Aristotle
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]
[Footnote 374: Ibid. b. 34: [Greek: a)\n de\ mê\ tithê=|, di'
e)pagôgê=s lêpte/on, protei/nanta e)pi\ tô=n kata\ me/ros
e)nanti/ôn.]]
[Footnote 375: Ibid. p. 156, a. 7: [Greek: kru/ptonta de\
prosullogi/zesthai di' ô(=n o( sullogismo\s tou= e)x a)rchê=s me/llei
gi/nesthai, kai\ tau=ta ô(s plei=sta.]]
[Footnote 376: Ibid. a. 23: [Greek: chrê/simon de\ kai\ to\ mê\
sunechê= ta\ a)xiô/mata lamba/nein e)x ô(=n oi( sullogismoi/, a)ll'
e)nalla\x to\ pro\s e(/teron kai\ e(/teron sumpe/rasma.]]
[Footnote 377: Topic. VIII. i. p. 156, a. 13: [Greek: katho/lou d'
ei)pei=n, ou(/tô dei= e)rôta=n to\n kruptikô=s punthano/menon, ô(/st'
ê)rôtême/nou tou= panto\s lo/gou kai\ ei)po/ntos to\ sumpe/rasma
zêtei=sthai to\ dia\ ti/.]]
There are also other manoeuvres 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]
[Footnote 378: Ibid. b. 6: [Greek: a(plô=s d' ei)pei=n, o(/ti
ma/lista poiei=n a)/dêlon, po/teron to\ proteino/menon ê)\ to\
a)ntikei/menon bou/letai labei=n; a)dê/lou ga\r o)/ntos tou= pro\s
to\n lo/gon chrêsi/mou, ma=llon to\ dokou=n au(toi=s tithe/asin.]]
[Footnote 379: Ibid. b. 18: [Greek: dei= de\ kai\ au)to/n pote
au(tô=| e)/nstasin phe/rein; a)nupo/ptôs ga\r e)/chousin oi(
a)pokrino/menoi pro\s tou\s dokou=ntas dikai/ôs e)picheirei=n.]]
[Footnote 380: Ibid. b. 10, 20: [Greek: chrê/simon de\ kai\ to\
e)pile/gein o(/ti su/nêthes kai\ lego/menon to\ toiou=ton; o)knou=si
ga\r kinei=n to\ ei)ôtho/s, e)/nstasin mê\ e)/chontes.]]
[Footnote 381: Ibid. b. 23: [Greek: e)/ti to\ mê\ spouda/zein].]
[Footnote 382: Ibid. b. 30-39: [Greek: kai\ to\ e)p' e)scha/tô|
e)rôta=n o(\ ma/lista bou/letai labei=n;] &c.]
[Footnote 383: Topic. VIII. i. p. 157, a. 1-5: [Greek: e)/ti to\
mêku/nein kai\ paremba/llein ta\ mêde\n chrê/sima pro\s to\n lo/gon,
katha/per oi( pseudographou=ntes; pollô=n ga\r o)/ntôn a)/dêlon e)n
o(poi/ô| to\ pseu=dos. dio\ kai\ lantha/nousin e)ni/ote oi(
e)rôtô=ntes e)n parabu/stô| prostithe/ntes a(\ kath' au(ta\
proteino/mena ou)k a)\n tethei/ê.]]
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 Choerilus.[385]
[Footnote 384: Ibid. a. 6: [Greek: ei)s me\n ou)=n pru/psin toi=s
ei)rême/nois chrêste/on], &c.]
[Footnote 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.
[Footnote 386: Ibid. ii. p. 157, a. 18-33. [Greek: dio\ peirate/on
e)pi\ pa/ntôn tô=n toiou/tôn o)nomatopoiei=n au)to/n], &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]
[Footnote 387: Ibid. a. 34-37.]
[Footnote 388: Ibid. a. 37-b. 8.]
[Footnote 389: Topic. VIII. ix. p. 1577, b. 8-33. [Greek: dialektikê\
ga/r e)sti pro/tasis pro\s ê(\n ou(/tôs e)pi\ pollô=n e)/chousan mê\
e)/stin e)/nstasis.]]
[Footnote 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]
[Footnote 391: Ibid. p. 158, a. 14, seq. [Greek: e)/sti ga\r
pro/tasis dialektikê\ pro\s ê(\n e)/stin a)pokri/nasthai nai\ ê)\
ou)/.]]
[Footnote 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]
[Footnote 393: Ibid. a. 7-12: [Greek: ou) dei= de\ to\ sumpe/rasma
e)rô/têma poiei=n; ei) de\ mê/, a)naneu/santos ou) dokei= gegone/nai
sullogismo/s.]]
[Footnote 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]
[Footnote 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