending all similar cases, — you may require him to cite some particular case justifying his denial; though you cannot require him to do this before he has made the affirmative answers.[387] It is not sufficient that he should cite, as the single case of exception, the express case which forms the subject of the thesis: He ought to produce some distinct and independent instance, really comprised within the genus, and not merely connected with it by the link of an equivocal term.[388] If he produces an adverse instance really comprised within the genus, you may perhaps be able to re-model your question, so as to make reserve for the basis on which this objection is founded. The respondent will then be compelled (unless he can foresee some new case of objection) to concede the universal with this special qualification; so that you will have gained all that you really require. Should the respondent continue to refuse, without producing any new case, he will transgress the rules of Dialectic; which recognize an universal affirmative, wherever there are numerous affirmative particulars without one assignable negative.[389] Indeed, if you know the universal to hold in many particular cases, and do not know of any others adverse, you may boldly put your question at once in reference to the universal (without going first through the series of particulars). The respondent will hardly venture to deny it, not having in his mind any negative particulars.[390]

[387] Ibid. a. 34-37.

[388] Ibid. a. 37-b. 8.

[389] Topic. VIII. ix. p. 1577, b. 8-33. διαλεκτικὴ γάρ ἐστι πρότασις πρὸς ἣν οὕτως ἐπὶ πολλῶν ἔχουσαν μὴ ἔστιν ἔνστασις.

[390] Ibid. p. 158, a. 3-6.

You must however keep in mind what a dialectic universal premiss really is. Not every question requiring an universal answer is allowed to be put. You must not ask for positive information, nor put such questions as the following: What is man? In how many different senses is good employed? A dialectic question is one to which the respondent makes sufficient reply by saying, Yes or No.[391] You must ask in this form: Is the definition of man so and so? Is good enunciated in this or that different sense? To these questions the respondent may answer Yes or No. But if he persists in negative answers to your multiplied questions as to this or that sense of the term good, you may perhaps stand excused for asking him: “In how many different senses, then, do you yourself use the term good?�[392]

[391] Ibid. p. 158, a. 14, seq. ἔστι γὰρ πρότασις διαλεκτικὴ πρὸς ἣν ἔστιν ἀποκρίνασθαι ναὶ ἢ οὔ.

[392] Ibid. a. 21-24.

When you have obtained concessions which furnish premisses for a formal syllogism, you will draw out and propound that syllogism and its conclusion forthwith, without asking any farther question from the respondent or any leave from him to do so. He may indeed deny your right to do this, in spite of the concessions which he has made; and the auditors around, not fully appreciating all his concessions, may perhaps think that he is entitled to deny it. But, if you ask his leave to draw out the syllogism and he refuses to give leave, the auditors are much more likely to think that your syllogism is not allowable.[393] If you have the choice between an ostensive syllogism and a Reductio ad Absurdum, you ought always to prefer the former, as plainer and more incontestable.[394]

[393] Ibid. a. 7-12: οὐ δεῖ δὲ τὸ συμπέρασμα ἐρώτημα ποιεῖν· εἰ δὲ μή, ἀνανεύσαντος οὐ δοκεῖ γεγονέναι συλλογισμός.

[394] Topic. VIII. ii. p. 158, b. 34-p. 158, a. 2.

You must not persevere long in the same line of questions. For, if the respondent answers them all, it will soon appear that you are in the wrong course, since your syllogism, if you can get one at all, will always be obtained from a small number of premisses; and, if the respondent will not answer them, you have no alternative except to protest and desist.[395]

[395] Ibid. p. 158, a. 25-30.

The theses that are most difficult to attack are also most easy to defend; and these are the highest universals, and the lowest particulars. The highest you cannot deal with, unless you can get a definition of them; which is sometimes impossible and always difficult; since the respondent will neither define them himself nor accept your definitions. Those which are next to the highest are also difficult to impugn, because there are few intermediate steps of proof. Again, the lowest particulars are also difficult for the contrary reason, that there are so many intermediate steps, and it is tedious to enumerate them all continuously; while, if any are omitted, the demonstration is incomplete, and the procedure will appear sophistical.[396] The most difficult of all to impugn are definitions framed in vague and unintelligible terms, where you do not know whether they are univocal or equivocal, literal or metaphorical. When the thesis tendered to you presents such difficulty, you may presume that it is affected with the obscurity of terms here indicated; or, at any rate, that its terms stand in need of definition.[397] In geometrical construction, as well as in dialectical debate, it is indispensable that the principia or primary terms should be defined, and defined properly; without this, neither the one nor the other can be pursued.[398]

[396] Ibid. iii. p. 158, a. 31, seq. ἢ σοφισματώδη φαίνεται τὰ ἐπιχειρήματα.

[397] Ibid. iii. p. 158, b. 8-23; p. 159, a. 3: οὔκουν δεῖ λανθάνειν, ὅταν δυσεπιχείρητος ᾖ ἡ θέσις, ὅτι πέπονθέ τι τῶν εἰρημένων.

[398] Ibid. p. 158, b. 24-p. 159, a. 2.

Sometimes the major and minor premisses of your syllogistic conclusion are more difficult to establish — more beyond the level of average intelligence — than the thesis itself. In such a case some may think that the respondent ought to grant these premisses, because, if he refuses and requires them to be proved, he will be imposing upon the questioner a duty more arduous than the thesis itself imposes; others may say that he ought not to grant them, because, if he did, he would be acknowledging a conclusion derived from premisses requiring proof as much or more than itself.[399] A distinction must here be made. If you are putting questions with a view to teach, the learner ought not to grant such premisses as those above described, because he is entitled to require that in every step of the process he shall be inducted from what is more knowable to what is less knowable. Accordingly, when you attempt to demonstrate to him something which he knows little, by requiring him to concede something which he knows still less, he cannot be advised to grant what you ask. But, if you are debating with a companion for the purpose of dialectical exercise, he ought to grant what you ask whenever the affirmative really appears to him true.[400]

[399] Topic. VIII. iii. p. 159, a. 4-11. ὅταν δ’ ᾖ πρὸς τὸ ἀξίωμα καὶ τὴν πρότασιν μεῖζον ἔργον διαλεγῆναι ἢ τὴν θέσιν, διαπορήσειεν ἄν τις πότερον θετέον τὰ τοιαῦτα ἢ οὔ· &c.

[400] Ibid. a. 11-14: ἢ τῷ μὲν μανθάνοντι οὐ θετέον, ἂν μὴ γνωριμώτερον ᾖ, τῷ δὲ γυμναζομένῳ θετέον, ἂν ἀληθὲς μόνον φαίνηται. ὥστε φανερὸν ὅτι οὐχ ὁμοίως ἐρωτῶντί τε κὶ διδάσκοντι ἀξιωτέον τιθέναι.

This section is obscure and difficult. I am not sure that I understand it. It seems doubtful whether the verb τιθέναι is intended to apply to the questioner or to the respondent.

We have now said enough for the purpose of instructing the questioner how to frame and marshal his interrogations. We must turn to the respondent, and point out how he must answer in order to do well and perform his duty to the common work of dialogue. Speaking generally, the task of the questioner is to conduct the dialogue so as to make the respondent enunciate the most improbable and absurd replies which follow necessarily from the thesis that he has undertaken to defend; while the task of the respondent is to make it appear that these absurdities follow from the thesis itself, and not from his manner of defending it. The respondent may err in one of two ways, or indeed in both together: either he may set up an indefensible thesis; or he may fail to defend it in the best manner that it really admits; or he may do both. The second is a worse error than the first, in reference to the general purpose of Dialectic.[401]

[401] Ibid. iv. p. 159, a. 15-24: τοῦ δ’ ἀποκρινομένου τὸ μὴ δι’ αὐτὸν φαίνεσθαι συμβαίνειν τὸ ἀδύνατον ἢ τὸ παράδοξον, ἀλλὰ διὰ τὴν θέσιν· ἑτέρα γὰρ ἴσως ἁμαρτία τὸ θέσθαι πρῶτον ὃ μὴ δεῖ καὶ τὸ θέμενον μὴ φυλάξαι κατὰ τρόπον.

Aristotle distinguishes (as has been already stated) three purposes in the dialogue:— (1) Teaching and Learning; (2) Contention, where both questioner and respondent strive only for victory; (3) Investigating and Testing the consequences of some given doctrine.[402] The first two of these three are dismissed rapidly. In the first, the teaching questioner has no intention of deceiving, and the pupil respondent has only to answer by granting all that appears to him true.[403] In the second, Aristotle tells us only that the questioner must always appear as if he were making some point of his own; while the respondent, on his side, must always appear as if no point were made against him.[404] But in regard to the third head — dialogues of Search, Testing, Exercise — he is more copious in suggestions: he considers these as the proper field of Dialectic, and, as we saw, claims to have been the first who treated them apart from the didactic dialogues on one side, and the contentious on the other.[405]

[402] Ibid. v. p. 159, a. 24-28.

[403] Ibid. a. 29: τῷ μὲν γὰρ μανθάνοντι θετέον ἀεὶ τὰ δοκοῦντα· καὶ γὰρ οὔδ’ ἐπιχειρεῖ ψεῦδος οὐδεὶς διδάσκειν.

[404] Topic. VIII. iv. p. 159, a. 30: τῶν δ’ ἀγνωνιζομένων τὸν μὲν ἐρωτῶντα φαίνεσθαί τι δεῖ ποιεῖν πάντως, τὸν δ’ ἀποκρινόμενον μηδὲν φαίνεσθαι πάσχειν.

[405] Ibid. a. 32-37; xi. p. 161, a. 23-25: δυσκολαίνοντες οὖν ἀγνωνιστικὰς καὶ οὐ διαλεκτικὰς ποιοῦνται τὰς διατριβάς· ἔτι δ’ ἐπεὶ γυμνασίας καὶ πείρας χάριν ἀλλ’ οὐ διδασκαλίας οἱ τοιοῦτοι τῶν λόγων, &c.

The thesis which the respondent undertakes to defend (in a dialogue of Search or Testing) must be either probable, or improbable, or neither one nor the other. The probability or improbability may be either simple and absolute, or special and relative — in the estimation of the respondent himself or of some one or more persons. Now, if the thesis be improbable, the opposite thereof, which you the questioner try to prove, must be probable; if the thesis be probable, the opposite thereof must be improbable; if the thesis be neither, its opposite will also be neither. Suppose, first, that the thesis is improbable absolutely. In that case, its opposite, which you the questioner must fish for premisses to prove, will be probable; the respondent therefore ought not to grant you any demand which is either simply improbable or less probable than the conclusion which you aim at proving; for no such concessions can really serve your purpose, since you are bound to prove your conclusion from premisses more probable than itself.[406] Suppose, next, that the thesis is probable absolutely. In that case, the opposite conclusion, which you have to make out, will be improbable absolutely. Accordingly, whenever you ask concessions that are probable, the respondent ought to grant them; whenever you ask for concessions that are less improbable than your intended conclusion, he ought to grant these also; but, if you ask for any thing more improbable than your intended conclusion, he ought to refuse it.[407] Suppose, thirdly, that the thesis is neither probable nor improbable. Here, too, the respondent ought to grant all concessions that appear to him probable, as well as all that he thinks more probable than the opposite conclusion which you are seeking to arrive at; but no others. This is sufficient for the purpose of Dialectic, and for keeping open the lines of probable argument.[408]

[406] Ibid. v. p. 159, b. 9: φανερὸν ὡς ἀδόξου μὲν ὄντος ἁπλῶς τοῦ κειμένου οὐ δοτέον τῷ ἀποκρινομένῳ οὔθ’ ὃ μὴ δοκεῖ ἁπλῶς, οὔθ’ ὃ δοκεῖ μέν ἧττον δὲ τοῦ συμπεράσματος δοκεῖ. ἀδόξου γὰρ οὔσης τῆς θέσεως ἔνδοξον τὸ συμπέρασμα, ὥστε δεῖ τὰ λαμβανόμενα ἐνδοξα πάντ’ εἶναι καὶ μᾶλλον ἔνδοξα τοῦ προκειμένου, εἰ μέλλει διὰ τῶν γνωριμωτέρων τὸ ἧττον γνώριμον περαίνεσθαι. ὥστ’ εἴ τι μὴ τοιοῦτόν ἐστι τῶν ἐρωτωμένων, οὐ θετέον τῷ ἀποκρινομένῳ.

[407] Ibid. b. 16.

[408] Topic. VIII. v. p. 159, b. 19-23: ἱκανῶς γὰρ ἂν δόξειε διειλέχθαι — οὕτω γὰρ ἐνδοξοτέρους συμβήσεται τοὺς λόγους γίνεσθαι.

When the probability or improbability of the thesis is considered simply and absolutely, the respondent ought to measure his concessions by the standard of opinion received usually.[409] When the probability or improbability of the thesis is considered as referable to the respondent himself, he has only to consult his own judgment and estimation in granting or refusing what is asked. When he undertakes to defend a thesis avowedly as the doctrine of some known philosopher, such as Herakleitus, he must, in giving his answers, measure probability and improbability according to what Herakleitus would determine.[410]

[409] Ibid. b. 24: πρὸς τὰ δοκοῦντα ἁπλῶς τὴν σύγκρισιν ποιητέον.

[410] Ibid. b. 25-35. πρὸς τὴν ἐκείνου διάνοιαν ἀποβλέποντα θετέον ἕκαστα καὶ ἀρνητέον.

Since all the questions that you ask must be either probable, improbable, or neuter, and either relevant[411] or not relevant to your purpose of refuting the thesis, let us first suppose that you ask for a concession which is in itself probable, but not relevant. The respondent ought to grant it, adding that he thinks it probable. If what you ask is neither probable nor relevant, he ought even then to grant it; but annexing a notification that he is aware of its improbability, in order to save his own credit for intelligence.[412] If it be both probable and relevant, he ought to say that he is aware of its probability, but that it is too closely connected with the thesis, and that, if he grants it, the thesis will stand refuted. If it be relevant, yet at the same time very improbable, he must reply that, if he grants it, the thesis will be refuted, but that it is too silly to be propounded. If, being neutral, it is also not relevant, he ought to grant it without comment; but if, being neutral, it is relevant, he ought to notify that he is aware that by granting it his thesis will be refuted.[413]

[411] Ibid. vi. p. 159, b. 39: ἢ πρὸς τὸν λόγον, ἢ μὴ πρὸς τὸν λόγον. By this phrase Aristotle seems to mean, not simply relevant, but closely, directly, conspicuously relevant — equivalent to λίαν συνεγγὺς τοῦ ἐν ἀρχῇ (p. 160, a. 5).

[412] Ibid. b. 36-p. 160, a. 2. ἐὰν δὲ μὴ δοκοῦν καὶ μὴ πρὸς τὸν λόγον, δοτέον μέν, ἐπισημαντέον δὲ τὸ μὴ δοκοῦν πρὸς εὐλάβειαν εὐηθείας.

How is this to be reconciled with what Aristotle says in the preceding chapter, p. 159, b. 11-18, that the respondent ought not to grant such improbabilities at all?

[413] Ibid. p. 160, a. 6-11.

In this way of proceeding, the march of the dialogue on both sides will be creditable. The respondent, signifying plainly that he understands the full consequences of his own concessions, will not appear to be worsted through any short-comings of his own, but only through what is inherent in his thesis; while you the questioner, having asked for such premisses as are really more probable than the conclusion to be established, and having had them granted, will have made out your point. It must be understood that you ought not to try to prove your conclusion from premisses less probable than itself; and that, if you put questions of this sort, you transgress the rules of dialectical procedure.[414]

[414] Topic. VIII. vi. p. 160, a. 11-16. οὕτω γὰρ ὅ τ’ ἀποκρινόμενος οὐδὲν δόξει δι’ αὑτὸν πάσχειν, ἐὰν προορῶν ἕκαστα τιθῇ, ὅ τ’ ἐρωτῶν τεύξεται συλλογισμοῦ τιθεμένων αὐτῷ πάντων ἐνδοξοτέρων τοῦ συμπεράσματος. ὅσοι δ’ ἐξ ἀδοξοτέρων τοῦ συμπεράσματος ἐπιχειροῦσι συλλογίζεσθαι, δῆλον ὡς οὐ καλῶς συλλογίζονται· διὸ τοῖς ἐρωτῶσιν οὐ θετέον.

If you ask a dialectical question in plain and univocal language, the respondent is bound to answer Yes or No. But if you ask it in terms obscure or equivocal, he is not obliged to answer thus directly. He is at liberty to tell you that he does not understand the question; he ought to have no scruple in telling you so, if such is really the fact. Suppose the terms of your question to be familiar, but equivocal; the answer to it may perhaps be either true or false, alike in all the different senses of the terms. In that case, the respondent ought to answer Yes or No directly. But, if the answer would be an affirmation in one sense of the terms and a negation in another, he must take care to signify that he is aware of the equivocation, and to distinguish at once the two-fold meaning; for, if the distinction is not noticed till afterwards, he cannot clearly show that he was aware of it from the first. If he really was not at first aware of the equivocation, and gave an affirmative answer looking only to one among the several distinct meanings, you will try to convict him of error by pushing him on the other meaning. The best thing that he can then do will be to confess his oversight, and to excuse himself by saying that misconception is easy where the same term or the same proposition may mean several different things.[415]

[415] Ibid. vii. p. 160, a. 17-34.

Suppose you put several particular questions (or several analogous questions) with the view of arriving ultimately by induction at the concession of an universal, comprising them all. If they are all both true and probable, the respondent must concede them all severally; yet he may still intend to answer No, when the universal is tendered to him after them. He has no right to answer thus, however, unless he can produce some contradictory particular instance, real or apparent, to justify him; and, if he does so without such justification, he is a perverse dialectician.[416] Perhaps he may try to sustain his denegation of the universal, after having conceded many particulars, by a counter-attack founded on some chain of paradoxical reasoning such as that of Zeno against motion; there being many such paradoxes contradictory of probabilities, yet hard to refute. But this is no sufficient justification for refusing to admit the universal, when, after having admitted many particulars, he can produce no particular adverse to them. The case will be still worse, if he refuses to admit the universal, having neither any adverse instance, nor any counter-ratiocinative attack. It is then the extreme of perverse Dialectic.[417]

[416] Topic. VIII. viii. p. 160, b. 2-5: τὸ γὰρ ἄνευ ἐνστάσεως, ἢ οὔσης ἢ δοκούσης, κωλύειν τὸν λόγον δυσκολαίνειν ἐστίν. εἰ οὖν ἐπὶ πολλῶν φαινομένου μὴ δίδωσι τὸ καθόλου μὴ ἔχων ἔνστασιν, φανερὸν ὅτι δυσκολαίνει.

[417] Ibid. b. 5, seq. ἔτι εἰ μηδ’ ἀντεπιχειρεῖν ἔχει ὅτι οὐκ ἀληθές, πολλῷ μᾶλλον ἂν δόξειε δυσκολαίνειν. καίτοι οὐδὲ τοῦθ’ ἱκανόν· πολλοὺς γὰρ λόγους ἔχομεν ἐναντίους ταῖς δόξαις, οὓς χαλεπὸν λύειν, καθάπερ τὸν Ζήνωνος ὅτι οὐκ ἐνδέχεται κινεῖσθαι οὐδὲ τὸ στάδιον διελθεῖν· ἀλλ’ οὐ διὰ τοῦτο τἀντικείμενα τούτοις οὐ θετέον.

Before the respondent undertakes to defend any thesis or definition, he ought to have previously studied the various modes attacking it, and to have prepared himself for meeting them.[418] He must also be cautious of taking up improbable theses, in either of the senses of improbable. For a thesis is so called when it involves strange and paradoxical developments, as if a man lays down either that every thing is in motion or that nothing is in motion; and also, when it implies a discreditable character and is contrary to that which men wish to be thought to hold, as, for example, the doctrine that pleasure is the good, or that it is better to do wrong than to suffer wrong. If a man defends such theses as these, people hate him because they presume that he is not merely propounding them as matter for dialectical argument, but advocating them as convictions of his own.[419]

[418] Ibid. ix. p. 160, b. 14.

[419] Ibid. b. 17-22: ἄδοξον δ’ ὑπόθεσιν εὐλαβητέον ὑπέχειν· εἴη δ’ ἂν ἄδοξος διχῶς· &c.

The respondent must farther be able, if you bring against him a false syllogistic reasoning, to distinguish upon which among your premisses the false conclusion really turns, and to refute that one. Your reasoning may have more than one false premiss; but he must not content himself with refuting any one or any other: he must single out that one which is the chief determining cause of the falsehood. Thus, if your syllogism be:— Every man in a sitting position is writing, Sokrates is a man in a sitting position; therefore, Sokrates is writing, — it will not suffice that the respondent should refute your minor premiss, though this may be false;[420] because such a refutation will not apply to the number of other cases in which men are sitting but not writing; and therefore it will not expose the full bearing of the falsehood. Your major premiss is that upon which the full bearing of the falsehood depends; and the respondent must show that he is aware of this by refuting your major.[421]

[420] Topic. VIII. x. p. 160, b. 23-26. οὐ γὰρ ὁ ὁτιοῦν ἀνελὼν λέλυκεν, οὔδ’ εἰ ψεῦδός ἐστι τὸ ἀναιρούμενον· ἔχοι γὰρ ἂν πλείω ψευδῆ ὁ λόγος.

[421] Ibid. b. 30-39. οἶδε δὲ τὴν λύσιν ὁ εἰδὼς ὅτι παρὰ τοῦτο ὁ λόγος — οὐ γὰρ ἀπόχρη τὸ ἐνστῆναι, οὔδ’ ἂν ψεῦδος ᾖ τὸ ἀναιρούμενον, ἀλλὰ καὶ διότι ψεῦδος ἀποδεικτέον· οὕτω γὰρ ἂν εἴη φανερὸν πότερον προορῶν τι ἢ οὒ ποιεῖται τὴν ἔνστασιν.

This last-mentioned proceeding — refutation of that premiss upon which your false conclusion in its full bearing really turns — is the only regular, valid, and complete objection whereby the respondent can stop out your syllogistic approaches. There are indeed three other modes of objection to which he may resort; but these are all either inconclusive or unfair. He may turn his objection against you personally; and, without refuting any of your premisses, he may thus perplex and confuse you, so that you are disqualified from pursuing the thread of your questions. Or he may turn his objections against portions of your questions; not refuting any one of your premisses, but showing that, as they stand, they are insufficient to warrant the conclusion which you seek to establish; when, if you are master of your subject, and retain your calmness, you will at once supply the deficiency by putting additional questions, so that his objection thus vanishes. Or, lastly, he may multiply irrelevant objections against time, for the purpose of prolonging the discussion and tiring you out.[422] Of these four modes of objection open to the respondent the first is the only one truly valid and conclusive; the three others are obstructions either surmountable or unfair, and the last is the most discreditable of all.[423]

[422] Ibid. p. 161, a. 1-12: ἔστι δὲ λόγον κωλῦσαι συμπεράνασθαι τετραχῶς. ἢ γὰρ ἀνελόντα παρ’ ὃ γίνεται τὸ ψεῦδος. ἢ πρὸς τὸν ἐρωτῶντα ἔνστασιν εἰπόντα· — τρίτον δὲ πρὸς τὰ ἠρωτημένα· — τετάρτη δὲ καὶ χειρίστη τῶν ἐνστάσεων ἡ πρὸς τὸν χρόνον.

[423] Ibid. a. 13-15: αἱ μὲν οὖν ἐνστάσεις, καθάπερ εἴπαμεν, τετραχῶς γίνονται· λύσις δ’ ἐστὶ τῶν εἰρημένων ἡ πρώτη μόνον, αἱ δὲ λοιπαὶ κωλύσεις τινὲς καὶ ἐμποδισμοὶ τῶν συμπερασμάτων.

To blame the argumentative procedure and to blame the questioner are two distinct things. Perhaps your manner of conducting the interrogation, preparatory to your final syllogism, may be open to censure; yet nevertheless you the questioner may deserve no censure; for it may be the respondent’s fault, not yours. He may refuse to grant the very premisses which are essential to the good conduct of your case; he may resort to perverse evasions and contradictions for the mere purpose of thwarting you; so that you are forced to adapt yourself to his unworthy manœuvres rather than to aim at the thesis itself. Dialectic cannot be well conducted unless both the partners do their duty to the common purpose; the bad conduct of your respondent puts you out, and the dialectic presently degenerates on both sides into angry contention.[424] Apart from this, too, it must be remembered that the express purpose of Dialectic is not to teach, but to search and test consequences and to exercise the intellect of both parties. Accordingly you are not always restricted to true syllogistic premisses and conclusions. You are allowed to resort occasionally to false premisses and false conclusions; for, if what the respondent advances be true, you have no means of refuting it except by falsehood; and, if what he advances be false, the best way of refuting it may be through some other falsehood.[425] You render service to him by doing so; for, since his beliefs are contrary to truth, if the dialogue is confined to his beliefs, the result may perhaps contribute to persuade him, but it will not instruct or profit him.[426] It is your business to bring him round and emancipate him from these erroneous beliefs; but you must accomplish this in a manner truly dialectical, and not contentious; whether you proceed by true or by false conclusions.[427] If you on your side, indeed, put questions in a contentious spirit, it is you that are to blame. But often the respondent is most to blame, when he refuses to grant what he thinks probable, and when he does not apprehend what you really intend to ask.[428] He is sometimes also to blame for granting what he ought to refuse; such as Petitio Principii or Affirmation of Contraries. It is often difficult to distinguish what questions involve Petitio Principii or Affirmation of Contraries: they are asked and granted without either party being aware, and the like mistake is committed by men in private talk, not merely in formal dialogue. When this happens, the argument will inevitably be a bad one; but the fault is with the respondent who, having before refused what he ought to have granted, now grants what he ought to refuse.[429]

[424] Topic. VIII. xi. p. 161, a. 16-24. δυσκολαίνοντες οὖν ἀγωνιστικὰς καὶ οὐ διαλεκτικὰς ποιοῦνται τὰς διατριβάς. a. 37: φαῦλος κοινωνὸς ὁ ἐμποδίζων τὸ κοινὸν ἔργον.

[425] Ibid. a. 24-31: ἔτι δ’ ἐπεὶ γυμνασίας καὶ πείρας χάριν ἀλλ’ οὐ διδασκαλίας οἱ τοιοῦτοι τῶν λόγων, δῆλον ὡς οὐ μόνον τἀληθῆ συλλογιστέον ἀλλὰ καὶ ψεῦδος, οὐδὲ δι’ ἀληθῶν ἀεὶ ἀλλ’ ἐνίοτε καὶ ψευδῶν. πολλάκις γὰρ ἀληθοῦς τεθέντος ἀναιρεῖν ἀνάγκη τὸν διαλεγόμενον, ὥστε προτατέον τὰ ψευδῆ. ἐνίοτε δὲ καὶ ψεύδους τεθέντος ἀναιρετέον διὰ ψευδῶν.

[426] Ibid. a. 30: οὐδὲν γὰρ κωλύει τινὶ δοκεῖν τὰ μὴ ὄντα μᾶλλον τῶν ἀληθῶν, ὥστ’ ἐκ τῶν ἐκείνῳ δοκούντων τοῦ λόγου γενομένου μᾶλλον ἔσται πεπεισμένος ἢ ὠφελημένος.

[427] Ibid. a. 33: δεῖ δὲ τὸν καλῶς μεταβιβάζοντα διαλεκτικῶς καὶ μὴ ἐριστικῶς μεταβιβάζειν. About τὸ μεταβιβάζειν, compare Topica, I. ii. p. 101, a. 23.

[428] Ibid. b. 2: ὅ τε γὰρ ἐριστικῶς ἐρωτῶν φαύλως διαλέγεται, ὅ τ’ ἐν τῷ ἀποκρίνεσθαι μὴ διδοὺς τὰ φαινόμενον μηδ’ ἐκδεχόμενος ὅ τί ποτε βούλεται ὁ ἐρωτῶν πυθέσθαι.

[429] Topic. VIII. xi. p. 161, b. 11-18: ἐπεὶ δ’ ἐστὶν ἀδιόριστον πότε τἀναντία καὶ πότε τὰ ἐν ἀρχῇ λαμβάνουσιν οἱ ἄνθρωποι (πολλάκις γὰρ καθ’ αὑτοὺς λέγοντες τἀναντία λέγουσι, καὶ ἀνανεύσαντες πρότερον διδόασιν ὕστερον· διόπερ ἐρωτώμενοι τἀναντία καὶ τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ πολλάκις ὑπακούουσιν) — ἀνάγκη φαύλους γίνεσθαι τοὺς λόγους· αἴτιος δ’ ὁ ἀποκρινόμενος, τὰ μὲν οὐ διδούς, τὰ δὲ τοιαῦτα διδούς.

This passage is not very clear.

Such then are the cases in which the conduct of the dialogue is open to censure, without any fault on your part as questioner. But there are other cases in which the fault is really yours. These are five in number:— (1) When all or most of your questions are so framed as to elicit premisses either false or improbable, so that neither the conclusion which you seek to obtain, nor any other conclusion at all, follows from them; (2) When, from similar defects, the proper conclusion that you seek to obtain cannot be drawn from your premisses; (3) When the proper conclusion would follow, if certain additions were made to your premisses, but such additions are of a character worse than the premisses already obtained, and are even less probable than the conclusion itself; (4) When you have accumulated a superfluous multitude of premisses, so that the proper conclusion does not follow from all of them but from a part of them only (5) When your premisses are more improbable and less trustworthy than the proper conclusion, or when, though true, they are harder and more troublesome to prove than the problem itself.[430]

[430] Ibid. b. 19-33: καθ’ αὑτὸν δὲ τῷ λόγῳ πέντε εἰσὶν ἐπιτιμήσεις.

In regard to the last item, however, the fault may sometimes be in the problem itself rather than in you as questioner. Some problems, being in their own nature hard and not to be settled from probable or plausible data, ought not to be admitted into Dialectic. All that can be required from you as questioner is that you shall know and obtain the most probable premisses that the problem admits: your procedure may be thus in itself blameable, yet it may even deserve praise, having regard to the problem, if this last be very intractable; or it may be in itself praiseworthy, yet blameable in regard to the problem, if the problem admit of being settled by premisses still more probable.[431] You may even be more blameable, if you obtain your conclusion but obtain it from improbable premisses, than if you failed to obtain it; the premisses required to make it complete being true and probable and not of capital importance, but being refused by the respondent.[432] However, you ought not to be blamed if you obtain your true and proper conclusion but obtain it through premisses in themselves false; for this is recognized in analytical theory as possible: if the conclusion is false, the premisses (one or both) must be false, but a true conclusion may be drawn from false premisses.[433]

[431] Ibid. b. 34-p. 162, a. 3.

[432] Ibid. p. 162, a. 3-8.

[433] Topic. VIII. xi. p. 162, a. 8-11: τοῖς δὲ διὰ ψευδῶν ἀληθὲς συμπεραινομένοις οὐ δίκαιον ἐπιτιμᾶν — φανερὸν δ’ ἐκ τῶν Ἀναλυτικῶν.

When you have obtained your premisses and proved a conclusion, these same premisses will not serve as proof of any other proposition separate and independent of the conclusion; such may sometimes seem to be the case, but it is a mere sophistical delusion. If your premisses are both of them probable, your conclusion may in some cases be more probable than either.[434]

[434] Ibid. a.12-24.

Aristotle here introduces four definitions of terms, which are useful in regard to his thoughts but have no great pertinence in the place where they occur: ἔστι δὲ φιλοσόφημα μὲν συλλογισμὸς ἀποδεικτικός, ἐπιχείρημα δὲ συλλογισμὸς διαλεκτικός, σόφισμα δὲ συλλογισμὸς ἐριστικός, ἀπόρημα δὲ συλλογισμὸς διαλεκτικὸς ἀντιφάσεως.

One other matter yet remains in which your procedure as questioner may be blameable. The premisses through which you prove your conclusion may be long and unnecessarily multiplied; the conclusion may be such that you ought to have obtained it through fewer, yet equally pertinent premisses.[435]

[435] Ibid. a. 24-34.

The example whereby Aristotle illustrates this position is obscure and difficult to follow. It is borrowed from the Platonic theory of Ideas. The point which you are supposed to be anxious to prove is, that one opinion is more opinion than another (ὅτι ἐστὶ δόξα μᾶλλον ἑτέρα ἑτέρας). To prove it you ask as premisses: (1) That the Idea of every class of things is more that thing than any one among the particulars of the class; (2) That there is an Idea of matter of opinion, and that this Idea is more opinion than any one of the particular matters of opinion. If this Idea is more opinion, it must also be more true and accurate than any particular matter of opinion. And it is this last conclusion that Aristotle seems to indicate as the conclusion to be proved: ὥστε αὑτὴ ἡ δόξα ἀκριβεστέρα ἐστίν (a. 32).

As I understand it, Aristotle supposes that the doctrine which you are here refuting is, that all ἔνδοξα are on an equal footing as to truth and accuracy; and that the doctrine which you are proving against it is, that one ἔνδοξον is more true and accurate than another. If you attempt to prove this last by invoking the Platonic theory of Ideas, you will introduce premisses far-fetched and unnecessary, even if true; whereas you might prove your conclusion from premisses easier and more obvious.

The fault is (he says) that such roundabout procedure puts out of sight the real ground of the proof: τίς δὲ ἡ μοχθηρία; ἢ ὅτι ποιεῖ, παρ’ ὃ ὁ λόγος, λανθάνειν τὸ αἴτιον (a. 33). The dubitative and problematical form here is remarkable. How would Aristotle himself have proved the above conclusion? By Induction? He does not tell us.

The cases in which your argument will carry the clearest evidence, impressing itself even on the most vulgar minds, are those in which you obtain such premisses as will enable you to draw your final conclusion without asking any farther concessions. But this will rarely happen. Even after you have obtained all the premisses substantially necessary to your final conclusion, you will generally be forced to draw out two or more prosyllogisms or preliminary syllogisms, and to ask the assent of the respondent to these, before you can venture to enunciate the final conclusion. This second grade of evidence is however sufficient, even if the premisses fall short of the highest probability.[436]

[436] Topic. VIII. xii. p. 162, a. 35-b. 2.

On the other hand, your argument may deserve to be pronounced false on four distinct grounds:— (1) If your syllogism appears to prove the conclusion but does not really prove it, being then an eristic or contentious syllogism; (2) If the conclusion be good but not relevant to the thesis, which is most likely to happen where you employ Reductio ad Impossible; (3) If your conclusion though valid and even relevant, is not founded on the premisses and principia appropriate to the thesis; (4) If your premisses are false, even though the conclusion in itself may prove true, since it has already been said that a true conclusion may sometimes be obtained from false premisses.[437]

[437] Ibid. b. 3-15: ψευδὴς δὲ λόγος καλεῖται τετραχῶς, &c.

Falsehood in your argument will be rather your own fault than that of your argument, especially if you yourself are not aware of its falsehood. Indeed, there are some false arguments which are more valuable in Dialectic than many true ones; where, for example, from highly probable premisses you refute some recognized truth. Such an argument is sure to serve as a demonstration of other truths; at the very least, it shows that some one of the propositions concerned is altogether untrue.[438] On the other hand, if you prove a true conclusion by premisses false and improbable, your argument will be more worthless than many others in which the conclusion is false; from such premisses, indeed, the conclusion may well be really false.[439]

[438] Ibid. b. 16-22: τὸ μὲν οὖν ψευδῆ τὸν λόγον εἶναι τοῦ λέγοντος ἁμάρτημα μᾶλλον ἢ τοῦ λόγου, καὶ οὐδὲ τοῦ λέγοντος ἀεὶ τὸ ἁμάρτημα, ἀλλ’ ὅταν λανθάνῃ αὐτόν, ἐπεὶ καθ’ αὑτόν γε πολλῶν ἀληθῶν ἀποδεχόμεθα μᾶλλον, ἂν ἐξ ὅτι μάλιστα δοκούντων ἀναιρῇ τι τῶν ἀληθῶν· τοιοῦτος γὰρ ὢν ἑτέρων ἀληθῶν ἀπόδειξίς ἐστιν· δεῖ γὰρ τῶν κειμένων τι μὴ εἶναι παντελῶς, ὥστ’ ἔσται τούτου ἀπόδειξις.

[439] Ibid. b. 22-24.

In estimating the dialectical value of an argument, therefore, we must first look whether the conclusion is formally valid; next, whether the conclusion is true or false; lastly, what are the premisses from whence it is derived.[440] For, if it be derived from premisses false yet probable, it has logical or dialectical value; while, if derived from premisses true yet improbable, it has none.[441] If derived from premisses both false and improbable, it will of course be worthless; either absolutely in itself, or with reference to the thesis under debate.

[440] Ibid. b. 24: ὥστε δῆλον ὅτι πρώτη μὲν ἐπίσκεψις λόγου καθ’ αὑτὸν εἰ συμπεραίνεται, δευτέρα δὲ πότερον ἀληθὲς ἢ ψεῦδος· τρίτη δ’ ἐκ ποίων τινῶν.

[441] Topic. VIII. xii. p. 162, b. 27: εἰ μὲν γὰρ ἐκ ψευδῶν ἐνδόξων δέ, λογικός, εἰ δ’ ἐξ ὄντων μὲν ἀδόξων δέ, φαῦλος, &c.

Two faults of questioners in Dialectic are dealt with specially by Aristotle:— (1) Petitio Principii; (2) Petitio Contrariorum. He had touched upon both of them (in the Analytica Priora) as they concerned the demonstrative process, or the proving of truth: he now deals with them as they concern the dialectical process, or the setting out of opinions and probabilities.[442]

[442] Ibid. xiii. p. 162, b. 31: τὸ δ’ ἐν ἀρχῇ καὶ τὰ ἐναντία πῶς αἰτεῖται ὁ ἐρωτῶν, κατ’ ἀλήθειαν μὲν ἐν τοῖς Ἀναλυτικοῖς (Priora, II. xvi.) εἴρηται, κατὰ δόξαν δὲ νῦν λεκτέον.

Five distinct modes may be enumerated of committing the fault called Petitio Principii:—

1. You may put as a question the very conclusion which it is incumbent on you to prove, in refutation of the thesis of the respondent. If this is done in explicit terms, your opponent can hardly fail to perceive it; but he possibly may fail, if you substitute an equivalent term or the definition in place of the term.[443]

[443] Ibid. b. 34. πρῶτον εἴ τις αὐτὸ τὸ δείκνυσθαι δέον αἰτήσει· τοῦτο δ’ ἐπ’ αὐτοῦ μὲν οὐ ῥᾴδιον λανθάνειν, ἐν δὲ τοῖς συνωνύμοις, καὶ ἐν ὅσοις τὸ ὄνομα καὶ ὁ λόγος τὸ αὐτὸ σημαίνει, μᾶλλον.

2. If the conclusion which you are seeking to prove is a particular one, you may put as a question the universal in which it is comprised. Thus, if you are to prove that the knowledge of Contraries is one and the same, you may put as a question, Is not the knowledge of Opposites one and the same? You are asking the very point which it was your business to show; but you are asking along with it much more besides.[444]

[444] Ibid. p. 163, a. 1.

3. If you are seeking to prove an universal conclusion, you may put as a question one of the particulars comprised therein. Thus, if you are to prove that the knowledge of Contraries is one and the same, you may put as a question, Is not the knowledge of white and black, good and evil, or any other pair of particular contraries, one and the same? It was your business to prove this particular, along with many others besides; but you are now asking it as a question separately.[445]

[445] Ibid. a. 5.

4. If the conclusion which you are seeking to prove has two terms conjointly, you may put as a question one or the other of these separately. Thus, when you are trying to show that the healing art is knowledge of what is wholesome and unwholesome, you may ask, Is it a knowledge of the wholesome?[446]

[446] Ibid. a. 8.

5. Suppose there are two conclusions necessarily implicated with each other, and that it is your business to prove one of them: you may put as a question the other of the two. Thus, if you are seeking to prove that the diagonal is incommensurable with the side, you may put as a question, Is not the side incommensurable with the diagonal?[447]

[447] Topic. VIII. xiii. p. 163, a. 10.

There are also five distinct modes of Petitio Contrariorum:—

1. You may ask the respondent, in plain terms, to grant first the affirmative, next, the negative, of a given proposition.[448]

[448] Ibid. a. 14: πρῶτον μὲν γὰρ εἴ τις τὰς ἀντικειμένας αἰτήσαιτο φάσιν καὶ ἀντίφασιν.

2. You may ask him to grant, first, that a given subject is, e.g., good, next, that the same subject is bad.[449]

[449] Ibid. a. 16: δεύτερον δὲ τἀναντία κατὰ τὴν ἀντίθεσιν, οἷον ἀγαθὸν καὶ κακὸν ταὐτόν.

3. After he has granted to you the affirmative universally, you may ask him to grant the negative in some particular case under the universal: e.g., after he has granted that the knowledge of Contraries is one and the same, you ask him to grant that the knowledge of wholesome and unwholesome is not one and the same. Or you may proceed by the way of reversing this process.[450]

[450] Ibid. a. 17-21.

4. You may ask the contrary of that which follows necessarily from the premisses admitted.[451]

[451] Ibid. a. 21.

5. Instead of asking the two contraries in plain and direct terms, you may ask the two contraries in different propositions, yet necessarily implicated with the first two.[452]

[452] Ibid. a. 22.

There is this difference between Petitio Principii, and Petitio Contrariorum: the first has reference to the conclusion which you have to prove, and the wrong procedure involved in it is relative to that conclusion; but in the second the wrong procedure affects only the two propositions themselves and the relation subsisting between them.[453]

[453] Ibid. a. 24: διαφέρει δὲ τὸ τἀναντία λαμβάνειν τοῦ ἐν ἀρχῇ, ὅτι τοῦ μέν ἐστιν ἡ ἁμαρτία πρὸς τὸ συμπέρασμα (πρὸς γὰρ ἐκεῖνο βλέποντες τὸ ἐν ἀρχῇ λέγομεν αἰτεῖσθαι), τὰ δ’ ἐναντία ἐστὶν ἐν ταῖς προτάσεσι τῷ ἔχειν πως ταύτας πρὸς ἀλλήλας.

Aristotle now, finally, proceeds to give some general advice for exercise and practice in Dialectic. You ought to accustom yourself to treat arguments by converting the syllogisms of which they consist; that is, by applying to them the treatment of which the Reductio ad Absurdum is one case.[454] You ought to test every thesis by first assuming it to be true, then assuming it to be false, and following out the consequences on both sides.[455] When you have hunted out each train of arguments, look out at once for the counter-arguments available against it. This will strengthen your power both as questioner and as respondent. It is indeed an exercise so valuable, that you will do well to go through it by yourself, if you have no companion.[456] Put the different trains of argument, bearing on the same thesis, into comparison with each other. A wide command of arguments affirmative as well as negative will serve you well both for attack and for defence.[457]

[454] Ibid. xiv. p. 163, a. 29: πρὸς δὲ γυμνασίαν καὶ μελέτην τῶν τοιούτων λόγων πρῶτον μὲν ἀντιστρέφειν ἐθίζεσθαι χρὴ τοὺς λόγους. For Conversion of Syllogism, see [p. 174].

[455] Topic. VIII. xiv. p. 163, a. 36: πρὸς ἅπασάν τε θέσιν καὶ ὅτι οὕτως καὶ ὅτι οὐχ οὕτως τὸ ἐπιχείρημα σκεπτέον.

[456] Ibid. b. 3: κἂν πρὸς μηδένα ἄλλον ἔχωμεν, πρὸς αὑτούς.

[457] Ibid. b. 5: τοῦτο γὰρ πρός τε τὸ βιάζεσθαι πολλὴν εὐπορίαν ποιεῖ καὶ πρὸς τὸ ἐλέγχειν μεγάλην ἔχει βοήθειαν, ὅταν εὐπορῇ τις καὶ ὅτι οὕτως καὶ ὅτι οὐχ οὕτως· πρὸς τὰ ἐναντία γὰρ συμβαίνει ποιεῖσθαι τὴν φυλακήν.

Instead of πρός τε τὸ βιάζεσθαι, ought we not to read here πρός τε τὸ μη βιάζεσθαι, taking this verb in the passive sense? Surely βιάζεσθαι in the active sense gives the same meaning substantially as ἐλέγχειν, which comes afterwards, both of them referring to the assailant or questioner, whereas Aristotle intends here to illustrate the usefulness of the practice to both parties.

This same accomplishment will be of use, moreover, for acquisitions even in Science and Philosophy. It is a great step to see and grasp in conjunction the trains of reasoning on both sides of the question; the task that remains — right determination which of the two is the better — becomes much easier. To do this well, however, — to choose the true and to reject the false correctly — there must be conjoined a good natural predisposition. None but those who are well constituted by nature, who have their likings and dislikes well set in regard to each particular conjuncture, can judge correctly what is best and what is worst.[458]

[458] Ibid. b. 12-16: δεῖ δὲ πρὸς τὸ τοιοῦτο ὑπάρχειν εὐφυᾶ· καὶ τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ἡ κατ’ ἀλήθειαν εὐφυΐα, τὸ δύνασθαι καλῶς ἑλέσθαι τἀληθὲς καὶ φυγεῖν τὸ ψεῦδος· ὅπερ οἱ πεφυκότες εὖ δύνανται ποιεῖν· εὖ γὰρ φιλοῦντες καὶ μισοῦντες τὸ προσφερόμενον εὖ κρίνουσι τὸ βέλτιστον.

In regard to the primary or most universal theses, and to those problems which are most frequently put in debate, you will do well to have reasonings ready prepared, and even to get them by heart. It is on these first or most universal theses that respondents become often reluctant and disgusted. To be expert in handling primary doctrines and probabilities, and to be well provided with the definitions from which syllogisms must start, is to the dialectician an acquisition of the highest moment; like familiarity with the Axioms to a geometer, and ready application of the multiplication table to an arithmetical calculator.[459] When you have these generalities and major propositions firmly established in your mind, you will recall, in a definite order and arrangement, the particular matters falling under each of them, and will throw them more easily into syllogisms. They will assist you in doing this, just as the mere distribution of places in a scheme for topical memory makes you recollect what is associated with each. You should lodge in your memory, however, universal major premisses rather than complete and ready-made reasonings; for the great difficulty is about the principia.[460]

[459] Ibid. b. 17-26.

[460] Topic. VIII. xiv. p. 163, b. 27-33: ὁμοίως καὶ ἐν τοῖς λόγοις τὸ πρόχειρον εἶναι περὶ τὰς ἀρχὰς καὶ τὰς προτάσεις ἀπὸ στόματος ἐξεπίστασθαι· καθάπερ γὰρ ἐν τῷ μνημονικῷ μόνον οἱ τόποι τεθέντες εὐθὺς ποιοῦσιν αὐτὰ μνημονεύειν, καὶ ταῦτα ποιήσει συλλογιστικώτερον διὰ τὸ πρὸς ὡρισμένας αὐτὰς βλέπειν κατ’ ἀριθμόν· πρότασίν τε κοινὴν μᾶλλον ἢ λόγον εἰς μνήμην θετέον· ἀρχῆς γὰρ καὶ ὑποθέσεως εὐπορῆσαι μετρίως χαλεπόν.

You ought also to accustom yourself to break down one reasoning into many; which will be done most easily when the theme of the reasoning is most universal. Conceal this purpose as well as you can; and in this view begin with those particulars which lie most remote from the subject in hand.[461] In recording arguments for your own instruction, you will generalize them as much as possible, though perhaps when spoken they may have been particular; for this is the best way to break down one into several. In conducting your own case as questioner you will avoid the higher generalities as much as you can.[462] But you must at the same time take care to keep up some common or general premisses throughout the discourse; for every syllogistic process, even where the conclusion is particular, implies this, and no syllogism is valid without it.[463]

[461] Ibid. b. 34.

[462] Ibid. p. 164, a. 2-7: δεῖ δὲ καὶ τὰς ἀπομνημονεύσεις καθόλου ποιεῖσθαι τῶν λόγων, κἂν ᾖ διειλεγμένος ἐπὶ μέρους· — αὐτὸν δὲ ὅτι μάλιστα φεύγειν ἐπὶ τὸ καθόλου φέρειν τοὺς συλλογισμούς.

This passage is to me obscure. I have given the best meaning which it seems to offer.

[463] Ibid. a. 8.

Exercise in inductive discourse is most suitable for a young beginner; exercise in deductive or syllogistic discourse, for skilful veterans. From those who are accomplished in the former you can learn the art of multiplying particular comparisons; from those who are accomplished in the latter you derive universal premisses; such being the strong points of each. When you go through a dialectical exercise, try to bring away with you for future use either some complete syllogism, or some solution of an apparent refutation, or a major premiss, or a well-sustained exceptional example (ἔνστασιν); note also whether either you or your respondent question correctly or otherwise, and on what reason such correctness or incorrectness turned.[464] It is the express purpose of dialectical exercise to acquire power and facility in this procedure, especially as regards universal premisses and special exceptions. Indeed the main characteristic of the dialectician is to be apt at universal premisses, and apt at special exceptions. In the first of these two aptitudes he groups many particulars into one universal, without which he cannot make good his syllogism; in the second of the two he breaks up the one universal into many, distinguishing the separate constituents, and denying some while he affirms others.[465]

[464] Ibid. a. 12-19. ὅλως δ’ ἐκ τοῦ γυμνάζεσθαι διαλεγόμενον πειρατέον ἀποφέρεσθαι ἢ συλλογισμὸν περὶ τινος, ἢ λύσιν ἢ πρότασιν ἢ ἔνστασιν, &c.

[465] Topic. VIII. xiv. p. 164, b. 2-6: ἔστι γὰρ ὡς ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν διαλεκτικὸς ὁ προτατικὸς καὶ ἐνστατικός· ἔστι δὲ τὸ μὲν προτείνεσθαι ἓν ποιεῖν τὰ πλείω (δεῖ γὰρ ἓν ὅλως ληφθῆναι πρὸς ὃ ὁ λόγος), τὸ δ’ ἐνίστασθαι τὸ ἓν πολλά· ἢ γὰρ διαιρεῖ ἢ ἀναιρεῖ, τὸ μὲν διδοὺς τὸ δ’ οὒ τῶν προτεινομένων.

You must take care however not to carry on this exercise with every one, especially with a vulgar-minded man. With some persons the dispute cannot fail to take a discreditable turn. When the respondent tries to make a show of escaping by unworthy manœuvres, the questioner on his part must be unscrupulous also in syllogizing; but this is a disgraceful scene. To keep clear of such abusive discourse, you must be cautious not to discourse with commonplace, unprepared, respondents.[466]

[466] Ibid. b. 8-15: πρὸς γὰρ τὸν πάντως πειρώμενον φαίνεσθαι διαφεύγειν, δίκαιον μὲν πάντως πειρᾶσθαι συλλογίσασθαι, οὐκ εὔσχημον δέ.

[CHAPTER X.]

SOPHISTICI ELENCHI.

The Sophist (according to Aristotle) is one whose professional occupation it is to make money by a delusive show of wisdom without the reality — by contriving to make others believe falsely that he possesses wisdom and knowledge. The abstract substantive noun Sophistic, with the verb to practice as a Sophist (σοφιστεύειν), expresses such profession and purpose.[1] This application of the term is derived from Plato, who has in various dialogues (Protagoras, Hippias, Euthydêmus, &c.) introduced Sokrates conversing with different professional Sophists, and who has, in a longer dialogue called Sophistes, attempted an elaborate definition of the intellectual peculiarities of the person so named. It is the actual argumentative procedure of the Sophist that Aristotle proposes to himself as the theme of this little treatise, appended to his general theory of the Syllogism; a treatise which, though forming properly the Ninth and concluding Book of the Topica, is commonly known as a separate appendix thereto, under the title of Sophistici Elenchi, or Sophistical Refutations.

[1] Soph. El. i. p. 165, a. 21, 28, 32: ἔστι γὰρ ἡ σοφιστικὴ φαινομένη σοφία οὖσα δ’ οὔ, καὶ ὁ σοφιστὴς χρηματιστὴς ἀπὸ φαινομένης σοφίας ἀλλ’ οὐκ οὔσης· — ἀνάγκη οὖν τοὺς βουλομένους σοφιστεύειν τὸ τῶν εἰρημένων λόγων γένος ζητεῖν· — ὅτι μὲν οὖν ἔστι τι τοιοῦτον λόγων γένος, καὶ ὅτι τοιαύτης ἐφίενται δυνάμεως οὓς καλοῦμεν σοφιστάς, δῆλον. Also xi. p. 171, b. 27.

The Sophistical Elenchus or Refutation, being a delusive semblance of refutation which imposes on ordinary men and induces them to accept it as real, cannot be properly understood without the theory of Elenchus in general; nor can this last be understood without the entire theory of the Syllogism, since the Elenchus is only one variety of Syllogism.[2] The Elenchus is a syllogism with a conclusion contradictory to or refutative of some enunciated thesis or proposition. Accordingly we must first understand the conditions of a good and valid Syllogism, before we study those of a valid Elenchus; these last, again, must be understood, before we enter on the distinctive attributes of the Pseudo-elenchus — the sophistical, invalid, or sham, refutation. In other words, an enumeration and classification of Fallacies forms the closing section of a treatise on Logic — according to the philosophical arrangement originating with Aristotle, and copied by most logicians after him.

[2] Ibid. x. p. 171, a. 1-5.

Aristotle begins by distinguishing reality and mere deceptive appearance; and by stating that this distinction is found to prevail not less in syllogisms than in other matters. Next he designates a notorious class of persons, called Sophists, who made it their profession to study and practise the deceptive appearance of syllogizing; and he then proceeds to distinguish four species of debate:— (1) Didactic; (2) Dialectic; (3) Peirastic; (4) Eristic or Sophistic.[3] In this quadruple arrangement, however, he is not consistent with his own definitions, when he ranks the four as distinct and co-ordinate species. The marked and special antithesis is between Didactic and Dialectic. Both Peirastic and Eristic fall as varieties or sub-species under the species Dialectic; and there is under the species Didactic a variety called Pseudo-graphic or Pseudo-didactic, which stands to Didactic in the same relation in which Eristic stands to Dialectic.[4]

[3] Soph. El. ii. p. 165, a. 38: ἔστι δὴ τῶν ἐν τῷ διαλέγεσθαι λόγων τέτταρα γένη, διδασκαλικοὺ καὶ διαλεκτικοὶ καὶ πειραστικοὶ καὶ ἐριστικοί.

[4] Ibid. xi. p. 171, b. 34.

Didactic discourse is not applicable to all matters indiscriminately, but only to certain special sciences; each of which has its own separate, undemonstrable principia, from which its conclusions, so far as true and valid, must be deduced. It supposes a teacher acquainted with these principia and deductions, talking with some one who being ignorant of them wishes to learn. The teacher puts questions, to which the learner makes the best answers that he can; and, if the answers are wrong, corrects them and proceeds to draw, according to syllogistic canons, conclusions from premisses which he himself knows to be the truth. These premisses the learner must believe upon the teacher’s authority. Properly speaking, indeed, the didactic process is not interrogative (in the same sense that Dialectic is): the teacher does not accept the learner’s answer and reason from it, if he thinks it wrong.[5]

[5] Ibid. xi. p. 172, a. 11: νῦν δ’ οὐκ ἔστιν ὁ διαλεκτιὸς περὶ γένος τι ὡρισμένον, οὐδὲ δεικτικὸς οὐδενός, οὐδὲ τοιοῦτος οἷος ὁ καθόλου. οὔτε γάρ ἐστιν ἅπαντα ἐν ἑνί τινι γένει, οὔτε εἰ εἴη, οἷόν τε ὑπὸ τὰς αὐτὰς ἀρχὰς εἶναι τὰ ὄντα. ὥστ’ οὐδεμία τέχνη τῶν δεικνυουσῶν τινὰ φύσιν ἐρωτητική ἐστιν· οὐ γὰρ ἔξεστιν ὁποτερονοῦν τῶν μορίων δοῦναι· συλλογισμὸς γὰρ οὐ γίνεται ἐξ ἀμφοῖν. ἡ δὲ διαλεκτικὴ ἐρωτηρική ἐστιν· εἰ δ’ ἐδείκνυεν, εἰ καὶ μὴ πάντα, ἀλλὰ τά γε πρῶτα καὶ τὰς οἰκείας ἀρχάς, οὐκ ἂν ἠρώτα. μὴ διδόντος γὰρ οὐκ ἂν ἔτι εἶχεν ἐξ ὧν ἔτι διαλέξεται πρὸς τὴν ἔνστασιν.

When Aristotle, therefore, reckons λόγους διδασκαλικούς as one of the four species τῶν ἐν τῷ διαλέγεσθαι λόγων (Soph. El. ii. p. 165, a. 38), we must understand τὸ διαλέγεσθαι in a very wide and vague sense, going much beyond the derivative noun διαλεκτική.

Dialectic, on the contrary, is applicable to all matters universally and indiscriminately, including even the undemonstrable principia which the teacher assumes as the highest premisses of his didactic syllogisms. It supposes, in place of teacher and learner, an interrogator (or opponent) and a respondent. The respondent declares a problem or thesis, which he undertakes to defend; while the other puts questions to him respecting it, with the purpose of compelling him either to contradict the thesis, or to contradict himself on some other point. The interrogator is allowed only to ask questions, and to deduce legitimate conclusions from the premisses granted by the respondent in answer: he is not permitted to introduce any other premisses. The premisses upon which the debate turns are understood all to be probable — opinions accredited either among an ordinary multitude or among a few wise men, but to have no higher authority. Accordingly there is often a conflict of arguments pro and con, much diversified. The process is essentially controversial; and, if the questioner does not succeed in exposing a contradiction, the respondent is victorious, and remains in possession of the field.

Such is the capital antithesis, much dwelt upon by Aristotle, between Didactic and Dialectic. But that which he calls Peirastic, and that which he calls Eristic, are not species co-ordinate with and distinguished from Dialectic: they are peculiar aspects, subordinate varieties or modes, of Dialectic itself. Aristotle himself, indeed, admits Peirastic to be a mode or variety of Dialectic;[6] and the like is equally true respecting what he terms Eristic or Sophistic.

[6] Soph. El. xi. p. 171, b. 4-9: ἡ γὰρ πειραστική ἐστι διαλεκτική τις, &c. — p. 172, a. 35: ὁ τέχνῃ συλλογιστικῇ πειραστικός, διαλεκτικός. — viii. p. 169, b. 25: ἔστι δ’ ἡ πειραστικὴ μέρος τῆς διαλεκτικῆς.

These subordinate distinctions turn upon the manner, the limitations, and the purpose, for and under which the dialectical process is conducted. Dialectic is essentially gymnastic and peirastic:[7] it may be looked at either as gymnastic, in reference to the two debaters, or as peirastic, in reference to the arguments and doctrines brought forward; intellectual exercise and stimulation of the two speakers and the auditors around being effected by testing and confronting various probable doctrines. It is the common purpose (κοινὸν ἔργον)[8] of the two champions, to improve and enlarge this exercise for the instruction of all, by following out a variety of logical consequences and logical repugnancies, bearing more or less directly on the thesis which the respondent chooses and undertakes to defend against a testing cross-examination. Certain rules and limitations are prescribed both for questioner and respondent; but, subject to these rules, each of them is bound to exert all his acuteness for the purpose of gaining victory; and, though one only can gain it, the debate may be well and creditably conducted on both sides. If the rules are not observed, if the assailing champion, bent upon victory at all cost, has recourse to dishonest interrogative tricks, or the defensive champion to perverse and obstructive negations, beyond the prescribed boundary, in that case the debate is called by Aristotle eristic or contentious, from the undue predominance of the controversial spirit and purpose; also sophistic, from the fact that there existed (as he asserts) a class or profession of persons called Sophists, who regularly studied and practised these culpable manÅ“uvres, first with a view to reputation, and ultimately with a view to pecuniary profit, being pretenders to knowledge and wisdom without any reality to justify them.[9]

[7] Topic. I. ii. p. 101, a. 26, b. 2: πρὸς γυμνασίαν — ἐξεταστικὴ γὰρ οὖσα, &c. Compare also Topica, VIII. xi. p. 161, a. 25; xiv. p. 163, a. 29, p. 164, b. 1: τὸ δὲ γυμνάζεσθαι δυνάμεως χάριν, καὶ μάλιστα περὶ τὰς προτάσεις καὶ ἐνστάσεις· ἔστι γὰρ ὡς ἁπλῶς εἰπεῖν διαλεκτικὸς ὁ προτατικὸς καὶ ἐνστατικός.

[8] Topic. VIII. xi. p. 161, a. 20, 37.

[9] Soph. El. xi. p. 171, b. 25-35: οἱ μὲν οὖν τῆς νίκης αὐτῆς χάριν τοιοῦτοι ἐριστικοὶ ἄνθρωποι καὶ φιλέριδες δοκοῦσιν εἶναι, οἱ δὲ δόξης χάριν τῆς εἰς χρηματισμὸν σοφιστικοί· — καὶ τῶν λόγων τῶν αὐτῶν μέν εἰσιν οἱ φιλέριδες καὶ σοφισταί, ἀλλ’ οὐ τῶν αὐτῶν ἕνεκεν. καὶ λόγος ὁ αὐτὸς μὲν ἔσται σοφιστικὸς καὶ ἐριστικός, ἀλλ’ οὐ κατὰ ταυτόν, ἀλλ’ ᾗ μὲν νίκης φαινομένης, ἐριστικός, ᾗ δὲ σοφίας, σοφιστικός. &c.

We thus see plainly that Peirastic and Eristic are not to be ranked as two distinct species of discourse, co-ordinate with Didactic and Dialectic; but that peirastic is in fact an epithet applicable generally to Dialectic, bringing to view one of its useful and appropriate functions; while eristic designates only a peculiar mode of conducting the process, the essential feature of which is that it is abusive or that it transgresses the rules and regulations. Still less ought Sophistic to be ranked as a distinct species; since it involves no intrinsic or intellectual differentia, but connotes only ethical and personal peculiarities ascribed to the Sophist, who is treated as an impostor practising dishonest tricks for the sake of pecuniary profit.[10]

[10] Aristot. Rhetoric. I. i. p. 1355, b. 17: ὁ γὰρ σοφιστικὸς οὐκ ἐν τῇ δυνάμει, ἀλλ’ ἐν τῇ προαιρέσει· — σοφιστὴς μὲν κατὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν, διαλεκτικὸς δ’ οὐ κατὰ τὴν προαίρεσιν ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὴν δύναμιν. To the same purpose he speaks in Metaphys. Γ. ii. p. 1004, b. 25, distinguishing the Sophist by his προαίρεσις from the Dialectician, but recognizing that in point of δύναμις both are alike. Mr. Poste observes justly (in Transl. of the Soph. El., notes, p. 99):— “δύναμις, capacity, is in the intellect; προαίρεσις, purpose, in the will. The antithesis between these terms may throw light on what Aristotle conceived to be the relation between Sophistic and Dialectic.… The power plus the will to deceive is called Sophistic; the power without the will, Dialectic (p. 100).â€�

While, however, we recognize as main logical distinctions only the two heads Didactic and Dialectic, we note another way that Aristotle has of bringing in what he calls Sophistic as a variety of the latter. Both in Didactic and Dialectic (he tells us) the speakers enunciate and prove their propositions by Syllogism; the didactic syllogism is derived from the principia belonging specially to one particular science, and proceeds from premisses that are true to conclusions that are true; while the dialectic syllogism starts from probable premisses (i.e., accredited by the ordinary public or by a few wise men), and marches in correct form to conclusions that are probable. Now, corresponding to each of these two, Aristotle recognizes farther a sort of degenerate counterpart. To the didactic syllogism there corresponds the pseudographic syllogism or the paralogism: which draws its premisses (as the didactic syllogism does) from the special matters of some given science,[11] yet which nevertheless has only the appearance of truth without the reality; either because it is incorrect in syllogistic form, or because the matter of the premisses (the major, the minor, or both) is untrue. To the dialectic syllogism in like manner, there corresponds the eristic or sophistic syllogism: which is a good syllogism in appearance, but not in reality; either because it is incorrect in form, or because its premisses, in respect of their matter, appear to be probable without being really probable.[12]

[11] Topic. I. i. p. 101, a. 5-15. οἱ ἐκ τῶν περί τινας ἐπιστήμας οἰκείων γινόμενοι παραλογισμοί, καθάπερ ἐπὶ τῆς γεωμετρίας καὶ τῶν ταύτῃ συγγενῶν συμβέβηκεν ἔχειν· — ἐκ τῶν οἰκείων μὲν τῇ ἐπιστήμῃ λημμάτων, οὐκ ἀληθῶν δέ, τὸν συλλογισμὸν ποιεῖται.

[12] Ibid. p. 100, a. 31-p. 101, a. 16; Soph. El. i. p. 164, a. 20-b. 21.

One would suppose that the relation between the pseudo-didactic and the didactic syllogism, was the same as that between the pseudo-dialectic and the dialectic; so that, if the pseudo-dialectic deserved to be called sophistic or eristic, the pseudo-didactic would deserve these appellations also; especially, since the formal conditions of the syllogism are alike for both. This Aristotle does not admit, but draws instead a remarkable distinction. The Sophist (he says) is a dishonest man, making it his professional purpose to deceive; the pseudo-graphic man of science is honest always, though sometimes mistaken. So long as the pseudo-graphic syllogism keeps within the limits belonging to its own special science, it may be false, since the geometer may be deceived even in his own science geometry,[13] but it cannot be sophistic or eristic; yet, whenever it transgresses those limits, even though it be true and though it solves the problem proposed, it deserves to be called by those two epithets. Thus, there were two distinct methods proposed for the quadrature of the circle — one by Hippokrates, on geometrical principles, the other by Bryson, upon principles extra-geometrical. Both demonstrations were false and unsuccessful; yet that of Hippokrates was not sophistic or eristic, because he kept within the sphere of geometry; while that of Bryson was so, because it travelled out of geometry. Nay more, this last would have been equally sophistic and eristic, and on the same ground, even if it had succeeded in solving the problem.[14] If indeed the pseudo-graphic syllogism be invalid in form, it must be considered as sophistic, even though within the proper scientific limits as to matter; but, if it be correct in form and within these same limits, then, however untrue its premisses may be, it is to be regarded as not sophistic or eristic.[15]

[13] Topic. V. iv. p. 132, a. 32.

[14] Soph. El. xi. p. 171, b. 12-20: τὰ γὰρ ψευδογραφήματα οὐκ ἐριστικά (κατὰ γὰρ τὰ ὑπὸ τὴν τέχνην οἱ παραλογισμοί), οὐδέ γ’ εἴ τί ἐστι ψευδογράφημα περὶ ἀληθές, οἷον τὸ Ἱπποκράτους ἢ ὁ τετραγωνισμὸς ὁ διὰ τῶν μηνίσκων. ἀλλ’ ὡς Βρύσων ἐτετραγώνιζε τὸν κύκλον, εἰ καὶ τετραγωνίζεται ὁ κύκλος, ἀλλ’ ὅτι οὐ κατὰ τὸ πρᾶγμα, διὰ τοῦτο σοφιστικός. Also p. 172, a. 1-8.

[15] Ibid. xi. p. 171, b. 19-20. Compare Topic. VIII. xi. p. 161, a. 33: δεῖ δὲ τὸν καλῶς μεταβιβάζοντα διαλεκτικῶς καὶ μὴ ἐριστικῶς μεταβιβάζειν, καθάπερ τὸν γεωμέτρην γεωμετρικῶς, ἄν τε ψεῦδος ἄν τ’ ἀληθὲς ᾖ τὸ συμπεραινόμενον. Also Topic. VIII. xii. p. 162, b. 10.

Such is the test whereby Aristotle distinguishes the sophistication of the didactic process from the legitimate working of that process. Now this same test cannot be applied to Dialectic, which has no appropriate or exclusive specialty of matters, but deals with Omne Scibile, universally and indiscriminately. Aristotle therefore puts the analogy in another way. Both in Didactic and in Dialectic the Sophist is one who sins against the fundamental conditions of the task which he undertakes; these conditions being, that in Didactic he shall confine himself to the matters and premisses of a given science, — in Dialectic, to matters probable of whatever kind they may be. Transgression of these conditions constitutes unfair and dishonest manœuvre, whether of teacher or questioner; like breach of the regulations on the part of competitors, bent on victory at all price, in the Olympic games. Aristotle ranks this dishonesty as a species, under the name of Sophistic or Eristic, admitting of being analysed and defined;[16] and his treatise on Sophistical Refutations is intended to describe and illustrate the Loci belonging to it, and contributing to its purpose.[17]

[16] Soph. El. xi. p. 171, b. 22: ὥσπερ γὰρ ἡ ἐν ἀγῶνι ἀδικία εἶδός τι ἔχει καὶ ἔστιν ἀδικομαχία τις, οὕτως ἐν ἀντιλογίᾳ ἀδικομαχία ἡ ἐριστική ἐστιν· ἐκεῖ τε γὰρ οἱ πάντως νικᾶν προαιρούμενοι πάντων ἅπτονται, καὶ ἐνταῦθα οἱ ἐριστικοί.

[17] Soph. El. ix. p. 170, a. 34: δῆλον οὖν ὅτι οὐ πάντων τῶν ἔλεγχων ἀλλὰ τῶν παρὰ τὴν διαλεκτικὴν ληπτέον τοὺς τόπους.

Fallacious dialectical refutation being thus referred altogether to dishonesty of purpose (either contentious or profit-seeking) and being assumed as unknown in fair dialectical debate, we have to see by what characteristic Aristotle discriminates fallacious premisses from fair and admissible premisses. Dialectic (he tells us) has for its appropriate matter probable premisses — beliefs accredited either by the multitude or by a wise few. But (he goes on to say) not everything which appears probable is really probable. Nothing that is really probable is a mere superficial fancy; wherever this last is the case, the probabilia are apparent only and not real; they have the character of falsehood stamped upon them, so as to be immediately manifest and obvious, even to persons of very narrow intelligence. It is such apparent probabilia as these, which make up the premisses of eristic or sophistic discourse, and upon which the sophistical or fallacious refutations turn.[18]

[18] Topic. I. i. p. 100, b. 23: ἐριστικὸς δ’ ἔστι συλλογισμὸς ὁ ἐκ φαινομένων ἐνδόξων μὴ ὄντων δέ, καὶ ὁ ἐξ ἐνδόξων ἢ φαινομένων ἐνδόξων φαινόμενος. οὐ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ φαινόμενον ἔνδοξον, καὶ ἔστιν ἔνδοξον. οὐθὲν γὰρ τῶν λεγομένων ἐνδόξων ἐπιπόλαιον ἔχει παντελῶς τὴν φαντασίαν, καθάπερ περὶ τὰς τῶν ἐριστικῶν λόγων ἀρχὰς συμβέβηκεν ἔχειν· παραχρῆμα γὰρ καὶ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολύ τοῖς καὶ μικρὰ συνορᾶν δυναμένοις κατάδηλος ἐν αὐτοῖς ἡ τοῦ ψεύδους ἐστὶ φύσις. Compare Soph. El. ii. p. 165, b. 7.

Aristotle thus draws a broad and marked line between Dialectic on the one hand, and Eristic or Sophistic on the other; and he treats the whole important doctrine of Logical Fallacies as coming under this latter department. The distinction that he draws between them is two-fold: first as to purpose, next as to subject-matter. On the part of the litigious or sophistical debater there is the illicit purpose of victory at all cost, or for profit; and probabilities merely apparent — such as any one may see not to be real probabilities — constitute the matter of his syllogisms.

Now, as to the distinction of purpose, we may put aside the idea of profit as having no essential connection with the question. It is quite possible to suppose the fair Dialectician, not less than the Sophist, as exhibiting his skill for pecuniary reward; while the eagerness for victory on both sides is absolutely indispensable even in well-conducted debate, in order that the appropriate stimulus and benefit of dialectical exercise may be realized. But, if the distinction of purpose and procedure, between the Dialectician and the Sophist, is thus undefined and unsatisfactory, still more unsatisfactory is the distinction of subject-matter. To discriminate between what is really probable (i.e., accredited either by the multitude or by a wise few), and what is only probable in appearance and not in reality — is a task of extreme difficulty. The explanation given by Aristotle himself[19] — when he describes the apparently probable as that which has only superficial show, and which the most ordinary intelligence discerns at once to be false — includes only the more gross and obvious fallacies, but leaves out all the rest. Nothing can be more incorrect than the assumption, in regard to fallacies generally, that the appearance of probability is too faint to impose upon any ordinary man. If all fallacies could be supposed to come under this definition, the theory of Fallacies would undoubtedly be worthless (as Mr. Poste suggests that it is, in the Preface to his translation of the Sophistici Elenchi); and the most dishonest Sophist would at any rate be harmless. But, in fact, Aristotle himself departs from this definition even in the beginning of the Sophistici Elenchi; for he there treats the sophistic syllogism and refutation as having a semblance of validity plausible enough to impose upon many persons, and to be difficult of detection; like base metals having the exterior appearance of gold and silver, and like men got up for the purpose of looking finer and stronger than they really are.[20] Here we have the eristic or sophistic syllogism presented as fallacious, yet as very likely to be mistaken for truth, by unprepared auditors, unless warning and precaution be applied; not (as it was set forth in the definition above cited) as bearing the plain and obvious stamp of falsehood, recognizable even by the vulgar. At the time when Aristotle constructed that definition, he probably had present to his mind such caricatures of dialectical questions as Plato (in the dialogue Euthydêmus) puts into the mouth of the Sophists Euthydêmus and Dionysodorus. And, since Aristotle chose to connect fallacious reasoning with dishonest purposes, and to announce it as employed exclusively by dishonest debaters, he seems to have found satisfaction in describing it as something which no honest man of ordinary understanding could accept as true: the Sophist being thus presented not merely as a knave but as a fool.

[19] Topic. I. i. p. 100, b. 24, seq.

[20] Soph. El. i. p. 164, a. 23-b. 27. τὸν αὐτὸν δὲ τρόπον καὶ συλλογισμὸς καὶ ἔλεγχος ὁ μὲν ἔστιν, ὁ δ’ οὐκ ἔστι μέν, φαίνεται δὲ διὰ τὴν ἀπειρίαν· οἱ γὰρ ἄπειροι ὥσπερ ἂν ἀπέχοντες πόῤῥωθεν θεωροῦσιν.

I think it a mistake on the part of Aristotle to treat the fallacies incidental to the human intellect as if they were mere traps laid by Sophists and litigants; and as if they would never show themselves, assuming dialectical debate to be conducted entirely with a view to its legitimate purposes of testing a thesis and following out argumentative consequences. It is true that, if there are infirmities incident to the human intellect, a dishonest disputant will be likely to take advantage of them. So far it may be well to note his presence. But the dishonest disputant does not originate these infirmities: he finds them already existing, and manifested undesignedly not merely in dialectical debate, but even in ordinary discourse. It is the business of those who theorize on the intellectual processes to specify and discriminate the Fallacies as liabilities to intellectual error among mankind in general, honest or dishonest, with a view to precaution against their occurrence, or correction if they do occur; not to present them as inventions of a class of professional cheats,[21] or as tares sown by the enemy in a field where the natural growth would be nothing but pure wheat.

[21] Soph. El. i. p. 165, a. 19, seq.

In point of fact the actual classification of Fallacies given by Aristotle is far sounder than his announcement would lead us to expect. Though he entitles them Sophistical Refutations, describing them as intentionally cultivated and exclusively practised by professional Sophists for gain, or by unprincipled litigants for victory, yet he recognises them as often very difficult of detection, and as an essential portion of the theory of Dialectic generally.[22] The various general heads under which he distributes them are each characterized by intellectual or logical marks.

[22] Ibid. xi. p. 172, b. 7.

His first and most general observation is, that language is the usual medium and instrument through which fallacies are operated.[23] Names and propositions are of necessity limited in number; but things named or nameable are innumerable; hence it happens inevitably that the same name or the same proposition must have several different meanings. Since we cannot talk of things except by means of their names, the equivocation inseparable from these names is a constant source of false conclusions.[24]

[23] Ibid. i. p. 165, a. 5.

[24] Ibid. a. 10: τὰ μὲν γὰρ ὀνόματα πεπέρανται καὶ τὸ τῶν λόγων πλῆθος, τὰ δὲ πράγματα τὸν ἀριθμὸν ἄπειρά ἐστιν. ἀναγκαῖον οὖν πλείω τὸν αὐτὸν λόγον καὶ τοὔνομα τὸ ἓν σημαίνειν.

In dialectical procedure, the Sophist and the litigious debater aim at the accomplishment of five distinguishable ends:— (1) To refute, or obtain the false appearance of refuting, the thesis; (2) To catch, or appear to catch, the opponent in affirming something false or contradictory; (3) Or in affirming something paradoxical; (4) Or in uttering incorrect and ungrammatical speech; (5) Or in tautological repetition. The first of these five ends is what the Sophist most desires; where that cannot be had, then, as secondary purposes, the succeeding four, in the order in which they are enumerated.[25]

[25] Soph. El. iii. p. 165, b. 12-22.

The syllogism whereby the Sophist appears to refute without really refuting, is either faulty in form, or untrue in matter, or irrelevant to the purpose. The Fallacies that he employs to bring about this deceitful appearance of refutation are various, and may be distributed first under two great divisions:—

I. Fallaciæ Dictionis.

II. Fallaciæ Extra Dictionem.

I. The first division — Fallaciæ Dictionis — includes all those cases wherein, under the same terms or propositions, more than one meaning is expressed. Six heads may be distinguished:—

1. Homonymy (Equivocation): where the double meaning resides in one single term — noun or verb.

2. Amphiboly: where the double meaning resides, not in a single word but, in a combination of words — proposition, phrase, or sentence.

3. Conjunction (hardly distinguishable from that immediately preceding — Amphiboly).

4. Disjunction: where what is affirmed conjunctively is not true disjunctively, or the reverse. (E.g., Five are two and three; but you cannot say, Five are even and odd. The greater is equal and something besides; but you cannot say, The greater is equal.)

5. Accentuation: where the same word differently accentuated has a different meaning.

6. Figura Dictionis: where two words, from being analogous in form, structure, or conjugation, are erroneously supposed to be analogous in meaning also.[26]

[26] Ibid. iv. p. 165, b. 23-p. 166, b. 19.

Such are the six heads of Fallaciæ Dictionis — Fallacies or Paralogisms arising from words as such, or something directly appertaining to them.

II. Under the second division — Fallacies or Paralogisms Extra Dictionem — there are seven heads:

1. Fallacia Accidentis.

2. Fallacia a dicto Secundum Quid ad dictum Simpliciter.

3. Ignoratio Elenchi.

4. Fallacia Consequentis

5. Petitio Principii.

6. Non Causa pro Causâ.

7. Fallacia Plurium Interrogationum.[27]

[27] Soph. El. v. p. 166, b. 20-27.

1. The first of these varieties, called Fallacia Accidentis, arises when a syllogism is made to conclude that, because a given predicate may be truly affirmed of a given subject, the same predicate may also be truly affirmed respecting all the accidents of that subject: as when Koriskus is denied to be a man, because he is not Sokrates, who is a man; or is denied to be Koriskus, because he is a man, while a man is not Koriskus.

In the title given to this general head of Fallacy,[28] we must understand Accident, not in its special logical sense as opposed to Essence, but in a far larger sense, including both Genus when predicated separately from Differentia, and Differentia when predicated separately from Genus; including, in fact, every thing which is distinguishable from the subject in any way, and at the same time predicable of it — every thing except the Definition, which conjoins Genus and Differentia together, and is thus identical and convertible with the definitum.

[28] Ibid. b. 29: οἱ παρὰ τὸ συμβεβηκὸς παραλογισμοί. Every man is an animal; but, because a predicate is true of the subject man, you cannot infer that the same predicate is true of the subject animal. This title comprehends within its range another, which is presently announced as distinct and separate — Fallacia Consequentis.

2. The second general variety arises when a proposition is affirmed with qualification or limitation in the premisses, but is affirmed without qualification, simply and absolutely, in the conclusion. The Ethiopian is white in his teeth and black in his skin; therefore, he is both white and not white — both white and black. In this example the fallacy is obvious, and can hardly escape any one; but there are many other cases in which the distinction is not so conspicuous, and in which the respondent will hesitate whether he ought to grant or refuse a question simply and absolutely.[29] One example given by Aristotle deserves notice on its own account: Non-Ens est opinabile, therefore Non-Ens est; or, again, Ens non est homo, therefore, Ens non est. This is one among Aristotle’s ways of bringing to view what modern logicians describe as the double function of the substantive verb — to serve as copula in predication, and to predicate existence.[30] He regards the confusion between these two functions as an example of the Fallacy now before us — of passing a dicto Secundum Quid ad dictum Simpliciter.[31]

[29] Ibid. b. 37, seq. ὅταν τὸ ἐν μέρει λεγόμενον ὡς ἁπλῶς εἰρημένον ληφθῇ — τὸ δὲ τοιοῦτον ἐπ’ ἐνίων μὲν παντὶ θεωρῆσαι ῥᾴδιον — ἐπ’ ἐνίων δὲ λανθάνει πολλάκις.

[30] The same double or multiple meaning of Est is discriminated by Aristotle in the Metaphysica, but in a different way — τὸ ὂν ὡς ἀληθές, καὶ τὸ μὴ ὂν ὡς ψεῦδος — Δ. vii. p. 1017, a. 31; E. iv. p. 1027, b. 18-36. Bonitz (ad. Metaphys. Z. iv. p. 310) says:— “Quid quod etiam illud esse huc refert, quo non existentiam significamus, sed predicati cum subjecto conjunctionem.â€� Aristotle is even more precise than modern logicians in analysing the different meanings of τὸ ὄν: he distinguishes four of them.

[31] Soph. El. v. p. 167, a. 1: οἷον εἰ τὸ μὴ ὄν ἐστι δοξαστόν, ὅτι τὸ μὴ ὂν ἔστιν· οὐ γὰρ ταὐτὸν εἶναι τέ τι καὶ εἶναι ἁπλῶς.

Compare Metaphys. Z. iv. p. 1030, a. 25, and De Interpretatione, p. 21, a. 25-34: ὥσπερ Ὅμηρός ἐστί τι, οἷον ποιητής· ἆρ’ οὖν καὶ ἔστιν, ἠ οὔ; κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς γὰρ κατηγορεῖται τοῦ Ὁμήρου τὸ ἔστιν· ὅτι γὰρ ποιητής ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ οὐ καθ’ αὑτό, κατηγορεῖται κατὰ τοῦ Ὁμήρου τὸ ἔστιν.

It is clear from the above passages that Aristotle was thoroughly aware of the logical fact which Hobbes, James Mill, and Mr. John Stuart Mill, have more fully brought out and illustrated, as the confusion between the two distinct functions of the substantive verb. Many excellent remarks on the subject will be found in the ‘System of Logic,’ by Mr. J. S. Mill (Bk. I. ch. iv. s. 1); also in the ‘Analysis of the Human Mind,’ by James Mill, especially in the recent edition of that work, containing the explanatory notes by Mr. J. S. Mill and Dr. Findlater (Vol. I. ch. iv. p. 174, seq.). Mr. J. S. Mill, however, speaks too unreservedly of this confusion as having escaped the notice of Aristotle, and as having been brought to light only by or since Hobbes. He says (in a note on the ‘Analysis,’ p. 183):— “As in the case of many other luminous thoughts, an approach is found to have been made to it by previous thinkers. Hobbes, though he did not reach it, came very close to it; and it was still more distinctly anticipated by Laromiguière, though without any sufficient perception of its value … in the following words:— ‘Quand on dit, l’être est, &c., le mot est, ou le verbe, n’exprime pas la même chose que le mot être, sujet de la définition. Si j’énonce la proposition suivante: Dieu est existant, je ne voudrais pas dire assurément, Dieu existe existant: cela ne ferait pas un sens: de même, si je dis que Virgile est poète, je ne veux pas donner à entendre que Virgile existe. Le verbe est dans la proposition n’exprime dont pas l’existence réelle; il n’exprime qu’un rapport spécial entre le sujet et l’attribut, &c.’� The passages above cited from Aristotle show that he had not only enunciated the same truth as Laromiguière, but even illustrated it by the same example (Homer instead of Virgil). I shall in another place state more fully the views of Aristotle respecting Existence.

3. The third of these heads of Fallacy — Ignoratio Elenchi — is, when the speaker, professing to contradict the thesis, advances another proposition which contradicts it in appearance only but not in reality, because he does not know what are the true and sufficient conditions of a valid Elenchus. In order to be valid, it must be real, not merely verbal; it must be proved by good syllogistic premisses, without any Petitio Principii; and it must deny the same matter, in the same relations, and at the same time, as that which the thesis affirmed. Thus, it is no contradiction to affirm and deny doubleness of the same body; both affirmation and denial may be true, if you take the comparison against different numbers or different bodies, or at different times. Sometimes persons neglect some of these conditions, and fancy that they have contradicted the thesis, when they have not: this is Ignoratio Elenchi.[32] (If the thesis be an affirmative universal, it is sufficient contradiction if you prove a negative particular against it.)

[32] Soph. El. v. p. 167, a. 21-35: οἱ δὲ παρὰ τὸ μὴ διωρίσθαι τί ἐστι συλλογισμὸς ἢ τί ἔλεγχος, ἀλλὰ παρὰ τὴν ἔλλειψιν γίνονται τοῦ λόγου.

We may remark, by the way, that it is not very consistent in Aristotle to recognize one general head of Sophistical Refutation called Ignoratio Elenchi, after the definition that he has given of the Sophist at the beginning of this treatise. He had told us that the Sophist was a dishonest man, who made it his profession to study and practise these tricks, for the purpose of making himself pass for a clever man, and of getting money. According to this definition, there is no Ignoratio Elenchi in the Sophist, though there may be in the person who supposes himself refuted. The Sophist is assumed to know what he is about, and to be aware that his argument is a fallacious one.

4. The fourth head includes what are called Fallaciæ Consequentis: when a man inverts the relation between predicate and subject in a categorical proposition affirmative and universal, thinking that it may be simply converted or that the subject may be truly affirmed of the predicate; or when, in an hypothetical proposition, he inverts the relation between antecedent and consequent, arguing that, because the consequent is true, the antecedent must for that reason be true also. Honey is of yellow colour; you see a yellow substance, and you infer for that reason that it must be honey. Thieves generally walk out by night; you find a man walking out by night, and you infer that he must be a thief. These are inferences from Signs, opinions founded on facts of sense, such as are usually employed in Rhetoric; often or usually true, but not necessarily or universally true, and therefore fallacious when used as premisses in a syllogism.[33]

[33] Soph. El. v. p. 167, b. 1-18. This head (Fallacia Consequentis) is not essentially distinguishable from the first (Fallacia Accidentis), being nothing more than a peculiar species or variety thereof, as Aristotle himself admits a little farther on — vi. p. 168, a. 26; vii. p. 169, b. 7; viii. p. 170, a. 3. Compare also xxviii. p. 181, a. 25.

5. The fifth head is that of Petitio Principii: a man sometimes assumes for his premiss what is identical with the conclusion to be proved, without being aware of the identity.[34]

[34] Ibid. v. p. 167, a. 38: διὰ τὸ μὴ δύνασθαι συνορᾶν τὸ ταὐτὸν καὶ τὸ ἕτερον.

6. The sixth head of Fallacy — Non Causa pro Causâ — is, when we mistake for a cause that which is not really a cause; or, to drop the misleading word cause, and to adopt the clearer terms in which this same fallacy is announced in the Analytica Priora[35] — Non per Hoc — Non propter Hoc, it arises when we put forward, as an essential premiss of a given conclusion, something that is not really an essential premiss thereof. When you intend to refute a given thesis by showing, that, if admitted, it leads to impossible or absurd conclusions, you must enunciate that thesis itself among the premisses that lead to such absurdities.[36] But, though enunciated in this place, it may often happen that the thesis may be an unnecessary adjunct — not among the premisses really pertinent and essential: and that the impossible conclusion may be sufficiently proved, even though the thesis were omitted. Still, since the thesis is declared along with the rest, it will appear falsely to be a part of the real proof. It will often appear so even to yourself the questioner; you not detecting the fallacy.[37] Under such circumstances the respondent meets you by Non propter Hoc. He admits your conclusion to be impossible, and at the same time to be duly proved, but he shows you that it is proved by evidence independent of his thesis, and not by reason or means of his thesis. Accordingly you have advanced a syllogism good in itself, but not good for the purpose which you aimed at;[38] viz., to refute the thesis by establishing that it led to impossible consequences. You will fail, even if the impossible consequence which you advance is a proposition conjoined with the thesis through a continuous series of intermediate propositions, each of them having one common term with the next. Much more will you fail, if your impossible consequence is quite foreign and unconnected with the thesis; as we sometimes find in Dialectic.

[35] Ibid. b. 21; vii. p. 169, b. 13. Compare Analyt. Prior. II. xvii. p. 65.

In commenting on the above chapter of the Analytica Priora, I have already remarked (Vol. I. p. 258, [note]) how much better is the designation there given of the present fallacy — Non per Hoc (οὐ παρὰ τὴν θέσιν τὸ ψεῦδος) — than the designation here given of the same fallacy — Non Causa pro Causâ. Aristotle is speaking of a syllogistic process, consisting of premisses and a conclusion; the premisses being the reasons or grounds of the conclusion, not the cause thereof, as that term is commonly understood. The term cause is one used in so many different senses that we cannot be too careful in reasoning upon it. See Whately’s remarks on this subject, Bk. iii. Sect. 14, of his Logic: also his Appendix I. to that work, under article Reason.

[36] Soph. El. v. p. 167, b. 24: ἐὰν οὖν ἐγκαταριθμήθῃ ἐν τοῖς ἀναγκαίοις ἐρωτήμασι πρὸς τὸ συμβαῖνον ἀδύνατον, δόξει παρὰ τοῦτο γίνεσθαι πολλάκις ὁ ἔλεγχος.

[37] Ibid. b. 35: καὶ λανθάνει πολλάκις οὐχ ἧττον αὐτοὺς τοὺς ἐρωτῶντας τὸ τοιοῦτον.

[38] Ibid. b. 34: ἀσυλλόγιστοι μὲν οὖν ἁπλῶς οὐκ εἰσὶν οἱ τοιοῦτοι λόγοι, πρὸς δὲ τὸ προκείμενον ἀσυλλόγιστοι.

7. The seventh and last of these heads of Fallacy is, when the questioner puts two distinct questions in the same form of words, as if they were one — Fallacia Plurium Interrogationum ut Unius. In well-conducted Dialectic the respondent was assumed to reply either Yes or No to the question put; or, if it was put in the form of an alternative, he accepted distinctly one term of the alternative. Under such conditions he could not reply to one of these double-termed questions without speaking falsely or committing himself. Are the earth and the sea liquid? Is the heaven or the earth sea? The questions are improperly put, and neither admits of any one correct answer. You ought to confine yourself to one question at a time, with one subject and one predicate, making what is properly understood by one single proposition. The two questions here stated as examples ought properly to be put as four.[39]

[39] Ibid. b. 38-p. 168, a. 16; vi. p. 169, a. 6-12. ἡ γὰρ πρότασίς ἐστιν ἓν καθ’ ἑνός. — εἰ οὖν μία πρότασις ἡ ἓν καθ’ ἑνὸς ἀξιοῦσα, καὶ ἁπλῶς ἔσται πρότασις ἡ τοιαύτη ἐρώτησις.

The examples given of this fallacy by Aristotle are so palpable — the expounder of every fallacy must make it clear by giving examples that every one sees through at once — that we are tempted to imagine that no one can be imposed on by it. But Aristotle himself remarks, very justly, that there occur many cases in which we do not readily see whether one question only, or more than one, is involved; and in which one answer is made, though two questions are concerned. To set out distinctly all the separate debateable points is one of the most essential precautions for ensuring correct decision. The importance of such discriminating separation is one of the four rules prescribed by Descartes in his Discours de la Méthode. The present case comes under Mr. Mill’s Fallacies of Confusion.

Aristotle has thus distinguished and classified Fallacies under thirteen distinct heads in all — six In Dictione, and seven Extra Dictionem; among which last one is Ignoratio Elenchi. He now proceeds to show that, in another way of looking at the matter, all the Fallacies ranged under the thirteen heads, may be shown to be reducible to this single one — Ignoratio Elenchi. Every Fallacy, whatever it be, transgresses or fails to satisfy, in some way or other, the canons or conditions which go to constitute a valid Elenchus,[40] or a valid Syllogism. For a true Elenchus is only one mode of a true Syllogism; namely, that of which the conclusion is contradictory to some given thesis or proposition.[41] With this particular added, the definition of a valid Syllogism will also be the definition of a good Elenchus. And thus Ignoratio Elenchi — misconception or neglect of the conditions of a good Elenchus — understood in its largest meaning, is rather a characteristic common to all varieties of Fallacy, than one variety among others.[42]

[40] Soph. El. vi. p. 168, a. 19: ἔστι γὰρ ἅπαντας ἀναλῦσαι τοὺς λεχθέντας τρόπους εἰς τὸν τοῦ ἐλέγχου διορισμόν.

[41] Ibid. a. 35.

[42] Ibid. p. 169, b. 15.

In regard to two among the thirteen heads — Fallacia Accidentis and Fallacia Consequentis (which however ought properly to rank as only one head, since the second is merely a particular variety of the first) — Aristotle’s observations are remarkable. After having pointed out that a Syllogism embodying this fallacy will not be valid or conclusive (thus showing that it involves Ignoratio Elenchi), he affirms that even scientific men were often not aware of it, and conceived themselves to be really refuted by an unscientific opponent urging against them such an inconclusive syllogism. To take an example:— Every triangle has its three angles equal to two right angles; every triangle is a figure; therefore, every figure has its three angles equal to two right angles.[43] Here we have an invalid syllogism; for it is in the Third figure, and sins against the conditions of that figure, by exhibiting an universal affirmative conclusion: it is a syllogism properly concluding in Darapti, but with conclusion improperly generalized. Yet Aristotle intimates that a scientific geometer of his day, in argument with an unscientific opponent, would admit the conclusion to be well proved, not knowing how to point out where the fallacy lay: he would, if asked, grant the premisses necessary for constructing such a syllogism; and, even if not asked, would suppose that he had already granted them, or that they ought to be granted.[44]

[43] Ibid. p. 168, a. 40: οὐδ’ εἰ τὸ τρίγωνον δυοῖν ὀρθαῖν ἴσας ἔχει, συμβέβηκε δ’ αὐτῷ σχήματι εἶναι ἢ πρώτῳ ἢ ἀρχῇ, ὅτι σχῆμα ἢ ἀρχὴ ἢ πρῶτον τοῦτο.

Here we have Figure reckoned as an accident of Triangle. This is a specimen of Aristotle’s occasional laxity in employing the word συμβεβηκός. He commonly uses it as contrasted with essential, of which last term Mr. Poste says very justly (notes, p. 129):— “To complete the statement of Aristotle’s view, it should be added, that essential propositions are those whose predicate cannot be defined without naming the subject, or whose subject cannot be defined without naming the predicate.â€� Now figure is the genus to which triangle belongs, and triangle cannot be defined without naming its genus figure. But to include Genus as a predicable under the head of συμβεβηκός or Accident, is in marked opposition to Aristotle’s own doctrine elsewhere: see Topic. I. v. p. 102, b. 4; iv. p. 101, b. 17; Analyt. Post. I. ii. p. 71, b. 9; Metaphys. E. p. 1026, b. 32. It is a misfortune that Aristotle gave to this general head of Fallacy the misleading title of Fallacia Accidentia — παρὰ τὸ συμβεβηκός. When he gave this title, he probably had present to his mind only such examples as he indicates in Soph. El. v. p. 166, b. 32. Throughout the Topica and elsewhere, Genus is distinguished pointedly from συμβεβηκός, though examples occur occasionally in which the distinction is neglected. The two Fallacies called Accidentis and Consequentis, would both be more properly ranked under one common logical title — Supposed convertibility or interchangeableness between Subject and Predicate — εἰ τόδε ἀπὸ τοῦδε μὴ χωρίζεται, μηδ’ ἀπὸ θατέρου χωρίζεσθαι θάτερον (vii. p. 169, b. 8).

[44] Soph. El. vi. p. 168, b. 6: ἀλλὰ παρὰ τοῦτο καὶ οἱ τεχνῖται καὶ ὅλως οἱ ἐπιστήμονες ὑπὸ τῶν ἀνεπιστημόνων ἐλέγχονται· κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς γὰρ ποιοῦνται τοὺς συλλογισμοὺς πρὸς τοὺς εἰδότας· οἱ δ’ οὐ δυνάμενοι διαιρεῖν ἢ ἐρωτώμενοι διδόασιν ἢ οὐ δόντες οἴονται δεδωκέναι.

The passage affords us a curious insight into the intellectual grasp of the scientific men contemporary with Aristotle. Most of them were prepared to admit fallacious inferences (such as the above) which assumed the interchangeability of subject and predicate. They had paid little or no attention to the logical relations between one proposition and another, and between the two different terms of the same proposition. The differences of essential from accidental predication, and of each among the five Predicables from the others, must have been practically familiar to them, as to others, from the habit of correct speaking in detail; but they had not been called upon to consider correct speaking and reasoning in theory, nor to understand upon what conditions it depended whether the march of their argumentative discourse landed them in true or false results. And, if even the scientific men were thus unaware of logical fallacies, we may be sure that this must have been still more the case with unscientific men, of ordinary intelligence and education. Aristotle tells us here, in more than one passage, how widespread such illogical tendencies were: to fancy that two subjects which had one predicate the same must be the same with each other in all respects;[45] to understand each predicate applied to a subject as being itself an independent subject, implying a new Hoc Aliquid or Unum;[46] to treat the universal, not as a common epithet but, as a substantive and singular apart;[47] to use equivocal words or phrases, even the most wide and vague, without any attempt to discriminate their various meanings.[48] Such insensibility to the conditions of accurate reasoning prevailed alike among ordinary men and among the men of special science. A geometer would be imposed upon by the inconclusive syllogism stated in the last paragraph, which, as being founded on the Fallacia Accidentia (or interchangeability of subject and predicate), Aristotle numbers among Sophistical Refutations. Such a refutation, however, even when successful, would not at all prove that the geometer was deficient in knowledge of his own science;[49] for it would puzzle the really scientific man as well as the pretender.

[45] Soph. El. vi. p. 168, b. 31: τὰ γὰρ ἑνὶ ταὐτά, καὶ ἀλλήλοις ἀξιοῦμεν εἶναι ταὐτά. — vii. p. 169, b. 7: ἔτι καὶ ἐπὶ πολλῶν φαίνεται καὶ ἀξιοῦται οὕτως, εἰ τόδε ἀπὸ τοῦδε μὴ χωρίζεται, μηδ’ ἀπὸ θατέρου χωρίζεσθαι θάτερον.

[46] Ibid. vii. p. 169, a. 33: ὅτι πᾶν τὸ κατηγορούμενόν τινος ὑπολαμβάνομεν τόδε τι καὶ ὡς ἓν ὑπακούομεν· τῷ γὰρ ἑνὶ καὶ τῇ οὐσίᾳ μάλιστα δοκεῖ παρέπεσθαι τὸ τόδε τι καὶ τὸ ὄν.

[47] Ibid. xxii. p. 178, b. 37-p. 179, a. 10.

[48] Ibid. vii. p. 169, a. 22.

[49] Ibid. viii. p. 169, b. 27: οἱ δὲ σοφιστικοὶ ἔλεγχοι, ἂν καὶ συλλογίζωνται τὴν ἀντίφασιν, οὐ ποιοῦσι δῆλον εἰ ἀγνοεῖ· καὶ γὰρ τὸν εἰδότα ἐμποδίζουσι τούτοις τοῖς λόγοις. Compare vi. p. 168, b. 6.

We must always recollect that Aristotle was the first author who studied the logical relations between Terms and Propositions, with a view to theory and to general rules founded thereupon. The distinctions which he brought to view were in his time novelties; even the simplest rules, such as those relating to the Conversion of propositions, or to Contraries and Contradictories, had never been stated in general terms before. Up to a certain point, indeed, acquired habit, even without these generalities, would doubtless lead to correct speech and reasoning; yet liable to be perverted in many cases by erroneous tendencies, requiring to be indicated and guarded against by a logician. When we are told that even a professed geometer was imposed upon by these fallacies, we learn at once how deep-seated were such illogical deficiencies, how useful was Aristotle’s theoretical study in marking them out, and how insufficient was his classification when he described the Fallacies as obvious frauds, broached only by dishonest professional Sophists. As he himself states, the cause of deceit turns upon a quite trifling difference; having its root in the imperfection of language and in our frequent habit of using words without much attention to logical distinctions.[50]

[50] Soph. El. vii. p. 169, b. 14: ἐν ἅπασι γὰρ ἡ ἀπάτη διὰ τὸ παρὰ μικρόν· οὐ γὰρ διακριβοῦμεν οὔτε τῆς προτάσεως οὔτε τοῦ συλλογισμοῦ τὸν ὅρον διὰ τὴν εἰρημένην αἰτίαν. Compare v. p. 167, a. 5-14; i. p. 165, a. 6-19.

Under one or other, then, of the thirteen general heads above enumerated, all Paralogisms must be included — merely apparent syllogisms, or refutations, which are not real and valid;[51] and all of them designated by Aristotle as sophistic or eristic. Besides these, moreover, he includes, as we saw, under the same designation, syllogisms or refutations valid in form, and true as to conclusion, yet founded on premisses not suited to the matter in debate; i.e., not suited to Dialectic. Now, here it is that difficulty arises. Dialectic and Rhetoric are carefully distinguished by Aristotle from all the special sciences (such as Geometry, Astronomy, Medicine, &c.); and are construed as embracing every variety of authoritative dicta, current beliefs, and matters of opinion, together with all the most general maxims and hypotheses of Ontology and Metaphysics, of Physics and Ethics, and the common Axioms assumed in all the sciences, as discriminated from what is special and peculiar to each. Construed in this way, we might imagine that the subject-matter of Dialectic was all-comprehensive, and that every thing without exception belonged to it, except the specialties of Geometry and of the other sciences; and such is the usual language of Aristotle. Yet in the treatise before us we find him exerting himself to establish another classification, and to part off Dialectic from a certain other science or art which he acknowledges under the title of Sophistic or Eristic.[52] Elsewhere he describes Sophistic as occupied in the study of accidents or occasional conjunctions; and this characteristic feature parts it off from Demonstration and Science. But there is greater difficulty when he tries to part it off from Dialectic. Where are we to find a clear line of distinction between the matter of dialectic debate (gymnastic or testing) on the one hand, and the matter of debate sophistic or litigious, on the other? At the beginning of the Topica Aristotle assigned, as the distinction, that the Dialectician argues upon premisses really probable, while the litigious Sophist takes up premisses which are probable in appearance only, and not in reality; such apparent probabilia (he goes on to say) having only the most superficial semblance of truth, and being seen immediately to be manifest falsehoods by persons of very ordinary intelligence.[53] But I have already pointed out that this description of apparent probabilia, if considered as applying to fallacious reasoning generally, is both untenable in itself, and contradicted by Aristotle himself elsewhere. The truth is, that there is no clear distinction between the matter of Dialectic and the matter of Sophistic. And so, indeed, Aristotle must be understood to admit, when he falls back upon an alleged distinction of aim and purpose between the practitioners of one and the other. The litigious man (he tells us) is bent upon nothing but victory in debate, per fas et nefas: the Sophist aims at passing himself off falsely for a wise or clever man, and making money thereby.[54]

[51] Ibid. viii. p. 170, a. 10.

[52] Metaphys. K. viii. p. 1064, b. 26: τοῦτο δὲ (τὸ συμβεβηκός) οὐδεμία ζητεῖ τῶν ὁμολογουμένως οὐσῶν ἐπιστημῶν, πλὴν ἡ σοφιστική· περὶ τὸ συμβεβηκὸς γὰρ αὕτη μόνη πραγματεύεται. Compare Analyt. Poster. I. ii. p. 71, b. 10.

[53] Topic. I, i. p. 100, b. 26: οὐ γὰρ πᾶν τὸ φαινόμενον ἔνδοξον καὶ ἔστιν ἔνδοξον. οὐθὲν γὰρ τῶν λεγομένων ἔνδοξων ἐπιπόλαιον ἔχει παντελῶς τὴν φαντασίαν, καθάπερ περὶ τὰς τῶν ἐριστικῶν λόγων ἀρχὰς συμβέβηκεν ἔχειν· παραχρῆμα γὰρ καὶ ὡς ἐπὶ τὸ πολὺ τοῖς καὶ μικρὰ συνορᾶν δυναμένοις κατάδηλος ἐν αὐτοῖς ἡ τοῦ ψευδοῦς ἐστὶ φύσις. It is by reference to this distinction between ἔνδοξα which are genuine and ἔνδοξα which are only such in appearance that the Scholiast (p. 306, b. 40) explains the meaning of Aristotle in the eleventh chapter of Sophistici Elenchi: ὁ μὲν οὖν κατὰ τὸ πρᾶγμα θεωρῶν τὰ κοινὰ διαλεκτικός, ὁ δὲ τοῦτο φαινομένως ποιῶν σοφιστικός (p. 171, b. 6-20). I confess that I attach no distinct meaning to the words κατὰ τὸ πρᾶγμα θεωρῶν τὰ κοινὰ, which characterizes the Dialectician as contrasted with the Sophist; nor can I learn much from the notes either of Waitz, or of Mr. Poste (p. 129, seq.) on the passage. Take for example the last half of the Parmenides of Plato, or Book B. of the Metaphysics of Aristotle. Are we to say that in these two compositions Plato and Aristotle speculate on to τὰ κοινὰ κατὰ τὸ πρᾶγμα, or that they do so only in appearance?

[54] Soph. El. xi. p. 171, b. 25-35; i. p. 165, a. 21-31.

Now, in regard to the distinction of aim or disposition drawn by Aristotle between the dialectical disputant and the litigious or sophistic disputant, we see at once, as was before suggested, that it lies apart from the critical estimate of art, science, or philosophy; and that it belongs, so far as it is well founded, to the estimate of individuals ethically and politically, as worthy men or patriotic citizens. Whether Euripides or Sophokles composed finer tragedies (as we find argued in the Ranæ of Aristophanes), must be decided by examining the tragedies themselves, not by enquiring whether one of them was vain and greedy of money, the other free from these blemishes. A theorist who is laying down general principles of Rhetoric, and illustrating them by the study of Æschines and Demosthenes, will appreciate the oration against Ktesiphon and the oration De Coronâ in their character of compositions intended for a particular purpose. For Rhetoric it is of no moment whether Æschines was venal or disinterested — a malignant rival or an honest patriot; this is an enquiry important indeed, but belonging to the historian and not to the rhetorical theorist. Whether Aristotle was or was not guided, in his animadversions on Plato, by an unworthy and captious jealousy of his master, is an interesting question in reference to his character; but our appreciation of his philosophy must proceed upon an examination, not of his motives but, of his doctrines and reasonings as we find them. A good argument is not deprived of its force when enunciated by a knave, nor is a bad argument rendered good because it proceeds from a virtuous man. Indeed, so far as the character of the speaker counts at all, in falsifying the fair logical estimate of an argument, it operates in a direction opposite to that here indicated by Aristotle. The same argument in the mouth of one who is esteemed and admired counts for more than its worth; in the mouth of a person of low character it counts for less than it is worth.[55] To distribute arguments into two classes — those employed by persons of dishonourable character and those employed by honourable men — is a departure from the scientific character of Logic.

[55] Eurip. Hecub. 293.

τὸ δ’ ἀξίωμα, κἂν καῶς λέγῃς, τὸ σὸν πείσει· λόγος γὰρ ἔκ τ’ ἀδοξούντων ἰὼν κἂκ τῶν δοκούντων αὐτὸς οὐ ταὐτὸν σθένει.

Aristot. Rhetoric. I. ii. p. 1356, a. 5-15.

As to the other part of the case (if it is still necessary to recur to it), touching the peculiarity of the matter of sophistical arguments, the inconsistency of Aristotle is most apparent. In enumerating the Sophistical Refutations he tells us that these fallacies are indeed sometimes palpable and easily detected, but that they are often very difficult to detect and very misleading; that an unprepared hearer will generally be imposed upon by several of them, and even a scientific hearer by some; and that, even where the fallacy does not actually deceive, the proper mode of meeting and exposing it will not occur unless to one previously exercised in Dialectic.[56] That Fallacies In Dictione, taken as a class (though these are what he declares to be the most usual modus operandi of the sham dialecticians called Sophists[57]), often passed unperceived, and were hard to solve and elucidate even when perceived — we know to have been his opinion; for it is not only in the Topica and Sophistici Elenchi, but also in the Metaphysica and other works,[58] that he takes pains to analyse and discriminate the several distinct meanings borne by terms familiar to every one, such as idem, unum, pulchrum, bonum, amare, album, acutum, &c., which terms therefore, when employed in argument, were always liable to introduce a fallacy of Equivocation or Amphiboly. He tells us the like in specifying the seven Fallacies Extra Dictionem: that they also were often unnoticed, and required vigilant practice to see through and solve. The description in detail, therefore, which Aristotle gives (in Sophistici Elenchi) of the working process peculiar to the litigious Sophist, is completely at variance with the definition which he had given of the sophistic syllogism at the commencement of the Topica. That definition is indeed suitable for the type-specimens which he and other logicians give to illustrate this or that class of Fallacies: the type-specimen produced must carry absurdity on the face of it, so that the reader may at first sight recognize it as a fallacy; and he may even find difficulty in believing that any one can really be imposed upon by such trifling. But, though suitable for the type-specimen taken separately, this definition fails in the essential character which Aristotle postulates for a definition, since it is quite untrue and unsuitable for numerous instances of the class intended to be illustrated.[59] Aristotle was the first who attempted to distribute Fallacies into classes, such that, while in each class there were certain specimens palpably stamped with the fallacious character, there were also in each class an indefinite multitude of analogous cases wherein the fallacious character did not reveal itself openly or easily, but required attentive consideration to detect it, often indeed remaining undetected, and producing its natural fruit of error and confusion. This was one of his many great merits in regard to Logic; and the classification of Fallacies (modified as to details) has passed to all subsequent logicians, so that we find difficulty in understanding that the contemporaries of Sokrates and Plato had no idea of it. But the value of his service to Logic would be much lessened, if all fallacies were sophistic syllogisms, intended to deceive but never really deceiving, corresponding to his definition at the beginning of the Topica; if (as he tells us in the Sophistici Elenchi) they were only impudent forgeries put in circulation by a set of professional knaves called Sophists; and if all non-sophistical dialecticians, and all the world without, could be trusted as speaking correctly by nature and as never falling into them.

[56] Soph. El. v. p. 167, a. 5-15, b. 5-35. καὶ λανθάνει πολλάκις οὐχ ἧττον αὐτοὺς τοὺς ἐρωτῶντας τὸ τοιοῦτον. — vii. p. 169, a. 22-30, b. 8-15: ἐν ἅπασι γὰρ ἡ ἀπάτη διὰ τὸ παρὰ μικρόν. — xv. p. 175, a. 20.

[57] Ibid. i. p. 165, a. 2-20.

[58] Topic. I. vii. p. 103, a. 6-39; p. 106, b. 3-9; p. 107, a. 12, b. 7: πολλάκις δὲ καὶ ἐν αὐτοῖς τοῖς λόγοις λανθάνει παρακολουθοῦν τὸ ὁμώνυμον. Cf. Topic. II. iii. p. 110, b. 33; V. ii. p. 129, b. 30, seq.; VI. x. p. 148, a. 23, seq. Soph. El. x. p. 171, a. 17.

Compare also Book Δ. of the Metaphysica, and the frequent recognition and analysis τῶν πολλάκῶς λεγομένων throughout the other Books of the Metaphysica.

[59] Topic. VI. i. p. 139, a. 26: δεῖ γὰρ τὸν τοῦ ἀνθρώπου ὁρισμὸν κατὰ παντὸς ἀνθρώπου ἀληθεύεσθαι. — VI. x. p. 148, x. p. 148, b. 2: δεῖ γὰρ ἐπὶ πᾶν τὸ συνώνυμον ἐφαρμόττειν.

Whoever reads the Sixth Book of the Topica, wherein Aristotle indicates to the questioner Loci for impugning a definition, will see how little this definition of the Sophistic Syllogism will stand such attacks.

The appeal made by Aristotle to a difference of character and motives as the distinction between the Dialectician and the Sophist is all the more misplaced, because he himself lays down as the essential feature of Dialectic generally, that it is a match or contention between two rivals, each anxious to obtain the victory. It is like a match at chess between two expert players, or a fencing-match between two celebrated masters at arms. Its very nature is to be an attack and defence, in which each combatant resorts to stratagem, and each outwits the other if he can. Whether the match is played for money or for nothing — whether the contentious spirit is more or less intense — does not concern the theorist on dialectical procedure. It is indispensable that both the questioner and the respondent should exert their full force, the one in thrusting, the other in parrying: if they do not, the purpose of Dialectic, which is the common business of both, will not be attained. That purpose is clearly declared by Aristotle. It is not didactic: he distinguishes it expressly from teaching,[60] where one man who knows communicates such knowledge to an ignorant pupil. It is gymnastic, exercising the promptitude and invention of both parties; or peirastic, testing whether the respondent knows a given thesis in such manner as to avoid being driven into answers inconsistent with each other or notoriously false.[61] Each party seeks, not to help or enlighten but, to puzzle and defeat the other. As at chess or in fencing, to mask one’s projects and deceive the adversary is essential to the work and to its purpose; each expects it from the other, and undertakes to meet and parry it. The theses debated were always such that arguments might be found both for the affirmative and for the negative.

[60] Soph. El. ii. p. 165, b. 1-5; x. p. 171, a. 32-b. 2. Cf. Topic. VIII. xi. p. 161, a. 25.

[61] Topic. I. i. p. 100, a. 20; VIII. i. p. 155, b. 10-28.

According to Aristotle himself, therefore, the Dialectician is agonistic and eristic, just as much as the Sophist. If the one tries to entrap his opponent for the purpose of victory, so also does the other: the line which Aristotle draws between them is one not founded upon any real distinction between two purposes and modes of procedure, but is merely verbal and sentimental; putting aside under a discredited title what he himself disliked. He admits that the dialectical questioner, whenever the thesis which he undertakes to refute is true, can never refute it except by inducing the respondent to concede what is false; that, even where the thesis is false, he often can only refute it by some other incompatible falsehood, because he cannot obtain from the respondent better premisses; that, where the thesis is probable and conformable to received opinion, his only way of refuting it is by entrapping the respondent into concessions paradoxical and contrary to received opinion.[62] But these ends — fallacious refutation, falsehood, and paradox — are the very same as those which Aristotle (in the Sophistici Elenchi)[63] sets forth as the peculiar characteristics of the litigious Sophist. And the improving intellectual tendencies which he ascribes to Sophistic, are almost identical with those attributed to Dialectic, being declared in very similar words.[64] That there were dialecticians of every degree of merit, in the time of Aristotle, cannot be doubted; some clever and ready, others stupid and destitute of invention. But that there were any two classes of dialecticians such as he describes and contrasts — one heretical class, called Sophists, who purposely and habitually employed the thirteen fallacious refutations, and another orthodox class who purposely avoided or habitually abstained from them — we may most reasonably doubt. If the argument in the Sophistici Elenchi is good at all, it is good against all Dialectic. The Sophist, as Aristotle describes him, is only the Dialectician looked at on the unfavourable side and painted by an enemy. We know that there were in Greece many enemies of Dialectic generally; the intense antipathy inspired by the cross-examining colloquy of Sokrates, and attested by his own declarations, is a sufficient proof of this. The enemies of Sokrates depicted him — as Aristotle depicts the Sophist in the Sophistici Elenchi — as a clever fabricator of fallacious contradictions and puzzles; to which Aristotle adds the farther charge (advanced by Plato before him) against the Sophist, of arguing for lucre — which is an irrelevant charge, travelling out of the region of art, and bearing on the personal character of the individual. If the sophistical stratagems were discreditable and mischievous when exhibited for money, they would be no less such if exhibited gratuitously. The sophistical discourse is not (as Aristotle would have us believe) generically distinguishable from the dialectical;[65] nor is Sophistic an art distinct from Dialectic while adjoining to it, but an inseparable portion of the tissue of Dialectic itself.[66] If the Sophist passed himself off as knowing what he did not really know, so also did the Dialectician; as we know from the testimony of Sokrates, the most consummate master of the art. The conflict of two minds each taking advantage of the misconceptions, short-comings, and blindness of the other, is the essential feature of Dialectic as Aristotle conceives it; to which the eight books of his Topica are adapted, with their multiplicity of distinctions and precepts both for attack and defence. There cannot be a game of chess without stratagems, nor a fencing-match without feints; the power of such aggressive deception is one characteristic mark of a good player. Those who teach or theorize on the game do not seek to exclude stratagem, but furnish precautions to prevent it from succeeding. Mastery of the art assumes skill in defence as well as in attack.

[62] Topic. VIII. xi. p. 161, a. 24.

[63] Soph. El. iii. p. 165, b. 14.

[64] Compare Topic. I. ii. p. 101, a. 26-b. 4, with Soph. El. xvi. p. 175, a. 5-16.

[65] Soph. El. ii. p. 165, a. 32; xxxiv. p. 183, b. 1.

[66] Plato, Apol. Sokrat. p. 23, A.

Compare this with Aristot. Soph. El. i. p. 165, a. 30.

Doubtless there are rules that require to be observed in the dialectical attack and defence, as there are rules for all other matches such as chess or fencing. I should have been glad if Aristotle had given a precise and tenable explanation what these rules were. He describes the Sophist as one who plays the game unfairly; but we have already seen that the ends pursued by the Dialectician generally are hardly at all distinguishable from those aimed at by the Sophist. If we look to the account of the means employed by one and the other, we shall in like manner fail to see how any real line can be drawn between them.

Thus, one proceeding declared to be characteristic of the Sophist is — that he puts multiplied questions apparently at random, without any visible bearing on the thesis; practising a sort of fishing examination, in order to obtain some answer of which he may take advantage.[67] But, when we turn to the Eighth Book of the Topica, we find Aristotle expressly recommending the like manœuvre to the Dialectician; advising him to conceal as much as possible the scheme and intended series of his questions — to begin as far as possible apart from the thesis, to put the questions in a succession designedly incoherent and unintelligible, and to obtain (what, if obtained, ensured complete success) the full extent of premisses necessary for his final refutative syllogism, without the respondent being aware that he had conceded them.[68] The questioner is farther advised to throw the respondent off his guard by affecting indifference whether each question is answered affirmatively or negatively, and by occasionally taking objection against himself, in order that he may create the impression of a strictly honest purpose.[69] If we compare the interrogative procedure which Aristotle recommends to the Dialectician with that which he blames in the Sophist, we shall find that the former is even a greater refinement of deception than the latter.

[67] Soph. El. xii. p. 172, b. 9-25.

Aristotle treats the Sophists as guilty of dishonourable proceeding herein — δύνανται δὲ νῦν ἧττον κατουργεῖν διὰ τούτων ἢ πρότερον. The very same charge was urged against the dialectic of Sokrates by his opponents: Plato, Hippias Minor, p. 373 — ἀλλὰ Σωκράτης ἀεὶ ταράττει ἐν τοῖς λόγοις καὶ ἔοικεν ὥσπερ κακουργοῦντι. Compare Plato, Gorgias, pp. 461, B., 482, E., 483, A.

[68] Topic. VIII. i. p. 155, b. 1.-p. 155, b. 30; p. 156, a. 5-22. Compare Analyt. Priora, II. xix. p. 66, a. 33.

[69] Topic. VIII. i. p. 156, b. 3, 17. Compare VIII. i. pp. 155-156, with Soph. El. xv. p. 174, a. 28.

The next trick which we find ascribed to the Sophist is — that he conducts the train of interrogation in such manner as to bring it upon a ground on which his memory is abundantly furnished with topics. Aristotle adds that this may be done well and honourably, or ill and dishonourably.[70] From his own admission we see that this practice was not peculiar to Sophists, but was common also to those whom he calls Dialecticians: like every other part of the procedure, it might be done well or ill; but wherein this difference consisted he does not further explain. Indeed, when we recollect that the elaborate details and classification of the Topica are mainly intended to furnish the memory with an abundant store of premisses well-arranged and ready for interrogation,[71] we may be sure that every Dialectician who had gone through the trouble of learning them would be impatient to apply them; and would make an opportunity for doing so, if none were spontaneously tendered to him. But, if the answers obtained were totally irrelevant to his final purpose of refuting the thesis, they would be nothing but embarrassment to him.[72] We must, therefore, understand that the questions put would be such as tended ultimately to introduce that refutative Syllogism which the questioner was bound to conclude with. If they were not, he was of course punished by failure.

[70] Soph. El. xii. p. 172, b. 26. In Topic. III. i. p. 116, a. 20, Aristotle prescribes the same procedure to the Dialectician. See also Waitz’s note on the passage.

Alexander (in Scholia, p. 267, b. 8) tells us that it was customary for the Sophists to put questions lying away from the thesis, and he shows this by mentioning the Platonic Protagoras, in which he says that the Sophist Protagoras does so. But the illustration here produced does not serve Alexander’s purpose. The Sophist Protagoras (in the Platonic dialogue so called) is represented, not as shifting dialectic from one point to another, but as running away from it altogether into long discourse and continuous rhetoric (Plato, Protagor. pp. 333, 334, 335). In respect to the thesis started for debate, the dialectic of Sokrates departs from it as widely as that of Protagoras, and this is acknowledged at the close of the dialogue, p. 361. Compare ‘Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates’, Vol. II. pp. [53], [59], [70].

[71] Topic. I. v. p. 102, a. 13; I. xiii. p. 105, a. 22; VIII. xiv. p. 163, a. 31-b. 2.

[72] Aristotle himself observes this, Topic. II. v. p. 112, a. 14.

A third manœuvre treated as peculiar to the Sophist is — that he takes account of the particular philosophical sect to which the respondent belongs, and endeavours to bring out by interrogations whatever there may be paradoxical in the tenets of that sect.[73] But would not any expert Dialectician do just the same? What else would be done by Sokrates, if cross-examining an Anaxagorean or a Herakleitean? or by Aristotle himself, if interrogating a Platonist?

[73] Soph. El. xii. p. 172, b. 29.

Another proceeding treated as peculiar to the Sophist is — that he seeks to drive the respondent into a paradox, by bringing out in cross-examination certain well-known antitheses or contradictions which subsist together in the opinions of mankind. Thus, men profess in their public talk high principles of virtue; but secretly and at the bottom of their hearts they desire to get wealth or power per fas et nefas. Again, there are two kinds of justice: one, that which is just by nature and in truth, such as wise men or philosophers approve; the other, that which is just according to law or custom, such as the multitude in this or in in some other society approve. There is, also, conflict between the authority of a father, and that of the wise; between justice and expediency; and as to whether it is more eligible to suffer wrong or to do wrong.[74] All these antitheses are presented to us in the Platonic Gorgias, to which (i.e., to the speech of Kallikles therein) Aristotle here makes reference; and he numbers it among the vices distinguishing the Sophist from the genuine Dialectician — to dwell upon such antitheses for the purpose of forcing the respondent into paradoxical answers. But, surely, the antitheses here fastened upon that obnoxious name are of a class utterly opposed to the class of pseudo-probabilia, which he tells us are the peculiar game of the litigious Sophist, though every man of ordinary intelligence detects them at first sight as fallacies. They are all real and serious issues,[75] having plausible arguments pro and con, debateable without end, and settled by every man for himself according to his own sentiment and predisposition. They are exactly the subject-matter best fitted for the acute Dialectician. No man would be allowed by Aristotle to deserve that title, if he omitted to raise and argue them, the thesis being supposed suitable.[76] Aristotle himself speaks often of the equivocal sense of the term justice — of the distinction between what is just by nature and what is just according to some local or peculiar sentiment.[77] The manœuvre which Aristotle imputes to the Sophist being exactly the same as that which Kallikles imputes to Sokrates in the Platonic Gorgias,[78] it is Sokrates, and not Kallikles, who serves here as illustrating what Aristotle calls a Sophist. Indeed, if we read the Gorgias, we shall find the Platonic Sokrates there represented as neglecting the difference between what is probable (conformable to received opinion) and what is paradoxical. He admits that he stands alone in his opinion, against all the world, and his opponents even imagine that he is bantering them; but he confides in his own individual reason and consistency, so as to be able to reduce all opponents dialectically to proved contradiction with themselves.[79] Himself maintaining a paradox, he constrains his respondent by acute dialectic to assent to it; which is exactly what Aristotle imputes to the Sophists of his day as a reproach.

[74] Ibid. b. 36-p. 173, a. 30.

[75] Rhetoric. II. xxv. p. 1402, a. 33: οἱ μὲν γὰρ συλλογισμοὶ ἐκ τῶν ἐνδόξων, δοκοῦντα δὲ πολλὰ ἐναντία ἀλλήλοις ἐστίν.

A disputant who argued about these memorable ethical antitheses, must be allowed κατὰ τὸ πρᾶγμα θεωρεῖν τὰ κοινά, which is the characteristic feature assigned by Aristotle to the Dialectician, as contrasted with the Sophist (Soph. El. xi. p. 171, b. 5), in so far us I can understand the words κατὰ τὸ πρᾶγμα. See [note ^b p. 394 supra].

[76] Topic. I. iii. p. 101, a. 5-10. ἐκ τῶν ἐνδεχομένων ποιεῖν ἃ προαιρούμεθα.

[77] Topic. II. xi. p. 115, b. 25. Ethic. Nikom. V. x. p. 1134, b. 18; I. i. p. 1094, b. 15. Rhetoric. I. xiii. p. 1373, b. 5.

[78] Plato, Gorgias, pp. 482-483. ὃ δὴ καὶ σὺ (Sokrates) τοῦτο τὸ σοφὸν κατανενοηκὼς κακουργεῖς ἐν τοῖς λόγοις, ἐὰν μέν τις κατὰ νόμον λέγῃ, κατὰ φύσιν ὑπερωτῶν, ἐὰν δὲ τὰ τῆς φύσεως, τὰ τοῦ νόμου.

[79] Plato, Gorgias, pp. 470, 472, 481, 482.

Some predecessors of Aristotle had distinguished arguments or discourses into two separate classes — those addressed to the name, and those addressed to the thought.[80] This distinction Aristotle disapproves, denying certainly its pertinence and almost its reality. There can be no arguments addressed to the thought only, apart from the name: all of them must be addressed to the name, and through it to the thought.[81] Whether an argument is addressed to the thought or not, depends not upon any thing in the argument itself, but upon the meaning which one respondent or other may happen to attach to the words: if the respondent understands it as the questioner intended, it is addressed to the thought; if not, not.[82] To require that the questioner shall distinguish accurately the sense in which he puts the question, would, according to Aristotle, convert him into a teacher — would confound the line between Dialectic and Didactic.[83] And this may be granted; but not less, if Dialecticians are to refrain from all those proceedings which Aristotle notes and condemns as peculiar to the Sophist, must they be held to pass into the attitude of teacher and learner; the questioner doing what he can, not to embarrass but, to enlighten and assist the respondent. The purpose of victory, and the stimulus of competition in the double function of question and answer (while entirely absent from Didactic), are quite as essential to the Dialectician as to the Sophist. That the Sophist seeks victory unscrupulously and at all cost, while the Dialectician respects certain rules and limits of the procedure — is a difference well deserving to be noticed; yet not a differentia giving name and essence to a new species. The unfair Dialectician is a Dialectician still; all his purposes remain the same, though the means whereby he pursues them are altered. This distinction of means between the two, Aristotle has taken very insufficient pains to point out. Rude and provocative manner, either on the part of questioner or respondent, and impudent assumption of concessions which have neither been asked nor granted, — these are justly enumerated as illustrations of unfair Dialectic.[84] But the enumeration is most incompletely performed; because Aristotle, in his anxiety to erect Sophistic into an art or procedure by itself, distinct from and alongside of Dialectic, has transferred to it much that belongs to fair and and admissible Dialectic. Hence the really unfair and objectionable means are not often brought into the foreground.

[80] Soph. El. x. p. 170, b. 12: οὐκ ἔστι δὲ διαφορὰ τῶν ἣν λέγουσι τινες, τὸ εἶναι τοὺς μὲν πρὸς τοὔνομα λόγους, ἑτέρους δὲ πρὸς τὴν διάνοιαν.

From this allusion (and other allusions also xvii. p. 176, a. 6; xx. p. 177, b. 8; xxii. p. 178, b. 10) to the doctrines of predecessors, we see that the assertion made by Aristotle (in the last chapter of Sophistici Elenchi) of his own originality, and of the absence of prior researches, must be taken with some indulgence.

[81] Soph. El. x. p. 170, b. 23.

[82] Ibid. b. 28: οὐ γὰρ ἐν τῷ λόγῳ ἔστι τὸ πρὸς τὴν διάνοιαν εἶναι, ἀλλ’ ἐν τῷ τὸν ἀποκρινόμενον ἔχειν πως πρὸς τὰ δεδομένα.

[83] Ibid. p. 171, a. 28, seq.

[84] Soph. El. xv. p. 174, a. 22, b. 10.

Though Aristotle speaks so contemptuously about Sophistic, he nevertheless indicates Loci (or general heads of subjects) to assist the sophistical questioner in attacking, and precepts to the sophistical respondent for warding off attack. On the whole, these precepts are not materially different from those laid out in the Topica for Dialectic; except that he gives greater prominence to Solecism and Tautology, as thrusts practised by the sophistical questioner. He insists upon the intellectual usefulness of practice in sophistical debate, hardly less than in what he calls dialectical, and, as was remarked, upon similar grounds.[85] He recommends it as valuable not only for imparting readiness and abundance in argument, but also for solitary meditation and for investigation of scientific truths. Without it (he declares) we cannot become familiar with the equivocations of terms and propositions, nor acquire the means of escaping them. If we allow ourselves to be entangled in them, without being aware of it, by others, we shall also be entangled in them when we pursue reflections of our own.[86] It is not enough to see generally that there is a fallacy; we must farther learn to detect at once the precise seat of the fallacy, and to point out rapidly how it may be cleared up. This is the more difficult to do, because fallacies that we are thoroughly aware of will often escape our notice under inversion and substitution of words.[87] Unless we acquire promptitude by frequent exercise in such debates, we shall find ourselves always unprepared and behind-hand in each particular case of confusion. If we complain and condemn such debates generally, we shall appear to do so upon no better grounds than our own stupidity and incompetence.[88]

[85] Ibid. xvi. p. 175, a. 5-16. Compare Topica, I. ii. p. 101, a. 30, seq.

[86] Soph. El. xvi. p. 175, a. 9: δεύτερον δὲ πρὸς τὰς καθ’ αὑτὸν ζητήσεις (χρήσιμοι)· ὁ γὰρ ὑφ’ ἑτέρου ῥᾳδιως παραλογιζόμενος καὶ τοῦτο μὴ αἰσθανόμενος κἂν αὐτὸς ὑφ’ αὑτοῦ τοῦτο πάθοι πολλάκις.

[87] Ibid. a. 20: οὐ ταὐτὸ δ’ ἐστὶ λαβόντα τε τὸν λόγον ἰδεῖν καὶ λῦσαι τὴν μοχθηρίαν, καὶ ἐρωτώμενον ἀπαντᾶν δύνασθαι ταχέως. ὃ γὰρ ἴσμεν, πολλάκις μετατιθέμενον ἀγνοοῦμεν. Compare xxxiii. p. 182, b. 7.

[88] Soph. El. xvi. p. 175, a. 25: ὥστε, ἂν δῆλον μὲν ἡμῖν ᾖ, ἀμελέτητοι δ’ ὦμεν, ὑστεροῦμεν τῶν καιρῶν πολλάκις.

Accordingly the Sophistici Elenchi contains precepts, at considerable length,[89] to the respondent in a sophistical debate, how reply or solution is to be given to the fallacies involved in the questions; all the thirteen Fallacies, (the six In Dictione, and the seven Extra Dictionem) being treated in succession. In conducting his defensive procedure, the respondent must keep constantly in mind what the Sophistical Refutation really is. He must treat it not as a real or genuine refutation, but as a mere simulation of such; and he must so arrange his reply as to bring into full evidence this fact of simulation. What he has to guard against is, not the being really refuted but, the seeming to be refuted.[90] The refutative syllogism constructed by the sophistical questioner, including as it does Equivocation, Amphiboly, or some other verbal fallacy, and therefore yielding no valid conclusion, does not settle whether the respondent is really refuted or not. If indeed the questioner, in putting his interrogation, discriminates the double meaning of his words, where they have a double meaning, the respondent ought to answer plainly and briefly Yes, or No; either affirming or denying what is tendered. But, if the questioner does not so discriminate, the respondent cannot reply simply Yes, or No: he must himself discriminate the two meanings, and affirm or deny accordingly.[91] Unless he guards himself by such discrimination, he cannot avoid falling into a contradiction, at least in appearance. The equivocal wording of the question will be tantamount to the fallacy of putting two questions as one.[92]

[89] From xvi. p. 175, to xxxiii. p. 183, of Soph. El.

[90] Soph. El. xvii. p. 175, a. 33: ὅλως γὰρ πρὸς τοὺς ἐριστικοὺς μαχετέον, οὐκ ὡς ἐλέγχοντας, ἀλλ’ ὡς φαινομένους· οὐ γάρ φαμεν συλλογίζεσθαί γε αὐτούς, ὥστε πρὸς τὸ μὴ δοκεῖν διορθωτέον.

[91] Ibid. b. 1-14. Compare Topica, VIII. vii. p. 160, a. 29.

Aristotle tells us that this demand for a reply brief and direct, without any qualifying additions or distinctions, was advanced by dialecticians in former days much more emphatically than in his own — ὅ τ’ ἐπιζητοῦσι νῦν μὲν ἧττον πρότερον δὲ μᾶλλον οἱ ἐριστικοί, τὸ ἢ ναὶ ἢ οὒ ἀποκρίνεσθαι τὸν ἐρωτώμενον, ἐγίνετ’ ἄν. I presume that he makes comparison with the Platonic dialogues — Euthydemus, p. 295; Gorgias, pp. 448-449; Protagoras, pp. 334-335.

[92] Soph. El. xvii. 175, b. 15-p. 176, a. 18.

As the questioner may propound as refutation what seems to be such but is not so in reality, so the respondent may meet it by what is an apparent solution but no solution in reality, There occur various cases, in sophistic or agonistic debate, wherein a simulated solution of this kind is even preferable to a real one.[93] If the question is plausible, the respondent may answer, “Be it so�; but, if it involves any paradox in answering, he will answer by saying, “So it would appear�: he will thus not be supposed to have granted what amounts to refutation or paradox.[94] Where the question put is such that, while involving falsehood or paradox if answered in the affirmative, it is at the same time closely or immediately connected with the thesis set up, — the respondent may treat it as equivalent to a Petitio Principii, and make answer in the negative. Also, where the questioner, trying to establish an universal proposition by Induction, puts the final question, not under an universal term but, as the general result of the particulars conceded (and such like), — the respondent may refuse to admit this last step, and may say that his antecedent concessions have been misunderstood.[95]

[93] Ibid. p. 176, a. 21.

[94] Ibid. a. 25.

[95] Ibid. a. 27-35.

If a question is put in plain and appropriate language, answer must be made plainly or with some clear distinction; but, where the question is put obscurely and elliptically, leaving part of the meaning unexpressed, the respondent must not concede it unreservedly. If he does, fallacious refutation may very possibly be the result:[96] he may appear to be refuted by that which is no real refutation. If, of two propositions, the second follows upon the first, but the first does not follow upon the second, the respondent, where he has the choice, ought to grant the second only, and not the first. He ought not to make a greater concession when he can escape with a less;[97] e.g., he ought to concede the particular rather than the universal.

[96] Ibid. a. 38-b. 7.

[97] Ibid. b. 8-13.

Again, among opinions generally received, there are some which the public recognize as matters of more or less doubt and uncertainty; others, on which they are firmly assured that every one who contradicts them speaks falsely. When it is uncertain to which of these two classes the question put is referable, the respondent will be safer in answering neither affirmatively nor negatively, but simply, “I go with the received opinions.�[98] In cases where opinions are divided, he may find opportunity for changing the terms, and for substituting a metaphorical equivalent as what he concedes. Such change of terms may pass without protest, in consequence of the doubtful character of the matter; while it will embarrass the questioner in constructing his refutation.[99] The respondent may further embarrass him by anticipating questions that seem likely to be put, and by objecting against them beforehand.[100]

[98] Soph. El. xvii. p. 176, b. 14-20.

Both the text and the meaning of this difficult clause are differently given by various commentators. The text and construction of Waitz appears to me the best, and I have followed him. I cannot agree with Mr. Poste when he declares (notes, p. 143) ἀποφάνεις to be the true reading, instead of ἀποφάσεις, which last is adopted both by Bekker and in the edition of Firmin Didot.

[99] Ibid. b. 20-25.

[100] Ibid. b. 26.

When the questioner has obtained the premisses which he thinks necessary, and has drawn from them a refutative syllogism, the respondent must see whether he can properly solve that syllogism or not.[101] A good and proper solution is, to point out on which premiss the fallacy of the conclusion depends. First, he must examine whether it is formally correct, or whether it has only a false appearance of being so: if the last be the case, he must distinguish in which of the premisses and in what way such false appearance has arisen. If on the other hand the syllogism is formally correct, he must look whether the conclusion is true or false. Should it be true, he cannot solve the syllogism except by controverting one or both of the premisses; but should the conclusion be false, two modes of solution are open to him. One mode is, if he can point out an equivocation or amphiboly in the terms of the conclusion; another mode will be, to controvert, or exhibit a fallacy in, one of the premisses.[102] The respondent, however, must learn to apply this examination rapidly and unhesitatingly: to do so at once is very difficult, though it may be easily done if he has leisure to reflect.[103]

[101] Soph. El. xviii. p. 176, b. 29: ἡ μέν ὀρθὴ λύσις ἐμφάνισις ψευδοῦς συλλογισμοῦ, παρ’ ὁποίαν ἐρώτησιν συμβαίνει τὸ ψεῦδος.

[102] Soph. El. xviii. p. 176, b. 38: τοὺς μὲν κατὰ τὸ συμπέρασμα ψευδεῖς διχῶς ἐνδέχεται λύειν· καὶ γὰρ τῷ ἀνελεῖν τι τῶν ἠρωτημένων, καὶ τῷ δεῖξαι τὸ συμπέρασμα ἔχον οὐχ οὕτως.

Mr. Poste translates these last words — “or by a counterproof directed against the conclusion:â€� and he remarks in his note (pp. 145-147), “that this assertion — disproof of the conclusion of the refutative syllogism is one mode of solution — is both manifestly inadmissible, and flatly contradicted by Aristotle himself elsewhere.â€� The words of Aristotle doubtless seem to countenance Mr. Poste’s translation; yet the contradiction pointed out by Mr. Poste (and very imperfectly explained, p. 147) ought to make us look out for another meaning; which is suggested by the chapter immediately following (xix. p. 177, a. 9), where Aristotle treats of the Fallacies of Equivocation and Amphiboly. He tells us that equivocation may be found either in the conclusion or in the premisses; and that to show it in the conclusion is one mode of solving or invalidating the refutation. This is what Aristotle means by the words cited at the beginning of this note: τῷ δεῖξαι τὸ συμπέρασμα ἔχον οὐχ ὀρθῶς. In Mr. Poste’s translation these words mean the same as ἀνελεῖν used just before, which Aristotle obviously does not intend.

[103] Soph. El. xviii. p. 177, a. 7.

Aristotle then proceeds to indicate the modes in which the respondent may provide solutions for each of the thirteen heads of fallacious refutation above enumerated. For these thirteen classes, he pronounces that one and the same solution will be found applicable to all fallacies contained in one and the same class.[104]

[104] Scholia, p. 312, a. 4, Br.; Soph. El. 20, p. 177, b. 31: τῶν γὰρ παρὰ ταὐτὸν λόγων ἡ αὐτὴ λύσις, &c.

Thus, in the two first of them — Equivocation of Terms and Amphiboly of Propositions — duplicity of meaning must be either in the conclusion, or in the premisses, of the refutative syllogism. If it be in the conclusion, the refutation must at once be rejected, unless the respondent has previously admitted some proposition containing the equivocal word as one of its terms, so that the refutation may appear to contradict it expressly and distinctly. But, if it be in the premisses, then there is no necessity that the respondent should have previously admitted such a proposition; for the equivocal word may form the middle term of the refutative syllogism, and may thus not appear in the conclusion thereof.[105] The proper way for the respondent to deal with these questions, involving equivocation or amphiboly, is to answer them, at the outset, with a reserve for the double meaning, thus: “In one sense, it is so; in another sense, it is not.� If he does not perceive the double meaning until he has already answered the first question, he must recover himself, when he answers the second, by pointing out the equivocation more distinctly, and by specifying how much he is prepared to concede.[106] Even if he has been taken unawares, and has not perceived the equivocation until the refutative syllogism has been constructed simply and absolutely, he should still contend that he never meant to concede what has been apparently refuted, and that the refutation tells only against the name, not against the thing meant;[107] so that there is no genuine refutation at all.

[105] Soph. El. xix. p. 177, a. 18: ὅσοις δ’ ἐν τοῖς ἐρωτήμασιν, οὐκ ἀνάγκη προαποφῆσαι τὸ διττόν· οὐ γὰρ πρὸς τοῦτο ἀλλὰ διὰ τοῦτο ὁ λόγος.

[106] Ibid. a. 24: ἐὰν δὲ λάθῃ, ἐπὶ τέλει προστιθέντα τῇ ἐρωτήσει διορθωτέον· &c.

[107] Ibid. a. 30: ὅλως τε μαχετέον, ἂν καὶ ἁπλῶς συλλογίζηται, ὅτι οὐχ ὃ ἔφησεν ἀπέφησε πρᾶγμα, ἀλλ’ ὄνομα· ὥστ’ οὐκ ἔλεγχος.

Instead of ἂν καί, Julius Pacius reads κἄν: the meaning is much the same.

In the next two Fallacies — those of Composition and Division, or Conjunction and Disjunction — when the questioner draws up his refutative syllogism as if one of the two had been conceded, the respondent will retort by saying that his concession was intended only in the other construction of the words. This fallacy is distinct from Equivocation; and it is a mistake to try (as some have tried) to reduce all fallacies to Equivocation or Amphiboly.[108] The respondent will distinguish, in each particular case, that construction of the words which he intended in his admission, from that which the questioner assumes in his pretended refutation.[109]

[108] Soph. El. xx. p. 177, a. 33-b. 9. οὐ πάντες οἱ ἔλεγχοι παρὰ τὸ διττόν, καθάπερ τινές φασιν.

This is another of the evidences showing that there were theorists prior to Aristotle on logical proof; and that his declaration of originality (in the concluding chapter of Sophist. Elenchi) must be taken with reserve.

[109] Soph. El. xx. p. 177, b. 10-26: διαιρετέον οὖν τῷ ἀποκρινομένῳ· &c.

The Fallacies of Accent rarely furnish sophistical refutations,[110] but those of Figura Dictionis furnish a great many. When two words have the like form and structure, it may naturally be imagined that the signification of one belongs to the same Category as that of the other. But this is often an illusion; and in such cases a sophistical refutation may be founded thereupon. The respondent will solve it by denying the inference from similarity of form to similarity of meaning, and by distinguishing accurately to which among the ten Categories the meaning of each several word or each proposition belongs. When two words thus seem, by their form, to belong to the same Category, the questioner will often take it for granted, without expressly asking, that they do belong to the same, and will found a confutation thereupon; but the respondent must not admit the confutation to be valid, unless this question has been explicitly put to him and conceded.[111] A question is put which, in its direct and obvious meaning, bears only on the category of Quantity, of Quality, of Relation, of Action, or of Passion; but the respondent, not aware of the equivocation, answers it in such a manner as to comprehend the Category of Substance, and is so understood by the questioner when he constructs his refutative syllogism. The respondent will secure himself from being thus confuted, by keeping constantly in view to which of the Categories his answer is intended to refer.[112]

[110] Ibid. xxi. p. 177, b. 35.

[111] Ibid. xxii. p. 178, a. 4-28. τὸ γὰρ λοιπὸν αὐτὸς προστίθησιν ὁ ἀκούων ὡς ὁμοίως λεγόμενον· τὸ δὲ λέγεται μὲν οὐχ ὁμοίως, φαίνεται δὲ διὰ τὴν λέξιν.

[112] Several illustrative examples of this mode of sophistical refutation, founded on the Fallacy called Figura Dictionis, are indicated in this chapter by Aristotle. The indication however, is often so brief and elliptical, that there is great difficulty in restoring the fallacies in full, and still greater difficulty in translating them into any modern language.

1. Is it possible at the same time to do and to have done the same thing? — No. To see something is to do something; to have seen something is to have done something? — Yes. Is it possible at the same time to see and to have seen the same thing? — Yes.

The respondent has thus contradicted himself. The form of the word ὁρᾶν appears to rank it under the Category ποιεῖν. However, I think that the mistake really made here was, that the respondent returned an answer universally negative to the first question.

2. Does anything coming under the Category Pati come under the Category Agere? — No. But τέμνεται, καίεται, αἰσθάνεται, all show by their form that they belong to the Category Pati? — Yes. Again, λέγειν, τρέχειν, ὁρᾶν, show by their form that they belong to the Category Agere? — Yes. You will admit, however, that τὸ ὁρᾶν is αἰσθάνεσθαί τι? — Certainly. Therefore something that belongs to the Category Agere belongs also to that of Pati.

If we turn back to Aristot. Categ. viii. p. 11, a. 37, we shall find that he admits the possibility that the same subject may belong to two distinct Categories.

3. Did any one write that which stands here written? — Yes. It stands here written that you are standing up — a false statement; but when it was written the statement was true? — Yes. Therefore the writer has written a statement both true and false? — Yes.

Here true and false belong to the Category Quality; the statement or matter written belongs to that of Substance. What the writer wrote had nothing to do with the former of the two Categories; and no contradiction has been made out by admitting that the statement was once true and is now false.

4. Does a man tread that which he walks? — Yes. But he walks the whole day? — Yes. Therefore he treads the whole day.

Here the Category of Quando is confused with that of Substance.

5. But the most interesting illustration of this confusion of one Category with another, is furnished by Aristotle in respect of the difference between himself and Plato as to Ideas or Universals. According to Plato the universal term denoted a separate something apart from the particulars, yet of which each of these particulars partook. According to Aristotle it denoted nothing separate from the particulars, but something belonging (essentially or non-essentially) to all and each of the particulars. In the Platonic theory it was an Hoc Aliquid (τόδε τι), or had an existence substantive and separate: in the Aristotelian it was a Quale or Quale Quid (ποιόν), having an existence merely adjective or predicative. Aristotle maintains that Plato or the Platonists placed it in the wrong Category — in the Category of Substance instead of in that of Quality.

Now it is by rectifying this confusion of Categories that Aristotle solves two argumentative puzzles which he ranks as sophistical:— (1) The argument concluding in what was called the ‘Third Man;’ (2) The following question: Koriskus, and the musical Koriskus — are these the same, or is the second different from the first?

What is called the ‘Third Man’ was a refutation of the Platonic theory of Ideas. Because Plato recognized a substantive existence, corresponding to each common denomination connoting likeness, apart from all the similar particulars denominated, e.g., a Self-man, or separate self-existent man, corresponding to the Idea, and apart from all individual men, Caius, &c. — opponents argued against him, saying:— If this is recognized, you must also recognize that the Self-man, and the individual man called Caius, have also a common denomination and similarity, which (upon your principles) corresponds to another Ideal Man, or a Third Man. You must, therefore, go on inferring upwards to a Fourth Man, a Fifth Man, &c., and so onwards to an indefinite number of Ideal Men, one above the other. This was intended as a refutation, by Reductio ad Impossibile, of the Platonic view of Ideas as separate Entities, each of them One and Universal. But Aristotle here treats it as a Sophistical Refutation; and he indicates what he calls the solution of it by saying that it confounds the Categories of Substance and Quality, putting the Universal (which ought to be under the Category of Quality) under the Category of Substance. He has no right, however, to include this among Sophistical Refutations, which are (as he himself defines them) not real but fallacious refutations, invented by a dishonest money-getting profession called Sophists, and which are solved by pointing out the precise seat of the fallacy. The refutation called the ‘Third Man’ is so far from being fallacious, that it is valid, and is recited as such elsewhere by Aristotle himself (Metaphs. A. ix. p. 990, b. 17); while the solution tendered by Aristotle, instead of being a solution, is a confirmation, pointing out, not where the fallacy of the refutation resides but, where the fallacy of the doctrine refuted resides. Moreover, if we are to treat the refutation called the ‘Third Man’ as sophistical, we must number Plato himself among the dishonest class called Sophists. Here is one among the many proofs that the strong line drawn by Aristotle between the Dialectician and the Sophist is quite untenable. The argument is distinctly enunciated in the Platonic Parmenides (pp. 131-133).

The meaning of the Universal (Aristotle maintains) must be considered as predicative only, tacked on to some Hoc Aliquid, and belonging to Quale or some other of the nine latter Categories. It may be set out as a distinct subject for logical consideration and reasoning: but it cannot be set out as a distinct existence beyond and apart from its particulars (παρὰ τοὺς πολλοὺς ἕν τι). It is ποιόν, and it cannot even be recognized as ὅπερ ποιόν or αὐτο-ποιόν, for this would put it apart from all the other ποιά, and would be open to the refutation above noticed called the ‘Third Man.’ Such is the drift of the very difficult passage of the Sophistici Elenchi (xxii. p. 178, b. 37-p. 179, a. 10). I differ from Mr. Poste’s translation (p. 71) of part of this passage, and still more from the explanation given in the latter part of his note (p. 155). I think that the doctrine of τὸ ἓν παρὰ τὰ πολλά is produced by Aristotle here and elsewhere in his work as untrue and inadmissible, not as his own doctrine. Mr. Poste understands this passage differently from the previous translators, with whom I agree for the most part, though M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire appears to me to have missed the hinge upon which Aristotle’s argument turns, by translating ὅπερ ποιόν — id ipsum, quod quale est (J. Pacius) — “une qualité:â€� the argument turns upon the distinction between ὅπερ ποιόν and ποιόν.

I come now to the second sophistical refutation given by Aristotle: Koriskus, and the musician Koriskus — are the two the same or different? This is what Aristotle calls a sophistical or fallacious argument (compare Metaphys. E. ii. p. 1026, b. 15); but it can hardly be so called with propriety, for the only solution that Aristotle himself gives of it is, that the two are idem numero, but in an improper or secondary sense (Topic. I. vii. p. 103, a. 30); i. e., that they are in one point of view the same, in another point of view different — they are ἓν κατὰ συμβεβηκός. See Arist. Metaph. Δ. vi. p. 1015, b. 16; Scholia, p. 696, a. 22, seq.; and Alexand. Aphrodis. ad Metaph. pp. 321, 322, 414, 415, ed. Bonitz. I understand Aristotle to say that Κόρισκος μουσικός cannot be properly set out or abstracted (οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτὸ ἐκθέσθαι), because it includes two Categories (Substance and Quality) in one; wherefore it cannot be properly compared either with Κόρισκος simply (Category of Substance) or with μουσικός simply (Category of Quality). It seems strange that Aristotle does not notice this argumentative difficulty in the discussion which he bestows on ταὐτόν in the Seventh Book of the Topica. The subtle reasonings, very hard to follow, which Aristotle employs (Physic. V. iv. p. 227) might have made him cautious in treating the difficulties of opponents as so many dishonest cavils. It is curious that Alexander, in reciting the sophistical argument, assumes as a matter of course that ὁ γραμματικὸς Σωκράτης is ὁ αὐτὸς τῷ Σωκράτει (Schol. ad Metaphys. p. 736, b. 26, Brand.).

As a general rule, in all the refutations founded on the seven Fallacies In Dictione, the respondent will solve the refutation by distinguishing the double meaning of the words or of the phrase, and by adopting as his own the one opposite to that which the questioner proceeds upon. If the Fallacy is of Conjunction and Disjunction, and if the questioner assumes Conjunction, the respondent will adopt Disjunction; if it be a Fallacy of Accent, and if the questioner assumes the grave accent, the respondent will adopt the acute.[113]

[113] Soph. El. xxiii. p. 179, a. 11-25.

Passing to the Fallacies Extra Dictionem, where the sophistical refutation is founded upon a Fallacy of Accident, the respondent ought to apply one and the same solution to all. He will say: “The conclusion does not necessarily follow from the premisses�; and he will be prepared with an example, in which the conclusion obtained under this fallacy is notoriously untrue.[114] “Do you know Koriskus?� — “Yes.� “Do you know the distant person coming this way?� — “No.� “That distant person is Koriskus: therefore you know, and you do not know, the same person.� The inference here is not necessary. To be coming this way — is an accident of Koriskus; and, because you do not know the accident, we cannot infer that you do not know the subject; such may or may not be the case.[115]

[114] Soph. El. xxiv. p. 179, a. 30: ῥητέον οὖν συμβιβασθέντας ὁμοίως πρὸς ἅπαντας ὅτι οὐκ ἀναγκαῖον· ἔχειν δὲ δεῖ προφέρειν τὸ οἷον.

[115] Ibid. a. 35-b. 7.

The major premiss upon which the preceding sophistical refutation must rest, is, That it is impossible both to know and not to know the same thing. This must be put as a direct question by the questioner, and must be conceded by the respondent, before the intended refutation can be made good. Now there are some persons who solve the refutation by answering this question in the negative, and by saying that it is possible both to know and not to know the same thing, only not in the same respect: such is the case when we know Koriskus, but do not know Koriskus approaching from a distance.[116] Aristotle disapproves this mode of solution, as well as another mode which refers the fallacy to equivocation of terms. He points out that there are many other sophistical refutations, coming under the general head of Fallaciæ Accidentis, to which such solution will not apply; and that there ought to be one uniform mode of solution applicable to every fallacy coming under the same general head; though he admits at the same time that particular sophistical refutations may be vicious in more than one way. He says, moreover, that this contradiction or negation of the premiss is no true solution; for a solution ought to bring to view clearly the reason why the fallacious refutation appears to be a real refutation. Thus the Fallacia Accidentis consists in an inference that what is true of an accident is true also of the subject thereof: you explain that such inference, though apparently cogent, has no real cogency, and in that explanation consists the only proper solution of the fallacy.[117]

[116] Ibid. b. 7, 18, 37: λύουσι δέ τινες ἀναιροῦντες τὴν ἐρώτησιν· φασὶ γὰρ ἐνδέχεσθαι ταὐτὸ πρᾶγμα εἰδέναι καὶ ἀγνοεῖν, ἀλλὰ μὴ κατὰ ταὐτό.

Mr. Poste (pp. 152-157) translates ἀναιροῦντες τὴν ἐρώτησιν — “contradicting the thesis,â€� and he expresses his surprise at the assertion, observing (very truly) that contradiction of the thesis is the very opposite of a solution; it helps in the very work which the refutation aims at accomplishing. But I cannot think that ἐρώτησις does mean “the thesis,â€� either here or in the other passage to which Mr. Poste refers (xxii. p. 178, b. 14). I think it means a premiss which the respondent has conceded, or must be presumed to have conceded, essential to the validity of the refutation. The term ἐρώτησις cannot surely, with any propriety, be applied to the thesis. It means either a question, or what is conceded in reply to a question; and the thesis cannot come under either one meaning or the other, being the proposition which the respondent sets out by affirming and undertakes to defend.

[117] Soph. El. xxiv. p. 179, b. 23: ἦν γὰρ ἡ λύσις ἐμφάνισις ψευδοῦς συλλογισμοῦ, παρ’ ὃ ψευδής.

In like manner, all those Fallacies which come under the general head of A dicto Secundum Quid ad dictum Simpliciter, can only be solved by pointing out, in each particular case, in what terms this confusion is concealed — wherein resides the inference apparently cogent which is mistaken for one really cogent. The respondent is driven to an apparent contradiction, by having granted premisses from which the inference is derivable that both sides of the Antiphasis are true — that the same predicate A may be both affirmed and denied of the same subject B. He solves the contradiction by analysing the Antiphasis, and by showing that affirmation is secundum quid, while denial is simpliciter; and that there is a contradiction not real, but only apparent, between the two.[118]

[118] Ibid. xxv. p. 180, a. 23-31.

In like manner, the Fallacy Ignoratio Elenchi will be solved by analysing the two supposed counter-propositions of the Antiphasis, and by showing that there is no real contradiction or inconsistency between them.[119]

[119] Ibid. xxvi. p. 181, a. 1-14.

In regard to the Fallacies under Petitio Principii, the respondent if he perceives that the premiss asked of him involves such a fallacy, must refuse to grant it, however probable it may be in itself. If he does not perceive this until after he has granted it, he must throw back the charge of mal-procedure upon the questioner; declaring that an Elenchus involving assumption of the matter in question is null, and that the concession was made under the supposition that some separate and independent syllogism was in contemplation.[120]

[120] Ibid. xxvii. p. 181, a. 15-21.

There are two distinct ways in which the Fallacia Consequentis may be employed. The predicate may be an universal, comprehending the subject: because animal always goes along with man, it is falsely inferred that man always goes along with animal; or it is falsely inferred that not-animal always goes along with not-man. The fallacy is solved when this is pointed out. The last inference is only valid when the terms are inverted; if animal always goes along with man, not-man will always go along with not-animal.[121]

[121] Ibid. xxviii. p. 181, a. 22-30. ἀνάπαλιν γὰρ ἡ ἀκολούθησις.

If the sophistical refutation includes more premisses than are indispensable to the conclusion, the respondent, after having satisfied himself that this is the fact, will point out the mal-procedure of the questioner, and will say that he conceded the superfluous premiss, not because it was in itself probable but, because it seemed relevant to the debate; while nevertheless the questioner has made no real or legitimate application of it towards that object.[122] This is the mode of solution applicable in the case of the Fallacies coming under the head Non Causa pro Causâ.[123]

[122] Soph. El. xxix. p. 181, a. 31-35.

[123] Schol. p. 318, a. 36, Br.

Where the sophistical questioner tries to refute by the Fallacia Plurium Interrogationum (i.e., by putting two or more questions as one), the respondent should forthwith divide the complex question into its component simple questions, and make answer accordingly. He must not give one answer, either affirmative or negative, to that which is more than one question. Even if he does give one answer, he may sometimes not involve himself in any contradiction; for it may happen that the same predicate is truly affirmable, or truly deniable, of two or more distinct and independent subjects. Often, however, the contrary is the case: no one true answer, either affirmative or negative, can be given to one of these complex questions: the one answer given, whatever it be, must always be partially false or inconsistent.[124] Suppose two subjects, A and B, one good, the other bad: if the question be, Whether A and B are good or bad, it will be equally true to say — Both are good, or, Both are bad, or, Both are neither good nor bad. There may indeed be other solutions for this fallacy: Both or All may signify two or more items taken individually, or taken collectively; but the only sure precaution is — one answer to one question.[125]

[124] Soph. El. xxx. p. 181, a. 38: οὔτε πλείω καθ’ ἑνὸς οὔτε ἓν κατὰ πολλῶν, ἀλλ’ ἓν καθ’ ἑνὸς φατέον ἢ ἀποφατέον.

[125] Ibid. b. 6-25.

Suppose that, instead of aiming at a seeming refutation, the Sophist tries to convict the respondent of Tautology. The source of this embarrassment is commonly the fact that a relative term is often used and conveys clear meaning without its correlate, though the correlate is always implied and understood. The respondent must avoid this trap by refusing to grant that the relative has any meaning at all without its correlate; and by requiring that the correlate shall be distinctly enunciated along with it. He ought to treat the relative without its correlate as merely a part of the whole significant expression — as merely syncategorematic; just as ten is in the phrase — ten minus one, or as the affirmative word is in a negative proposition.[126] Thus he will not recognize double as significant by itself without its correlate half, nor half without its correlate double; although in common parlance such correlate is often understood without being formally enunciated.

[126] Soph. El. Xxxi. p. 181, b. 26: οὐ δοτέον τῶν πρός τι λεγομένων σημαίνειν τι χωριζομένας καθ’ αὑτὰς τὰς κατηγορίας.

Mr. Poste observes in his note:— “The sophistic locus of tautology may be considered as a caricature of a dialectic locus. One fault which dialectic criticism finds with a definition is the introduction of superfluous words.� He then cites Topic. VI. ii. (p. 141, a. 4, seq.); but in this passage we find that the repetition of the same word is declared not to be an argumentative impropriety, so that the Sophist would gain nothing by driving his opponent into tautology.

Lastly, another purpose which Aristotle ascribes to the Sophist, is that of driving the respondent into a Solecism — into some grammatical or syntactical impropriety, such as, using a noun in the wrong case or gender, using a pronoun with a different gender or number from the noun to which it belongs, &c. He points out that the solution of these verbal puzzles must be different for each particular case; in general, when thrown into a regular syllogistic form, even the questioner himself will be found to speak bad Greek. The examples given by Aristotle do not admit of being translated into a modern language, so as to preserve the solecism that constitutes their peculiarity.[127]

[127] Soph. El. xxxii. p. 182, a. 7-b. 5.

After having thus gone through the different artifices ascribed to the Sophist, and the ways of solving or meeting them, Aristotle remarks that there are material distinctions between the different cases which fall under one and the same general head of Sophistical Paralogism. Some cases there are in which both the fallacy itself, and the particular point upon which it turns, are obvious and discernible at first sight. In other cases, again, an ordinary person does not perceive that there is any fallacy at all; or, if he does perceive it, he often does not detect the seat of the fallacy, so that one man will refer the case to one general head, and another, to a different one.[128] Thus, for example, Fallacies of Equivocation are perhaps the most frequent and numerous of all fallacies; some of them are childish and jocular, not really imposing upon any one; but there are others again in which the double meaning of a word is at first unnoticed, and is disputed even when pointed out, so that it can only be brought to light by the most careful and subtle analysis. This happens especially with terms that are highly abstract and general: which are treated by many, including even philosophers like Parmenides and Zeno, as if they were not equivocal at all, but univocal.[129] Again, the Fallaciæ Accidentis, and the other classes Extra Dictionem, are also often hard to detect. On the whole, it is often hard to determine, not merely to which of the classes any case of fallacy belongs, but even whether there is any fallacy at all — whether the refutation is, or is not, a valid one.[130]

[128] Ibid. xxxiii. p. 182, b. 6-12.

[129] Soph. El. xxxiii. p. 182, b. 13-25: ὥσπερ οὖν ἐν τοῖς παρὰ τὴν ὁμωνυμίαν, ὅσπερ δοκεῖ τρόπος εὐηθέστατος εἶναι τῶν παραλογισμῶν, τὰ μὲν καὶ τοῖς τυχοῦσίν ἐστι δῆλα — τὰ δὲ καὶ τοὺς ἐμπειροτάτους φαίνεται λανθάνειν· σημεῖον δὲ τούτων ὅτι μάχονται πολλάκις περὶ ὀνομάτων, οἷον πότερον ταὐτὸ σημαίνει κατὰ πάντων τὸ ὂν καὶ τὸ ἓν ἢ ἕτερον.

[130] Ibid. b. 27: ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ περὶ τοῦ συμβεβηκότος καὶ περὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἕκαστον, οἱ μὲν ἔσονται ῥᾴους ἰδεῖν οἱ δὲ χαλεπώτεροι τῶν λόγων· καὶ λαβεῖν ἔν τινι γένει, καὶ πότερον ἔλεγχος ἢ οὐκ ἔλεγχος, οὐ ῥᾴδιον ὁμοίως περὶ πάντων.

The pungent arguments in debate are those which bite most keenly, and create the greatest amount of embarrassment and puzzle.[131] In dialectical debate a puzzle arises, when the respondent finds that a correct syllogism has been established against him, and when he does not at once see which among its premisses he ought to controvert, in order to overthrow the conclusion. In the eristic or sophistic debate the puzzle of the respondent is, in what language to enunciate his propositions so as to keep clear of the subtle objections which will be brought against him by the questioner.[132] It is these pungent arguments that most effectually stimulate the mind to investigation. The most pungent of all is, where the syllogistic premisses are highly probable, yet where they nevertheless negative a conclusion which is also highly probable. Here we have an equal antithesis as to presumptive credibility, between the premisses taken together on one side and the conclusion on the other.[133] We do not know whether it is in the premisses only, or in the conclusion, that we are to look for untruth: the conclusion, though improbable, may yet be true, while we may find that the true conclusion has been obtained from untrue premisses; or the conclusion may be both improbable and untrue, in which case we must look for untruth in one of the premisses also — either the major or the minor. This is the most embarrassing position of all. Another, rather less embarrassing, is, where our thesis will be confuted unless we can show the confuting conclusion to be untrue, but where each of the premisses on which the conclusion depends is equally probable, so that we do not at once see in which of them the cause of its untruth is to be sought. These two are the most pungent and perplexing argumentative conjunctures of dialectical debate.

[131] Ibid. 32: ἔστι δὲ δριμὺς λόγος ὅστις ἀπορεῖν ποιεῖ μάλιστα· δάκνει γὰρ οὗτος μάλιστα.

[132] Soph. El. xxxiii. p. 182, b. 33: ἀπορία δ’ ἐστὶ διττή, ἡ μὲν ἐν τοῖς συλλελογισμένοις, ὅ τι ἀνέλῃ τις τῶν ἐρωτημάτων, ἡ δ’ ἐν τοῖς ἐριστικοῖς, πῶς εἴπῃ τις τὸ προταθέν. The difficulty here pointed out, of finding language not open to some logical objection by an acute Sophist, is illustrated by what he himself states about the caution required for guarding his definitions against attack; see De Interpret. vi. p. 17, a. 34: λέγω δὲ ἀντικεῖσθαι τὴν τοῦ αὐτοῦ κατὰ τοῦ αὐτοῦ, μὴ ὁμωνύμως δέ, καὶ ὅσα ἄλλα προσδιοριζόμεθα πρὸς τὰς σοφιστικὰς ἐνοχλήσεις. What is here meant by σοφιστικαὶ ἐνοχλήσεις is expressed elsewhere by πρὸς τὰς λογικὰς δυσχερείας — Metaphys. Γ. iii. p. 1005, b. 21; N. i. p. 1087, b. 20. See the Scholia (pp. 112, 651, Br.) of Ammonius and Alexander upon the above passages of De Interpr. and Metaphys.

[133] Soph. El. xxxiii. p. 182, b. 37-p. 183, a. 4: ἔστι δὲ συλλογιστικὸς μὲν λόγος δριμύτατος, ἂν ἐξ ὅτι μάλιστα δοκούντων ὅτι μάλιστα ἔνδοξον ἀναιρῇ· εἷς γὰρ ὢν ὁ λόγος, μετατιθεμένης τῆς ἀντιφάσεως, ἅπαντας ὁμοίους ἕξει τοὺς συλλογισμούς· ἀεὶ γὰρ ἐξ ἐνδόξων ὁμοίως ἔνδοξον ἀναιρήσει [ἢ κατασκευάσει]· διόπερ ἀπορεῖν ἀναγκαῖον. μάλιστα μὲν οὖν ὁ τοιοῦτος δριμύς, ὁ ἐξ ἴσου τὸ συμπέρασμα ποιῶν τοῖς ἐρωτήμασι. I transcribe this text as it is given by Bekker, Waitz, Bussemaker, and Mr. Poste. The editions anterior to Bekker had the additional words ἢ κατασκευάζῃ after ἀναιρῇ in the fourth line; and M. Barthélemy St. Hilaire in his translation defends and retains them. Bekker and the subsequent editors have omitted them, but have retained the last words ἢ κατασκευάσει in the seventh line. To me this seems inconsistent: the words ought either to be retained in both places or omitted in both. I think they ought to be omitted in both. I have enclosed them in brackets in the fifth line.

This difficult passage (not well explained by Alexander, Schol. p. 320, b. 9) requires the explanations of Waitz and Mr. Poste. The note of Mr. Poste is particularly instructive, because he expands in full (p. 164) the three “similar syllogismsâ€� to which Aristotle here briefly alludes. The phrase μετατιθεμένης τῆς ἀντιφάσεως is determined by a passage in Analyt. Priora, II. viii. p. 59, b. 1: it means “employment of the contradictory of the conclusion, in combination with either one of the premisses, to upset the other.â€� The original syllogism is assumed to have two premisses, each highly probable, while the conclusion is highly improbable, being the negation of a highly probable proposition. The original syllogism will stand thus: All M is P; All S is M; Ergo, All S is P: the two premisses being supposed highly probable, and the conclusion highly improbable. Of course, therefore, the contradictory of the conclusion will be highly probable — Some S is not P. We take this contradictory and employ it to construct two new syllogisms as follows:— “All M is P; Some S is not P; Ergo Some S is not M. And again, Some S is not P: All S is M; Ergo, Some M is not P. All these three syllogisms are similar in this respect: that each has two highly probable premisses, while the conclusion is highly improbable.

But in eristic or sophistic debate our greatest embarrassment as respondents will arise when we do not at once see whether the refutative syllogism brought against us is conclusive or not, and whether it is to be solved by negation or by distinction.[134] Next in order as to embarrassment stands the case, where we see in which of the two processes (negation or distinction) we are to find our solution, yet without seeing on which of the premisses we are to bring the process to bear; or whether, if distinction be the process required, we are to apply it to the conclusion, or to one of the premisses.[135] A defective syllogistic argument is silly, when the deficient points are of capital importance — relating to the minor or to the middle term, or when the assumptions are false and strange; but it will sometimes be worthy of attention, if the points deficient are outlying and easily supplied; in which cases it is the carelessness of the questioner that is to blame, rather than the argument itself.[136] Both the line of argument taken by the questioner, and the mode of solution adopted by the respondent, may be directed towards any one of three distinct purposes: either to the thesis and main subject discussed; or to the adversary personally (i.e., to the particular way in which he has been arguing); or to neither of these, but simply to prolong the discussion (i.e., against time). The solution may thus be sometimes such that it would take more time to argue upon it than the patience of the auditors will allow.[137]

[134] Soph. El. xxxiii. p. 183, a. 7.

[135] Ibid. a. 9: δεύτερος δὲ τῶν ἄλλων ὁ δῆλος μὲν ὅτι παρὰ διαίρεσιν ἢ ἀναίρεσίν ἐστι, μὴ φανερὸς δ’ ὢν διὰ τίνος τῶν ἠρωτημένων ἀναίρεσιν ἢ διαίρεσιν λυτέος ἐστίν, ἀλλὰ πότερον αὕτη παρὰ τὸ συμπέρασμα ἢ παρά τι τῶν ἐρωτημάτων ἐστίν.

Mr. Poste translates these last words very correctly:— “Whether it is one of the premisses or the conclusion that requires distinction.â€� Here Aristotle again speaks of a mode of solution furnished by applying distinction (διαίρεσις) to the conclusion as well as to the premisses, though he does not say that solution can be furnished by applying disproof (ἀναίρεσις) to the conclusion. See my remarks, a few pages above, on Mr. Poste’s note respecting ch. xviii. ([supra, p. 406]).

[136] Soph. El. xxxiii. p. 183, a. 14-20.

[137] Ibid. a. 21.

The last chapter of the Sophistici Elenchi is employed by Aristotle in recapitulating the scope and procedure of the nine Books of Topica (reckoning the Sophistici Elenchi as the Ninth, as we ought in propriety to do); and in appreciating the general bearing and value of that treatise, having regard to the practice and theory of the day.

The business of Dialectic and Peirastic is to find and apply the syllogizing process to any given thesis, with premisses the most probable that can be obtained bearing on the thesis. This Aristotle treats as the proper function of Dialectic per se and of Peirastic; considering both — the last, of course — as referring wholly to the questioner. His purpose is to investigate and impart this syllogizing power — the power of questioning and cross-examining a respondent who sets up a given thesis, so as to drive him into inconsistent answers. It appears that Aristotle would not have cared to teach the respondent how he might defend himself against this procedure, if there had not happened to be another art — Sophistic, closely bordering on Dialectic and Peirastic. He considers it indispensable to furnish the respondent with defensive armour against sophistical cross-examination; and this could not be done without teaching him at the same time modes of defence against the cross-examination of Dialectic and Peirastic. For this reason it is (Aristotle tells us[138] that he has included in the Topica precepts on the best mode of defending the thesis by the most probable arguments, as well as of impugning it. The respondent professes to know (while the questioner does not), and must be taught how to maintain his thesis like a man of knowledge. Sokrates, the prince of dialecticians, did nothing but question and cross-examine: he would never be respondent at all; for he explicitly disclaimed knowledge. And if it were not for the neighbourhood of Sophistic, Aristotle would have thought it sufficient to teach a procedure like that of Sokrates. It was the danger from sophistical cross-examination that led him to enlarge his scheme — to unmask the Sophists by enumerating the paralogisms peculiar to them, and to indicate the proper scheme of the responses and solutions whereby the respondent might defend himself against them. We remember that Aristotle treats all paralogisms and fallacies as if they belonged to a peculiar art or profession called Sophistic, and as if they were employed by Sophists exclusively; as if the Dialecticians and the Peirasts, including among them Sokrates and Plato, put all their questions without ever resorting to or falling into paralogisms.

[138] Ibid. xxxiv. p. 183, a. 37-b. 8: προειλόμεθα μὲν οὖν εὑρεῖν δύναμίν τινα συλλογιστικὴν περὶ τοῦ προβληθέντος ἐκ τῶν ὑπαρχόντων ὡς ἐνδοξοτάτων· τοῦτο γὰρ ἔργον ἐστὶ τῆς διαλεκτικῆς καθ’ αὑτὴν καὶ τῆς πειραστικῆς. ἐπεὶ δὲ προσκατασκευάζεται πρὸς αὐτὴν διὰ τὴν τῆς σοφιστικῆς γειτνίασιν, ὡς οὐ μόνον πεῖραν δύναται λαβεῖν διαλεκτικῶς, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡς εἰδώς, διὰ τοῦτο οὐ μόνον τὸ λεχθὲν ἔργον ὑπεθέμεθα τῆς πραγματείας τὸ λόγον δύνασθαι λαβεῖν, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὅπως λόγον ὑπέχοντες φυλάξομεν τὴν θέσιν ὡς δι’ ἐνδοξοτάτων ὁμοτρόπως. τὴν δ’ αἰτίαν εἰρήκαμεν τούτου, ἐπεὶ καὶ διὰ τοῦτο Σωκράτης ἠρώτα ἀλλ’ οὐκ ἀπεκρίνετο· ὡμολόγει γὰρ οὐκ εἰδέναι.

It appears to me that in one line of this remarkable passage a word has dropped out which is necessary to the sense. We now read (about the middle) ὡς οὐ μόνον πεῖραν δύναται λαβεῖν διαλεκτικῶς, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὡς εἰδώς. Now the words πεῖραν λαβεῖν as the passage stands, must be construed along with ὡς εἰδώς, and this makes no meaning at all, or an inadmissible meaning. I think it clear that the word ὑπέχειν or δοῦναι has dropped out before εἰδώς. The passage will then stand:— ὡς οὐ μόνον πεῖραν δύναται λαβεῖν διαλεκτικῶς, ἀλλὰ καὶ ὑπέχειν (or δοῦναι) ὡς εἰδώς. When this verb is supplied the sense will be quite in harmony with what follows, which at present it is not. Πεῖραν λαβεῖν applies to the questioner, but not to the respondent; ὡς εἰδώς applies to the respondent, but not to the questioner; πεῖραν ὑπέχειν applies to the respondent, and is therefore the fit concomitant of ὡς εἰδώς. The translation given by Mr. Poste first (p. 93):— “professing not only to test knowledge with the resources of Dialectic, but also to maintain any thesis with the infallibility of scienceâ€� appears to me (excepting the word infallibility, which is unsuitable) to render Aristotle’s thought, though not his words as they now stand; but Mr. Poste has given what he thinks an amended translation (p. 175):— “Since it claims the power of catechizing or cross-examining not only dialectically but also scientifically.â€� This second translation may approach more nearly to the present words of Aristotle, but it departs more widely from his sense and doctrine. Aristotle does not claim for either Dialecticians or Sophists the power of cross-examining scientifically. He ascribes to the Sophists nothing but cavil and fallacy — verbal and extra-verbal — the pretence and sham of being wise or knowing (Soph. El. i., ii. p. 165).

Aristotle, we have already more than once seen, asserts emphatically his claim to originality as having been the first to treat these subjects theoretically, and to suggest precepts founded on the theory. On all important subjects (he remarks) the elaboration of any good theory is a gradual process, the work of several successive authors. The first beginnings are very imperfect and rudimentary; upon these, however, subsequent authors build, both correcting and enlarging, until, after some considerable time, a tolerably complete scheme or system comes to be constructed. Such has been the case with Rhetoric and other arts. Tisias was the first writer and preceptor on Rhetoric, yet with poor and insufficient effect. To him succeeded Thrasymachus, next Theodorus, and various others; from each of whom partial improvements and additions were derived, until at length we have now (it is Aristotle that speaks) a copious body of rhetorical theory and precept, inherited from predecessors and accumulated by successive traditions. Compared with this, the earliest attempt at theory was indeed narrow and imperfect; but it was nevertheless the first step in a great work, and, as such, it was the most difficult and the most important. The task of building on a foundation already laid, is far easier.[139]

[139] Soph. El. xxxiv. p. 183, b. 17-26: τῶν γὰρ εὑρισκομένων ἁπάντων τὰ μὲν παρ’ ἑτέρων ληφθέντα πρότερον πεπονημένα κατὰ μέρος ἐπιδέδωκεν ὑπὸ τῶν παραλαβόντων ὕστερον· τὰ δ’ ἐξ ὑπαρχῆς εὑρισκόμενα μικρὰν τὸ πρῶτον ἐπίδοσιν λαμβάνειν εἴωθε, χρησιμωτέραν μέντοι πολλῷ τῆς ὕστερον ἐκ τούτων αὐξήσεως· μέγιστον γὰρ ἴσως ἀρχὴ παντός, ὥσπερ λέγεται· διὸ καὶ χαλεπώτατον· ὅσῳ γὰρ κράτιστον τῇ δυνάμει, τοσούτῳ μικρότατον ὃν τῷ μεγέθει χαλεπώτατόν ἐστιν ὀφθῆναι· ταύτης δ’ εὑρημένης ῥᾷον προστιθέναι καὶ συναύξειν τὸ λοιπόν ἐστιν.

While rhetorical theory has thus been gradually worked up to maturity, the case has been altogether different with Dialectic. In this I (Aristotle) found no basis prepared; no predecessor to follow; no models to copy. I had to begin from the beginning, and to make good the first step myself. The process of syllogizing had never yet been analysed or explained by any one; much less had anything been set forth about the different applications of it in detail. I worked it out for myself, without any assistance, by long and laborious application.[140] There existed indeed paid teachers, both in Dialectic and in Eristic (or Sophistic); but their teaching has been entirely without analysis, or theory, or system. Just as rhetoricians gave to their pupils orations to learn by heart, so these dialectical teachers gave out dialogues to learn by heart upon those subjects which they thought most likely to become the topics of discourse. They thus imparted to their pupils a certain readiness and fluency; but they communicated no art, no rational conception of what was to be sought or avoided, no skill or power of dealing with new circumstances.[141] They proceeded like men, who, professing to show how comfortable covering might be provided for the feet, should not teach the pupil how he could make shoes for himself, but should merely furnish him with a good stock of ready-made shoes — a present valuable indeed for use, but quite unconnected with any skill as an artificer. The syllogism as a system and theory, with precepts founded on that theory for Demonstration and Dialectic, has originated first with me (Aristotle). Mine is the first step, and therefore a small one, though worked out with much thought and hard labour: it must be looked at as a first step, and judged with indulgence. You, my readers, or hearers of my lectures, if you think that I have done as much as can fairly be required for an initiatory start, compared with other more advanced departments of theory, will acknowledge what I have achieved, and pardon what I have left for others to accomplish.[142]

[140] Soph. El. xxxiv. p. 184, a. 8: καὶ περὶ μὲν τῶν ῥητορικῶν ὑπῆρχε πολλὰ καὶ παλαιὰ τὰ λεγόμενα, περὶ δὲ τοῦ συλλογίζεσθαι παντελῶς οὐδὲν εἴχομεν πρότερον ἄλλο λέγειν, ἀλλ’ ἢ τριβῇ ζητοῦντες πολὺν χρόνον ἐπονοῦμεν.

[141] Ibid. a. 1: διόπερ ταχεῖα μὲν ἄτεχνος δ’ ἦν ἡ διδασκαλία τοῖς μανθάνουσι παρ’ αὐτῶν· οὐ γὰρ τέχνην ἀλλὰ τὰ ἀπὸ τῆς τέχνης διδόντες παιδεύειν ὑπελάμβανον.

Cicero, in describing his own treatise De Oratore, insists upon the marked difference between his mode of treatment and the common rhetorical precepts; he claims to have followed the manner of the Aristotelian Dialogues:— “Scripsi Aristoteleo more, quemadmodum quidem volui, tres libros in disputatione ac dialogo de Oratore, quos arbitror Lentulo tuo fore non inutiles. Abhorrent enim a communibus præceptis, atque omnem antiquorum et Aristoteleam et Isocrateam rationem oratoriam complectuntur� (Cicero, Epist. ad Famill. i. 9).

[142] Soph. El. xxxiv. p. 184, b. 3: εἰ δὲ φαίνεται θεασαμένοις ὑμῖν ὡς ἐκ τοιούτων ἐξ ἀρχῆς ὑπαρχόντων ἔχειν ἡ μεθόδος ἱκανῶς παρὰ τὰς ἄλλας πραγματείας τὰς ἐκ παραδόσεως ἠυξημένας, λοιπὸν ἂν εἴη πάντων ὑμῶν ἢ τῶν ἠκροαμένων ἔργον τοῖς μὲν παραλελειμμένοις τῆς μεθόδου συγγνώμην τοῖς δ’ εὑρημένοις πολλὴν ἔχειν χάριν.

It would seem that by τοῖς θεασαμένοις Aristotle means to address the readers of the present treatise, while by τῶν ἠκροαμένων he designates those who had heard his oral expositions on the same subject.

Such is the impressive closing chapter of the Sophistici Elenchi. It is remarkable in two ways: first, that Aristotle expressly addresses himself to hearers and readers in the second person; next, that he asserts emphatically his own claim to originality as a theorist on Logic, and declares himself to have worked out even the first beginnings of such theory by laborious application. I understand his claim to originality as intended to bear, not simply on the treatise called Sophistici Elenchi and on the enumeration of Fallacies therein contained, but, in a larger sense, on the theory of the Syllogism; as first unfolded in the Analytica Priora, applied to Demonstration in the Analytica Posteriora, applied afterwards to Dialectic in the Topica, applied lastly to Sophistic (or Eristic) in the Sophistici Elenchi. The phrase, “Respecting the process of syllogizing,[143] I found absolutely nothing prepared, but worked it out by laborious application for myself� — seems plainly to denote this large comprehension. And, indeed, in respect to Sophistic separately, the remark of Aristotle that nothing whatever had been done before him, would not be well founded: we find in his own treatise of the Sophistici Elenchi allusion to various prior doctrines, from which he dissents.[144] In these prior doctrines, however, his predecessors had treated the sophistical modes of refutation without reference to the Syllogism and its general theory.[145] It is against such separation that Aristotle distinctly protests. He insists upon the necessity of first expounding the Syllogism, and of discussing the laws of good or bad Refutation as a corollary or dependant of the syllogistic theory. Accordingly he begins this treatise by intimating that he intends to deduce these laws from the first and highest generalities of the subject;[146] and he concludes it by claiming this method of philosophizing as original with himself.

[143] Soph. El. xxxiv. p. 184, b. 1: περὶ δὲ τοῦ συλλογίζεσθαι παντελῶς οὐδὲν εἴχομεν πρότερον ἄλλο λέγειν, &c. (cited in a preceding [note]).

[144] See note [p. 402].

[145] Soph. El. x. p. 171, a. 1: ὅλως τε ἄτοπον, τὸ περὶ ἐλέγχου διαλέγεσθαι, ἀλλα’ μὴ πρότερον περὶ συλλογισμοῦ· ὁ γὰρ ἔλεγχος συλλογισμός ἐστιν, ὥστε χρὴ καὶ περὶ συλλογισμοῦ πρότερον ἢ περὶ ψευδοῦς ἐλέγχου.

[146] Ibid. i. p. 164, a. 21: λέγωμεν, ἀρξάμενοι κατὰ φύσιν ἀπὸ τῶν πρώτων.

[CHAPTER XI.]

PHYSICA AND METAPHYSICA.

Aristotle distinguishes, in clear and explicit language, a science which he terms Wisdom, Philosophy, or First Philosophy; the subject-matter of which he declares to be Ens quatenus Ens, together with the concomitants belonging to it as such. With this Ontology the treatise entitled Metaphysica purports to deal, and the larger portion of it does really so deal. At the same time, the line that parts off Ontology from Logic (Analytic and Dialectic) on the one hand, and from Physics on the other, is not always clearly marked. For, though the whole process of Syllogism, employed both in Analytic and Dialectic, involves and depends upon the Maxim of Contradiction, yet the discussion of this Maxim is declared to belong to First Philosophy;[1] while not only the four Aristotelian varieties of Cause or Condition, and the distinction between Potential and Actual, but also the abstractions Form, Matter and Privation, which play so capital a part in the Metaphysica, are equally essential and equally appealed to in the Physica.[2]

[1] Metaphys. Γ. iii. p. 1005, a 19-b. 11. Whether that discussion properly belongs to Philosophia Prima, or not, stands as the first Ἀπορία enumerated in the list which occupies Book B. in that treatise, p. 995, b. 4-13; compare K. i. p. 1059, a. 24.

[2] Physica, I. pp. 190-191; II. p. 194, b. 20, seq.; Metaph. A. p. 983, a. 33; Alexander ad Metaphys. Δ. p. 306, ed. Bonitz; p. 689, b. Schol. Br.

If we include both what is treated in the Analytica Posteriora (the scientific explanation of Essence and Definition) and what is treated in the Physica, we shall find that nearly all the expository processes employed in the Metaphysica are employed also in these two treatises. To look upon the general notion as a cause, and to treat it as a creative force (der schöpferische Wesensbegriff, to use the phrase of Prantl and other German logicians[3]), belongs alike to the Physica and to the Analytica Posteriora. The characteristic distinction of the treatise entitled Metaphysica is, that it is all-comprehensive in respect to the ground covered; that the expository process is applied, not exclusively to any separate branch of Ens, but to Ens as a whole quatenus Ens — to all the varieties of Ens that admit of scientific treatment at all;[4] that the same abstractions and analytical distinctions, which, both in the Analytica and in the Physica, are indicated and made to serve an explanatory purpose, up to a certain point — are in the Metaphysica sometimes assumed as already familiar, sometimes followed out with nicer accuracy and subtlety.[5] Indeed both the Physica and the Metaphysica, as we read them in Aristotle, would be considered in modern times as belonging alike to the department of Metaphysics.

[3] See [ch. viii. pp. 240] seq. of the present work, with the citations in note ^b, [p. 252], from Prantl and Rassow.

[4] Metaphys. Γ. i. p. 1003, a. 21: ἔστιν ἐπιστήμη τις ἣ θεωρεῖ τὸ ὂν ᾗ ὂν καὶ τὰ τούτῳ ὑπάρχοντα καθ’ αὑτό. Αὕτη δ’ ἐστὶν οὐδεμίᾳ τῶν ἐν μέρει λεγομένων ἡ αὐτή. οὐδεμία γὰρ τῶν ἄλλων ἐπισκοπεῖ καθόλου περὶ τοῦ ὄντος ᾗ ὄν, ἀλλὰ μέρος αὐτοῦ τι ἀποτεμόμεναι, &c.

[5] Metaphys. Λ. vii. p. 1073, a. with Bonitz’s Comment. pp. 504-505. Physica, I. ix. p. 192, a. 34: περὶ δὲ τῆς κατὰ τὸ εἶδος ἀρχῆς, πότερον μία ἢ πολλαὶ καὶ τίς ἢ τίνες εἰσί, δι’ ἀκριβείας τῆς πρώτης φιλοσοφίας ἔργον ἐστὶ διορίσαι, ὥστ’ εἰς ἐκεῖνον τὸν καιρὸν ἀποκείσθω. Compare Physic. I. viii. p. 191, b. 29, and Weisse, Aristoteles Physik, p. 285.

About the Metaphysica, as carrying out and completing the exposition of the Analytica Posteriora, see Metaphys. Z. xii. p. 1037, b. 8: νῦν δὲ λέγωμεν πρῶτον, ἐφ’ ὅσον ἐν τοῖς Ἀναλυτικοῖς περὶ ὁρισμοῦ μὴ εἴρηται (Analyt. Post. II. vi. p. 92, a. 32; see note ^b, [p. 243]).

The primary distinction and classification recognized by Aristotle among Sciences or Cognitions, is, that of (1) Theoretical, (2) Practical, (3) Artistic or Constructive.[6] Of these three divisions, the second and third alike comprise both intelligence and action, but the two are distinguished from each other by this — that in the Artistic there is always some assignable product which the agency leaves behind independent of itself, whereas in the Practical no such independent result remains,[7] but the agency itself, together with the purpose (or intellectual and volitional condition) of the agent, is every thing. The division named Theoretical comprises intelligence alone — intelligence of principia, causes and constituent elements. Here again we find a tripartite classification. The highest and most universal of all Theoretical Sciences is recognized by Aristotle as Ontology (First Philosophy, sometimes called by him Theology) which deals with all Ens universally quatenus Ens, and with the Prima Moventia, themselves immoveable, of the entire Kosmos. The two other heads of Theoretical Science are Mathematics and Physics; each of them special and limited, as compared with Ontology. In Physics we scientifically study natural bodies with their motions, changes, and phenomena; bodies in which Form always appears implicated with Matter, and in which the principle of motion or change is immanent and indwelling (i.e., dependent only on the universal Prima Moventia, and not impressed from without by a special agency, as in works of human art). In Mathematics, we study immoveable and unchangeable numbers and magnitudes, apart from the bodies to which they belong; not that they can ever be really separated from such bodies, but we intellectually abstract them, or consider them apart.[8]

[6] Metaphys. E. i. p. 1025, b. 25.

[7] Ibid. b. 22.

[8] Metaphys. E. i. p. 1026; K. vii. p. 1064, a. 28-b. 14; M. iii. pp. 1077-1078; Bonitz, Commentar. p. 284.

Such is Aristotle’s tripartite distribution of Theoretical or Contemplative Science. In introducing us to the study of First Philosophy, he begins by clearing up the meaning of the term Ens. It is a term of many distinct significations; being neither univocal, nor altogether equivocal, but something intermediate between the two, or multivocal. It is not a generic whole, distributed exhaustively among correlative species marked off by an assignable difference:[9] it is an analogical whole, including several genera distinct from each other at the beginning, though all of them branches derivative from one and the same root; all of them connected by some sort of analogy or common relation to that one root, yet not necessarily connected with each other by any direct or special tie.

[9] Metaphys. Γ. ii. p. 1003, a. 33-p. 1004, a. 5: τὸ δ’ ὂν λέγεται μὲν πολλαχῶς, ἀλλὰ πρὸς ἓν καὶ μίαν τινὰ φύσιν, καὶ οὐχ ὁμωνύμως — ὑπάρχει γὰρ εὐθὺς γένη ἔχοντα τὸ ὂν καὶ τὸ ἕν.

Compare K. iii. p. 1060, b. 32. See also above, [ch. iii. p. 60], of the present work.

Of these various significations, he enumerates, as we have already seen, four:— (1) Ens which is merely concomitant with, dependent upon, or related to, another Ens as terminus; (2) Ens in the sense of the True, opposed to Non-Ens in the sense of the False; (3) Ens according to each of the Ten Categories; (4) Ens potentially, as contrasted with Ens actually. But among these four heads, the two last only are matters upon which science is attainable, in the opinion of Aristotle. To these two, accordingly, he confines Ontology or First Philosophy. They are the only two that have an objective, self-standing, independent, nature.

That which falls under the first head (Ens per Accidens) is essentially indeterminate; and its causes, being alike indeterminate, are out of the reach of science. So also is that which falls under the second head — Ens tanquam verum, contrasted with Non-Ens tanquam falsum. This has no independent standing, but results from an internal act of the judging or believing mind, combining two elements, or disjoining two elements, in a way conformable to, or non-conformable to, real fact. The true combination or disjunction is a variety of Ens; the false combination or disjunction is a variety of Non-Ens. This mental act varies both in different individuals, and at different times with the same individual, according to a multitude of causes often unassignable. Accordingly, it does not fall under Ontological Science, nor can we discover any causes or principles determining it.[10] When Aristotle says that the two first heads are out of the reach of science, or not proper subjects of science, he means that their first principia, causes, or deepest foundations, cannot be discovered and assigned; for it is in determining these principia and causes that true scientific cognition consists.[11]

[10] Aristot. Met. E. iv. p. 1027, b. 17; Θ. p. 1051, b. 2; p. 1052, a. 17-30; K. viii. p. 1065, a. 21.

There remains much obscurity about this meaning of Ens (Ens ὡς ἀληθές), even after the Scholia of Alexander (p. 701, a. 10, Sch. Brand.), and the instructive comments of Bonitz, Schwegler, and Brentano (Ueber die Bedeutung des Seienden nach Aristoteles, ch. iii. pp. 21-39).

The foundation of this meaning of Ens lies in the legitimate Antiphasis, and the proper division thereof (τὸ δὲ σύνολον περὶ μερισμὸν ἀντιφάσεως, p. 1027, b. 20). It is a first principle (p. 1005, b. 30) that, if one member of the Antiphasis must be affirmed as true, the other must be denied as false. If we fix upon the right combination to affirm, we say the thing that is: if we fix upon the wrong combination and affirm it, we say the thing that is not (p. 1012, b. 10). “Falsehood and Truth (Aristotle says, E. iv. p. 1027, b. 25) are not in things but in our mental combination; and as regards simple (uncombined) matters and essences, they are not even in our mental combination:â€� οὐ γάρ ἐστι τὸ ψεῦδος καὶ τὸ ἀληθὲς ἐν τοῖς πράγμασιν, οἷον τὸ μὲν ἀγαθὸν ἀληθές, τὸ δὲ κακὸν εὐθὺς ψεῦδος, ἀλλ’ ἐν διανοίᾳ· περὶ δὲ τὰ ἁπλᾶ καὶ τὰ τί ἐστιν οὐδ’ ἐν τῇ διανοίᾳ. Compare Bonitz (ad Ar. Metaph. Z. iv. p. 1030, a.), p. 310, Comm.

In regard to cogitabilia — simple, indivisible, uncompounded — there is no combination or disjunction; therefore, strictly speaking, neither truth nor falsehood (Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, a. 26; also Categor. x. p. 13, b. 10). The intellect either apprehends these simple elements, or it does not apprehend them; there is no διάνοια concerned. Not to apprehend them is ignorance, ἄγνοια, which sometimes loosely passes under the title of ψεῦδος (Schwegler, Comm. Pt. II., p. 32).

[11] Metaphys. E. i. p. 1025, b. 3: αἱ ἀρχαὶ καὶ τὰ αἴτια ζητεῖται τῶν ὄντων, δῆλον δ’ ὅτι ᾗ ὄντα. — ὅλως δὲ πᾶσα διανοητικὴ ἢ μετέχουσά τι διανοίας περὶ αἰτίας καὶ ἀρχάς ἐστιν ἢ ἀκριβεστέρας ἢ ἁπλουστέρας.

Compare Metaph. K. vii. p. 1063, b. 36; p. 1065, a. 8-26. Analyt. Post. I. ii. p. 71, b. 9.

There remain, as matter proper for the investigation of First Philosophy, the two last-mentioned heads of Ens; viz., Ens according to the Ten Categories, and Ens potential and actual. But, along with these, Aristotle includes another matter also; viz., the critical examination of the Axioms and highest generalities of syllogistic proof or Demonstration. He announces as the first principle of these Axioms — as the highest and firmest of all Principles — the Maxim of Contradiction:[12] The same predicate cannot both belong and not belong to the same subject, at the same time and in the same sense; or, You cannot both truly affirm, and truly deny, the same predicate respecting the same subject; or, The same proposition cannot be at once true and false. This Axiom is by nature the beginning or source of all the other Axioms. It stands first in the order of knowledge; and it neither rests upon nor involves any hypothesis.[13]

[12] Metaph. Γ. iii. p. 1005, b. 7, 17, 22, 34: αὕτη δὴ πασῶν ἐστὶ βεβαιοτάτη τῶν ἀρχῶν — φύσει γὰρ ἀρχὴ καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀξιωμάτων αὕτη πάντων. — p. 1011, b. 13: βεβαιοτάτη δόξα πασῶν τὸ μὴ εἶναι ἀληθεῖς ἅμα τὰς ἀντικειμένας φάσεις — (He here applies the term δόξα to designate this fundamental maxim. This deserves notice, because of the antithesis, common with him elsewhere, between δόξα and ἐπιστήμη).

[13] Metaph. Γ. iii. p. 1005, b. 13-14: γνωριμωτάτην — ἀνυπόθετον.

The Syllogism is defined by Aristotle as consisting of premisses and a conclusion: if the two propositions called premisses be granted as true, a third as conclusion must for that reason be granted as true also.[14] The truth of the conclusion is affirmed conditionally on the truth of the premisses; and the rules of Syllogism set out those combinations of propositions in which such affirmation may be made legitimately. The rules of the Syllogism being thus the rules for such conditional affirmation, the Principle or Axiom thereof enunciates in the most general terms what is implied in all those rules, as essential to their validity. And, since the syllogistic or deductive process is applicable without exception to every variety of the Scibile, Aristotle considers the Axioms or Principles thereof to come under the investigation of Ontology or First Philosophy. Thus it is, that he introduces us to the Maxim of Contradiction, and its supplement or correlative, the Maxim of the Excluded Middle.

[14] Analyt. Prior. I. i. p. 24, b. 18-20, et alib.

His vindication of these Axioms is very illustrative of the philosophy of his day. It cannot be too often impressed that he was the first either to formulate the precepts; or to ascend to the theory, of deductive reasoning; that he was the first to mark by appropriate terms the most important logical distinctions and characteristic attributes of propositions; that before his time, there was abundance of acute dialectic, but no attempt to set forth any critical scheme whereby the conclusions of such dialectic might be tested. Anterior to Sokrates, the cast of Grecian philosophy had been altogether either theological, or poetical, or physical, or at least some fusion of these three varieties into one. Sokrates was the first who broke ground for Logic — for testing the difference between good and bad ratiocination. He did this by enquiry as to the definition of general terms,[15] and by dialectical exposure of the ignorance generally prevalent among those who familiarly used them. Plato in his Sokratic dialogues followed in the same negative track; opening up many instructive points of view respecting the erroneous tendencies by which reasoners were misled, but not attempting any positive systematic analysis, nor propounding any intelligible scheme of his own for correction or avoidance of the like. If Sokrates and Plato, both of them active in exposing ratiocinative error and confusion, stopped short of any wide logical theory, still less were the physical philosophers likely to supply that deficiency. Aristotle tells us that several of them controverted the Maxim of Contradiction.[16] Herakleitus and his followers maintained the negative of it, distinctly and emphatically;[17] while the disciples of Parmenides, though less pronounced in their negative, could not have admitted it as universally true. Even Plato must be reckoned among those who, probably without having clearly stated to himself the Maxim in its universal terms, declared doctrines quite incompatible with it: the Platonic Parmenides affords a conspicuous example of contradictory conclusions deduced by elaborate reasoning and declared to be both of them firmly established.[18] Moreover, in the Sophistes,[19] Plato explains the negative proposition as expressing what is different from that which is denied, but nothing beyond; an explanation which, if admitted, would set aside the Maxim of Contradiction as invalid.

[15] Aristot. Metaph. A. vi. p. 987, b. 1: Σωκράτους δὲ περὶ μὲν τὰ ἠθικὰ πραγματευομένου, περὶ δὲ τῆς ὅλης φύσεως οὐθέν, ἐν μέντοι τούτοις τὸ καθόλου ζητοῦντος, καὶ περὶ ὁρισμῶν ἐπιστήσαντος πρώτου τὴν διάνοιαν.

[16] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. iv. p. 1005, b. 35: εἰσὶ δέ τινες, οἵ, καθάπερ εἴπομεν, αὐτοί τε ἐνδέχεσθαί φασι τὸ αὐτὸ εἶναι καὶ μὴ εἶναι, καὶ ὑπολαμβάνειν οὕτως. χρῶνται δὲ τῷ λόγῳ τούτῳ πολλοὶ καὶ τῶν περὶ φύσεως.

[17] Ibid. iii. p. 1005, b. 25; v. p. 1010, a. 13; vi. p. 1011, a. 24.

[18] Plato, Republic. v. p. 479, A.; vii. p. 538, E. Compare also the conclusion of the Platonic Parmenides, and the elaborate dialectic or antinomies by which the contradictions involved in it are proved.

[19] Plato, Sophistes, p. 257, B.

While Aristotle mentions these various dissentients, and especially Herakleitus, he seems to imagine that they were not really in earnest[20] in their dissent. Yet he nevertheless goes at length into the case against them, as well as against others, who agreed with him in affirming the Maxim, but who undertook also to demonstrate it. Any such demonstration Aristotle declares to be impossible. The Maxim is assumed in all demonstrations; unless you grant it, no demonstration is valid; but it cannot be itself demonstrated. He had already laid down in the Analytica that the premisses for demonstration could not be carried back indefinitely, and that the attempt so to carry them back was unphilosophical.[21] There must be some primary, undemonstrable truths; and the Maxim of Contradiction he ranks among the first. Still, though in attempting any formal demonstration of the Maxim you cannot avoid assuming the Maxim itself and thus falling into Petitio Principii, Aristotle contends that you can demonstrate it in the way of refutation,[22] relatively to a given opponent, provided such opponent will not content himself with simply denying it, but will besides advance some affirmative thesis of his own, as a truth in which he believes; or provided he will even grant the fixed meaning of words, defining them in a manner significant alike to himself and to others, — each word to have either one fixed meaning, or a limited number of different meanings, clear and well defined.[23] It is impossible for two persons to converse, unless each understands the other. A word which conveys to the mind not one meaning, but a multitude of unconnected meanings, is for all useful purposes unmeaning.[24] If, therefore, the opponent once binds himself to an affirmative definition of any word, this definition may be truly predicated of the definitum as subject; while he must be considered as interdicting himself from predicating of the same subject the negative of that definition. But when you ask for the definition, your opponent must answer the question directly and bonâ fide. He must not enlarge his definition so as to include both the affirmative and negative of the same proposition; nor must he tack on to the real essence (declared in the definition) a multitude of unessential attributes. If he answers in this confused and perplexing manner, he must be treated as not answering at all, and as rendering philosophical discussion impossible.[25] Such a mode of speaking goes to disallow any ultimate essence or determinate subject, and shuts out all predication; for there cannot be an infinite regress of predicates upon predicates, and accidents upon accidents, without arriving at an ultimate substratum — Subject or Essence.[26] If, wherever you can truly affirm a predicate of any subject, you can also truly deny the same predicate of the same subject, it is manifest that all subjects are one: there is nothing to discriminate man, horse, ship, wall, &c., from each other; every one speaks truth, and every one at the same time speaks falsehood; a man believes and disbelieves the same thing at the same time; or he neither believes nor disbelieves, and then his mind is blank, like a vegetable.[27]

[20] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. iii. p. 1005, b. 26; K. v. p. 1062, a. 32. Here Aristotle intimates that Herakleitus may have asserted what he did not believe; though we find him in another place citing Herakleitus as an example of those who adhered as obstinately to their opinions as other persons adhered to demonstrated truth (Ethic. Nik. VII. v. p. 1146, b. 30.).

[21] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. iv. p. 1006, a. 5: ἀξιοῦσι δὴ καὶ τοῦτο ἀποδεικνύναι τινὲς δι’ ἀπαιδευσίαν· ἔστι γὰρ ἀπαιδευσία τὸ μὴ γιγνώσκειν τίνων δεῖ ζητεῖν ἀπόδειξιν καὶ τίνων οὐ δεῖ.

[22] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. iv. p. 1006, a. 11: ἔστι δ’ ἀποδεῖξαι ἐλεγκτικῶς καὶ περὶ τούτου ὅτι ἀδύνατον, ἂν μόνον τι λέγῃ ὁ ἀμφισβητῶν. — K. v. p. 1062, a. 2: καὶ περὶ τῶν τοιούτων ἁπλῶς μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν ἀπόδειξις, πρὸς τόνδε δ’ ἔστιν. — p. 1062, a. 30.

[23] Ibid. Metaph. Γ. iv. p. 1006, a. 18-34. διαφέρει δ’ οὐθὲν οὔδ’ εἰ πλείω τις φαιή σημαίνειν, μόνον δὲ ὡρισμένα. — K. v. p. 1062, a. 12.

[24] Ibid. Γ. iv. p. 1006, b. 7: τὸ γὰρ μὴ ἕν τι σημαίνειν οὐθὲν σημαίνειν ἐστίν, μὴ σημαινόντων δὲ τῶν ὀνομάτων ἀνῄρηται τὸ διαλέγεσθαι πρὸς ἀλλήλους, κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ πρὸς αὑτόν· οὐθὲν γὰρ ἐνδέχεται νοεῖν μὴ νοοῦντα ἕν. — K. v. p. 1062, a. 20.

[25] Ibid. Γ. iv. p. 1006, b. 30-p. 1007, a. 20. συμβαίνει τὸ λεχθέν, ἂν ἀποκρίνηται τὸ ἐρωτώμενον. ἐὰν δὲ προστιθῇ ἐρωτῶντος ἁπλῶς καὶ τὰς ἀποφάσεις, οὐκ ἀποκρίνεται τὸ ἐρωτώμενον. — ἐὰν δὲ τοῦτο ποιῇ, οὐ διαλέγεται.

[26] Ibid. p. 1007, a. 20-b. 19: ὅλως δ’ ἀναιροῦσιν οἱ τοῦτο λέγοντες οὐσίαν καὶ τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι. — εἰ δὲ πάντα κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς λέγεται, οὐθὲν ἔσται πρῶτον τὸ καθ’ οὗ, εἰ ἀεὶ τὸ συμβεβηκὸς καθ’ ὑποκειμένου τινὸς σημαίνει τὴν κατηγορίαν· ἀνάγκη ἄρα εἰς ἄπειρον ἰέναι· ἀλλ’ ἀδύνατον.

[27] Aristot. Met. Γ. iv. p. 1008, a. 18-b. 12: εἰ δὲ ὁμοίως καὶ ὅσα ἀποφῆσαι φάναι ἀνάγκη — πάντα δ’ ἂν εἴη ἕν — οὐθὲν διοίσει ἕτερον ἑτέρου — εἰ δὲ μηθὲν ὑπολαμβάνει ἀλλ’ ὁμοίως οἴεται καὶ οὐκ οἴεται, τί ἂν διαφερόντως ἔχοι τῶν φυτῶν; K. v. p. 1062, a. 28.

The man who professes this doctrine, however (continues Aristotle[28]), shows plainly by his conduct that his mind is not thus blank; that, in respect of the contradictory alternative, he does not believe either both sides or neither side, but believes one and disbelieves the other. When he feels hungry, and seeks what he knows to be palatable and wholesome, he avoids what he knows to be nasty and poisonous. He knows what is to be found in the market-place, and goes there to get it; he keeps clear of falling into a well or walking into the sea; he does not mistake a horse for a man. He may often find himself mistaken; but he shows by his conduct that he believes certain subjects to possess certain definite attributes, and not to possess others. Though we do not reach infallible truth, we obtain an approach to it, sometimes nearer, sometimes more remote; and we thus escape the extreme doctrine which forbids all definite affirmation.[29]

[28] Ibid. Γ. iv. p. 1008, b. 12-31; K. vi. p. 1063, a. 30.

[29] Ibid. Γ. iv. p. 1008, b. 36: εἰ οὖν τὸ μᾶλλον ἐγγύτερον, εἴη γε ἄν τι ἀληθὲς οὗ ἐγγύτερον τὸ μᾶλλον ἀληθές· κἂν εἰ μή ἐστιν, ἀλλ’ ἤδη γέ τι ἐστὶ βεβαιότερον καὶ ἀληθινώτερον, καὶ τοῦ λόγου ἀπηλλαγμένοι ἂν εἴημεν τοῦ ἀκράτου καὶ κωλύοντός τι τῇ διανοίᾳ ὁρίσαι.

It is in this manner that Aristotle, vindicating the Maxims of Contradiction and of Excluded Middle as the highest principia of syllogistic reasoning, disposes of the two contemporaneous dogmas that were most directly incompatible with these Maxims:— (1) The dogma of Herakleitus, who denied all duration or permanence of subject, recognizing nothing but perpetual process, flux, or change, each successive moment of which involved destruction and generation implicated with each other: Is and is not are both alike and conjointly true, while neither is true separately, to the exclusion of the other;[30] (2) The dogma of Anaxagoras, who did not deny fixity or permanence of subject, but held that everything was mixed up with everything; that every subject had an infinite assemblage of contrary predicates, so that neither of them could be separately affirmed or separately denied: The truth lies in a third alternative or middle, between affirmation and denial.[31]

[30] Aristot. Met. A. vi. p. 987, a. 34; Γ. v. p. 1010, a. 12: Κράτυλος — ὃς τὸ τελευταῖον οὐθὲν ᾤετο δεῖν λέγειν ἀλλὰ τὸν δάκτυλον ἐκίνει μόνον, καὶ Ἡρακλείτῳ ἐπετίμα εἰπόντι ὅτι δὶς τῷ αὐτῷ ποτάμῳ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐμβῆναι· αὐτὸς γὰρ ᾤετο οὔδ’ ἁπάξ. Herakleitus adopted as his one fundamentum Fire or Heat, as being the principle of mobility or change: χρῶνται γὰρ ὡς κινητικὴν ἔχοντι τῷ πυρὶ τὴν φύσιν — Metaph. A. iii. p. 984, b. 5. Ibid. K. v. p. 1062, a. 31-b. 10; K. x. p. 1067, a. 5; M. iv. p. 1078, b. 15.

[31] Aristot. Met. K. vi. p. 1063, b. 25; A. viii. p. 989, a. 31-b. 16. ὅτε γὰρ οὐθὲν ἦν ἀποκεκριμένον, δῆλον ὡς οὐθὲν ἦν ἀληθὲς εἰπεῖν κατὰ τῆς οὐσίας ἐκείνης, λέγω δ’ οἷον ὅτι οὔτε λευκὸν οὔτε μέλαν ἢ φαιὸν ἢ ἄλλο χρῶμα, ἀλλ’ ἄχρων ἦν ἐξ ἀνάγκης· ὁμοίως δὲ καὶ ἄχυμον τῷ αὐτῷ λόγῳ τούτῳ, οὐδὲ ἄλλο τῶν ὁμοίων οὐθέν· οὔτε γὰρ ποιόν τι οἷόν τε αὐτὸ εἶναι οὔτε ποσὸν οὔτε τί. — Γ. iv. b. 1007, b. 25: καὶ γίγνεται δὴ τὸ τοῦ Ἀναξαγόρου, ὁμοῦ πάντα χρήματα· ὥστε μηθὲν ἀληθῶς ὑπάρχειν. — Γ. viii. p. 1012, a. 24: ἔοικε δ’ ὁ μὲν Ἡρακλείτου λόγος, λέγων πάντα εἶναι καὶ μὴ εἶναι, ἅπαντα ἀληθῆ ποιεῖν, ὁ δ’ Ἀναξαγόρου εἶναί τι μεταξὺ τῆς ἀντιφάσεως, ὥστε πάντα ψευδῆ· ὅταν γὰρ μιχθῇ, οὔτ’ ἀγαθὸν οὔτ’ οὐκ ἀγαθὸν τὸ μῖγμα, ὥστ’ οὐθὲν εἰπεῖν ἀληθές.

Having thus refuted these dogmas to his own satisfaction, Aristotle proceeds to impugn a third doctrine which he declares to be analogous to these two and to be equally in conflict with the two syllogistic principia which he is undertaking to vindicate. This third doctrine is the “Homo Mensura� of Protagoras: Man is the measure of all things — the measure of things existent as well as of things non-existent: To each individual that is true or false which he believes to be such, and for as long as he believes it. Aristotle contends that this doctrine is homogeneous with those of Herakleitus and Anaxagoras, and must stand or fall along with them; all three being alike adverse to the Maxim of Contradiction.[32] Herein he follows partially the example of Plato, who (in his Theætêtus[33]), though not formally enunciating the Maxim of Contradiction, had declared the tenets of Protagoras to be coincident with or analogous to those of Herakleitus, and had impugned both one and the other by the same line of arguments. Protagoras agreed with Herakleitus (so Plato and Aristotle tell us) in declaring both affirmative and negative (in the contradictory alternative) to be at once and alike true; for he maintained that what any person believed was true, and that what any person disbelieved was false. Accordingly, since opinions altogether opposite and contradictory are held by different persons or by the same person at different times, both the affirmative and the negative of every Antiphasis must be held as true alike;[34] in other words, all affirmations and all negations were at once true and false. Such co-existence or implication of contradictions is the main doctrine of Herakleitus.

[32] Aristot. Met Γ. v. p. 1009, a. 6: ἔστι δ’ ἀπὸ τῆς αὐτῆς δόξης καὶ ὁ Πρωταγόρου λόγος, καὶ ἀνάγκη ὁμοίως ἄμφω αὐτοὺς ἢ εἶναι ἢ μὴ εἶναι.

[33] Aristotle refers here to Plato by name, Metaphys. Γ. v. p. 1010, b. 12.

[34] Ibid. p. 1009, a. 8-20. ἀνάγκη πάντα ἅμα ἀληθῆ καὶ ψευδῆ εἶναι. — p. 1011, a. 30.

I have already in another work,[35] while analysing the Platonic dialogues Theætêtus and Kratylus, criticized at some length the doctrine here laid down by Plato and Aristotle. I have endeavoured to show that the capital tenet of Protagoras is essentially distinct from the other tenets with which these two philosophers would identify it: distinct both from the dogma of Herakleitus, That everything is in unceasing flux and process, each particular moment thereof being an implication of contradictions both alike true; and distinct also from the other dogma held by others, That all cognition is sensible perception. The Protagorean tenet “Homo Mensura� is something essentially distinct from either of these two; though possibly Protagoras himself may have held the second of the two, besides his own. His tenet is nothing more than a clear and general declaration of the principle of universal Relativity. True belief and affirmation have no meaning except in relation to some believer, real or supposed; true disbelief and negation have no meaning except in relation to some disbeliever, real or supposed. When a man affirms any proposition as true, he affirms only what he (perhaps with some other persons also) believes to be true, while others may perhaps disbelieve it as falsehood. Object and Subject are inseparably implicated: we may separate them by abstraction, and reason about each apart from the other; but, as reality, they exist only locked up one with the other.

[35] ‘Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,’ Vol. II. [c. xxvi.] pp. 325-363: “The Protagorean doctrine — Man is the measure of all things — is simply the presentation in complete view of a common fact; uncovering an aspect of it which the received phraseology hides. Truth and Falsehood have reference to some believing subject — and the words have no meaning except in that relation. Protagoras brings to view this subjective side of the same complex fact, of which Truth and Falsehood denote the objective side. He refuses to admit the object absolute — the pretended thing in itself — Truth without a believer. His doctrine maintains the indefeasible and necessary involution of the percipient mind in every perception — of the concipient mind in every conception — of the cognizant mind in every cognition. Farther, Protagoras acknowledges many distinct believing or knowing Subjects: and affirms that every object known must be relative to (or in his language, measured by) the knowing Subject: that every cognitum must have its cognoscens, and every cognoscibile its cognitionis capax; that the words have no meaning unless this be supposed; that these two names designate two opposite poles or aspects of the indivisible fact of cognition — actual or potential — not two factors, which are in themselves separate or separable, and which come together to make a compound product. A man cannot in any case get clear of or discard his own mind as a Subject. Self is necessarily omnipresent, concerned in every moment of consciousness, &c.� Compare also [c. xxiv. p. 261.]

That such is and always has been the state of the fact, in regard to truth and falsehood, belief and disbelief, is matter of notoriety: Protagoras not only accepts it as a fact, but formulates it as a theory. Instead of declaring that what he (or the oracle which he consults and follows) believes to be true, is absolute truth, while that which others believe, is truth relatively to them, — he lowers his own pretensions to a level with theirs. He professes to be a measure of truth only for himself, and for such as may be satisfied with the reasons that satisfy him. Aristotle complains that this theory discourages the search for truth as hopeless, not less than the chase after flying birds.[36] But, however serious such discouragement may be, we do not escape the real difficulty of the search by setting up an abstract idol and calling it Absolute Truth, without either relativity or referee; while, if we enter, as sincere and bonâ fide enquirers, on the search for reasoned truth or philosophy, we shall find ourselves not departing from the Protagorean canon, but involuntarily conforming to it. Aristotle, after having declared that the Maxim of Contradiction was true beyond the possibility of deception,[37] but yet that there were several eminent philosophers who disallowed it, is forced to produce the best reasons in his power to remove their doubts and bring them round to his opinion. His reasons must be such as to satisfy not his own mind only, but the minds of opponents and indifferent auditors as referees. This is an appeal to other men, as judges each for himself and in his own case: it is a tacit recognition of the autonomy of each individual enquirer as a measure of truth to himself. In other words, it is a recognition of the Protagorean canon.

[36] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. v. p. 1009, b. 38.

[37] Ibid. Γ. iii. p. 1005, b. 11: βεβαιοτάτη δ’ ἀρχὴ πασῶν, περὶ ἣν διαψευσθῆναι ἀδύνατον.

We know little about the opinions of Protagoras; but there was nothing in this canon necessarily at variance either with the Maxim of Contradiction or with that of Excluded Middle. Both Aristotle and Plato would have us believe that Protagoras was bound by his canon to declare every opinion to be alike false and true, because every opinion was believed by some and disbelieved by others.[38] But herein they misstate his theory. He did not declare any thing to be absolutely true, or to be absolutely false. Truth and Falsehood were considered by him as always relative to some referee, and he recognized no universal or infallible referee. In his theory the necessity of some referee was distinctly enunciated, instead of being put out of sight under an ellipsis, as in the received theories and practice. And this is exactly what Plato and Aristotle omit, when they refute him. He proclaimed that each man was a measure for himself alone, and that every opinion was true to the believer, false to the disbeliever; while they criticize him as if he had said — Every opinion is alike true and false; thus leaving out the very qualification which forms the characteristic feature of his theory. They commit that fallacy which Plato shows up in the Euthydêmus, and which Aristotle[39] numbers in his list of Fallaciæ Extra Dictionem, imputing it as a vice to the Sophists: they slide à dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter. And it is remarkable that Aristotle, in one portion of his argument against “Homo Mensura,� expressly admonishes the Protagoreans that they must take care to adhere constantly to this qualified mode of enunciation;[40] that they must not talk of apparent truth generally, but of truth as it appears to themselves or to some other persons, now or at a different time. Protagoras hardly needed such an admonition to keep to what is the key-note and characteristic peculiarity of his own theory; since it is only by suppressing this peculiarity that his opponents make the theory seem absurd. He would by no means have disclaimed that consequence of his theory, which Aristotle urges against it as an irrefragable objection; viz., that it makes every thing relative, and recognizes nothing as absolute. This is perfectly true, and constitutes its merit in the eyes of its supporters.

[38] Plato, Theætêt. pp. 171-179. Aristot. Met. Γ. iv. p. 1007, b. 21: εἰ κατὰ παντός τι ἢ καταφῆσαι ἢ ἀποφῆσαι ἐνδέχεται, καθάπερ ἀνάγκη τοῖς τὸν Πρωταγόρου λέγουσι λόγον. Compare v. p. 1009, a. 6; viii. p. 1012, b. 15.

[39] Aristot. Soph. El. p. 167, a. 3; Rhetoric. II. xxiv. p. 1402, a. 2-15. ὥσπερ καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐριστικῶν τὸ κατά τι καὶ πρός τι καὶ πῇ οὐ προστιθέμενα ποιεῖ τὴν συκοφαντίαν.

[40] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. vi. p. 1011, a. 21: διὸ καὶ φυλακτέον τοῖς τὴν βίαν ἐν τῷ λόγῳ ζητοῦσιν, ἅμα δὲ καὶ ὑπέχειν λόγον ἀξιοῦσιν, ὅτι οὐ τὸ φαινόμενον ἔστιν, ἀλλὰ τὸ φαινόμενον ᾧ φαίνεται καὶ ὅτε φαίνεται καὶ ᾗ καὶ ὥς. — b. 1: ἀλλ’ ἴσως διὰ τοῦτ’ ἀνάγκη λέγειν τοῖς μὴ δι’ ἀπορίαν ἀλλὰ λόγου χάριν λέγουσιν, ὅτι οὐκ ἔστιν ἀληθὲς τοῦτο, ἀλλὰ τούτῳ ἀληθές.

Another argument of Aristotle[41] against the Protagorean “Homo Mensura� — That it implies in every affirming Subject an equal authority and equal title to credence, as compared with every other affirming Subject — I have already endeavoured to combat in my review of the Platonic Theætêtus, where the same argument appears fully developed. The antithesis between Plato and Aristotle on one side, and Protagoras on the other, is indeed simply that between Absolute and Relative. The Protagorean doctrine is quite distinct from the other doctrines with which they jumble it together — from those of Herakleitus and Anaxagoras, and from the theory that Knowledge is sensible perception. The real opponents of the Maxim of Contradiction were Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, and Plato himself as represented in some of his dialogues, especially the Parmenides, Timæus, Republic, Sophistes. Each of these philosophers adopted a First Philosophy different from the others: but each also adopted one completely different from that of Aristotle, and not reconcileable with his logical canons. None of them admitted determinate and definable attributes belonging to determinate particular subjects, each with a certain measure of durability.

[41] Ibid. v. p. 1010, b. 11.

Now the common speech of mankind throughout the Hellenic world was founded on the assumption of such fixed subjects and predicates. Those who wanted information for practical guidance or security, asked for it in this form; those who desired to be understood by others, and to determine the actions of others, adopted the like mode of speech. Information was given through significant propositions, which the questioner sought to obtain, and which the answer, if cognizant, enunciated: e.g., Theætêtus is sitting down[42] — to repeat the minimum or skeleton of a proposition as given by Plato, requiring both subject and predicate in proper combination, to convey the meaning. Now the logical analysis, and the syllogistic precepts of Aristotle, — as well as his rhetorical and dialectical suggestions for persuading, for refuting, or for avoiding refutation — are all based upon the practice of common speech. In conversing (he says) it is impossible to produce and exhibit the actual objects signified; the speaker must be content with enunciating, instead thereof, the name significant of each.[43] The first beginning of rhetorical diction is, to speak good Greek;[44] the rhetor and the dialectician must dwell upon words, propositions, and opinions, not peculiar to such as have received special teaching, but common to the many and employed in familiar conversation; the auditors, to whom they address themselves, are assumed to be commonplace men, of fair average intelligence, but nothing beyond.[45] Thus much of acquirement is imbibed by almost every one as he grows up, from the ordinary intercourse of society. The men of special instruction begin with it, as others do; but they also superadd other cognitions or accomplishments derived from peculiar teachers. Universally — both in the interior of the family, amidst the unscientific multitude, and by the cultivated few — habitual speech was carried on through terms assuming fixed subjects and predicates. It was this recognized process in its two varieties of Analytic and Dialectic, which Aristotle embraced in his logical theory, and to which he also adapted his First Philosophy.

[42] Plato, Sophistes, pp. 262-263.

[43] Aristot. Soph. El. p. 165, a. 5: ἐπεὶ γὰρ οὐκ ἔστιν αὐτὰ τὰ πράγματα διαλέγεσθαι φέροντας, ἀλλὰ τοῖς ὀνόμασιν ἀντὶ τῶν πραγμάτων χρώμεθα συμβόλοις.

[44] Aristot. Rhet. III. v. p. 1407, b. 19: ἔστι δ’ ἀρχὴ τῆς λέξεως τὸ Ἑλληνίζειν.

[45] Aristot. Rhet. I. i. p. 1354, a. 1: ἡ ῥητορικὴ ἀντίστροφός ἐστι τῇ διαλεκτικῇ· ἀμφότεραι γὰρ περὶ τοιούτων τινῶν εἰσὶν ἃ κοινὰ τρόπον τινὰ ἁπάντων ἐστὶ γνωρίζειν καὶ οὐδεμιᾶς ἐπιστήμης ἀφωρισμένης· διὸ καὶ πάντες τρόπον τινὰ μετέχουσιν ἀμφοῖν. — p. 1355, a. 25: διδασκαλίας γάρ ἐστιν ὁ κατὰ τὴν ἐπιστήμην λόγος, τοῦτο δὲ ἀδύνατον, ἀλλ’ ἀνάγκη διὰ τῶν κοινῶν ποιεῖσθαι τὰς πίστεις καὶ τοὺς λόγους, ὥσπερ καὶ ἐν τοῖς Τοπικοῖς ἐλέγομεν περὶ τῆς πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς ἐντεύξεως. — p. 1357, a. 1: ἔστι δὲ τὸ ἔργον αὐτῆς περί τε τοιούτων περὶ ὧν βουλευόμεθα καὶ τέχνας μὴ ἔχομεν, καὶ ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις ἀκροαταῖς οἳ οὐ δύνανται διὰ πολλῶν συνορᾶν οὐδὲ λογίζεσθαι πόῤῥωθεν. — p. 1357, a. 11: ὁ γὰρ κρίτης ὑποκεῖται εἶναι ἁπλοῦς. Compare Topica, I. ii. p. 101, a. 26-36; Soph. El. p. 172, a. 30.

But the First Philosophy that preceded his, had not been so adapted. The Greek philosophers, who flourished before dialectical discussion had become active, during the interval between Thales and Sokrates, considered Philosophy as one whole — rerum divinarum et humanarum scientia — destined to render Nature or the Kosmos more or less intelligible. They took up in the gross all those vast problems, which the religious or mythological poets had embodied in divine genealogies and had ascribed to superhuman personal agencies.

Thales and his immediate successors (like their predecessors the poets) accommodated their hypotheses to intellectual impulses and aspirations of their own; with little anxiety about giving satisfaction to others,[46] still less about avoiding inconsistencies or meeting objections. Each of them fastened upon some one grand and imposing generalization (set forth often in verse) which he stretched as far as it would go by various comparisons and illustrations, but without any attention or deference to adverse facts or reasonings. Provided that his general point of view was impressive to the imagination,[47] as the old religious scheme of personal agencies was to the vulgar, he did not concern himself about the conditions of proof or disproof. The data of experience were altogether falsified (as by the Pythagoreans)[48] in order to accommodate them to the theory; or were set aside as deceptive and inexplicable from the theory (as by both Parmenides and Herakleitus).[49]

[46] Aristot. Met. B. iv. p. 1000, a. 9: οἱ μὲν οὖν περὶ Ἡσίοδον καὶ πάντες ὅσοι θεόλογοι μόνον ἐφρόντισαν τοῦ πιθανοῦ τοῦ πρὸς αὐτούς, ἡμῶν δ’ ὠλιγώρησαν· — καὶ γὰρ ὅνπερ οἰηθείη λέγειν ἄν τις μάλιστα ὁμολογουμένως αὑτῷ, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς, καὶ οὑτὸς ταὐτὸν πέπονθεν. — Metaph. N. iv. p. 1091, b. 1-15.

[47] This is strikingly expressed by a phrase of Aristotle about the Platonic theory, Metaph. N. iii. p. 1090, a. 35: οἱ δὲ χωριστὸν ποιοῦντες, ὅτι ἐπὶ τῶν αἰσθητῶν οὐκ ἔσται τὰ ἀξιώματα, ἀληθῆ δὲ τὰ λεγόμενα καὶ σαίνει τὴν ψυχήν, εἶναί τε ὑπολαμβάνουσι καὶ χωριστὰ εἶναι.

[48] Metaph. N. iii. p. 1090, a. 34: ἐοίκασι περὶ ἄλλου οὐράνου λέγειν καὶ σωμάτων ἀλλ’ οὐ τῶν αἰσθητῶν. — Metaph. A. v. p. 986, a. 5; and De CÅ“lo, II. xiii. p. 293, a. 25.

[49] Physic. I. ii.-iii. pp. 185-186.

But these vague hypotheses became subjected to a new scrutiny, when the dialectical age of Zeno and Sokrates supervened. Opponents of Parmenides impugned his theory of Ens Unum Continuum Immobile, as leading to absurdities; while his disciple Zeno replied, not by any attempt to disprove such allegations but, by showing that the counter-theory of Entia Plura Discontinua Moventia, or Mutabilia, involved consequences yet more absurd.[50] In the acute dialectical warfare, to which the old theories thus stood exposed, the means of attack much surpassed those of defence; moreover, the partisans of Herakleitus despised all coherent argumentation, confining themselves to obscure oracular aphorisms and multiplied metaphors.[51] In point of fact, no suitable language could be found, consistently with common speech or common experience, for expanding in detail either the Herakleitean[52] or the Parmenidean theory; the former suppressing all duration and recognizing nothing but events — a perpetual stream of Fientia or interchange of Ens with Non-Ens; the latter discarding Non-Ens as unmeaning, and recognizing no real events or successions, but only Ens Unum perpetually lasting and unchangeable. The other physical hypotheses, broached by Pythagoras, Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Demokritus, each altogether discordant with the others, were alike imposing in their general enunciation and promise, alike insufficient when applied to common experience and detail.

[50] Plato, Parmenid. p. 128, D.

[51] Plato, Theætêt. p. 179, E: περὶ τούτων τῶν Ἡρακλειτείων, — τὸ ἐπιμεῖναι ἐπὶ λόγῳ καὶ ἐρωτήματι καὶ ἡσυχίως ἐν μέρει ἀποκρίνασθαι καὶ ἐρέσθαι ἧττον αὐτοῖς ἔνι ἢ τὸ μηδέν· — ὥσπερ ἐκ φαρέτρας ῥηματίσκια αἰνιγματώδη ἀνασπῶντες ἀποτοξεύουσι, κἂν τούτου ζητῇς λόγον λαβεῖν, τί εἴρηκεν, ἑτέρῳ πεπλήξει καινῶς μετωνομασμένῳ, περανεῖς δὲ οὐδέποτε οὐδὲν πρὸς οὐδένα αὐτῶν.

[52] Ibid. p. 183, B: ἀλλά τιν’ ἄλλην φωνὴν θετέον τοῖς τὸν λόγον τοῦτον λέγουσιν, ὡς νῦν γε πρὸς τὴν αὑτῶν ὑπόθεσιν οὐκ ἔχουσι ῥήματα, εἰ μὴ ἄρα τὸ οὔδ’ ὅπως· μάλιστα δ’ οὕτως ἂν αὐτοῖς ἅρμοττοι, ἄπειρον λεγόμενον.

Plato applies this remark to the theory of Protagoras; but the remark belongs properly to that of Herakleitus.

But the great development of Dialectic during the Sokratic age, together with the new applications made of it by Sokrates and the unrivalled acuteness with which he wielded it, altered materially the position of these physical theories. Sokrates was not ignorant of them;[53] but he discouraged such studies, and turned attention to other topics. He passed his whole life in public and in indiscriminate conversation with every one. He deprecated astronomy and physics as unbecoming attempts to pry into the secrets of the gods; who administered the general affairs of the Kosmos according to their own pleasure, and granted only, through the medium of prophecy or oracles, such special revelations as they thought fit. In his own discussions Sokrates dwelt only on matters of familiar conversation and experience — social, ethical, political, &c., such as were in every one’s mouth, among the daily groups of the market-place. These he declared to be the truly human topics[54] — the proper study of mankind — upon which it was disgraceful to be ignorant, or to form untrue and inconsistent judgments. He found, moreover, that upon these topics no one supposed himself to be ignorant, or to require teaching. Every one gave confident opinions, derived from intercourse with society, embodied in the familiar words of the language, and imbibed almost unconsciously along with the meaning of these words. Now Sokrates not only disclaimed all purpose of teaching, but made ostentatious profession of his own ignorance. His practice was to ask information from others who professed to know; and with this view, to question them about the import of vulgar words with the social convictions contained in them.[55] To the answers given he applied an acute cross-examination, which seldom failed to detect so much inconsistency and contradiction as to cover the respondent with shame, and to make him sensible that he was profoundly ignorant of matters which he had believed himself to know well. Sokrates declared, in his last speech before condemnation by the Athenian Dikasts, that such false persuasion of knowledge, combined with real ignorance, was universal among mankind; and that the exposure thereof, as the great misguiding force of human life, had been enjoined upon him as his mission by the Delphian God.[56]

[53] Xenophon, Mem. IV. vii. 5: καίτοι οὐδὲ τούτων γε ἀνήκοος ἦν.

[54] Xenophon, Mem. I. i. 12-16: καὶ πρῶτον μὲν αὐτῶν ἐσκόπει πότερά ποτε νομίσαντες ἱκανῶς ἤδη τἀνθρώπεια εἰδέναι ἔρχονται ἐπὶ τὸ περὶ τῶν τοιούτων φροντίζειν, ἢ τὰ μὲν ἀνθρώπεια παρέντες, τὰ δὲ δαιμόνια σκοποῦντες, ἡγοῦνται τὰ προσήκοντα πράττειν. — αὐτὸς δὲ περὶ τῶν ἀνθρωπείων ἀεὶ διελέγετο, σκοπῶν τί εὐσεβές, τί ἀσεβές, τί καλόν, τί αἰσχρόν, τί δίκαιον, τί ἄδικον, τί σωφροσύνη, τί μανία, τί πόλις, τί πολιτικός, τί ἀρχὴ ἀνθρώπων, τί ἀρχικὸς ἀνθρώπων, &c.

Compare IV. vii. 2-9.

[55] Xenoph. Memor. I. ii. 26-46; III. vi. 2-15; IV. ii.; IV. vi. 1: σκοπῶν σὺν τοῖς συνοῖσι τί ἕκαστον εἴη τῶν ὄντων οὐδέποτ’ ἔληγε. — IV. iv. 9: ἀρκεῖ γὰρ ὅτι τῶν ἄλλων καταγελᾷς, ἐρωτῶν μὲν καὶ ἐλέγχων πάντας, αὐτὸς δ’ οὐδενὶ θέλων ὑπέχειν λόγον οὐδὲ γνώμην ἀποφαίνεσθαι περεὶ οὐδενός. — Plato, Republic I. pp. 336-337; Theætêt. p. 150 C.

[56] Plato, Apol. Sokrat. pp. 22, 28, 33: ἐμοὶ δὲ τοῦτο, ὡς ἐγώ φημι, προστέτακται ὑπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ πράττειν καὶ ἐκ μαντειῶν καὶ ἐξ ἐνυπνίων καὶ παντὶ τρόπῳ, ᾧπέρ τίς ποτε καὶ ἄλλη θεία μοῖρα ἀνθρώπῳ καὶ ὁτιοῦν προσέταξε πράττειν. — Plato, Sophist. pp. 230-231; Menon, pp. 80, A., 84, B.

Compare the analysis of the Platonic Apology in my work, ‘Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,’ Vol. I. [c. vii.]

The peculiarities which Aristotle ascribes to Sokrates are — that he talked upon ethical topics instead of physical, that he fastened especially on the definitions of general terms, and that his discussions were inductive, bringing forward many analogous illustrative or probative particulars to justify a true general proposition, and one or a few to set aside a false one.[57] This Sokratic practice is copiously illustrated both by Plato in many of his dialogues, and by Xenophon throughout all the Memorabilia.[58] In Plato, however, Sokrates is often introduced as spokesman of doctrines not his own; while in Xenophon we have before us the real man as he talked in the market-place, and apparently little besides. Xenophon very emphatically exhibits to us a point which in Plato’s Dialogues of Search is less conspicuously marked, though still apparent: viz., the power possessed by Sokrates of accommodating himself to the ordinary mind in all its varieties — his habit of dwelling on the homely and familiar topics of the citizen’s daily life — his constant appeal to small and even vulgar details, as the way of testing large and imposing generalities.[59] Sokrates possessed to a surprising degree the art of selecting arguments really persuasive to ordinary non-theorizing men; so as often to carry their assent along with him, and still oftener to shake their previous beliefs, if unwarranted, or even if adopted by mere passive receptivity without preliminary reflection and comparison.

[57] Aristot. Metaph. M. iv. p. 1078, b. 28: δύο γάρ ἐστιν ἅ τις ἂν ἀποδοίη Σωκράτει δικαίως, τούς τ’ ἐπακτικοὺς λόγους καὶ τὸ ὁρίζεσθαι καθόλου· ταῦτα γάρ ἐστιν ἄμφω περὶ ἀρχὴν ἐπιστήμης. — ib. A. p. 987, b. 1: Σωκράτους δὲ περὶ μὲν τὰ ἠθικὰ πραγματευομένου, περὶ δὲ τῆς ὅλης φύσεως οὐθέν, ἐν μέντοι τούτοις τὸ καθόλου ζητοῦντος καὶ περὶ ὁρισμῶν ἐπιστήσαντος πρώτου τὴν διάνοιαν.

[58] No portion of the Memorabilia illustrates this point better than the dialogue with Euthydêmus, IV. vi.

[59] Xenophon, Memor. IV. vi. 15: ὅποτε δὲ αὐτός τι τῷ λόγῳ διεξίοι, διὰ τῶν μάλιστα ὁμολογουμένων ἐπορεύετο, νομίζων ταύτην τὴν ἀσφάλειαν εἶναι λόγου· τοιγαροῦν πολὺ μάλιστα ὧν ἐγὼ οἶδα, ὅτε λέγοι, τοὺς ἀκούοντας ὁμολογοῦντας παρεῖχεν· ἔφη δὲ καὶ Ὅμηρον τῷ Ὀδυσσεῖ ἀναθεῖναι τὸ ἀσφαλῆ ῥήτορα εἶναι, ὡς ἱκανὸν αὐτὸν ὄντα διὰ τῶν δοκούντων τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἄγειν τοὺς λόγους.

Compare ib. I. ii. 38; IV. iv. 6; also Plato, Theætêtus, p. 147, A, B; Republic I. p. 338, C.

Without departing from Aristotle’s description, therefore, we may conceive the change operated by Sokrates in philosophical discussion under a new point of view. In exchanging Physics for Ethics, it vulgarized both the topics and the talk of philosophy. Physical philosophy as it stood in the age of Sokrates (before Aristotle had broached his peculiar definition of Nature) was merely an obscure, semi-poetical, hypothetical Philosophia Prima,[60] or rather Philosophia Prima and Philosophia Secunda blended in one. This is true of all its varieties, — of the Ionic philosophers as well as of Pythagoras, Parmenides, Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, and even Demokritus. Such philosophy, dimly enunciated and only half intelligible,[61] not merely did not tend to explain or clear up phenomenal experiences, but often added new difficulties of its own. It presented itself sometimes even as discrediting, overriding, and contradicting experience; but never as opening any deductive road from the Universal down to its particulars.[62] Such theories, though in circulation among a few disciples and opponents, were foreign and unsuitable to the talk of ordinary men. To pass from these cloudy mysteries to social topics and terms which were in every one’s mouth, was the important revolution in philosophy introduced in the age of Sokrates, and mainly by him.

[60] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. iii. p. 1005, a. 31.

[61] Ibid. A. x. p. 993, a. 15: ψελλιζομένῃ γὰρ ἔοικεν ἡ πρώτη φιλοσοφία περὶ πάντων, ἅτε νέα τε κατ’ ἀρχὰς οὖσα καὶ τὸ πρῶτον.

[62] Aristot. Metaph. α. i. p. 993, b. 6: τὸ ὅλον τι ἔχειν καὶ μέρος μὴ δύνασθαι δηλοῖ τὸ χαλεπὸν αὐτῆς (τῆς περὶ τῆς ἀληθείας θεωρίας).

Alexander ap. Schol. p. 104, Bonitz: εἰς ἔννοιαν μὲν τοῦ ὅλου καὶ ἐπίστασιν πάντας ἐλθεῖν, μηδὲν δὲ μέρος αὐτῆς ἐξακριβώσασθαι δυνηθῆναι, δηλοῖ τὸ χαλεπὸν αὐτῆς.

Aristotle indicates how much the Philosophia Prima of his earlier predecessors was uncongenial to and at variance with phenomenal experience — Metaphys. A. v. p. 986, b. 31.

To shape their theories in such a way — τὰ φαινόμενα εἰ μέλλει τις ἀποδώσειν (Metaphys. Λ. viii. p. 1073, b. 36), was an obligation which philosophers hardly felt incumbent on them prior to the Aristotelian age. Compare Simplikius (ad. Aristot. Physic. I.), p. 328, a. 1-26, Schol. Br.; Schol. (ad. Aristot. De CÅ“lo III. I.) p. 509, a. 26-p. 510, a. 13.

The drift of the Sokratic procedure was to bring men into the habit of defining those universal terms which they had hitherto used undefined, the definitions being verified by induction of particulars as the ultimate authority. It was a procedure built upon common speech, but improving on common speech; the talk of every man being in propositions, each including a subject and predicate, but neither subject nor predicate being ever defined. It was the mission of Sokrates to make men painfully sensible of that deficiency, as well as to enforce upon them the inductive evidence by which alone it could be rectified. Now the Analytic and Dialectic of Aristotle grew directly out of this Sokratic procedure, and out of the Platonic dialogues in so far as they enforced and illustrated it. When Sokrates had supplied the negative stimulus and indication of what was amiss, together with the appeal to Induction as final authority, Aristotle furnished, or did much to furnish, the positive analysis and complementary precepts, necessary to clear up, justify, and assure the march of reasoned truth.[63] What Aristotle calls the syllogistic principia, or the principles of syllogistic demonstration, are nothing else than the steps towards reasoned truth, and the precautions against those fallacious appearances that simulate it. The steps are stated in their most general terms, as involving both Deduction and Induction; though in Aristotle we find the deductive portion copiously unfolded and classified, while Induction, though recognized as the only verifying foundation of the whole, is left without expansion or illustration.

[63] Though the theorizing and the analysis of Aristotle presuppose and recognize the Sokratic procedure, yet, if we read the Xenophontic Memorabilia, IV. vii., and compare therewith the first two chapters of Aristotle’s Metaphysica, in which he describes and extols Philosophia Prima, we shall see how radically antipathetic were the two points of view: Sokrates confining himself to practical results — μέχρι τοῦ ὠφελιμοῦ; Aristotle extolling Philosophia Prima, because it soars above practical results, and serves as its own reward, elevating the philosopher to a partial communion with the contemplative self-sufficiency of the Gods. Indeed the remark of Aristotle, p. 983, a. 1-6, denying altogether the jealousy ascribed to the Gods, &c., is almost a reply to the opinion expressed by Sokrates, that a man by such overweening researches brought upon himself the displeasure of the Gods, as prying into their secrets (Xen. Mem. IV. vii. 6; I. i. 12).

If we go through the Sokratic conversations as reported in the Memorabilia of Xenophon, we shall find illustration of what has been just stated: we shall see Sokrates recognizing and following the common speech of men, in propositions combining subject and predicate; but trying to fix the meaning of both these terms, and to test the consistency of the universal predications by appeal to particulars. The syllogizing and the inductive processes are exhibited both of them in actual work on particular points of discussion. Now on these processes Aristotle brings his analysis to bear, eliciting and enunciating in general terms their principia and their conditions. We have seen that he expressly declares the analysis of these principia to belong to First Philosophy.[64] And thus it is that First Philosophy as conceived by Aristotle, acknowledges among its fundamenta the habits of common Hellenic speech; subject only to correction and control by the Sokratic cross-examining and testing discipline. He stands distinguished among the philosophers for the respectful attention with which he collects and builds upon the beliefs actually prevalent among mankind.[65] Herein as well as in other respects his First Philosophy not only differed from that of all the pre-Sokratic philosophers (such as Herakleitus, Parmenides, Anaxagoras, &c.) by explaining the principia of Analytic and Dialectic as well as those of Physics and Physiology, but it also differed from that of the post-Sokratic and semi-Sokratic Plato, by keeping up a closer communion both with Sokrates and with common speech. Though Plato in his Dialogues of Search appears to apply the inductive discipline of Sokrates, and to handle the Universal as referable to and dependent upon its particulars; yet the Platonic Philosophia Prima proceeds upon a view totally different. It is a fusion of Parmenides with Herakleitus;[66] divorcing the Universal altogether from its particulars; treating the Universal as an independent reality and as the only permanent reality; negating the particulars as so many unreal, evanescent, ever-changing copies or shadows thereof. Aristotle expressly intimates his dissent from the divorce or separation thus introduced by Plato. He proclaims his adherence to the practice of Sokrates, which kept the two elements together, and which cognized particulars as the ultimate reality and test for the Universal.[67] Upon this doctrine his First Philosophy is built: being distinguished hereby from all the other varieties broached by either his predecessors or contemporaries.

[64] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. iii. p. 1005, a. 19-b. 11.

[65] See Aristot. De Divinat. per Somnum, i. p. 462, b. 15; De CÅ“lo, I. iii. p. 270, b. 3, 20; Metaphys. A. ii. p. 982, a. 4-14. Alexander ap. Scholia, p. 525, b. 36, Br.: ἐν πᾶσιν ἔθος ἀεὶ ταῖς κοιναῖς καὶ φυσικαῖς τῶν ἀνθρώπων προλήψεσιν ἀρχαῖς εἰς τὰ δεικνύμενα πρὸς αὐτοῦ χρῆσθαι.

[66] Aristot. Metaph. A. vi. p. 987, a. 32; M. iv. p. 1078, b. 12. That Plato’s Philosophia Prima involved a partial coincidence with that of Herakleitus is here distinctly announced by Aristotle: that it also included an intimate conjunction or fusion of Parmenides with Herakleitus is made out in the ingenious Dissertation of Herbart, De Platonici Systematis Fundamento, Göttingen (1805), which winds up with the following epigrammatic sentence as result (p. 50):— “Divide Heracliti γένεσιν οὐσίᾳ Parmenidis, et habebis Ideas Platonicas.â€� Compare Plato, Republic VII. p. 515, seq.

[67] Aristot. Metaph. M. iv. p. 1078, b. 17, seq.; ix. p. 1086, a. 37: τὰ μὲν οὖν ἐν τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς καθ’ ἕκαστα ῥεῖν ἐνόμιζον (Platonici) καὶ μένειν οὐθὲν αὐτῶν, τὸ δὲ καθόλου παρὰ ταῦτα εἶναί τε καὶ ἕτερόν τι εἶναι. τοῦτο δ’, ὥσπερ ἐν τοῖς ἔμπροσθεν ἐλέγομεν, ἐκίνησε μὲν Σωκράτης διὰ τοὺς ὁρισμούς, οὐ μὴν ἐχώρισέ γε τῶν καθ’ ἕκαστον. καὶ τοῦτο ὀρθῶς ἐνόησεν οὐ χωρίσας.

The Maxim of Contradiction, which Aristotle proclaims as the first and firmest principium of syllogizing, may be found perpetually applied to particular cases throughout the Memorabilia of Xenophon and the Sokratic dialogues of Plato. Indeed the Elenchus for which Sokrates was so distinguished, is nothing more than an ever-renewed and ingenious application of it; illustrating the painful and humiliating effect produced even upon common minds by the shock of a plain contradiction, when a respondent, having at first confidently laid down some universal affirmative, finds himself unexpectedly compelled to admit, in some particular case, the contradictory negative. As against a Herakleitean, who saw no difficulty in believing both sides of the contradiction to be true at once, the Sokratic Elenchus would have been powerless. What Aristotle did was, to abstract and elicit the general rules of the process; to classify propositions according to their logical value, in such manner that he could formulate clearly the structure of the two propositions between which an exact contradictory antitheses subsisted. The important logical distinctions between propositions contradictory and propositions contrary, was first clearly enunciated by Aristotle; and, until this had been done, the Maxim of Contradiction could not have been laid down in a defensible manner. Indeed we may remark that, while this Maxim is first promulgated as a formula of First Philosophy in Book Γ. of the Metaphysica, it had already been tacitly assumed and applied by Aristotle throughout the De Interpretatione, Analytica, and Topica, as if it were obvious and uncontested. The First Philosophy of Aristotle was adapted to the conditions of ordinary colloquy as amended and tested by Sokrates, furnishing the theoretical basis of his practical Logic.

But, as Aristotle tells us, there were several philosophers and dialecticians who did not recognize the Maxim; maintaining that the same proposition might be at once true and false — that it was possible for the same thing both to be and not to be. How is he to deal with these opponents? He admits that he cannot demonstrate the Maxim against them, and that any attempt to do this would involve Petitio Principii. But he contends for the possibility of demonstrating it in a peculiar way — refutatively or indirectly; that is, provided that the opponents can be induced to grant (not indeed the truth of any proposition, to the exclusion of its contradictory antithesis, which concession he admits would involve Petitio Principii, but) the fixed and uniform signification of terms and propositions. Aristotle contends that the opponents ought to grant thus much, under penalty of being excluded from discussion as incapables or mere plants.[68] I do not imagine that the opponents themselves would have felt obliged to grant as much as he here demands. The onus probandi lay upon him, as advancing a positive theory; and he would have found his indirect or refutative demonstration not more available in convincing them than a direct or ordinary demonstration. Against respondents who proclaim as their thesis the negative of the Maxim of Contradiction, refutation and demonstration are equally impossible. No dialectical discussion could ever lead to any result; for you can never prove more against them than what their own thesis unequivocally avows.[69] As against Herakleitus and Anaxagoras, I do not think that Aristotle’s qualified vindication of the Maxim has any effective bearing.

[68] Aristot. Metaph. Γ. iv. p. 1006, a. 11, seq.

[69] Ibid. a. 26: ἀναιρῶν γὰρ λόγον ὑπομένει λόγον. — p. 1008, a. 30.

But Aristotle is quite right in saying that neither dialectical debate nor demonstration can be carried on unless terms and propositions be defined, and unless to each term there be assigned one special signification, or a limited number of special significations — excluding a certain number of others. This demand for definitions, and also the multiplied use of inductive interrogations, keeping the Universal implicated with and dependent upon its particulars — are the innovations which Aristotle expressly places to the credit of Sokrates. The Sokratic Elenchus operated by first obtaining from the respondent a definition, and then testing it through a variety of particulars: when the test brought out a negative as against the pre-asserted affirmative, the contradiction between the two was felt as an intellectual shock by the respondent, rendering it impossible to believe both at once; and the unrivalled acuteness of Sokrates was exhibited in rendering such shock peculiarly pungent and humiliating. But the Sokratic Elenchus presupposes this psychological fact, common to most minds, ordinary as well as superior, — the intellectual shock felt when incompatible beliefs are presented to the mind at once. If the collocutors of Sokrates had not been so constituted by nature, the magic of his colloquy would have been unfelt and inoperative. Against a Herakleitean, who professed to feel no difficulty in believing both sides of a contradiction at once, he could have effected nothing: and if not he, still less any other dialectician. Proof and disproof, as distinguished one from the other, would have had no meaning; dialectical debate would have led to no result.

Thus, then, although Aristotle was the first to enunciate the Maxim of Contradiction in general terms, after having previously originated that logical distinction of contrary and contradictory Propositions and doctrine of legitimate Antiphasis which rendered such enunciation possible, — yet, when he tries to uphold it against dissentients, it cannot be said that he has correctly estimated the logical position of those whom he was opposing, or the real extent to which the defence of the Maxim can be carried without incurring the charge of Petitio Principii. As against Protagoras, no defence was needed, for the Protagorean “Homo Mensura� is not incompatible with the Maxim of Contradiction; while, as against Herakleitus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, &c., no defence was practicable, and the attempt of Aristotle to construct one appears to me a failure. All that can be really done in the way of defence is, to prove the Maxim in its general enunciation by an appeal to particular cases: if your opponent is willing to grant these particular cases, you establish the general Maxim against him by way of Induction; if he will not grant them, you cannot prove the general Maxim at all. Suppose you are attempting to prove to an Herakleitean that an universal affirmative and its contradictory particular negative cannot be both true at once. You begin by asking him about particular cases, Whether it is possible that the two propositions — All men are mortal, and, Some men are not mortal — can both be true at once? If he admits that these two propositions cannot both be true at once, if he admits the like with regard to other similar pairs of contradictories, and if he can suggest no similar pair in which both propositions are true at once, then you may consider yourself as having furnished a sufficient inductive proof, and you may call upon him to admit the Maxim of Contradiction in its general enunciation. But, if he will not admit it in the particular cases which you tender, or if, while admitting it in these, he himself can tender other cases in which he considers it inadmissible, then you have effected nothing sufficient to establish the general Maxim against him. The case is not susceptible of any other or better proof. It is in vain that Aristotle tries to diversify the absurdity, and to follow it out into collateral absurd consequences. If the Herakleitean does not feel any repulsive shock of contradiction in a definite particular case, if he directly announces that he believes the two propositions to be both at once true, then the collateral inconsistencies and derivative absurdities, which Aristotle multiplies against him, will not shock him more than the direct contradiction in its naked form. Neither the general reasoning of Aristotle, nor the Elenchus of Sokrates brought to bear in particular cases, would make any impression upon him; since he will not comply with either of the two conditions required for the Sokratic Elenchus: he will neither declare definitions, nor give suitable point and sequence to inductive interrogatories.

Nor is anything gained, as Aristotle supposes, by reminding the Herakleitean of his own practice in the daily concerns of life and in conversation with common persons: that he feeds himself with bread to-day, in the confidence that it has the same properties as it had yesterday;[70] that, if he wishes either to give or to obtain information, the speech which he utters or that which he acts upon must be either affirmative or negative. He will admit that he acts in this way, but he will tell you that he has no certainty of being right; that the negative may be true as well as the affirmative. He will grant that there is an inconsistency between such acts of detail and the principles of the Herakleitean doctrine, which recognize no real stability of any thing, but only perpetual flux or process; but inconsistency in detail will not induce him to set aside his principles. The truth is, that neither Herakleitus, nor Parmenides, nor Anaxagoras, nor Pythagoras, gave themselves much trouble to reconcile Philosophy with facts of detail. Each fastened upon some grand and impressive primary hypothesis, illustrated it by a few obvious facts in harmony therewith, and disregarded altogether the mass of contradictory facts. That a favourite hypothesis should contradict physical details, was noway shocking to them. Both the painful feeling accompanying that shock, and the disposition to test the value of the hypothesis by its consistency with inductive details, became first developed and attended to in the dialectical age, mainly through the working of Sokrates. The Analytic and the First Philosophy of Aristotle were constructed after the time of Sokrates, and with regard, in a very great degree, to the Sokratic tests and conditions — to the indispensable necessity for definite subjects and predicates, capable of standing the inductive scrutiny of particulars. In this respect the Philosophia Prima of Aristotle stands distinguished from that of any of the earlier philosophers, and even from that of Plato. He departed from Plato by recognizing the Hoc Aliquid or the definite Individual, with its essential Predicates, as the foundation of the Universal, and by applying his analytical factors of Form and Matter to the intellectual generation of the Individual (τὸ σύνολον — τὸ συναμφότερον); and thus he devised a First Philosophy conformable to the habits of common speech as rectified by the critical scrutiny of Sokrates. We shall see this in the next Chapter. * * * *

[70] Aristot. Metaph. K. vi. p. 1063, a. 31.

[The Author’s MS. breaks off here. What follows on the next page, as Chapter XII, is the exposition of Aristotle’s Psychology, originally contributed to the third edition of Professor Bain’s work ‘The Senses and the Intellect,’ in 1868.]

[CHAPTER XII.]

DE ANIMÂ, ETC.

To understand Aristotle’s Psychology, we must look at it in comparison with the views of other ancient Greek philosophers on the same subject, as far as our knowledge will permit. Of these ancient philosophers, none have been preserved to us except Plato, and to a certain extent Epikurus, reckoning the poem of Lucretius as a complement to the epistolary remnants of Epikurus himself. The predecessors of Aristotle (apart from Plato) are known only through small fragments from themselves, and imperfect notices by others; among which notices the best are from Aristotle himself.

In the Timæus of Plato we find Psychology, in a very large and comprehensive sense, identified with Kosmology. The Kosmos, a scheme of rotatory spheres, has both a soul and a body: of the two, the soul is the prior, grander, and predominant, though both of them are constructed or put together by the Divine Architect or Demiurgus. The kosmical soul, rooted at the centre, and stretched from thence through and around the whole, is endued with self-movement, and with the power of initiating movement in the kosmical body; moreover, being cognitive as well as motive, it includes in itself three ingredients mixed together:—(1) The Same — the indivisible and unchangeable essence of Ideas; (2) The Diverse — the Plural — the divisible bodies or elements; (3) A Compound, formed of both these ingredients melted into one. As the kosmical soul is intended to know all the three — Idem, Diversum, and Idem with Diversum in one, so it must comprise in its own nature all the three ingredients, according to the received Axiom — Like knows like — Like is known by Like. The ingredients are blended together according to a scale of harmonic proportion. The element Idem is placed in an even and undivided rotation of the outer or sidereal sphere of the Kosmos; the element Diversum is distributed among the rotations, all oblique, of the seven interior planetary spheres, that is, the five planets, with the Sun and Moon. Impressions of identity and diversity, derived either from the ideal and indivisible, or from the sensible and divisible, are thus circulated by the kosmical soul throughout its own entire range, yet without either voice or sound. Reason and Science are propagated by the circle of Idem: Sense and Opinion, by those of Diversum. When these last-mentioned circles are in right movement, the opinions circulated are true and trustworthy.[1]

[1] See this doctrine of the Timæus more fully expounded in ‘Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates,’ III. xxxvi. [pp. 250-256], seq.

It is thus that Plato begins his Psychology with Kosmology: the Kosmos is in his view a divine immortal being or animal, composed of a spherical rotatory body and a rational soul, cognitive as well as motive. Among the tenants of this Kosmos are included, not only gods, who dwell in the peripheral or celestial regions, but also men, birds, quadrupeds, and fishes. These four inhabit the more central or lower regions of air, earth, and water. In describing men and the inferior animals, Plato takes his departure from the divine Kosmos, and proceeds downwards by successive stages of increasing degeneracy and corruption. The cranium of man was constructed as a little Kosmos, including in itself an immortal rational soul, composed of the same materials, though diluted and adulterated, as the kosmical soul; and moving with the like rotations, though disturbed and irregular, suited to a rational soul. This cranium, for wise purposes which Plato indicates, was elevated by the gods upon a tall body, with attached limbs for motion in different directions — forward, backward, upward, downward, to the right and left.[2] Within this body were included two inferior and mortal souls: one in the thoracic region near the heart, the other lower down, below the diaphragm, in the abdominal region; but both of them fastened or rooted in the spinal marrow or cord, which formed a continuous line with the brain above. These two souls were both emotional; the higher or thoracic soul being the seat of courage, energy, anger, &c., while to the lower or abdominal soul belonged appetite, desires, love of gain, &c. Both of them were intended as companions and adjuncts, yet in the relation of dependence and obedience, to the rational soul in the cranium above; which, though unavoidably debased and perturbed by such unworthy companionship, was protected partially against the contagion by the difference of location, the neck being built up as an isthmus of separation between the two. The thoracic soul, the seat of courage, was placed nearer to the head, in order that it might be the medium for transmitting influence from the cranial soul above, to the abdominal soul below; which last was at once the least worthy and the most difficult to control. The heart, being the initial point of the veins, received the orders and inspirations of the cranial soul, transmitting them onward through its many blood-channels to all the sensitive parts of the body; which were thus rendered obedient, as far as possible, to the authority of man’s rational nature.[3] The unity or communication of the three souls was kept up through the continuity of the cerebro-spinal column.

[2] Plato, Timæus, p. 44, E.; ‘Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.’, III. xxxvi. [p. 264].

[3] Plato, Timæus, p. 70; ‘Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.’, III. [pp. 271-272].

But, though by these arrangements the higher soul in the cranium was enabled to control to a certain extent its inferior allies, it was itself much disturbed and contaminated by their reaction. The violence of passion and appetite, the constant processes of nutrition and sensation pervading the whole body, the multifarious movements of the limbs and trunk, in all varieties of direction, — these causes all contributed to agitate and to confuse the rotations of the cranial soul, perverting the arithmetical proportions and harmony belonging to them. The circles of Same and Diverse were made to convey false information; and the soul, for some time after its first junction with the body, became destitute of intelligence.[4] In mature life, indeed, the violence of the disturbing causes abates, and the man may become more and more intelligent, especially if placed under appropriate training and education. But in many cases no such improvement took place, and the rational soul of man was irrecoverably spoiled; so that new and worse breeds were formed, by successive steps of degeneracy. The first stage, and the least amount of degeneracy, was exhibited in the formation of woman; the original type of man not having included diversity of sex. By farther steps of degradation, in different ways, the inferior animals were formed — birds, quadrupeds, and fishes.[5] In each of these, the rational soul became weaker and worse; its circular rotations ceased with the disappearance of the spherical cranium, and animal appetites with sensational agitations were left without control. As man, with his two emotional souls and body joined on to the rational soul and cranium, was a debased copy of the perfect rational soul and spherical body of the divine Kosmos, so the other inhabitants of the Kosmos proceeded from still farther debasement and disrationalization of the original type of man.

[4] Plato, Timæus, pp. 43-44; ‘Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.’, III. [pp. 262-264].

[5] Plato, Timæus, p. 91; ‘Plato and Other Comp. of Sokr.’, [pp. 281-282].

Such is the view of Psychology given by Plato in the Timæus; beginning with the divine Kosmos, and passing downwards from thence to the triple soul of man, as well as to the various still lower successors of degenerated man. It is to be remarked that Plato, though he puts soul as prior to body in dignity and power, and as having for its functions to control and move body, yet always conceives soul as attached to body, and never as altogether detached, not even in the divine Kosmos. The soul, in Plato’s view, is self-moving and self-moved: it is both Primum Mobile in itself, and Primum Movens as to the body; it has itself the corporeal properties of being extended and moved, and it has body implicated with it besides.

The theory above described, in so far as it attributes to the soul rational constituent elements (Idem, Diversum), continuous magnitude, and circular rotations, was peculiar to Plato, and is criticized by Aristotle as the peculiarity of his master.[6] But several other philosophers agreed with Plato in considering self-motion, together with motive causality and faculties perceptive and cognitive, to be essential characteristics of soul. Alkmæon declared the soul to be in perpetual motion, like all the celestial bodies; hence it was also immortal, as they were.[7] Herakleitus described it as the subtlest of elements, and as perpetually fluent; hence it was enabled to know other things, all of which were in flux and change. Diogenes of Apollonia affirmed that the element constituent of soul was air, at once mobile, all-penetrating, and intelligent. Demokritus declared that among the infinite diversity of atoms those of spherical figure were the constituents both of the element fire and of the soul: the spherical atoms were by reason of their figure the most apt and rapid in moving; it was their nature never to be at rest, and they imparted motion to everything else.[8] Anaxagoras affirmed soul to be radically and essentially distinct from every thing else, but to be the great primary source of motion, and to be endued with cognitive power, though at the same time not suffering impressions from without.[9] Empedokles considered soul to be a compound of the four elements — fire, water, air, earth; with love and hatred as principles of motion, the former producing aggregation of elements, the latter, disgregation: by means of each element the soul became cognizant of the like element in the Kosmos. Some Pythagoreans looked upon the soul as an aggregate of particles of extreme subtlety, which pervaded the air and were in perpetual agitation. Other Pythagoreans, however, declared it to be an harmonious or proportional mixture of contrary elements and qualities; hence its universality of cognition, extending to all.[10]

[6] Aristot. De Animâ, I. iii. p. 407, a. 2.

[7] Ibid. ii. p. 405, a. 29.

[8] Ibid. p. 404, a. 8; p. 405, a. 22; p. 406, b. 17.

[9] Ibid. p. 405, a. 13, b. 19.

[10] Aristot. De Animâ, I. ii. p. 404, a. 16; p. 407, b. 27.

A peculiar theory was delivered by Xenokrates (who, having been fellow-pupil with Aristotle under Plato, afterwards conducted the Platonic School, during all the time that Aristotle taught at the Lykeium), which Aristotle declares to involve greater difficulty than any of the others. Xenokrates described the soul as “a number (a monad or indivisible unit) moving itself.�[11] He retained the self-moving property which Plato had declared to be characteristic of the soul, while he departed from Plato’s doctrine of a soul with continuous extension. He thus fell back upon the Pythagorean idea of number as the fundamental essence. Aristotle impugns, as alike untenable, both the two properties here alleged — number and self-motion. If the monad both moves and is moved (he argues), it cannot be indivisible; if it be moved, it must have position, or must be a point; but the motion of a point is a line, without any of that variety that constitutes life. How can the soul be a monad? or, if it be, what difference can exist between one soul and another, since monads cannot differ from each other except in position? How comes it that some bodies have souls and others not? and how, upon this theory, can we explain the fact that many animated bodies, both plants and animals, will remain alive after being divided, the monadic soul thus exhibiting itself as many and diverse? Besides, the monad set up by Xenokrates is hardly distinguishable from the highly attenuated body or spherical atom recognized by Demokritus as the origin or beginning of bodily motion.[12]

[11] Ibid. iv. p. 408, b. 32.

[12] Ibid. p. 409, b. 12.

These and other arguments are employed by Aristotle to refute the theory of Xenokrates. In fact, he rejects all the theories then current. After having dismissed the self-motor doctrine, he proceeds to impugn the views of those who declared the soul to be a compound of all the four elements, in order that they might account for its percipient and cognitive faculties upon the maxim then very generally admitted[13] — That like is perceived and known by like. This theory, the principal champion of which was Empedokles, appears to Aristotle inadmissible. You say (he remarks) that like knows like; how does this consist with your other doctrine, that like cannot act upon, or suffer from, like, especially as you consider that both in perception and in cognition the percipient and cognizant suffers or is acted upon?[14] Various parts of the cognizant subject, such as bone, hair, ligaments, &c., are destitute of perception and cognition; how then can we know anything about bone, hair, and ligaments, since we cannot know them by like?[15] Suppose the soul to be compounded of all the four elements; this may explain how it comes to know the four elements, themselves, but not how it comes to know all the combinations of the four; now innumerable combinations of the four are comprised among the cognita. We must assume that the soul contains in itself not merely the four elements, but also the laws or definite proportions wherein they can combine; and this is affirmed by no one.[16] Moreover, Ens is an equivocal, or at least a multivocal, term; there are Entia belonging to each of the ten Categories. Now the soul cannot include in itself all the ten, for the different Categories have no elements in common; in whichever Category you rank the soul, it will know (by virtue of likeness) the cognita belonging to that category, but it will not know the cognita belonging to the other nine.[17] Besides, even if we grant that the soul includes all the four elements, where is the cementing principle that combines all the four into one? The elements are merely matter; and what holds them together must be the really potent principle of soul; but of this no explanation is given.[18]

[13] Ibid. v. p. 409, b. 29.

[14] Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 410, a. 25.

[15] Ibid. a. 30.

[16] Ibid. p. 409, b. 28; p. 410, a. 12.

[17] Ibid. p. 410, a. 20.

[18] Ibid. p. 410, b. 10.

Some philosophers have assumed (continues Aristotle) that soul pervades the whole Kosmos and its elements; and that it is inhaled by animals in respiration along with the air.[19] They forget that all plants, and even some animals, live without respiring at all; moreover, upon this theory, air and fire also, as possessing soul, and what is said to be a better soul, ought (if the phrase were permitted) to be regarded as animals. The soul of air or fire must be homogeneous in its parts; the souls of animals are not homogeneous, but involve several distinct parts or functions.[20] The soul perceives, cogitates, opines, feels, desires, repudiates; farther, it moves the body locally, and brings about the growth and decay of the body. Here we have a new mystery:[21] — Is the whole soul engaged in the performance of each of these functions, or has it a separate part exclusively consecrated to each? If so, how many are the parts? Some philosophers (Plato among them) declare the soul to be divided, and that one part cogitates and cognizes, while another part desires. But upon that supposition what is it that holds these different parts together? Certainly not the body (which is Plato’s theory); on the contrary, it is the soul that holds together the body; for, as soon as the soul is gone, the body rots and disappears.[22] If there be anything that keeps together the divers parts of the soul as one, that something must be the true and fundamental soul; and we ought not to speak of the soul as having parts, but as essentially one and indivisible, with several distinct faculties. Again, if we are to admit parts of the soul, does each part hold together a special part of the body, as the entire soul holds together the entire body? This seems impossible; for what part of the body can the Noûs or Intellect (e.g.) be imagined to hold together? And, besides, several kinds of plants and of animals may be divided, yet so that each of the separate parts shall still continue to live; hence it is plain that the soul in each separate part is complete and homogeneous.[23]

[19] Ibid. ii. p. 404, a. 9: τοῦ ζῆν ὅρον εἶναι τὴν ἀναπνοήν, &c. Compare the doctrine of Demokritus.

[20] Ibid. v. p. 411, a. 1, 8, 16.

[21] Ibid. a. 30.

[22] Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 411, b. 8.

[23] Ibid. b. 15-27.

Aristotle thus rejects all the theories proposed by antecedent philosophers, but more especially the two following:—That the soul derives its cognitive powers from the fact of being compounded of the four elements; That the soul is self-moved. He pronounces it incorrect to say that the soul is moved at all.[24] He farther observes that none of the philosophers have kept in view either the full meaning or all the varieties of soul; and that none of these defective theories suffices for the purpose that every good and sufficient theory ought to serve, viz., not merely to define the essence of the soul, but also to define it in such a manner that the concomitant functions and affections of the soul shall all be deducible from it.[25] Lastly, he points out that most of his predecessors had considered that the prominent characteristics of soul were — to be motive and to be percipient:[26] while, in his opinion, neither of these two characteristics is universal or fundamental.

[24] Ibid. a. 25.

[25] Ibid. i. p. 402, b. 16, seq.; v. p. 409, b. 15.

[26] Ibid. ii. p. 403, b. 30.

Aristotle requires that a good theory of the soul shall explain alike the lowest vegetable soul, and the highest functions of the human or divine soul. And, in commenting on those theorists who declared that the essence of soul consisted in movement, he remarks that their theory fails altogether in regard to the Noûs (or cogitative and intellective faculty of the human soul); the operation of which bears far greater analogy to rest or suspension of movement than to movement itself.[27]

[27] Aristot. De Animâ, I. iii. p. 407, a. 32: ἔτι δ’ ἡ νόησις ἔοικεν ἠρεμήσει τινὶ ἢ ἐπιστάσει μᾶλλον ἢ κινήσει.

We shall now proceed to state how Aristotle steers clear (or at least believes himself to steer clear) of the defects that he has pointed out in the psychological theories of his predecessors. Instead of going back (like Empedokles, Plato, and others) to a time when the Kosmos did not yet exist, and giving us an hypothesis to explain how its parts came together or were put together, he takes the facts and objects of the Kosmos as they stand, and distributes them according to distinctive marks alike obvious, fundamental, and pervading; after which he seeks a mode of explanation in the principles of his own First Philosophy or Ontology. Whoever had studied the Organon and the Physica of Aristotle (apparently intended to be read prior to the treatise De Animâ) would be familiar with his distribution of Entia into ten Categories, of which Essence or Substance was the first and the fundamental. Of these Essences or Substances the most complete and recognized were physical or natural bodies; and among such bodies one of the most striking distinctions, was between those that had life and those that had it not. By life, Aristotle means keeping up the processes of nutrition, growth, and decay.[28]

[28] Ibid. II i. p. 412, a. 11: οὐσίαι δὲ μάλιστ’ εἶναι δοκοῦσι τὰ σώματα, καὶ τούτων τὰ φυσικά· τῶν δὲ φυσικῶν τὰ μὲν ἔχει ζωήν, τὰ δ’ οὐκ ἔχει· ζωὴν δὲ λέγω, τὴν δι’ αὐτοῦ τροφὴν καὶ αὔξησιν καὶ φθίσιν.

“To live� (Aristotle observes) is a term used in several different meanings; whatever possesses any one of the following four properties is said to live:[29] (1) Intellect, (2) Sensible perception, (3) Local movement and rest, (4) Internal movement of nutrition, growth, and decay. But of these four the last is the only one common to all living bodies without exception; it is the foundation presupposed by the other three. It is the only one possessed by plants,[30] and common to all plants as well as to all animals — to all animated bodies.

[29] Ibid. ii. p. 413, a. 22: πλεοναχῶς δὲ τοῦ ζῆν λεγομένου, κἂν ἕν τι τούτων ἐνυπάρχῃ μόνον, ζῆν αὐτό φαμεν, &c.

[30] Ibid. I. v. p. 411, b. 27, ad fin.

What is the animating principle belonging to each of these bodies, and what is the most general definition of it? Such is the problem that Aristotle states to himself about the soul.[31] He explains it by a metaphysical distinction first introduced (apparently) by himself into Philosophia Prima. He considers Substance or Essence as an ideal compound; not simply as clothed with all the accidents described in the nine last Categories, but also as being analysable in itself, even apart from these accidents, into two abstract, logical, or notional elements or principia — Form and Matter. This distinction is borrowed from the most familiar facts of the sensible world — the shape of solid objects. When we see or feel a cube of wax, we distinguish the cubic shape from the waxen material;[32] we may find the like shape in many other materials — wood, stone, &c.; we may find the like material in many different shapes — sphere, pyramid, &c.; but the matter has always some shape, and the shape has always some matter. We can name and reason about the matter, without attending to the shape, or distinguishing whether it be cube or sphere; we can name and reason about the shape, without attending to the material shaped, or to any of its various peculiarities. But this, though highly useful, is a mere abstraction or notional distinction. There can be no real separation between the two: no shape without some solid material; no solid material without some shape. The two are correlates; each of them implying the other, and neither of them admitting of being realized or actualized without the other.

[31] Ibid. II. p. 413, b. 11: ἡ ψυχὴ τῶν εἰρημένων τούτων ἀρχή. — Ibid. I. p. 412, a. 5: τίς ἂν εἴη κοινότατος λόγος αὐτῆς.

[32] Aristot. De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, b. 7: τὸν κηρὸν καὶ τὸ σχῆμα.

This distinction of Form and Matter is one of the capital features of Aristotle’s Philosophia Prima. He expands it and diversifies it in a thousand ways, often with subtleties very difficult to follow; but the fundamental import of it is seldom lost — two correlates inseparably implicated in fact and reality in every concrete individual that has received a substantive name, yet logically separable and capable of being named and considered apart from each other. The Aristotelian analysis thus brings out, in regard to each individual substance (or Hoc Aliquid, to use his phrase), a triple point of view: (1) The Form; (2) The Matter; (3) The compound or aggregate of the two — in other words, the inseparable Ens, which carries us out of the domain of logic or abstraction into that of the concrete or reality.[33]

[33] Aristot. Metaphys. Z. iii. p. 1029, a. 1-34; De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, a. 6; p. 414, a. 15.

In the first book of the Physica, Aristotle pushes this analysis yet further, introducing three principia instead of two:—(1 ) Form, (2) Matter, (3) Privation (of Form); he gives a distinct general name to the negation as well as to the affirmation; he provides a sign minus as counter-denomination to the sign plus. But he intimates that this is only the same analysis more minutely discriminated, or in a different point of view: διὸ ἔστι μὲν ὡς δύο λεκτέον εἶναι τὰς ἀρχάς, ἔστι δ’ ὡς τρεῖς (Phys. I. vii. p. 190, b. 29).

Materia Prima (Aristotle says, Phys. I. vii. p. 191, a. 8) is “knowable only by analogy� — i.e., explicable only by illustrative examples: as the brass is to the statue, as the wood is to the couch, &c.; natural substances being explained from works of art, as is frequent with Aristotle.

Aristotle farther recognizes, between these two logical correlates, a marked difference of rank. The Form stands first, the Matter second, — not in time, but in notional presentation. The Form is higher, grander, prior in dignity and esteem, more Ens, or more nearly approaching to perfect entity; the Matter is lower, meaner, posterior in dignity, farther removed from that perfection. The conception of wax, plaster, wood, &c., without amy definite or determinate shape, is confused and unimpressive; but a name, connoting some definite shape, at once removes this confusion, and carries with it mental pre-eminence, alike as to phantasy, memory, and science. In the logical hierarchy of Aristotle, Matter is the inferior and Form the superior;[34] yet neither of the two can escape from its relative character: Form requires Matter for its correlate, and is nothing in itself or apart,[35] just as much as Matter requires Form; though from the inferior dignity of Matter we find it more frequently described as the second or correlate, while Form is made to stand forward as the relatum. For complete reality, we want the concrete individual having the implication of both; while, in regard to each of the constituents per se, no separate real existence can be affirmed, but only a nominal or logical separation.

[34] Aristot. De Gener. Animal. II. i. p. 729, a. 10. Matter and Form are here compared to the female and the male — to mother and father. Form is a cause operative, Matter a cause co-operative, though both are alike indispensable to full reality. Compare Physic. I. ix. p. 192, a. 13: ἡ μὲν γὰρ ὑπομένουσα συναιτία τῇ μορφῇ τῶν γινομένων ἐστίν, ὥσπερ μήτηρ· — ἀλλὰ τοῦτ’ ἔστιν ἡ ὕλη, ὥσπερ ἂν εἰ θῆλυ ἄῤῥενος καὶ αἰσχρὸν καλοῦ (ἐφίετο). — De Partibus Animalium, I. i. p. 640, b. 28: ἡ γὰρ κατὰ τὴν μορφὴν φύσις κυριωτέρα τῆς ὑλικῆς φύσεως.

Metaphys. Z. iii. p. 1029, a. 5: τὸ εἶδος τῆς ὕλης πρότερον καὶ μᾶλλον ὄν — p. 1039, a. 1.

See in Schwegler, pp. 13, 42, 83, Part II. of his Commentary on the Aristotelian Metaphysica.

[35] Aristot. Metaph. Z. viii. p. 1033, b. 10, seq.

This difference of rank between Matter and Form — that the first is inferior and the last the superior — is sometimes so much put in the foreground, that the two are conceived in a different manner and under other names, as Potential and Actual. Matter is the potential, imperfect, inchoate, which the supervening Form actualizes into the perfect and complete; a transition from half-reality to entire reality or act. The Potential is the undefined or indeterminate[36] — what may be or may not be — what is not yet actual, and may perhaps never become so, but is prepared to pass into actuality when the energizing principle comes to aid. In this way of putting the antithesis, the Potential is not so much implicated with the Actual as merged and suppressed to make room for the Actual: it is as a half-grown passing into a full-grown; being itself essential as a preliminary stage in the order of logical generation.[37] The three logical divisions — Matter, Form, and the resulting Compound or Concrete (τὸ σύνολον, τὸ συνειλημμένον), are here compressed into two — the Potential and the Actualization thereof. Actuality (ἐνέργεια, ἐντελέχεια) coincides in meaning partly with the Form, partly with the resulting Compound; the Form being so much exalted, that the distinction between the two is almost effaced.[38]

[36] Ibid. Θ. viii. p. 1050, b. 10. He says, p. 1048, a. 35, that this distinction between Potential and Actual cannot be defined, but can only be illustrated by particular examples, several of which he proceeds to enumerate. Trendelenburg observes (Note ad. Aristot. De Animâ, p. 307):—“Δύναμις contraria adhuc in se inclusa tenet, ut in utrumque abire possit: ἐνέργεια alterum excludit.â€� Compare also ib. p. 302. This May or May not be is the widest and most general sense of the terms δύναμις and δυνατόν, common to all the analogical or derivative applications that Aristotle points out as belonging to them. It is more general than that which he gives as the κύριος ὅρος τῆς πρώτης δυνάμεως — ἀρχή μεταβλητικὴ ἐν ἄλλῳ ἢ ᾗ ἄλλο, and ought seemingly to be itself considered as the κύριος ὅρος. Cf. Arist. Metaphys. Δ. xii. p. 1020, a. 5, with the comment of Bonitz, who remarks upon the loose language of Aristotle in this chapter but imputes to Aristotle a greater amount of contradiction than he seems to deserve (Comm. ad Metaphys. pp. 256, 393).

[37] Ens potentiâ is a variety of Ens (Arist. Metaph. Δ. vii. p. 1017, b. 6), but an imperfect variety: it is ὂν ἀτελές, which may become matured into ὂν τέλειον, ὂν ἐντελεχείᾳ or ἐνεργείᾳ (Metaphys. Θ. i. p. 1045, a. 34).

Matter is either remote or proximate, removed either by one stage or several stages from the σύνολον in which it culminates. Strictly speaking, none but proximate matter is said to exist δυνάμει. Alexander Schol. (ad Metaph. Θ. p. 1049, a. 19) p. 781, b. 39: ἡ πόῤῥω ὕλη οὐ λέγεται δυνάμει. τί δή ποτε; ὅτι οὐ παρωνυμιάζομεν τὰ πράγματα ἐκ τῆς πόῤῥω ἀλλ’ ἐκ τῆς προσεχοῦς· λέγομεν γὰρ τὸ κιβώτιον ξύλινον ἐκ τῆς προσεχοῦς, ἀλλ’ οὐ γήϊνον ἐκ τῆς πόῤῥω.

[38] Aristot. Metaphys. Η. i. p. 1042, a. 25, seq. He scarcely makes any distinction here between ὕλη and δύναμις, or between μορφὴ and ἐνέργεια (cf. Θ. viii. p. 1050, a. 15).

Alexander in his Commentary on this book (Θ. iii. p. 1047, a. 30) p. 542, Bonitz’s edit., remarks that ἐνέργεια is used by Aristotle in a double sense; sometimes meaning κίνησις πρὸς τὸ τέλος, sometimes meaning the τέλος itself. Comp. Η. iii. p. 1043, a. 32; also the commentary of Bonitz, p. 393.

Two things are to be remembered respecting Matter, in its Aristotelian (logical or ontological) sense: (1) It may be Body, but it is not necessarily Body;[39] (2) It is only intelligible as the correlate of Form: it can neither exist by itself, nor can it be known by itself (i.e., when taken out of that relativity). This deserves notice, because to forget the relativity of a relative word, and to reason upon it as if it were an absolute, is an oversight not unfrequent. Furthermore, each variety of Matter has its appropriate Form, and each variety of Form its appropriate Matter, with which it correlates. There are various stages or gradations of Matter; from Materia Prima, which has no Form at all, passing upwards through successive partial developments to Materia Ultima; which last is hardly[40] distinguishable from Form or from Materia Formata.

[39] Aristot. Metaph. Z. xi. p. 1036, a. 8: ἡ δ’ ὕλη ἄγνωστος καθ’ αὑτήν. ὕλη δ’ ἡ μὲν αἰσθητή, ἡ δὲ νοητή· αἰσθητὴ μὲν οἷον χαλκὸς καὶ ξύλον καὶ ὅση κινητὴ ὕλη, νοητὴ δὲ ἡ ἐν τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς ὑπάρχουσα μὴ ᾗ αἰσθητά, οἷον τὰ μαθηματικά. — p. 1035, a. 7.

Physica, III. vi. p. 207, a. 26; De Generat. et Corrupt. I. v. p. 320, b. 14-25.

[40] Aristot. De Animâ, II. ii. p. 414, a. 25: ἑκάστου γὰρ ἡ ἐντελέχεια ἐν τῷ δυνάμει ὑπάρχοντι καὶ τῇ οἰκείᾳ ὕλη πέφυκεν ἐγγίνεσθαι. — Physica, II. ii. p. 194, b. 8: ἔτι τῶν πρός τι ἡ ὕλη· ἄλλῳ γὰρ εἴδει ἄλλη ὕλη. — Metaph. Η. vi. p. 1045, b. 17: ἔστι δ’, ὥσπερ εἴρηται, καὶ ἡ ἐσχάτη ὕλη καὶ ἡ μορφὴ ταὐτό καὶ δυνάμει, τὸ δὲ ἐνεργείᾳ. See upon this doctrine Schwegler’s Commentary, pp. 100, 154, 173, 240, Pt. 2nd. Compare also Arist. De Gener. Animal. II. i. p. 735, a. 9; also De CÅ“lo, IV. iii. p. 310, b. 14.

The distinction above specified is employed by Aristotle in his exposition of the Soul. The soul belongs to the Category of Substance or Essence (not to that of Quantity, Quality, &c.); but of the two points of view under which Essence may be presented, the soul ranks with Form, not with Matter — with the Actual, not with the Potential. The Matter to which (as correlate) soul stands related, is a natural body (i.e., a body having within it an inherent principle of motion and rest) organized in a certain way, or fitted out with certain capacities and preparations to which soul is the active and indispensable complement. These capacities would never come into actuality without the soul; but, on the other hand, the range of actualities or functions in the soul depends upon, and is limited by, the range of capacities ready prepared for it in the body. The implication of the two constitutes the living subject, with all its functions, active and passive. If the eye were an animated or living subject, seeing would be its soul; if the carpenter’s axe were living, cutting would be its soul;[41] the matter would be the lens or the iron in which this soul is embodied. It is not indispensable, however, that all the functions of the living subject should be at all times in complete exercise: the subject is still living, even while asleep; the eye is still a good eye, though at the moment closed. It is enough if the functional aptitude exist as a dormant property, ready to rise into activity, when the proper occasions present themselves. This minimum of Form suffices to give living efficacy to the potentialities of body; it is enough that a man, though now in a dark night and seeing nothing, will see as soon as the sun rises; or that he knows geometry, though he is not now thinking of a geometrical problem. This dormant possession is what Aristotle calls the First Entelechy or Energy, i.e., the lowest stage of Actuality, or the minimum of influence required to transform Potentiality into Actuality. The Aristotelian definition of Soul is thus: The first entelechy of a natural organized body, having life in potentiality.[42] This is all that is essential to the soul; the second or higher entelechy (actual exercise of the faculties) is not a constant or universal property.[43]

[41] Aristot. De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, b. 18: εἰ γὰρ ἦν ὁ ὀφθαλμὸς ζῳόν, ψυχὴ ἂν ἦν αὐτοῦ ἡ ὄψις· αὕτη γὰρ οὐσία ὀφθαλμοῦ ἡ κατὰ τὸν λόγον. ὁ δ’ ὀφθαλμὸς ὕλη ὄψεως, ἧς ἀπολειπούσης οὐκέτ’ ὀφθαλμός, πλὴν ὁμωνύμως, καθάπερ ὁ λίθινος καὶ ὁ γεγραμμένος.

[42] Aristot. De Animâ, II. i. p. 412, a. 27: διὸ ψυχή ἐστιν ἐντελέχεια ἡ πρώτη σώματος φυσικοῦ δυνάμει ζωὴν ἔχοντος· τοιοῦτο δὲ ὃ ἂν ᾖ ὀργανικόν. Compare Metaphysica, Z. x. p. 1035, b. 14-27.

[43] Aristot. De Animâ, II. ii. p. 414, a. 8-18. The distinction here taken between the first or lower stage of Entelechy, and the second or higher stage, coincides substantially with the distinction in the Nikomachean Ethica and elsewhere between ἕξις and ἐνέργεια. See Topica, IV. v. p. 125, b. 15; Ethic. Nikom. II. i.-v. p. 1103 seq.

In this definition of Soul, Aristotle employs his own Philosophia Prima to escape the errors committed by prior philosophers. He does not admit that the soul is a separate entity in itself; or that it is composed (as Empedokles and Demokritus had said) of corporeal elements, or (as Plato had said) of elements partly corporeal, partly logical and notional. He rejects the imaginary virtues of number, invoked by the Pythagoreans and Xenokrates; lastly, he keeps before him not merely man, but all the varieties of animated objects, to which his definition must be adapted. His first capital point is to put aside the alleged identity, or similarity, or sameness of elements, between soul and body; and to put aside equally any separate existence or substantiality of soul. He effects both these purposes by defining them as essentially relatum and correlate; the soul, as the relatum, is unintelligible and unmeaning without its correlate, upon which accordingly its definition is declared to be founded.

The real animated subject may be looked at either from the point of view of the relatum or from that of the correlate; but, though the two are thus logically separable, in fact and reality they are inseparably implicated; and, if either of them be withdrawn, the animated subject disappears. “The soul (says Aristotle) is not any variety of body, but it cannot be without a body; it is not a body, but it is something belonging to or related to a body; and for this reason it is in a body, and in a body of such or such potentialities.�[44] Soul is to body (we thus read), not as a compound of like elements, nor as a type is to its copy, or vice versâ, but as a relatum to its correlate; dependent upon the body for all its acts and manifestations, and bringing to consummation what in the body exists as potentiality only. Soul, however, is better than body; and the animated being is better than the inanimate by reason of its soul.[45]

[44] Aristot. De Animâ, II. ii. p. 414, a. 19: καὶ διὰ τοῦτο καλῶς ὑπολαμβάνουσιν οἷς δοκεῖ μητ’ ἄνευ σώματος εἶναι μήτε σώμά τι ἡ ψυχή· σῶμα μὲν γὰρ οὐκ ἔστι, σώματος δέ τι, καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ἐν σώματι ὑπάρχει καὶ ἐν σώματι τοιούτῳ. Compare Aristot. De Juventute et Senectute, i. p. 467, b. 14.

[45] Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 29.

The animated subject is thus a form immersed or implicated in matter; and all its actions and passions are so likewise.[46] Each of these has its formal side, as concerns the soul, and its material side, as concerns the body. When a man or animal is angry, for example, this emotion is both a fact of the soul and a fact of the body: in the first of these two characters, it may be defined as an appetite for hurting some one who has hurt us; in the second of the two, it may be defined as an ebullition of the blood and heat round the heart.[47] The emotion, belonging to the animated subject or aggregate of soul and body, is a complex fact having two aspects, logically distinguishable from each other, but each correlating and implying the other. This is true not only in regard to our passions, emotions, and appetites, but also in regard to our perceptions, phantasms, reminiscences, reasonings, efforts of attention in learning, &c. We do not say that the soul weaves or builds (Aristotle observes[48]): we say that the animated subject, the aggregate of soul and body, the man, weaves or builds. So we ought also to say, not that the soul feels anger, pity, love, hatred, &c., or that the soul learns, reasons, recollects, &c., but that the man with his soul does these things. The actual movement throughout these processes is not in the soul, but in the body; sometimes going to the soul (as in sensible perception), sometimes proceeding from the soul to the body (as in the case of reminiscence). All these processes are at once corporeal and psychical, pervading the whole animated subject, and having two aspects coincident and inter-dependent, though logically distinguishable. The perfect or imperfect discrimination by the sentient soul depends upon the good or bad condition of the bodily sentient organs; an old man that has become shortsighted would see as well as before, if he could regain his youthful eye. The defects of the soul arise from defects in the bodily organism to which it belongs, as in cases of drunkenness or sickness; and this is not less true of the Noûs, or intellective soul, than of the sentient soul.[49] Intelligence, as well as emotion, are phenomena, not of the bodily organism simply, nor of the Noûs simply, but of the community or partnership of which both are members; and, when intelligence gives way, this is not because the Noûs itself is impaired, but because the partnership is ruined by the failure of the bodily organism.

[46] Aristot. De Animâ, I. i. p. 403, a. 25: τὰ πάθη λόγοι ἔνυλοί εἰσιν. Compare II. p. 412, b. 10-25; p. 413, a. 2.

[47] Ibid. I. i. p. 403, a. 30.

[48] Ibid. iv. p. 408, b. 12. τὸ δὲ λέγειν ὀργίζεσθαι τὴν ψυχὴν ὅμοιον κἂν εἴ τις λέγοι τὴν ψυχὴν ὑφαίνειν ἢ οἰκοδομεῖν· βέλτιον γὰρ ἴσως μὴ λέγειν τὴν ψυχὴν ἐλεεῖν ἢ μανθάνειν ἢ διανοεῖσθαι, ἀλλὰ τὸν ἄνθρωπον τῇ ψυχῇ· τοῦτο δὲ μὴ ὡς ἐν ἐκείνῃ τῆς κινήσεως οὔσης, ἀλλ’ ὅτε μὲν μέχρι ἐκείνης, ὅτε δ’ ἀπ’ ἐκείνης, &c. Again, b. 30: ὅτι μὲν οὖν οὐχ οἷόν τε κινεῖσθαι τὴν ψυχήν, φανερὸν ἐκ τούτων.

[49] Ibid. b. 26. Compare a similar doctrine in the Timæus of Plato, p. 86, B.-D.

Respecting the Noûs (the theorizing Noûs), we must here observe that Aristotle treats it as a separate kind or variety of soul, with several peculiarities. We shall collect presently all that he says upon that subject, which is the most obscure portion of his psychology.

In regard to soul generally, the relative point of view with body as the correlate is constantly insisted on by Aristotle; without such correlate his assertions would have no meaning. But the relation between them is presented in several different ways. The soul is the cause and principle of a living body;[50] by which is meant, not an independent and pre-existent something that brings the body into existence but, an immanent or indwelling influence which sustains the unity and guides the functions of the organism. According to the quadruple classification of Cause recognized by Aristotle — Formal, Material, Movent, and Final — the body furnishes the Material Cause, while the soul comprises all the three others. The soul is (as we have already seen) the Form in relation to the body as Matter, but it is, besides, the Movent, inasmuch as it determines the local displacement as well as all the active functions of the body — nutrition, growth, generation, sensation, &c.; lastly, it is also the Final Cause, since the maintenance and perpetuation of the same Form, in successive individuals, is the standing purpose aimed at by each body in the economy of Nature.[51] Under this diversity of aspect, soul and body are reciprocally integrant and complementary of each other, the real integer (the Living or Animated Body) including both.

[50] Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 415, b. 7: ἔστι δ’ ἡ ψυχὴ τοῦ ζῶντος σώματος αἰτία καὶ ἀρχή· ταῦτα δὲ πολλαχῶς λέγεται.

[51] Ibid. b. 1.

Soul, in the Aristotelian point of view — what is common to all living bodies, comprises several varieties. But these varieties are not represented as forming a genus with co-ordinate species under it, in such manner that the counter-ordinate species, reciprocally excluding each other, are, when taken together, co-extensive with the whole genus; like man and brute in regard to animal. The varieties of soul are distributed into successive stages gradually narrowing in extension and enlarging in comprehension; the first or lowest stage being co-extensive with the whole, but connoting only two or three simple attributes; the second, or next above, connoting all these and more besides, but denoting only part of the individuals denoted by the first; the third connoting all this and more, but denoting yet fewer individuals; and so on forward. Thus the concrete individuals, called living bodies, include all plants as well as all animals; but the soul, called Nutritive by Aristotle, corresponding thereto connotes only nutrition, growth, decay, and generation of another similar individual.[52] In the second stage, plants are left out, but all animals remain: the Sentient soul, belonging to animals, but not belonging to any plants, connotes all the functions and unities of the Nutritive soul, together with sensible perception (at least in its rudest shape) besides.[53] We proceed onward in the same direction, taking in additional faculties — the Movent, Appetitive, Phantastic (Imaginative), Noëtic (Intelligent) soul, and thus diminishing the total of individuals denoted. But each higher variety of soul continues to possess all the faculties of the lower. Thus the Sentient soul cannot exist without comprehending all the faculties of the Nutritive, though the Nutritive exists (in plants) without any admixture of the Sentient. Again, the Sentient soul does not necessarily possess either memory, imagination, or intellect (Noûs); but no soul can be either Imaginative or Noëtic, without being Sentient as well as Nutritive. The Noëtic Soul, as the highest of all, retains in itself all the lower faculties; but these are found to exist apart from it.[54]

[52] In the Aristotelian treatise De Plantis, p. 815, b. 16, it is stated that Empedokles, Anaxagoras, and Demokritus, all affirmed that plants had both intellect and cognition up to a certain moderate point. We do not cite this treatise as the composition of Aristotle, but it is reasonably good evidence in reference to the doctrine of those other philosophers.

[53] Aristot. De Animâ, I. v. p. 411, b. 28.

[54] Ibid. II. ii. p. 413, a. 25-30, b. 32; iii. p. 414, b. 29; p. 415, a. 10.

We may remark here that the psychological classification of Aristotle proceeds in the inverse direction to that of Plato. In the Platonic Timæus we begin with the grand soul of the Kosmos, and are conducted by successive steps of degradation to men, animals, plants; while Aristotle lays his foundation in the largest, most multiplied, and lowest range of individuals, carrying us by successive increase of conditions to the fewer and the higher.

The lowest or Nutritive soul, in spite of the small number of conditions involved in it, is the indispensable basis whereon all the others depend. None of the other souls can exist apart from it.[55] It is the first constituent of the living individual — the implication of Form with Matter in a natural body suitably organized; it is the preservative of the life of the individual, with its aggregate of functions and faculties, and with the proper limits of size and shape that characterize the species;[56] it is, moreover, the preservative of perpetuity to the species, inasmuch as it prompts and enables each individual to generate and leave behind a successor like himself; which is the only way that an individual can obtain quasi-immortality, though all aspire to become immortal.[57] This lowest soul is the primary cause of digestion and nutrition. It is cognate with the celestial heat, which is essential also as a co-operative cause; accordingly, all animated bodies possess an inherent natural heat.[58]

[55] Ibid. iv. p. 415, a. 25: πρώτη καὶ κοινοτάτη δύναμίς ἐστι ψυχῆς, καθ’ ἣν ὑπάρχει τὸ ζῆν ἅπασιν. — p. 415, b. 8: τοῦ ζῶντος σώματος αἰτία καὶ ἀρχή. — III. xii. p. 434, a. 22-30, b. 24. Aristot. De Respiratione, viii. p. 474, a. 30, b. 11.

[56] Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 416, a. 17.

[57] Ibid. p. 415, b. 2; p. 416, b. 23: ἐπεὶ δ’ ἀπὸ τοῦ τέλους ἅπαντα προσαγορεύειν δίκαιον, τέλος δὲ τὸ γεννῆσαι οἷον αὐτό, ἂν ἡ πρώτη ψυχὴ γεννητικὴ οἷον αὐτό. Also De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 33.

[58] Aristot. De Animâ, II. iv. p. 416, a. 10-18, b. 29.

We advance upwards now from the nutritive soul to that higher soul which is at once nutritive and Sentient; for Aristotle does not follow the example of Plato in recognizing three souls to one body, but assigns only one and the same soul, though with multiplied faculties and functions, to one and the same body. Sensible perception, with its accompaniments, forms the characteristic privilege of the animal as contrasted with the plant.[59] Sensible perception admits of many diversities, from the simplest and rudest tactile sensation, which even the lowest animals cannot be without, to the full equipment of five senses which Aristotle declares to be a maximum not susceptible of increase.[60] But the sentient faculty, even in its lowest stage, indicates a remarkable exaltation of the soul in its character of form. The soul, quâ sentient and percipient, receives the form of the perceptum without the matter; whereas the nutritive soul cannot disconnect the two, but receives and appropriates the nutrient substance, form and matter in one and combined.[61] Aristotle illustrates this characteristic feature of sensible perception by recurring to his former example of the wax and the figure. Just as wax receives from a signet the impression engraven thereon, whether the matter of the signet be iron, gold, stone, or wood; as the impression stamped has no regard to the matter, but reproduces only the figure engraven on the signet, the wax being merely potential and undefined, until the signet comes to convert it into something actual and definite;[62] so the percipient faculty in man is impressed by the substances in nature, not according to the matter of each but, according to the qualitative form of each. Such passive receptivity is the first and lowest form of sensation,[63] not having any magnitude in itself, but residing in bodily organs which have magnitude, and separable from them only by logical abstraction. It is a potentiality, correlating with, and in due proportion to, the exterior percipibile, which, when acting upon it, brings it into full actuality. The actuality of both (percipiens and perceptum) is one and the same, and cannot be disjoined in fact, though the potentialities of the two are distinct yet correlative; the percipiens is not like the percipibile originally, but becomes like it by being thus actualized.[64]

[59] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 436, b. 12. He considers sponges to have some sensation (Hist. Animal. I. i. p. 487, b. 9).

[60] Aristot. De Animâ, II. iii. p. 414, b. 2; p. 415, a. 3; III. i. p. 424, b. 22; xiii. p. 435, b. 15.

[61] Ibid. II. xii. p. 424, a. 32-b. 4: διὰ τί ποτε τὰ φυτὰ οὐκ αἰσθάνεται, ἔχοντά τι μόριον ψυχικὸν καὶ πάσχοντά τι ὑπὸ τῶν ἁπτῶν; καὶ γὰρ ψύχεται καὶ θερμαίνεται· αἴτιον γὰρ τὸ μὴ ἔχειν μεσότητα, μηδὲ τοιαύτην ἀρχὴν οἵαν τὰ εἴδη δέχεσθαι τῶν αἰσθητῶν, ἀλλὰ πάσχειν μετὰ τῆς ὕλης.

Themistius ad loc. p. 144, ed. Spengel: πάσχει (τὰ φυτά) συνεισιούσης τῆς ὕλης τοῦ ποιοῦντος, &c.

[62] Aristot. De Animâ, II. xii. p. 424, a. 19.

[63] Ibid. a. 24: αἰσθητήριον δὲ πρῶτον ἐν ᾧ ἡ τοιαύτη δύναμις, &c. — III. xii. p. 434, a. 29.

[64] Ibid. III. ii. p. 425, b. 25: ἡ δὲ τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ ἐνέργεια καὶ τῆς αἰσθήσεως ἡ αὐτὴ μέν ἐστι καὶ μία, τὸ δ’ εἶναι οὐ ταὐτὸν αὐταῖς. — II. v. p. 418, a. 3: τὸ δ’ αἰσθητικὸν δυνάμει ἐστὶν οἷον τὸ αἰσθητὸν ἤδη ἐντελεχείᾳ, — πάσχει μὲν οὖν οὐχ ὅμοιον ὄν, πεπονθὸς δ’ ὡμοίωται καὶ ἔστιν οἷον ἐκεῖνο. Also p. 417, a. 7, 14, 20.

There were conflicting doctrines current in Aristotle’s time: some said that, for an agent to act upon a patient, there must be likeness between the two; others said that there must be unlikeness. Aristotle dissents from both, and adopts a sort of intermediate doctrine.

The sentient soul is communicated by the male parent in the act of generation,[65] and is complete from the moment of birth, not requiring a process of teaching after birth; the sentient subject becomes at once and instantly, in regard to sense, on a level with one that has attained a certain actuality of cognition, but is not at the moment reflecting upon the cognitum. Potentiality and Actuality are in fact distinguishable into lower and higher degrees; the Potential that has been actualized in a first or lower stage, is still a Potential relatively to higher stages of Actuality.[66] The Potential may be acted upon in two opposite ways; either by deadening and extinguishing it, or by developing and carrying it forward to realization. The sentient soul, when asleep or inert, requires a cause to stimulate it into actual seeing or hearing; the noëtic or cognizant soul, under like circumstances, must also be stimulated into actual meditation on its cognitum. But there is this difference between the two. The sentient soul communes with particulars; the noëtic soul with universals. The sentient soul derives its stimulus from without, and from some of the individual objects, tangible, visible, or audible; but the noëtic soul is put into action by the abstract and universal, which is in a certain sense within the soul itself; so that a man can at any time meditate on what he pleases, but he cannot see or hear what he pleases, or anything except such visible or audible objects as are at hand.[67]

[65] Aristot. De Gener. Animal. II. v. p. 741, a. 13, b. 7; De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 17.

[66] Aristot. De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 18-32. See above, p. 457, [note ^a].

The extent of Potentiality, or the partial Actuality, which Aristotle claims for the sentient soul even at birth, deserves to be kept in mind; we shall contrast it presently with what he says about the Noûs.

[67] Aristot. De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 22: αἴτιον δὲ ὅτι, τῶν καθ’ ἕκαστον ἡ κατ’ ἐνέργειαν αἴσθησις, ἡ δ’ ἐπιστήμη τῶν καθόλου· ταῦτα δ’ ἐν αὐτῇ πώς ἐστι τῇ ψυχῇ. III. iii. p. 427, b. 18.

We have already remarked, that in many animals the sentient soul is little developed; being confined in some to the sense of touch (which can never be wanting),[68] and in others to touch and taste. But even this minimum of sense — though small, if compared with the variety of senses in man — is a prodigious step in advance of plants; it comprises a certain cognition, and within its own sphere it is always critical, comparing, discriminative.[69] The sentient soul possesses this discriminative faculty in common with the noëtic soul or Intelligence, though applied to different objects and purposes; and possesses such faculty, because it is itself a mean or middle term between the two sensible extremes of which it takes cognizance, — hot and cold, hard and soft, wet and dry, white and black, acute and grave, bitter and sweet, light and darkness, visible and invisible, tangible and intangible, &c. We feel no sensation at all when the object touched is exactly of the same temperature with ourselves, neither hotter nor colder; the sentient soul, being a mean between the two extremes, is stimulated to assimilate itself for the time to either of them, according as it is acted upon from without. It thus makes comparison of each with the other, and of both with its own mean.[70] Lastly, the sentient faculty in the soul is really one and indivisible, though distinguishable logically or by abstraction into different genera and species.[71] Of that faculty the central physical organ is the heart, which contains the congenital or animal spirit. The Aristotelian psychology is here remarkable, affirming as it does the essential relativity of all phenomena of sense to the appreciative condition of the sentient; as well as the constant implication of intellectual and discriminative comparison among them.

[68] Ibid. III. xii. p. 434, b. 23: φανερὸν ὅτι οὐχ οἷόν τε ἄνευ ἁφῆς εἶναι ζῷον.

[69] Ibid. ix. p. 432, a. 16: τῷ κριτικῷ, ὃ διανοίας ἔργον ἐστὶ καὶ αἰσθήσεως. — III. iii. p. 427, a. 20; p. 426, b. 10-15. De Generat. Animal. I. xxiii. p. 731, a. 30-b. 5; De Somno et Vigil. i. p. 458, b. 2. The sentient faculty is called δύναμιν σύμφυτον κριτικήν in Analyt. Poster. II. xix. p. 99, b. 35.

[70] Aristot. De Animâ, II. x. p. 422, a. 20; ix. p. 421, b. 4-11; xi. p. 424, a. 5: καὶ διὰ τοῦτο κρίνει τὰ αἰσθητά â€” τὸ γὰρ μέσον κριτικόν. III. vii. p. 431, a. 10: ἔστι τὸ ἥδεσθαι καὶ λυπεῖσθαι τὸ ἐνεργεῖν τῇ αἰσθητικῇ μεσότητι πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν ἢ κακόν, ᾗ τοιαῦτα. III. xiii. p. 435, a. 21.

He remarks that plants have no similar μεσότης — II. xii. p. 424, b. 1.

[71] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 449, a. 8, 17. De Motu Animal. x. p. 703, a. 15. De Somno et Vigil. ii. p. 455, a. 15, 21, 35; p. 456, a. 5. De Juventute et Senect. p. 467, b. 27; p. 469, a. 4-12.

All the objects generating sensible perception, are magnitudes.[72] Some perceptions are peculiar to one sense alone, as colour to the eye, &c. Upon these we never make mistakes directly; in other words, we always judge rightly what is the colour or what is the sound, though we are often deceived in judging what the thing coloured is, or where the sonorous object is.[73] There are, however, some perceivables not peculiar to any one sense alone, but appreciable by two or more; though chiefly and best by the sense of vision; such are motion, rest, number, figure, magnitude. Here the appreciation becomes less accurate, yet it is still made directly by sense.[74] But there are yet other matters that, though not directly affecting sense, are perceived indirectly, or by way of accompaniment to what is directly perceived. Thus we see a white object; nothing else affecting our sense except its whiteness. Beyond this, however, we judge and declare, that the object so seen is the son of Kleon. This is a judgment obtained indirectly, or by way of accompaniment; by accident, so to speak, inasmuch as the same does not accompany all sensations of white. It is here that we are most liable to error.[75]

[72] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 449, a. 20: τὸ αἰσθητὸν πᾶν ἐστὶ μέγεθος.

[73] Aristot. De Animâ, II. vi. p. 418, a. 10-16.

[74] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 437, a. 8; iv. p. 442, b. 4-12. He says in this last passage, that the common perceivables are appreciable at least by both sight and touch — if not by all the senses.

[75] Aristot. De Animâ, II. vi. p. 418, a. 7-25: λέγεται δὲ τὸ αἰσθητὸν τριχῶς, ὧν δύο μὲν καθ’ αὑτά φαμεν αἰσθάνεσθαι, τὸ δὲ ἓν κατὰ συμβεβηκός. Also, III. i. p. 425, b. 24; iii. p. 428, b. 18-25.

Among the five senses, Aristotle distinguishes two as operating by direct contact between subject and object (touch, taste); three as operating through an external intervening medium (vision, smell, taste). He begins with Vision, which he regards as possessing most completely the nature and characteristics of a sense.[76] The direct and proper object of vision is colour. Now colour operates upon the eye not immediately (for, if the coloured object be placed in contact with the eye, there will be no vision), but by causing movements or perturbations in the external intervening medium, air or water, which affect the sense through an appropriate agency of their own.[77] This agency is, according to Aristotle, the Diaphanous or Transparent. When actual or in energy, the transparent is called light; when potential or in capacity only, it is called darkness. The eye is of watery structure, apt for receiving these impressions.[78] It is the presence either of fire, or of something analogous to the celestial body, that calls forth the diaphanous from the state of potentiality into that of actuality or light; in which latter condition it is stimulated by colour. The diaphanous, whether as light or as darkness, is a peculiar nature or accompaniment, not substantive in itself, but inherent chiefly in the First or Celestial Body, yet also in air, water, glass, precious stones, and in all bodies to a greater or less degree.[79] The diaphanous passes at once and simultaneously, in one place as well as in another, from potentiality to actuality — from darkness to light. Light does not take time to travel from one place to another, as sound and smell do.[80] The diaphanous is not a body, nor effluvium from a body, nor any one of the elements: it is of an adjective character — a certain agency or attribute pervading or belonging to bodies, along with their extension.[81] Colour marks and defines the surface of the body quâ diaphanous, as figure defines it quâ extended. Colour makes the diaphanous itself visible, and its own varieties visible through the diaphanous. Air and water are transparent throughout, though with an ill-defined superficial colour. White and black, as colours in solid bodies, correspond to the condition of light or darkness in air. There are some luminous objects visible in the dark, as fire, fungous matter, eyes, and scales of fish, &c., though they have no appropriate colour.[82] There are seven species or varieties of colours, but all of them proceed from white and black, blended in different proportions, or seen one through another; white and black are the two extremes, the other varieties being intermediate between them.

[76] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 429, a. 2: ἡ ὄψις μάλιστα αἰσθησίς ἐστιν. Also Metaphysica, A. init.

[77] Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 419, a. 12, 14, 19; Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, iii. p. 440, a. 18: ὥστ’ εὐθὺς κρεῖττον φάναι, τῷ κινεῖσθαι τὸ μεταξὺ τῆς αἰσθήσεως ὑπὸ τοῦ αἰσθητοῦ γίνεσθαι τὴν αἴσθησιν, ἁφῇ καὶ μὴ ταῖς ἀποῤῥοίαις. — Ib. ii. p. 438, b. 3: εἴτε φῶς εἴτ’ ἀήρ ἐστι τὸ μεταξὺ τοῦ ὁρωμένου καὶ τοῦ ὄμματος, ἡ διὰ τούτου κίνησίς ἐστιν ἡ ποιοῦσα τὸ ὁρᾶν.

[78] Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 419, a. 9: τοῦτο γὰρ ἦν αὐτῷ τὸ χρώματι εἶναι, τὸ κινητικῷ εἶναι τοῦ κατ’ ἐνέργειαν διαφανοῦς φῶς ἐστίν. — Ib. ii. p. 418, b. 11-17: ὅταν ᾖ ἐντελεχείᾳ διαφανὲς ὑπὸ πυρὸς ἢ τοιούτου οἷον τὸ ἄνω σῶμα· — πυρὸς ἢ τοιούτου τινὸς παρουσία ἐν τῷ διαφανεῖ.

[79] Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 418, b. 4. De Sensu et Sensili, ii. p. 438, a. 14, b. 7; iii. p. 439, a. 21, seq.: ὃ δὲ λέγομεν διαφανές, οὐκ ἔστιν ἴδιον ἀέρος ἢ ὕδατος, οὐδ’ ἄλλου τῶν οὕτω λεγομένων σωμάτων, ἀλλά τίς ἐστὶ κοινὴ φύσις καὶ δύναμις, ἣ χωριστὴ μὲν οὐκ ἔστιν, ἐν τούτοις δ’ ἐστί, καὶ τοῖς ἄλλοις σώμασιν ἐνυπάρχει, τοῖς μὲν μᾶλλον τοῖς δ’ ἧττον.

[80] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vi. p. 446, a. 23, seq., b. 27: τῷ εἶναι γάρ τι φῶς ἐστίν, ἀλλ’ οὐ κίνησίς τις. Empedokles affirmed that light travelling from the Sun reached the intervening space before it came to the earth; Aristotle contradicts him.

[81] Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 418, b. 18: ἔστι δὲ τὸ σκότος στέρησις τῆς τοιαύτης ἕξεως ἐκ διαφανοῦς, ὥστε δῆλον ὅτι καὶ ἡ τούτου παρουσία φῶς ἐστίν. — Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, iii. p. 439, a. 26: ἡ μὲν οὖν τοῦ φωτὸς φύσις ἐν ἀὀρίστῳ τῷ διαφανεῖ ἐστίν· τοῦ δ’ ἐν τοῖς σώμασι διαφανοῦς τὸ ἔσχατον, ὅτι μὲν εἴη ἄν τι, δῆλον· ὅτι δὲ τοῦτο ἐστὶ τὸ χρῶμα, ἔκ τῶν συμβαινόντων φανερόν. — ἔστι μὲν γὰρ ἐν τῷ τοῦ σώματος πέρατι, ἀλλ’ οὔ τι τὸ τοῦ σώματος πέρας, ἀλλὰ τὴν αὐτὴν φύσιν δεῖ νομίζειν, ἥπερ καὶ ἔξω χρωματίζεται, ταύτην καὶ ἐντός.

[82] Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 419, a. 2-25; Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, iv. p. 442, a. 20, — seven colours.

The same necessity for an intervening medium external to the subject, as in the case of vision, prevails also in the senses of hearing and smell. If the audible or odorous object be placed in contact with its organ of sense, there will be no hearing or smell. Whenever we hear or smell any object, there must be interposed between us and the object a suitable medium that shall be affected first; while the organ of sense will be affected secondarily through that medium. Air is the medium in regard to sound, both air and water in regard to smell; but there seems besides (analogous to the transparent in regard to vision) a special agency called the Trans-Sonant, which pervades air and enables it to transmit sound; and certainly another special agency called the Trans-Olfacient, which pervades both air and water, and enables them to transmit smell.[83] (It seems thus that something like a luminiferous ether — extended, mobile, and permeating bodies, yet still incorporeal in itself — was an hypothesis as old as Aristotle; and one other ether besides, analogous in property and purpose — an odoriferous ether; perhaps a third or soniferous ether, but this is less distinctly specified by Aristotle.)

[83] Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii. p. 419, a. 25-35; De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 442, b. 30; Themistius ad Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii., viii. p. 115, Spengel. Of the three names, τὸ διαφανές — τὸ διηχές — τὸ δίοσμον, the last two are not distinctly stated by Aristotle, but are said to have been first applied by Theophrastus after him. See the notes of Trendelenburg and Torstrick; the latter supposes Themistius to have had before him a fuller and better text of Aristotle than that which we now possess, which seems corrupt. In our present text, the transparent as well as the trans-olfacient ether are clearly indicated, the trans-sonant not clearly.

Sound, according to Aristotle, arises from the shock of two or more solid bodies communicated to the air. It implies local movement in one at least of those bodies. Many soft bodies are incapable of making sound; those best suited for it are such as metals, hard in structure, smooth in surface, hollow in shape. The blow must be smart and quick, otherwise the air slips away and dissipates itself before the sound can be communicated to it.[84] Sound is communicated through the air to the organ of hearing; the air is one continuum (not composed of adjacent particles with interspaces), and a wave is propagated from it to the internal ear, which contains some air enclosed in the sinuous ducts within the membrane of the tympanum, congenitally attached to the organ itself, and endued with a certain animation.[85] This internal air within the ear, excited by the motion propagated from the external ear, causes hearing. The ear is enabled to appreciate accurately the movements of the external air, because it has itself little or no movement within. We cannot hear with any other part of the body; because it is only in the ear that nature has given us this stock of internal air. If water gets into the ear, we cannot hear at all; because the wave generated in the air without, cannot propagate itself within. Nor can we hear, if the membrane of the ear be disordered; any more than we can see, when the membrane of the eye is disordered.[86]

[84] Aristot. De Animâ, II. viii. p. 419, b. 4 seq. He calls air ψαθυρός, εὔθρυπτος (p. 420, a. 1-8), — εὐδιαίρετος, εὐόλισθος (Themistius, pp. 116, 117, Sp.) — “quod facilé diffluitâ€� (Trendelenburg, Comm. p. 384). He says that for sonorous purposes air ought to be ἀθροῦν — compact or dense: sound reverberates best from metals with smooth surface, p. 420, a. 25.

[85] Aristot. De Animâ, II. viii. p. 419, b. 34 seq.: οὗτος δ’ (ὁ ἀὴρ) ἐστὶν ὁ ποιῶν ἀκούειν, ὅταν κινηθῇ συνεχὴς καὶ εἷς· — ψοφητικὸν μὲν οὖν τὸ κινητικὸν ἑνὸς ἀέρος συνεχείᾳ μέχρις ἀκοῆς. ἀκοῇ δὲ συμφυὴς ἀήρ· διὰ δὲ τὸ ἐν ἀέρι εἶναι, κινουμένου τοῦ ἔξω τὸ εἴσω κινεῖ. διόπερ οὐ πάντῃ τὸ ζῷον ἀκούει, οὐδὲ πάντῃ διέρχεται ὁ ἀήρ· οὐ γὰρ πάντῃ ἔχει ἀέρα τὸ κινησόμενον μέρος καὶ ἔμψυχον. — διὰ τὰς ἕλικας (p. 420, a. 13).

The text of this passage is not satisfactory. It has been much criticised as well as amended by Torstrick; see his Comment. p. 148 seq. I cannot approve his alteration of ἔμψυχον into ἔμψοφον.

[86] Aristot. De Animâ, II. viii. p. 420, a. 9: ὁ δ’ ἐν τοῖς ὠσὶν ἐγκατῳκοδόμηται πρὸς τὸ ἀκίνητος εἶναι, ὅπως ἀκριβῶς αἰσθάνηται πάσας τὰς διαφορὰς τῆς κινήσεως. — p. 420, a. 14. οὐδ’ (ἀκούομεν) ἂν ἡ μήνιγξ κάμῃ, ὥσπερ τὸ ἐπὶ τῇ κόρῃ δέρμα ὅταν κάμῃ.

Voice is a kind of sound peculiar to animated beings; yet not belonging to all of them, but only to those that inspire the air. Nature employs respiration for two purposes: the first, indispensable to animal life, — that of cooling and tempering the excessive heat of the heart and its adjacent parts; the second, not indispensable to life, yet most valuable to the higher faculties of man, — significant speech. The organ of respiration is the larynx; a man cannot speak either when inspiring or expiring, but only when retaining and using the breath within. The soul in those parts, when guided by some phantasm or thought, impels the air within against the walls of the trachea, and this shock causes vocal sounds.[87]

[87] Aristot. De Animâ, II. viii. p. 420, b. 5-p. 421, a. 6. ὥστε ἡ πληγὴ τοῦ ἀναπνεομένου ἀέρος ὑπὸ τῆς ἐν τούτοις τοῖς μορίοις ψυχῆς πρὸς τὴν καλουμένην ἀρτηρίαν φωνή ἐστιν. οὐ γὰρ πᾶς ζῴου ψόφος φωνή, καθάπερ εἴπομεν (ἔστι γὰρ καὶ τῇ γλώττῃ ψοφεῖν καὶ ὡς οἱ βήττοντες) ἀλλὰ δεῖ ἔμψυχόν τε εἶναι τὸ τύπτον καὶ μετὰ φαντασίας τινός· σημαντικὸς γὰρ δή τις ψόφος ἐστὶν ἡ φωνή· καὶ οὐ τοῦ ἀναπνεομένου ἀέρος, ὥσπερ ἡ βήξ, ἀλλὰ τούτῳ τύπτει τὸν ἐν τῇ ἀρτηρίᾳ πρὸς αὐτήν.

Aristotle seems to have been tolerably satisfied with the above explanation of sight and hearing; for, in approaching the sense of Smell with the olfacients, he begins by saying that it is less definable and explicable. Among the five senses, smell stands intermediate between the two (taste and touch) that operate by direct contact, and the other two (sight and hearing) that operate through an external medium. Man is below other animals in this sense; he discriminates little in smells except the pleasurable and the painful.[88] His taste, though analogous in many points to smell, is far more accurate and discriminating, because taste is a variety of touch; and in respect to touch, man is the most discriminating of all animals. Hence his great superiority to them in practical wisdom. Indeed the marked difference of intelligence between one man and another, turns mainly upon the organ of touch: men of hard flesh (or skin) are by nature dull in intelligence, men of soft flesh are apt and clever.[89] The classifying names of different smells are borrowed from the names of the analogous tastes to which they are analogous — sweet, bitter, tart, dry, sharp, smooth, &c.[90] Smells take effect through air as well as through water; by means of a peculiar agency or accompaniment (mentioned above, called the Trans-Olfacient) pervading both one and the other. It is peculiar to man that he cannot smell except when inhaling air in the act of inspiration; any one may settle this for himself by making the trial.[91] But fishes and other aquatic animals, which never inhale air, can smell in the water; and this proves that the trans-olfacient agency is operative to transmit odours not less in water than in air.[92] We know that the sense of smell in these aquatic animals is the same as it is in man, because the same strong odours that are destructive to man are also destructive to them.[93] Smell is the parallel, and in a certain sense the antithesis of taste; smell is of the dry, taste is of the moist: the olfactory matter is a juicy or sapid dryness, extracted or washed out from both air and water by the trans-olfacient agency, and acting on the sensory potentialities of the nostrils.[94] This olfactory inhalation is warm as well as dry. Hence it is light, and rises easily to the brain, the moisture and coldness of which it contributes to temper; this is a very salutary process, for the brain is the wettest and coldest part of the body, requiring warm and dry influences as a corrective. It is with a view to this correction that Nature has placed the olfactory organ in such close proximity to the brain.[95] There are two kinds of olfactory impressions. One of them is akin to the sense of taste — odour and savour going together — an affection (to a great degree) of the nutritive soul; so that the same odour is agreeable when we are hungry, disagreeable when our hunger is fully satisfied. This first kind of impression is common to men with other animals; but there is a second, peculiar to man, and disconnected from the sense of taste, viz., the scent of flowers, unguents, &c., which are agreeable or disagreeable constantly and per se.[96] Nature has assigned this second kind of odours as a privilege to man, because his brain, being so large and moist, requires to be tempered by an additional stock of drying and warming olfactory influence.

[88] Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, a. 7. De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 445, a. 6; iv. p. 441, a. 1. De Partibus Animal. II. xii. p. 656, a. 31; p. 657, a. 9.

[89] Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, a. 21: κατὰ δὲ τὴν ἁφὴν πολλῷ τῶν ἄλλων ζῴων διαφερόντως ἀκριβοῖ (ὁ ἄνθρωπος). διὸ καὶ φρονιμώτατόν ἐστι τῶν ζῴων. σημεῖον δὲ τὸ καὶ ἐν τῷ γένει τῶν ἀνθρώπων παρὰ τὸ αἰσθητήριον τοῦτο εἶναι εὐφυεῖς καὶ ἀφυεῖς, παρ’ ἄλλο δὲ μηδέν· οἱ μὲν γὰρ σκληρόσαρκοι ἀφυεῖς τὴν διάνοιαν, οἱ δὲ μαλακόσαρκοι εὐφυεῖς.

[90] Ibid. a. 26.

[91] Ibid. b. 9-19. τὸ ἄνευ τοῦ ἀναπνεῖν μὴ αἰσθάνεσθαι ἴδιον ἐπὶ τῶν ἀνθρώπων· δῆλον δὲ πειρωμένοις. He seems to think that this is not true of any animal other than man.

[92] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 443, a. 3-31; p. 444, b. 9.

[93] Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, b. 23. He instances brimstone, ἄσφαλτος, &c.

[94] This is difficult to understand, but it seems to be what Aristotle here means. — De Animâ, II. ix. p. 422, a. 6: ἔστι δ’ ἡ ὀσμὴ τοὺ ξηροῦ, ὥσπερ ὁ χυμὸς τοῦ ὑγροῦ· τὸ δ’ ὀσφραντικὸν αἰσθητήριον δυνάμει τοιοῦτον. — De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 443, a. 1-9: ἔστι δ’ ὀσφραντὸν οὐχ ᾗ διαφανές, ἀλλ’ ᾖ πλυντικὸν ἢ ῥυπτικὸν ἐγχύμου ξηρότητος· — ἡ ἐν ὑγρῷ τοῦ ἐγχύμου ξηροῦ φύσις ὀσμή, καὶ ὀσφραντὸν τὸ πάθος, δῆλον ἐκ τῶν ἐχόντων καὶ μὴ ἐχόντων ὀσμήν, &c. Also p. 443, b. 3-7.

In the treatise De Sensu et Sensili, there is one passage (ii. p. 438, b. 24), wherein Aristotle affirms that smell is καπνώδης ἀναθυμίασις, ἐκ πυρός; but we also find a subsequent passage (v. p. 443, a. 21, seq.) where he cites that same doctrine as the opinion of others, but distinctly refutes it.

[95] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, v. p. 444, a. 10, 22, 24: ἡ γὰρ τῆς ὀσμῆς δύναμις θερμὴ τὴν φύσιν ἐστίν.

[96] Ibid. p. 443, b. 17; p. 444, a. 6. 15, 28: ἴδιον δὲ τῆς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου φύσεώς ἐστι τὸ τῆς ὀσμῆς τῆς τοιαύτης γένος διὰ τὸ πλεῖστον ἐγκέφαλον καὶ ὑγρότατον ἔχειν τῶν ζῴων ὡς κατὰ μέγεθος.

Plato also reckons the pleasures of smell among the pure and admissible pleasures (Philebus, p. 51, E.; Timæus, p. 65, A., p. 67, A.).

Taste is a variety of touch, and belongs to the lower or nutritive soul, as a guide to the animal in seeking or avoiding different sorts of food. The object of taste is essentially liquid, often strained and extracted from dry food by warmth and moisture. The primary manifestation of this sensory phenomenon is the contrast of drinkable and undrinkable.[97] The organ of taste, the tongue, is a mean between dryness and moisture; when either of these is in excess, the organ is disordered. Among the varieties of taste, there are two fundamental contraries (as in colour, sound, and the objects of the other senses except touch) from which the other contrasts are derived. These fundamentals in taste are sweet and bitter; corresponding to white and black, acute and grave, in colours and sounds. The sense of taste is potentially sweet or bitter; the gustable object is what makes it sweet or bitter in actuality.[98]

[97] Aristot. De Animâ, II. x. p. 422, a. 30-33. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 436, b. 15; iv. p. 441, b. 17: διὰ τοῦ ξηροῦ καὶ γεώδους διηθοῦσα (ἡ φύσις) καὶ κινοῦσα τῷ θερμῷ ποιόν τι τὸ ὑγρὸν παρασκευάζει. καὶ ἔστι τοῦτο χυμὸς τὸ γιγνόμενον ὑπὸ τοῦ εἰρημένου ξηροῦ πάθος ἐν τῷ ὑγρῷ. — Ib. b. 24: οὐ παντὸς ξηροῦ ἀλλὰ τοῦ τροφίμου.

[98] Aristot. De Animâ, II. x. p. 422, b. 5-16; II. xi. p. 422, b. 23: πᾶσά τε γὰρ αἴσθησις μιᾶς ἐναντιώσεως εἶναι δοκεῖ, &c.

The sense of touch, in which man surpasses all other animals, differs from the other senses by not having any two fundamental contraries giving origin to the rest, but by having various contraries alike fundamental. It is thus hardly one sense, but an aggregate of several senses. It appreciates the elementary differences of body quâ body — hot, cold, dry, moist, hard, soft, &c. It is a mean between each of these two extremes; being potentially either one of them, and capable of being made to assimilate itself actually to either.[99] In this sense, the tangible object operates when in contact with the skin; and, as has been already said, much of the superiority of man depends upon his superior fineness and delicacy of skin.[100] Still Aristotle remarks that the true organ of touch is not the skin or flesh, but something interior to the flesh. This last serves only as a peculiar medium. The fact that the sensation arises when the object touches our skin, does not prove that the skin is the true organ; for, if there existed a thin exterior membrane surrounding our bodies, we should still feel the same sensation. Moreover, the body is not in real contact with our skin, though it appears to be so; there is a thin film of air between the two, though we do not perceive it; just as, when we touch an object under water, there is a film of water interposed between, as is seen by the wetness of the finger.[101] The skin is, therefore, not the true organ of touch, but a medium between the object and the organ; and this sense does in reality agree with the other senses in having a certain medium interposed between object and organ. But there is this difference: in touch the medium is close to and a part of ourselves; in sight and hearing it is exterior to ourselves, and may extend to some distance. In sight and hearing the object does not affect us directly; it affects the external medium, which again affects us. But in touch the object affects, at the same time and by the same influence, both the medium and the interior organ; like a spear that, with the same thrust, pierces the warrior’s shield and wounds the warrior himself.[102] Apparently, therefore, the true organ of touch is something interior, and skin and flesh is an interposed medium.[103] But what this interior organ is, Aristotle does not more particularly declare. He merely states it to be in close and intimate communication with the great central focus and principle of all sensation — the heart;[104] more closely connected with the heart (he appears to think) than any of the other organs of sense, though all of them are so connected more or less closely.

[99] Ibid. xi. p. 422, b. 17 seq.

[100] Aristot. Histor. Animal. I. xv. p. 494, b. 17. Man is λεπτοδερμότατος τῶν ζῷων (Aristot. De Partib. Animal. ii. p. 657, b. 2), and has the tongue also looser and softer than any of them, most fit for variety of touch (p. 660, a. 20) as well as for articulate speech.

[101] Aristot. De Animâ, II. xi. p. 423, a. 25-32.

[102] Ibid. p. 423, b. 12-17: διαφέρει τὸ ἁπτὸν τῶν ὁρατῶν καὶ τῶν ψοφητικῶν ὅτι ἐκείνων μὲν αἰσθανόμεθα τῷ τὸ μεταξὺ ποιεῖν τι ἡμᾶς, τῶν δὲ ἁπτῶν οὐχ ὑπὸ τοῦ μεταξὺ ἀλλ’ ἅμα τῷ μεταξύ, ὥσπερ ὁ δι’ ἀσπίδος πληγείς· οὐ γὰρ ἡ ἀσπὶς πληγεῖσα ἐπάταξεν, ἀλλ’ ἅμ’ ἄμφω συνέβη πληγῆναι.

This analogy of the warrior pierced at the same time with his shield illustrates Aristotle’s view of the eighth Category — Habere: of which he gives ὥπλισται as the example. He considers a man’s clothes and defensive weapons as standing in a peculiar relation to him like a personal appurtenance and almost as a part of himself. It is under this point of view that he erects Habere into a distinct Category.

[103] Aristot. De Animâ, II. xi. p. 423, b. 22-26: ᾗ καὶ δῆλον ὅτι ἐντὸς τὸ τοῦ ἁπτοῦ αἰσθητικόν. — τὸ μεταξὺ τοῦ ἁπτικοῦ ἡ σάρξ.

[104] Aristot. De Partibus Animal. II. x. p. 656, a. 30; De Vitâ et Morte, iii. p. 469, a. 12: De Somno et Vigil. ii. p. 455, a. 23; De Sensu et Sensili, ii. p. 439, a. 2.

Having gone through the five senses seriatim, Aristotle offers various reasons to prove that there neither are, nor can be, more than five; and then discusses some complicated phenomena of sense. We perceive that we see or hear;[105] do we perceive this by sight or by hearing? and if not, by what other faculty?[106] Aristotle replies by saying that the act of sense is one and the same, but that it may be looked at in two different points of view. We see a coloured object; we hear a sound: in each case the act of sense is one; the energy or actuality of the visum, and videns, of the sonans and audiens, is implicated and indivisible. But the potentiality of the one is quite distinct from the potentiality of the other, and may be considered as well as named apart.[107] When we say: I perceive that I see — we look at the same act of vision from the side of the videns; the visum being put out of sight as the unnoticed correlate. This is a mental fact distinct from, though following upon, the act of vision itself. Aristotle refers it rather to that general sentient soul or faculty, of which the five senses are partial and separate manifestations, than to the sense of vision itself.[108] He thus considers what would now be termed consciousness of a sensation, as being merely the subjective view of the sensation, distinguished by abstraction from the objective.

[105] In modern psychology the language would be — “We are conscious that we see or hear.� But Sir William Hamilton has remarked that the word Consciousness has no equivalent usually or familiarly employed in the Greek psychology.

[106] Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 425, b. 14.

[107] Ibid. b. 26; p. 426, a. 16-19.

[108] Aristot. De Somno et Vigil. ii. p. 455, a. 12-17; De Animâ, III. ii. with Torstrick’s note, p. 166, and the exposition of Alexander of Aphrodisias therein cited. These two passages of Aristotle are to a certain extent different yet not contradictory, though Torstrick supposes them to be so.

It is the same general sentient faculty, though diversified and logically distinguishable in its manifestations, that enables us to conceive many sensations as combined into one; and to compare or discriminate sensations belonging to different senses.[109]

[109] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 449, a. 8-20.

White and sweet are perceived by two distinct senses, and at two distinct moments of time; but they must be compared and discriminated by one and the same sentient or cogitant act, and at one moment of time.[110] This mental act, though in itself indivisible, has yet two aspects, and is thus in a certain sense divisible; just as a point taken in the middle of a line, while indivisible in itself, may be looked upon as the closing terminus of one-half of the line, and as the commencing terminus of the other half. The comparison of two different sensations or thoughts is thus one and the same mental fact, with two distinguishable aspects.[111]

[110] Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 426, b. 17-29: οὔτε δὴ κεχωρισμένοις ἐνδέχεται κρίνειν ὅτι ἕτερον τὸ γλυκὺ τοῦ λευκοῦ, ἀλλὰ δεῖ ἑνί τινι ἄμφω δῆλα εἶναι. — δεῖ δὲ τὸ ἓν λέγειν ὅτι ἕτερον· ἕτερον γὰρ τὸ γλυκὺ τοῦ λευκοῦ. — ἀχώριστον καὶ ἐν ἀχωρίστῳ χρόνῳ. III. vii. p. 431, a. 20.

[111] Aristot. De Animâ, III. ii. p. 427, a. 10-14: ὥσπερ ἣν καλοῦσί τινες στιγμήν, ᾗ μιὰ καὶ ᾗ δύο, ταύτῃ καὶ ἀδιαίρετος καὶ διαιρέτη· ᾗ μὲν οὖν ἀδιαίρετον, ἓν τὸ κρῖνόν ἐστι καὶ ἅμα, ᾗ δὲ διαίρετον ὑπάρχει, οὐχ ἕν· δὶς γὰρ τῷ αὐτῷ χρῆται σημείῳ ἅμα.

It is to be remarked that, in explaining this mental process of comparison, Aristotle three several times applies it both to αἴσθησις and to νόησις, p. 426, b. 22-31; p. 427, a. 9.

Aristotle devotes a chapter to the enquiry: whether we can perceive two distinct sensations at once (i.e. in one and the same moment of time). He decides that we cannot; that the sentient soul or faculty is one and indivisible, and can only have a single energy or actuality at once.[112] If two causes of sensation are operative together, and one of them be much superior in force, it will render us insensible to the other. He remarks that, when we are pre-occupied with loud noise, or with deep reflection, or with intense fright, visual objects will often pass by us unseen and unnoticed.[113] Often the two simultaneous sensations will combine or blend into one compound, so that we shall feel neither of them purely or separately.[114] One single act of sensational energy may however have a double aspect; as the same individual object may be at once white and sweet, though its whiteness and its sweetness are logically separable.[115]

[112] Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, vii. p. 447, a. 12.

[113] Ibid. a. 15.

[114] Ibid. b. 12-20.

[115] Ibid. p. 449, a. 14.

To the sentient soul, even in its lowest manifestations, belong the feelings of pleasure and pain, appetite and aversion.[116] The movements connected with these feelings, as with all sensation, begin and close with the central organ — the heart.[117] Upon these are consequent the various passions and emotions; yet not without certain faculties of memory and phantasy accompanying or following the facts of sense.

[116] Aristot. De Animâ, II. iii. p. 414, b. 3-16; III. vii. p. 431, a. 9; De Somno et Vigil. i. p. 454, b. 29.

[117] Aristot. De Partibus Animalium, III. iv. p. 666, a. 12.

Aristotle proceeds by gradual steps upward from the Sentient soul to the Noëtic (Cogitant or Intelligent) soul, called in its highest perfection Noûs. While refuting the doctrine of Empedokles, Demokritus, and other philosophers, who considered cogitation or intelligence to be the same as sensible perception, and while insisting upon the distinctness of the two as mental phenomena, he recognizes the important point of analogy between them, that both of them include judgment and comparison;[118] and he describes an intermediate stage called Phantasy or Imagination, forming the transition from the lower of the two to the higher. We have already observed that, in the Aristotelian psychology, the higher functions of the soul presuppose and are built upon the lower as their foundation, though the lower do not necessarily involve the higher. Without nutrition, there is no sense; without sense, there is no phantasy; without phantasy, there is no cogitation or intelligence.[119] The higher psychical phenomena are not identical with the lower, yet neither are they independent thereof; they presuppose the lower as a part of their conditions. Here, and indeed very generally elsewhere, Aristotle has been careful to avoid the fallacy of confounding or identifying the conditions of a phenomenon with the phenomenon itself.[120]

[118] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 427, a. 20.

[119] Ibid. b. 14: φαντασία γὰρ ἕτερον καὶ αἰσθήσεως καὶ διανοίας. — Ib. vii. p. 431, a. 16: οὐδέποτε νοεῖ ἄνευ φαντάσματος ἡ ψυχή. — De Memoriâ et Reminiscent. i. p. 449, b. 31: νοεῖν οὐκ ἔστιν ἄνευ φαντάσματος.

[120] Mill’s System of Logic, Book V. ch. 3, s. 8.

He proceeds to explain Phantasy or the Phantastic department of the soul, with the phantasms that belong to it. It is not sensible perception, nor belief, nor opinion, nor knowledge, nor cogitation. Our dreams, though affections of the sentient soul, are really phantasms in our sleep, when there is no visual sensation; even when awake, we have a phantasm of the sun, as of a disk one foot in diameter, though we believe the sun to be larger than the earth.[121] Many of the lower animals have sensible perception without any phantasy: even those among them that have phantasy have no opinion; for opinion implies faith, persuasion, and some rational explanation of that persuasion, to none of which does any animal attain.[122] Phantasy is an internal movement of the animated being (body and soul in one); belonging to the sentient soul, not to the cogitant or intelligent; not identical with the movement of sense, but continued from or produced by that, and by that alone; accordingly, similar to the movement of sense and relating to the same matters.[123] Since our sensible perceptions may be either true or false, so also may be our phantasms. And, since these phantasms are not only like our sensations, but remain standing in the soul long after the objects of sense have passed away, they are to a great degree the determining causes both of action and emotion. They are such habitually to animals, who are destitute of Noûs; and often even to intelligent men, if the Noûs be overclouded by disease or drunkenness.[124]

[121] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, a. 5, b. 3; De Somno et Vig. ii. p. 456, a. 24: κινοῦνται δ’ ἔνιοι καθεύδοντες καὶ ποιοῦσι πολλὰ ἐγρηγορικά, οὐ μέντοι ἄνευ φαντάσματος καὶ αἰσθήσεώς τινος· τὸ γὰρ ἐνύπνιόν ἐστιν αἴσθημα τρόπον τινά. — Ibid. i. p. 454, b. 10.

[122] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, a. 10, 22, 25.

[123] Ibid. b. 10-15; De Somniis, i. p. 459, a. 15.

[124] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 428, b. 16: καὶ πολλὰ κατ’ αὐτὴν (i.e. κατὰ τὴν φαντασίαν) καὶ ποιεῖν καὶ πάσχειν τὸ ἔχον. — Ibid. p. 429, a. 4: καὶ διὰ τὸ ἐμμένειν καὶ ὁμοίας εἶναι (τὰς φαντασίας) ταῖς αἰσθήσεσι, πολλὰ κατ’ αὐτὰς πράττει τὰ ζῷα, &c.

In the chapter now before us, Aristotle is careful to discriminate phantasy from several other psychological phenomena wherewith it is liable to be confounded. But we remark with some surprise, that neither here, nor in any other part of his general Psychology, does he offer any exposition of Memory, the phenomenon more nearly approaching than any other to phantasy. He supplied the deficiency afterwards by a short but valuable tract on Memory and Reminiscence; wherein he recognizes, and refers to, the more general work on Psychology. Memory bears on the past, as distinguished both from the present and future. Memory and phantasy are in some cases so alike, that we cannot distinguish clearly whether what is in our minds is a remembrance or a phantasm.[125] Both of them belong to the same psychological department — to the central sentient principle, and not to the cogitant or intelligent Noûs. Memory as well as phantasy are continuations, remnants, or secondary consequences, of the primary movements of sense; what in itself is a phantasm, may become an object of remembrance directly and per se; matters of cogitation, being included or implicated in phantasms, may also become objects of remembrance, indirectly and by way of accompaniment.[126] We can remember our prior acts of cogitation and demonstration; we can remember that, a month ago, we demonstrated the three angles of a triangle to be equal to two right angles; but, as the original demonstration could not be carried on without our having before our mental vision the phantasm of some particular triangle, so neither can the remembrance of the demonstration be made present to us without a similar phantasm.[127] In acts of remembrance we have a conception of past time, and we recognize what is now present to our minds as a copy of what has been formerly present to us, either as perception of sense or as actual cognition;[128] while in phantasms there is no conception of past time, nor any similar recognition, nor any necessary reference to our own past mental states; the phantasm is looked at by itself, and not as a copy. This is the main point of distinction between phantasm and remembrance:[129] what is remembered is a present phantasm assimilated to an impression of the past. Some of the superior animals possess both memory and phantasy. But other animals have neither; their sensations disappear, they have no endurance; while endurance is the basis both of phantasy and memory.[130]

[125] Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 451, a. 5; p. 449, a. 10.

[126] Ibid. p. 450, a. 22: τίνος μὲν οὖν τῶν τῆς ψυχῆς ἐστὶν ἡ μνήμη, φανερὸν ὅτι οὗπερ καὶ ἡ φαντασία· καὶ ἔστι μνημονευτὰ καθ’ αὑτὰ μὲν ὅσα ἐστὶ φανταστά, κατὰ συμβεβηκὸς δ’ ὅσα μὴ ἄνευ φαντασίας.

[127] Aristot. De Memor. et. Rem. i. p. 449, b. 18.

[128] Ibid. b. 22: ἀεὶ γὰρ ὅταν ἐνεργῇ κατὰ τὸ μνημονεύειν, οὕτως ἐν τῇ ψυχῇ λέγει, ὅτι πρότερον τοῦτο ἤκουσεν ἢ ᾔσθετο ἢ ἐνόησεν. — Ibid. p. 452, b. 28.

[129] Ibid. p. 450, a. 30; p. 451, a. 15: τὸ μνημονεύειν, ὡς εἰκόνος οὗ φάντασμα, ἕξις. Themistius ad Aristot. De Memoriâ, p. 240, ed. Spengel.

[130] Aristot. Analyt. Poster. ii. p. 99, b. 36: μονὴ τοῦ αἰσθήματος. It may be remarked that in the Topica Aristotle urges a dialectical objection against this or a similar doctrine (Topic. IV. iv. v. p. 125, b. 6-19), and against his own definition cited in the preceding note, where he calls μνήμη an ἕξις. Compare the first chapter of the Metaphysica.

But though some animals have memory, no animal except man has Reminiscence. Herein man surpasses them all.[131] Aristotle draws a marked distinction between the two; between the (memorial) retentive and reviving functions, when working unconsciously and instinctively, and the same two functions, when stimulated and guided by a deliberate purpose of our own — which he calls reminiscence. This last is like a syllogism or course of ratiocinative inference, performable only by minds capable of taking counsel and calculating. He considers memory as a movement proceeding from the centre and organs of sense to the soul, and stamping an impression thereupon; while reminiscence is a counter-movement proceeding from the soul to the organs of sense.[132] In the process of reminiscence, movements of the soul and movements of the body are conjoined,[133] more or less perturbing and durable according to the temperament of the individual. The process is intentional and deliberate, instigated by the desire to search for and recover some lost phantasm or cognition; its success depends upon the fact that there exists by nature a regular observable order of sequence among the movements of the system, physical as well as psychical. The consequents follow their antecedents either universally, or at least according to customary rules, in the majority of cases.[134]

[131] Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 453, a. 8. He draws the same distinction in Hist. Animal. I. i. p. 488, b. 26.

[132] Aristot. De Animâ, I. iv. p. 408, b. 17. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 450, a. 30; ii. p. 453, a. 10: τὸ ἀναμιμνήσκεσθαί ἐστιν οἷον συλλόγισμός τις.

[133] Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 453, a. 14-23.

[134] Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 451, b. 10: συμβαίνουσι δ’ αἱ ἀναμνήσεις, ἐπειδὴ πέφυκεν ἡ κίνησις ἥδε γενέσθαι μετὰ τήνδε.

The consequent is either (1) like its antecedent, wholly or partially; or (2) contrary to it; or (3) has been actually felt in juxtaposition with it. In reminiscence, we endeavour to regain the forgotten consequent by hunting out some antecedent whereupon it is likely to follow; taking our start either from the present moment or from some other known point.[135] We run over many phantasms until we hit upon the true antecedent; the possibility of reminiscence depends upon our having this within our mental reach, among our accessible stock of ideas: if such be not the case, reminiscence is impracticable, and we must learn over again.[136] We are most likely to succeed, if we get upon the track or order wherein events actually occurred; thus, if we are trying to recollect a forgotten verse or sentence, we begin to repeat it from the first word; the same antecedent may indeed call up different consequents at different times, but it will generally call up what has habitually followed it before.[137]

[135] Ibid. b. 18: διὸ καὶ τὸ ἐφεξῆς θηρεύομεν νοήσαντες ἀπὸ τοῦ νῦν ἢ ἄλλου τινός, καὶ ἀφ’ ὁμοίου ἢ ἐναντίου ἢ τοῦ σύνεγγυς.

About the associative property of Contraries see also De Somno et Vigil. i. p. 453, b. 27.

[136] Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 452, a. 7: πολλάκις δ’ ἤδη μὲν ἀδυνατεῖ ἀναμνησθῆναι, ζητεῖν δὲ δύναται καὶ εὑρίσκει. τοῦτο δὲ γίνεται κινοῦντι πολλά, ἕως ἂν τοιαύτην κινήσῃ κίνησιν, ᾗ ἀκολουθήσει τὸ πρᾶγμα. τὸ γὰρ μεμνῆσθαί ἐστι τὸ ἐνεῖναι δυνάμει τὴν κινοῦσαν· τοῦτο δέ, ὡστ’ ἐξ αὐτοῦ καὶ ὧν ἔχει κινήσεων κινηθῆναι, ὥσπερ εἴρηται.

[137] Ibid. ii. p. 452, a. 2.

The movements of Memory and of Reminiscence are partly corporeal and partly psychical, just as those of Sensation and Phantasy are. We compare in our remembrance greater and less (either in time or in external magnitudes) through similar internal movements differing from each other in the same, proportion, but all on a miniature scale.[138] These internal movements often lead to great discomfort, when a person makes fruitless efforts to recover the forgotten phantasm that he desires; especially with excitable men, who are much disturbed by their own phantasms. They cannot stop the movement once begun; and, when their sensitive system is soft and flexible, they find that they have unwittingly provoked the bodily movements belonging to anger or fear, or some other painful emotion.[139] These movements, when once provoked, continue in spite of the opposition of the person that experiences them. He brings upon himself the reality of the painful emotion; just as we find that, after we have very frequently pronounced a sentence or sung a song, the internal movements left in our memories are sometimes so strong and so persistent, that they act on our vocal organs even without any volition on our parts, and determine us to sing the song or pronounce the sentence over again in reality.[140] Slow men are usually good in memory, quick men and apt learners are good in reminiscence: the two are seldom found together.[141]

[138] Ibid. b. 12: ἔστι γὰρ ἐν αὐτῇ τὰ ὅμοια σχήματα καὶ κινήσεις. — πάντα γὰρ τὰ ἐντὸς ἐλάττω, ὥσπερ ἀνάλογον καὶ τὰ ἐκτός.

[139] Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 453, a. 22: ὁ ἀναμιμνησκόμενος καὶ θηρεύων σωματικόν τι κινεῖ, ἐν ᾧ τὸ πάθος.

[140] Ibid. p. 453, a. 28: ἔοικε τὸ πάθος τοῖς ὀνόμασι καὶ μέλεσι καὶ λόγοις, ὅταν διὰ στόματος γένηταί τι αὐτῶν σφόδρα· παυσαμένοις γὰρ καὶ οὐ βουλομένοις ἐπέρχεται πάλιν ᾄδειν ἢ λέγειν.

[141] Ibid. i. p. 449, b. 7.

In this account of Memory and Reminiscence, Aristotle displays an acute and penetrating intelligence of the great principles of the Association of Ideas. But these principles are operative not less in memory than in reminiscence: and the exaggerated prominence that he has given to the distinction between the two (determined apparently by a wish to keep the procedure of man apart from that of animals) tends to perplex his description of the associative process. At the same time, his manner of characterizing phantasy, memory, and reminiscence, as being all of them at once corporeal and psychical — involving, like sensation, internal movements of the body as well as phases of the consciousness, sometimes even passing into external movements of the bodily organs without our volition — all this is a striking example of psychological observation, as well as of consistency in following out the doctrine laid down at the commencement of his chief treatise: Soul as the Form implicated with Body as the Matter, — the two being an integral concrete separable only by abstraction.

We come now to the highest and (in Aristotle’s opinion) most honourable portion of the soul — the Noûs or noëtic faculty, whereby we cogitate, understand, reason, and believe or opine under the influence of reason.[142] According to the uniform scheme of Aristotle, this highest portion of the soul, though distinct from all the lower, presupposes them all. As the sentient soul presupposes the nutrient, so also the cogitant soul presupposes the nutrient, the sentient, the phantastic, the memorial, and the reminiscent. Aristotle carefully distinguishes the sentient department of the soul from the cogitant, and refutes more than once the doctrine of those philosophers that identified the two. But he is equally careful to maintain the correlation between them, and to exhibit the sentient faculty not only as involving in itself a certain measure of intellectual discrimination, but also as an essential and fundamental condition to the agency of the cogitant, as a portion of the human soul. We have already gone through the three successive stages — phantastic, memorial, reminiscent — whereby the interval between sensation and cogitation is bridged over. Each of the three is directly dependent on past sensation, either as reproduction or as corollary; each of them is an indispensable condition of man’s cogitation; moreover, in the highest of the three, we have actually slid unperceived into the cogitant phase of the human soul; for Aristotle declares the reminiscent process to be of the nature of a syllogism.[143] That the soul cannot cogitate or reason without phantasms — that phantasms are required for the actual working of the human Noûs — he affirms in the most explicit manner.[144]

[142] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iv. p. 429, a. 10: περὶ δὲ τοῦ μορίου τοῦ τῆς ψυχῆς ᾧ γινώσκει τε ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ φρονεῖ. He himself defines what he means by νοῦς a few lines lower; and he is careful to specify it as ὁ τῆς ψυχῆς νοῦς — ὁ ἄρα καλούμενος τῆς ψυχῆς νοῦς (λέγω δὲ νοῦν, ᾧ διανοεῖται καὶ ὑπολαμβάνει ἡ ψυχή) — a. 22.

In the preceding chapter he expressly discriminates νόησις from ὑπόληψις. This last word ὑπόληψις is the most general term for believing or opining upon reasons good or bad; the varieties under it are ἐπιστήμη, δόξα, φρόνησις καὶ τἀναντία τούτων (p. 427, b. 16-27).

[143] Aristot. De Memor. et Rem. ii. p. 453 a. 10.

[144] Ibid. p. 449, b. 31-p. 450, a. 12: νοεῖν οὐκ ἔστιν ἄνευ φαντάσματος — ἡ δὲ μνήμη καὶ ἡ τῶν νοητῶν οὐκ ἄνευ φαντάσματός ἐστιν. — De Animâ, III. vii. p. 431, a. 16.

The doctrine of Aristotle respecting Noûs has been a puzzle, even from the time of his first commentators. Partly from the obscurity inherent in the subject, partly from the defective condition of his text as it now stands, his meaning cannot be always clearly comprehended, nor does it seem that the different passages can be completely reconciled.

Anaxagoras, Demokritus, and other philosophers, appear to have spoken of Noûs or Intellect in a large and vague sense, as equivalent to Soul generally. Plato seems to have been the first to narrow and specialize the meaning; distinguishing pointedly (as we have stated above) the rational or encephalic soul, in the cranium, with its circular rotations, from the two lower souls, thoracic and abdominal. Aristotle agreed with him in this distinction (either of separate souls or of separate functions in the same soul); but he attenuated and divested it of all connexion with separate corporeal lodgment, or with peculiar movements of any kind. In his psychology, the brain no longer appears as the seat of intelligence, but simply as a cold, moist, and senseless organ, destined to countervail the excessive heat of the heart: which last is the great centre of animal heat, of life, and of the sentient soul. Aristotle declares Noûs not to be connected with, or dependent on, any given bodily organs or movements appropriated to itself: this is one main circumstance distinguishing it from the nutrient soul as well as from the sentient soul, each of which rests indispensably upon corporeal organs and agencies of its own.

It will be remembered that we stated the relation of Soul to Body (in Aristotle’s view) as that of Form to Matter; the two together constituting a concrete individual, numerically one; also that Form and Matter, each being essentially relative to the other, admitted of gradations, higher and lower; e.g. a massive cube of marble is already materia formata, but it is still purely materia, relative to the statue that may be obtained from it. Now, the grand region of Form is the Celestial Body — the vast, deep, perceivable, circular mass circumscribing the Kosmos, and enclosing, in and around its centre, Earth with the other three elements, tenanted by substances generated and perishable. This Celestial Body is the abode of divinity, including many divine beings who take part in its eternal rotations, viz. the Sun, Moon, Stars, &c., and other Gods. Now, every soul, or every form that animates the matter of a living being, derives its vitalizing influence from this celestial region. All seeds of life include within them a spiritual or gaseous heat, more divine than the four elements, proceeding from the sun, and in nature akin to the element of the stars. Such solar or celestial heat differs generically from the heat of fire. It is the only source from whence the principle of life, with the animal heat that accompanies it, can be obtained. Soul, in all its varieties, proceeds from hence.[145]

[145] Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. iii. p. 736, b. 29: πάσης μὲν οὖν ψυχῆς δύναμις ἑτέρου σώματος ἔοικε κεκοινωνηκέναι καὶ θειοτέρου τῶν καλουμένων στοιχείων· ὡς δὲ διαφέρουσι τιμιότητι αἱ ψυχαὶ καὶ ἀτιμίᾳ ἀλλήλων, οὕτω καὶ ἡ τοιαύτη διαφέρει φύσις· πάντων μὲν γὰρ ἐν τῷ σπέρματι ἐνυπάρχει, ὅπερ ποιεῖ γόνιμα εἶναι τὰ σπέρματα, τὸ καλούμενον θερμόν.

But though all varieties of Soul emanate from the same celestial source, they possess the divine element in very different degrees, and are very unequal in comparative worth and dignity. The lowest variety, or nutritive soul — the only one possessed by plants, among which there is no separation of sex[146] — is contained potentially in the seed, and is thus transmitted when that seed is matured into a new individual. In animals, which possess it along with the sensitive soul and among which the sexes are separated, it is also contained potentially in the generative system of the female separately; and the first commencement of life in the future animal is thus a purely vegetable life.[147] The sensitive soul, the characteristic of the complete animal, cannot be superadded except by copulation and the male semen. The female, being comparatively impotent and having less animal heat, furnishes only the matter of the future offspring; form, or the moving, fecundating, cause, is supplied by the male. Through the two together the new individual animal is completed, having not merely the nutritive soul, but also the sentient soul along with it.[148]

[146] Ibid. I. xxiii. p. 731, a. 27.

[147] Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. iii. p. 736, b. 12.

[148] Ibid. I. ii. p. 716, a. 4-17; xix. p. 726, b. 33; xx. p. 728, a. 17; xxi. p. 729, b. 6-27.

Both the nutritive and the sentient souls have, each of them respectively, a special bodily agency and movement belonging to them. But the Noûs, or the noëtic soul, has no partnership with any similar bodily agency. There is no special corporeal potentiality (to speak in Aristotelian language) which it is destined to actualize. It enters from without, and emanates from a still more exalted influence of that divine celestial substance from which all psychical or vitalizing heat proceeds.[149] It is superinduced upon the nutritive and sentient souls, and introduces itself at an age of the individual later than both of them. Having no part of the bodily organism specially appropriated to it, this variety of soul — what is called the Noûs — stands distinguished from the other two in being perfectly separable from the body;[150] that is, separable from the organized body which it is the essential function of the two lower souls to actualize, and with which both of them are bound up. The Noûs is not separable from the body altogether; it belongs essentially to the divine celestial body, and to those luminaries and other divine beings by whom portions of it are tenanted. Theorizing contemplation — the perfect, unclouded, unembarrassed, exercise of the theoretical Noûs — is the single mental activity of these divinities; contemplation of the formal regularity of the Kosmos, with its eternal and faultless rotations, and with their own perfection as participating therein. The celestial body is the body whereto Noûs, or the noëtic soul, properly belongs;[151] quite apart from the two other souls, sentient and nutritive, upon which it is grafted in the animal body; and apart also from all the necessities of human action, preceded by balanced motives and deliberate choice.[152]

[149] Ibid. II. iii. p. 736, b. 27: λείπεται δὲ τὸν νοῦν μόνον θύραθεν ἐπεισιέναι, καὶ θεῖον εἶναι μόνον· οὐθὲν γὰρ αὐτοῦ τῇ ἐνεργείᾳ κοινωνεῖ σωματικὴ ἐνέργεια. The words θεῖον εἶναι μόνον must not be construed strictly, for in the next following passage he proceeds to declare that all ψυχή, ψυχικὴ δύναμις or ἀρχή, partakes of the divine element, and that in this respect there is only a difference of degree between one ψυχὴ and another.

[150] Ibid. p. 737, a. 10: ὁ καλούμενος νοῦς. De Animâ, II. ii. p. 413, b. 25; iii. p. 415, a. 11.

[151] Respecting τὸ ἄνω σῶμα, see the copious citations in Trendelenburg’s note ad Aristot. De Animâ, II. vii.; Comm. p. 373.

[152] Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. viii. p. 1178, b. 20: τῷ δὴ ζῶντι τοῦ πράττειν ἀφῃρημένῳ, ἔτι δὲ μᾶλλον τοῦ ποιεῖν, τί λείπεται πλὴν θεωρίας; ὥστε ἡ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐνέργεια, μακαριότητι διαφέρουσα, θεωρητικὴ ἂν εἴη. — See also Metaphysic. Λ. v. p. 1074, b. 26-35.

From this celestial body, a certain influence of Noûs is transferred to some of the mortal inhabitants of earth, water, and air. Thus a third or noëtic soul — or rather a third noëtic function — is added to the two existing functions, sensitive and nutrient, of the animal soul, which acquires thereby an improved aptitude for, and correlation with, the Formal and Universal. We have already stated that the sensitive soul possesses this aptitude to a certain extent; it receives the impression of sensible forms, without being impressed by the matter accompanying them. The noëtic function strengthens and sharpens the aptitude; the soul comes into correlation with those cogitable or intellective forms which are involved in the sensible forms;[153] it rises from the lower generalities of the Second Philosophy, to the higher generalities of the First Philosophy.

[153] Aristot. De Animâ, III. viii. p. 432, a. 6: ἐν τοῖς εἴδεσι τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς τὰ νοητά ἐστιν.

As the sentient or percipient soul is the form or correlate of all perceivables, and thus identified with them in nature, all of them having existence only in relation to it, — so the cogitant or intellective soul is the form or correlate of all cogitables, all of which exist relatively to it, and only relatively.[154] It is in fact the highest of all forms — the Form of Forms; the mental or subjective aspect of all formal reality.

[154] Ibid. p. 432, b. 2: ὁ νοῦς εἴδος εἰδῶν καὶ ἡ αἴσθησις εἶδος αἰσθητῶν.

Such at least is the tendency and purpose of that noëtic influence which the celestial substance imparts to the human soul; but it is realized only to a very small degree. In its characteristic theorizing efficacy, the godlike Noûs counts for a small fraction of the whole soul, though superexcellent in quality.[155] There are but few men in whom it is tolerably developed, and even in those few it is countervailed by many other agencies.[156] The noëtic function in men and animals exists only in companionship with the two other psychical functions. It is subservient to the limits and conditions that they impose, as well as to the necessities of individual and social action; to all that is required for “acting like a man,� according to the Aristotelian phrase. Man’s nature is complex, and not self-sufficing for a life of theorizing contemplation, such as that wherein the celestial inmates pass their immortality of happiness.[157]

[155] Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. vii. p. 1177, b. 34: εἰ γὰρ καὶ τῷ ὄγκῳ μικρόν ἐστι, δυνάμει καὶ τιμιότητι πολὺ μᾶλλον πάντων ὑπερέχει.

[156] Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 450, a. 18.

[157] Aristot. Ethic. Nikom. X. vii. p. 1177, b. 26: ὁ δὲ τοιοῦτος ἂν εἴη βίος κρείττων ἢ κατ’ ἄνθρωπον. — viii. p. 1178, b. 6: δεήσεται οὖν τοιούτων πρὸς τὸ ἀνθρωπεύεσθαι. — ix. p. 1178, b. 33: οὐκ αὐτάρκης ἡ φύσις πρὸς τὸ θεωρεῖν. Compare similar sentiments in Aristot. Metaphys. A. ii. p. 983, a. 1.

We have thus to study the noëtic function according to the manifestations of it that we find in man, and to a certain extent in some other privileged animals. Bees, for example, partake in the divine gift to a certain extent; being distinguished in this respect from their analogues — wasps and hornets.[158]

[158] Aristot. De Gen. Animal. III. x. p. 760, a. 4: ὄντος δὲ περιττοῦ τοῦ γένους καὶ ἰδίου τοῦ τῶν μελιττῶν. — p. 761, a. 4: οὐ γὰρ ἔχουσιν (wasps and hornets) οὐδὲν θεῖον, ὥσπερ τὸ γένος τῶν μελιττῶν. It is remarkable that περιττός, the epithet here applied by Aristotle to bees, is the epithet that he also applies to men of theoretical and speculative activity, as contrasted with men prudent and judicious in action (see Metaphys. A. ii. p. 983, a. 2; also Ethic. Nikom. VI. vii. p. 1141, b. 6). Elsewhere he calls bees φρόνιμα (Metaphys. A. i. p. 980, b. 22). See a good note of Torstrick (on Aristot. De Animâ, III. p. 428, a. 10), p. 172 of his Commentary. Aristotle may possibly have been one among the philosophers that Virgil had in his mind, in Georgics, iv. 219:—

“His quidam signis, atque hæc exempla secuti, Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis, et haustus Æthereos dixere: Deum namque ire per omnes Terrasque, tractusque maris, cœlumque profundum,� &c.

In these and other animals, and in man to a still greater degree, the theorizing activity exists; but it is either starved, or at least has to deal with materials obscure, puzzling, conflicting; while, on the other hand, the practical intellect becomes largely developed, through the pressure of wants and desires, combined with the teaching of experience. In Aristotle’s view, sensible perception is a separate source of knowledge, accompanied with judgment and discrimination, independent of the noëtic function. Occasionally, he refers the intellectual superiority of man to the properly attempered combination and antagonism of heat in the heart with cold in the brain, each strong and pure;[159] all the highly endowed animals (he says) have greater animal heat, which is the essential condition of a better soul;[160] he reckons the finer sense of touch possessed by man as an essential condition of the same intellectual result.[161] Sensible perception in its five diverse manifestations, together with its secondary psychical effects — phantasy and memory, accumulates in the human mind (and in some animals) a greater or less experience of particular facts; from some of which inferences are drawn as to others unknown, directing conduct as well as enlarging knowledge.[162]

[159] Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. vi. p. 744, a. 11-31: δηλοῖ δὲ τὴν εὐκρασίαν ἡ διάνοια· φρονιμώτατον γάρ ἐστι τῶν ζῷων ἄνθρωπος. We may remark that Aristotle considers cold as in some cases a positive property, not simply as the absence or privation of heat (De Partibus Animal. II. ii. p. 649, a. 18). The heart is the part wherein the psychical fire (as it were) is kept burning: τῆς ψυχῆς ὥσπερ ἐμπεπυρευμένης ἐν τοῖς μορίοις τούτοις (Aristot. De Vitâ et Morte, iv. p. 469, b. 16). Virgil, in the beautiful lines of his Second Georgic (483), laments that he is disqualified for deep philosophical studies by the want of heat round his heart:—

“Sin, has ne possim naturæ accedere partes, Frigidus obstiterit circum præcordia sanguis,� &c.

[160] Aristot. De Respirat. xiii. p. 477, a. 16.

[161] Aristot. De Animâ, II. ix. p. 421, a. 21.

[162] Aristot. Metaphys. A. i. pp. 980-1.

All this process — a perpetual movement of sense and memory — begins from infancy, and goes on independently of Noûs or the noëtic function properly so called; which grows up gradually at a later age, aided by the acquisition of language and by instruction conveyed through language. The supervening Noûs presupposes and depends upon what has been thus treasured up by experience. Though, in the celestial body. Noûs exists separately from human beings, and though it there operates proprio motu apart from sense, such is not the case with the human Noûs; which depends upon the co-operation, and is subject to the restrictions, of the complicated soul and body wherewith it is domiciled — restrictions differing in each individual case. Though the noëtic process is distinct from sense, yet without sense it cannot take place in man. Aristotle expressly says: “You cannot cogitate without a phantasm or without a continuous image.� Now the phantasm has been already explained as a relic of movements of sense — or as those movements themselves, looked at in another point of view.[163] “When we cogitate� (he says), “our mental affection is the same as when we draw a triangle for geometrical study; for there, though we do not make use of the fact that the triangle is determinate in its magnitude, we still draw it of a determinate magnitude. So in cogitation, even when we are not cogitating a determinate quantum, we nevertheless set before our eyes a determinate quantum, but we do not cogitate it quatenus determinate.�[164] We cannot even (he goes on to say) remember the cogitabilia without “a phantasm or sensible image; so that our memory of them is only by way of concomitance� (indirect and secondary).[165] Phantasy is thus absolutely indispensable to cogitation: first to carrying on the process at all; next to remembering it after it is past. Without either the visible phantasm of objects seen and touched, or the audible phantasm of words heard and remembered, the Noûs in human beings would be a nullity.[166]

[163] Aristot. De Somniis, i. p. 459, a. 15; De Animâ, III. vii. p. 431, a. 17; iii. p. 428, b. 12.

[164] Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 449, b. 30: ἐπεὶ δὲ περὶ φαντασίας εἴρηται πρότερον ἐν τοῖς περὶ ψυχῆς, καὶ νοεῖν οὐκ ἔστιν ἄνευ φαντάσματος· συμβαίνει γὰρ τὸ αὐτὸ πάθος ἐν τῷ νοεῖν ὅπερ καὶ ἐν τῷ διαγράφειν· ἐκεῖ τε γὰρ οὐθὲν προσχρώμενοι τῷ τὸ ποσὸν ὡρισμένον εἶναι τὸ τριγώνου, ὅμως γράφομεν ὡρισμένον κατὰ τὸ ποσόν· καὶ ὁ νοῶν ὡσαύτως, κἂν μὴ ποσὸν νοῇ, τίθεται πρὸ ὀμμάτων ποσόν, νοεῖ δ’ οὐχ ᾗ ποσόν.

This passage appears to be as clear a statement of the main doctrine of Nominalism as can be found in Hobbes or Berkeley. In the sixteenth section of the Introduction to the Principles of Human Knowledge, Berkeley says:—“And here it must be acknowledged that a man may consider a figure merely as triangular, without attending to the particular qualities of the angles or relations of the sides. — In like manner we may consider Peter to far forth as man, or so far forth as animal, without framing the forementioned idea, either of man or animal, inasmuch as all that is perceived is not considered.� Berkeley has not improved upon the statement of Aristotle.

[165] Aristot. De Memor. et Remin. i. p. 450, a. 13.

[166] About sense and hearing, as the fundamenta of intellect, see Aristot. De Sensu et Sensili, i. p. 437, a. 1-17.

We see that, though Aristotle recognizes a general distinction between phantasy and cogitation, and alludes to many animals as having the former without attaining to the latter, yet he also declares that in man, who possesses both, not only is cogitation dependent upon phantasy, but phantasy passes into cogitation by gradations almost imperceptible. In regard to the practical application of Noûs (i.e. to animal movements determined either by appetite or by reason), he finds a great difficulty in keeping the distinction clearly marked. Substantially, indeed, he lets it drop. When he speaks of phantasy as being either calculating or perceptive, we are unable to see in what respect calculating phantasy (which he states not to belong to other animals) differs from an effort of cogitation.[167] Indeed, he speaks with some diffidence respecting any distribution of parts in the same soul, suspecting that such distribution is not real but logical: you may subdivide as much as you choose.[168]

[167] Aristot. De Animâ, III. x. p. 433, a. 9-b. 30: εἴ τις τὴν φαντασίαν τιθείη ὡς νόησίν τινα — φαντσία δὲ πᾶσα ἢ λογιστικὴ ἢ αἰσθητική· ταύτης μὲν οὖν καὶ τὰ ἄλλα ζῷα μετέχει. Also vii. p. 431, b. 7.

[168] Ibid. ix. p. 432, a. 23.

It thus appears clear that Aristotle restricts the Noûs or noëtic function in man to the matters of sense and experience, physical or mental, and that he considers the phantasm to be an essential accompaniment of the cogitative act. Yet this does not at all detract from his view of the grandeur, importance, and wide range of survey, belonging to the noëtic function. It is the portion of man’s nature that correlates with the abstract and universal; but it is only a portion of his nature, and must work in conjunction and harmony with the rest. The abstract cannot be really separated from the concrete, nor the universal from one or other of its particulars, nor the essence from that whereof it is the essence, nor the attribute from that of which it is the attribute, nor the genus and species from the individuals comprehended therein; nor, to speak in purely Aristotelian language, the Form from some Matter, or the Matter from some Form. In all these cases there is a notional or logical distinction, impressing the mind as the result of various comparisons, noted by an appropriate term, and remembered afterwards by means of that term (that is, by means of an audible or visible phantasm); but real separation there neither is nor can be. This is the cardinal principle of Aristotle, repeated in almost all his works — his marked antithesis against Plato. Such logical distinctions as those here noticed (they might be multiplied without number) it belongs to Noûs or the noëtic function to cognize. But the real objects, in reference to which alone the distinctions have a meaning, are concrete and individual; and the cognizing subject is really the entire man, employing indeed the noëtic function, but employing it with the aid of other mental forces, phantasms and remembrances, real and verbal.

The noëtic soul is called by Aristotle “the place of Forms,� “the potentiality of Forms,� “the correlate of things apart from Matter.�[169] It cogitates these Forms in or along with the phantasms: the cogitable Forms are contained in the sensible Forms; for there is nothing really existent beyond or apart from visible or tangible magnitudes, with their properties and affections, and with the so-called abstractions considered by the geometer. Hence, without sensible perception, a man can neither learn nor understand anything; in all his theoretical contemplations, he requires some phantasm to contemplate along with them.[170]

[169] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iv. p. 429, a. 27, b. 22.

[170] Ibid. vii. p. 431, b. 2: τὰ μὲν οὖν εἴδη τὸ νοητικὸν ἐν τοῖς φαντάσμασι νοεῖ. — viii. p. 432, a. 3: ἐπεὶ δὲ οὐδὲ πρᾶγμα οὐθέν ἐστι παρὰ τὰ μεγέθη, ὡς δοκεῖ, τὰ αἰσθητὰ κεχωρισμένον, ἐν τοῖς εἴδεσι τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς τὰ νοητά ἐστι, τά τε ἐν ἀφαιρέσει λεγόμενα, καὶ ὅσα τῶν αἰσθητῶν ἕξεις καὶ πάθη· καὶ διὰ τοῦτο οὔτε μὴ αἰσθανόμενος μηθὲν οὐθὲν ἂν μάθοι οὐδὲ ξυνείη· ὅταν δὲ θεωρῇ, ἀνάγκη ἅμα φάντασμά τι θεωρεῖν.

Herein lies one of the main distinctions between the noëtic and the sentient souls. The sentient deals with particulars, and correlates with external bodies; the noëtic apprehends universals, which in a certain sense are within the soul: hence a man can cogitate whenever or whatever he chooses, but he can see or touch only what is present.[171] Another distinction is, that the sentient soul is embodied in special organs, each with determinate capacities, and correlating with external objects, themselves alike determinate, acting only under certain conditions of locality. The possibilities of sensation are thus from the beginning limited; moreover, a certain relative proportion must be maintained between the percipient and the perceivable; for extreme or violent sounds, colours, &c., produce no sensation; on the contrary, they deaden the sentient organ.[172] But the noëtic soul (what is called the “Noûs of the soul,� to use Aristotle’s language)[173] is nothing at all in actuality before its noëtic function commences, though it is everything in potentiality. It is not embodied in any corporeal organ of its own, nor mingled as a new elementary ingredient with the body; it does not correlate with any external objects; it is not so specially attached to some particulars as to make it antipathetic to others. Accordingly its possibilities of cogitation are unlimited; it apprehends with equal facility what is most cogitable and what is least cogitable. It is thoroughly indeterminate in its nature, and is in fact at first a mere unlimited cogitative potentiality;[174] like a tablet, upon which no letters have as yet been written, but upon which all or any letters may be written.[175]

[171] Ibid. II. v. p. 417, b. 22.

[172] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iv. p. 429, a. 31.

[173] Ibid. a. 22: ὁ ἄρα καλούμενος τῆς ψυχῆς νοῦς (λέγω δὲ νοῦν ᾧ διανοεῖται καὶ ὑπολαμβάνει ἡ ψυχή) οὐθέν ἐστιν ἐνεργείᾳ τῶν ὄντων πρὶν νοεῖν.

[174] Ibid. a. 21: ὥστε μηδ’ αὐτοῦ εἶναι φύσιν μηδεμίαν ἀλλ’ ἢ ταύτην, ὅτι δυνατόν.

[175] Ibid. p. 430, a. 1.

We have already said that the Noûs of the human soul emanates from a peculiar influence of the celestial body, which is the special region of Form in the Kosmos. Through it we acquire an enlarged power of apprehending the abstract and universal; we can ascend above sensible forms to the cogitable forms contained therein; we can consider all forms in themselves, without paying attention to the matter wherein they are embodied. Instead of considering the concrete solid or liquid before us, we can mentally analyse them, and thus study solidity in the abstract, fluidity in the abstract. While our senses judge of water as hot and cold, our noëtic function enables us to appreciate water in the abstract — to determine its essence, and to furnish a definition of it.[176] In all these objects, as combinations of Form with Matter, the cogitable form exists potentially; and is abstracted or considered abstractedly, by the cogitant Noûs.[177] Yet this last (as we have already seen) cannot operate except along with and by aid of phantasms — of impressions revived or remaining from sense. It is thus immersed in the materials of sense, and has no others. But it handles them in a way of its own, and under new points of view; comparing and analysing; recognizing the abstract in the concrete, and the universal in the particular; discriminating mentally and logically the one from the other; and noting the distinction by appropriate terms. Such distinctions are the noümena, generated in the process of cogitation by Noûs itself. The Noûs, as it exists in any individual, gradually loses its original character of naked potentiality, and becomes an actual working force, by means of its own acquired materials.[178] It is an aggregate of noümena, all of them in nature identical with itself; and, while cogitating them, the Noûs at the same time cogitates itself. Considered abstractedly, apart from matter, they exist only in the mind itself; in theoretical speculation, the cognoscens and the cognitum are identical. But they are not really separable from matter, and have no reality apart from it.

[176] Ibid. p. 429, b. 10.

[177] Ibid. p. 430, a. 2-9.

[178] Aristot. De Animâ, II. v. p. 417, b. 23. Ibid. III. iv. p. 429, b. 7: ὅταν δύνηται ἐνεργεῖν δι’ αὑτοῦ.

The distinction, yet at the same time correlation, between Form and Matter, pervades all nature (Aristotle affirms), and will be found in the Noûs as elsewhere. We must recognize an Intellectus Agens or constructive, and an Intellectus Patiens or receptive.[179] The Agens is the great intellectual energy pervading the celestial body, and acting upon all the animals susceptible of its operation; analogous to light, which illuminates the diaphanous medium, and elevates what was mere potential colour into colour actual and visible.[180] The Patiens is the intellectual receptivity acted upon in each individual, and capable of being made to cogitate every thing; anterior to the Agens, in time, so far as regards the individual, yet as a general fact (when we are talking of man as a species) not anterior even in time, but correlative. Of the two, the Intellectus Agens is the more venerable; it is pure intellectual energy, unmixed, unimpressible from without, and separable from all animal body. It is this, and nothing more, when considered apart from animal body; but it is then eternal and immortal, while the Intellectus Patiens perishes with the remaining soul and with the body. Yet though the Intellectus Agens is thus eternal, and though we have part in it, we cannot remember any of its operations anterior to our own maturity; for the concurrence of the Intellectus Patiens, which begins and ends with us, is indispensable both to remembrance and to thought.[181]

[179] Ibid. III. v. p. 430, a. 10.

[180] Ibid. a. 14: καὶ ἔστιν ὁ μὲν τοιοῦτος νοῦς τῷ πάντα γίνεσθαι, ὁ δὲ τῷ πάντα ποιεῖν, ὡς ἕξις τις, οἷον τὸ φῶς· τρόπον γάρ τινα καὶ τὸ φῶς ποιεῖ τὰ δυνάμει ὄντα χρώματα ἐνεργείᾳ χρώματα. Aristotle here illustrates νοῦς ποιητικός by φῶς and ἕξις; and we know what view he takes of φῶς (De Animâ, II. vii. p. 418, b. 9) as the ἐνέργεια or ἕξις τοῦ διαφανοῦς — which diaphanous he explains to be a φύσις τις ἐνυπάρχουσα ἐν ἀέρι καὶ ὕδατι καὶ ἐν τῷ ἀϊδίῳ τῷ ἄνω σώματι. Judging by this illustration, it seems proper to couple the νοῦς ποιητικός here with his declaration in De Generat. Animal. II. p. 736, b. 28: τὸν νοῦν μόνον θύραθεν ἐπεισέναι καὶ θεῖον εἶναι μόνον: he cannot consider the νοῦς ποιητικός, which is of the nature of Form, as belonging to each individual man like the νοῦς παθητικός.

[181] Aristot. De Animâ, III. v. p. 430, a. 17: καὶ οὗτος ὁ νοῦς (i. e. ποιητικός χωριστὸς καὶ ἀπαθὴς καὶ ἀμιγής, τῇ οὐσίᾳ ὢν ἐνέργεια· ἀεὶ γὰρ τιμιώτερον τὸ ποιοῦν τοῦ πάσχοντος, καὶ ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς ὕλης. — Ibid. a. 22: χωρισθεὶς δ’ ἐστὶ μόνον τοῦθ’ ὅπερ ἐστί, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἀθάνατον καὶ ἀΐδιον· οὐ μνημονεύομεν δέ, ὅτι τοῦτο μὲν ἀπαθές, ὁ δὲ παθητικὸς νοῦς φθαρτός, καὶ ἄνευ τούτου οὐθὲν νοεῖ. In this obscure and difficult chapter (difficult even to Theophrastus the friend and pupil of the author), we have given the best meaning that the words seem to admit.

We see here the full extent of Aristotle’s difference from the Platonic doctrine, in respect to the immortality of the soul. He had defined soul as the first actualization of a body having potentiality of life with a determinate organism. This of course implied, and he expressly declares it, that soul and body in each individual case were one and indivisible, so that the soul of Sokrates perished of necessity with the body of Sokrates.[182] But he accompanied that declaration with a reserve in favour of Noûs, and especially of the theorizing Noûs; which he recognized as a different sort of soul, not dependent on a determinate bodily organism, but capable of being separated from it, as the eternal is from the perishable.[183] The present chapter informs us how far such reserve is intended to go. That the theorizing Noûs is not limited, like the sentient soul, to a determinate bodily organism, but exists apart from that organism and eternally — is maintained as incontestable: it is the characteristic intellectual activity of the eternal celestial body and the divine inmates thereof. But the distinction of Form and Matter is here pointed out, as prevailing in Noûs and in Soul generally, not less than throughout all other Nature. The theorizing Noûs, as it exists in Sokrates, Plato, Demokritus, Anaxagoras, Empedokles, Xenokrates, &c., is individualized in each, and individualized differently in each. It represents the result of the Intellectus Agens or Formal Noûs, universal and permanent, upon the Intellectus Patiens or noëtic receptivity peculiar to each individual; the co-operation of the two is indispensable to sustain the theorizing intellect of any individual man. But the Intellectus Patiens, or Receptivus, perishes along with the individual. Accordingly, the intellectual life of Sokrates cannot be continued farther. It cannot be prolonged after his sensitive and nutritive life has ceased; the noëtic function, as it exists in him, is subject to the same limits of duration as the other functions of the soul. The intellectual man is no more immortal than the sentient man.

[182] Ibid. II. i. p. 413, a. 3.

[183] Ibid. ii. p. 413, b. 24: περὶ δὲ τοῦ νοῦ καὶ τῆς θεωρητικῆς δυνάμεως οὐδέν πω φανερόν, ἀλλ’ ἔοικε ψυχῆς γένος ἕτερον εἶναι, καὶ τοῦτο μόνον ἐνδέχεται χωρίζεσθαι, καθάπερ τὸ ἀΐδιον τοῦ φθαρτοῦ.

Such is the opinion here delivered by Aristotle. And it follows indeed as a distinct corollary from his doctrine respecting animal and vegetable procreation in general. Individuality (the being unum numero in a species) and immortality are in his view incompatible facts; the one excludes the other. In assigning (as he so often does) a final cause or purpose to the wide-spread fact of procreation of species by animals and vegetables, he tells us that every individual living organism, having once attained the advantage of existence, yearns and aspires to prolong this for ever, and to become immortal. But this aspiration cannot be realized; Nature has forbidden it, or is inadequate to it; no individual can be immortal. Being precluded from separate immortality, the individual approaches as near to it as is possible, by generating a new individual like itself, and thus perpetuating the species. Such is the explanation given by Aristotle of the great fact pervading the sublunary, organized world[184] — immortal species of plants, animals, and men, through a succession of individuals each essentially perishable. The general doctrine applies to Noûs as well as to the other functions of the soul. Noûs is immortal; but the individual Sokrates, considered as noëtic or intellectual, can no more be immortal than the same individual considered as sentient or reminiscent.

[184] Aristot. De Generat. Animal. II. i. p. 731, b. 20, seq.; De Animâ, II. iv. p. 415, a. 26, seq.; Œconomica, I. iii. p. 1343, b. 23.

We have already stated that Noûs — Intellect — the noëtic function — is that faculty of the soul that correlates with the abstract and universal; with Form apart from Matter. Its process is at once analytical, synthetical, and retentive. Nature presents to us only concretes and particulars, in a perpetual course of change and reciprocal action; in these the abstract and universal are immersed, and out of these they have to be disengaged by logical analysis. That the abstract is a derivative from the concrete, and the universal from particulars — is the doctrine of Aristotle. Ascending from particulars, the analysis is carried so far that at length it can go no farther. It continues to divide until it comes to indivisibles, or simple notions, the highest abstractions, and the largest universals. These are the elements out of which universal propositions are formed, the first premisses or principia of demonstration. Unphilosophical minds do not reach these indivisibles at all: but it is the function of the theorizing Noûs to fasten on them, and combine them into true propositions. In so far as regards the indivisibles themselves, falsehood is out of the question, and truth also, since they affirm nothing. The mind either apprehends them, or it does not apprehend them: there is no other alternative.[185] But, when combined into affirmative propositions, they then are true or false, as the case may be. The formal essence of each object is among these indivisibles, and is apprehended as such by the intellect; which, while confining itself to such essence, is unerring, as each sense is in regard to its own appropriate perceivables.[186] But, when the intellect goes father, and proceeds to predicate any attribute respecting the essence, then it becomes liable to error, as sense is when drawing inferences.

[185] Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, a. 26: ἡ μὲν οὖν τῶν ἀδιαιρέτων νόησις ἐν τούτοις περὶ ἃ οὐκ ἔστι τὸ ψεῦδος· ἐν οἷς δὲ καὶ τὸ ψεῦδος καὶ τὸ ἀληθές, σύνθεσίς τις ἤδη νοημάτων ὥσπερ ἓν ὄντων. — Metaphysica, Θ. x. p. 1051, b. 31: περὶ ταῦτα οὐκ ἔστιν ἀπατηθῆναι, ἀλλ’ ἢ νοεῖν ἢ μή.

[186] Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, b. 29. This portion of the treatise is peculiarly confused and difficult to understand.

One of the chief functions that Aristotle assigns to Noûs, or the noëtic function, is that the principia of demonstration and knowledge belong to it; and not merely the principia, but also, in cases of action preceded by deliberation and balance of motives, the ultimate application of principia to action. So that he styles Noûs both beginning and end; also the beginning of the beginning; and, moreover, he declares it to be always right and unerring — equal to Science and even more than Science.[187] These are high praises, conveying little information, and not reconcilable with other passages wherein he speaks of the exercise of the noëtic function (τὸ νοεῖν) as sometimes right, sometimes wrong.[188] But, for the question of psychology, the point to be determined is, in what sense he meant that principia belonged to Noûs. He certainly did not mean that the first principles of reasoning were novelties originated, suggested, or introduced into the soul by noëtic influence. Not only he does not say this, but he takes pains to impress the exact contrary. In passages cited a few pages back, he declares that Noûs in entering the soul brings nothing whatever with it; that it is an universal potentiality — a capacity in regard to truth, but nothing more;[189] that it is in fact a capacity not merely for comparing and judging (to both of which he recognizes even the sentient soul as competent), but also for combining many into one, and resolving the apparent one into several; for abstracting, generalizing, and selecting among the phantasms present, which of them should be attended to, and which should be left out of attention.[190] Such is his opinion about the noëtic function; and he states explicitly that the abstract and universal not only arise from the concrete and particular, but are inseparable from the same really — separable only logically.

[187] Aristot. Ethic. Nikomach. VI. xii. p. 1143, a. 25, b. 10: διὸ καὶ ἀρχὴ καὶ τέλος νοῦς. — Analyt. Post. II. xviii. p. 100, b. 5.

[188] Aristot. De Animâ, III. iii. p. 427, b. 8: ἀλλ’ οὐδὲ τὸ νοεῖν, ἐν ᾧ ἔστι τὸ ὀρθῶς καὶ μὴ ὀρθῶς — διανοεῖσθαι δ’ ἐνδέχεται καὶ ψευδῶς.

[189] Ibid. I. ii. p. 404, a. 30, where he censures Demokritus: οὐ δὴ χρῆται τῷ νῷ ὡς δυνάμει τινὶ περὶ τὴν ἀλήθειαν, ἀλλὰ ταὐτὸ λέγει ψυχὴν καὶ νοῦν. — Compare ibid. III. iv. p. 429, a. 21, b. 30.

[190] Aristot. De Animâ, III. vi. p. 430, b. 5: τὸ δὲ ἓν ποιοῦν, τοῦτο ὁ νοῦς ἕκαστον. — Ibid. xi. p. 434, a. 9.

He describes, at the end of the Analytica Posteriora and elsewhere, the steps whereby the mind ascends gradually from sense, memory, and experience, to general principles. And he indicates a curious contrast between these and the noëtic functions. Sense, memory, phantasy, reminiscence, are movements of the body as well as of the soul; our thoughts and feelings come and go, none of them remaining long. But the noëtic process is the reverse of this; it is an arrest of all this mental movement, a detention of the fugitive thoughts, a subsidence from perturbation — so that the attention dwells steadily and for some time on the same matters.[191] Analysis, selection, and concentration of attention, are the real characteristics of the Aristotelian Noûs. It is not (as some philosophers have thought) a source of new general truths, let into the soul by a separate door, and independent of experience as well as transcending experience.

[191] Aristot. Physica, VII. iii. p. 247, b. 9: ἡ δ’ ἐξ ἀρχῆς λῆψις τῆς ἐπιστήμης γένεσις οὐκ ἔστιν· τῷ γὰρ ἠρεμῆσαι καὶ στῆναι τὴν διάνοιαν ἐπίστασθαι καὶ φρονεῖν λέγομεν. — Also De Animâ, I. iii. p. 407, b. 32, and the remarkable passage in the Analytica Poster. II. xviii. p. 100, a. 3-b. 5.

Passing now to the Emotions, we find that these are not systematically classified and analysed by Aristotle, as belonging to a scheme of Psychology; though he treats them incidentally, with great ability and acuteness, both in his Ethics, where he regards them as auxiliaries or impediments to a rational plan of life, and in his Rhetoric, where he touches upon their operation as it bears on oratorical effect. He introduces however in his Psychology some answer to the question, What is it that produces local movement in the animal body? He replies that movement is produced both by Noûs and by Appetite.

Speaking strictly, we ought to call Appetite alone the direct producing cause, acted upon by the appetitum, which is here the Primum Movens Immobile. But this appetitum cannot act without coming into the intellectual sphere, as something seen, imagined, cogitated.[192] In this case the Noûs or Intellect is stimulated through appetite, and operates in subordination thereto. Such is the Intellect, considered as Practical, the principle or determining cause of which is the appetitum or object of desire; the Intellect manifesting itself only for the sake of some end, to be attained or avoided. Herein it is distinguished altogether from the Theoretical Noûs or Intellect, which does not concern itself with any expetenda or fugienda and does not meddle with conduct. The appetitum is good, real or apparent, in so far as it can be achieved by our actions. Often we have contradictory appetites; and, in such cases, the Intellect is active generally as a force resisting the present and caring for the future. But Appetite or Desire, being an energy including both soul and body, is the real and appropriate cause that determines us to local movement, often even against strong opposition from the Intellect.[193]

[192] Aristot. De Animâ, III. x. p. 433, b. 11: πρῶτον δὲ πάντων τὸ ὀρεκτόν (τοῦτο γὰρ κινεῖ οὐ κινούμενον τῷ νοηθῆναι ἢ φαντασθῆναι).

[193] Aristot. De Animâ, III. x. p. 433, a. 25, b. 19: διὸ ἐν τοῖς κοινοῖς σώματος καὶ ψυχῆς ἔργοις, &c.

Aristotle thus concludes his scheme of Psychology, comprehending all plants as well as all animals; a scheme differing in this respect, as well as in others, from the schemes of those that had preceded him, and founded upon the peculiar principles of his own First Philosophy. Soul is to organized body as Form to Matter, as Actualizer to the Potential; not similar or homogeneous, but correlative; the two being only separable as distinct logical points of view in regard to one and the same integer or individual. Aristotle recognizes many different varieties of Soul, or rather many distinct functions of the same soul, from the lowest or most universal, to the highest or most peculiar and privileged; but the higher functions presuppose or depend upon the lower, as conditions; while the same principle of Relativity pervades them all. He brings this principle prominently forward, when he is summing up[194] in the third or last book of the treatise De Animâ:—“The Soul is in a certain way all existent things; for all of them are either Perceivables or Cogitables; and the Cogitant Soul is in a certain way the matters cogitated, while the Percipient Soul is in a certain way the matters perceived.� The Percipient and its Percepta — the Cogitant and its Cogitata — each implies and correlates with the other: the Percipient is the highest Form of all Percepta; the Cogitant is the Form of Forms, or the highest of all Forms, cogitable or perceivable.[195] The Percipient or Cogitant Subject is thus conceived only in relation to the Objects perceived or cogitated, while these Objects again are presented as essentially correlative to the Subject. The realities of Nature are particulars, exhibiting Form and Matter in one: though, for purposes of scientific study — of assimilation and distinction — it is necessary to consider each of the two abstractedly from the other.

[194] Ibid. viii. p. 431, b. 20, seq.: νῦν δὲ περὶ ψυχῆς τὰ λεχθέντα συγκεφαλαιώσαντες, εἴπωμεν πάλιν ὅτι ἡ ψυχὴ τὰ ὄντα πώς ἐστι πάντα. ἢ γὰρ αἰσθητὰ τὰ ὄντα ἢ νοητά, ἔστι δὲ ἡ ἐπιστήμη μὲν τὰ ἐπιστητά πως, ἡ δ’ αἴσθησις τὰ αἰσθητά.

[195] Ibid. p. 432, a. 2: ὁ νοῦς εἶδος εἰδῶν, καὶ ἡ αἴσθησις εἶδος αἰσθητῶν.

[CHAPTER XIII.]

ETHICA.