Aristotle
Analyt. Post. I. xviii. p. 81, b. 1. Some commentators contended that
Aristotle did not mean to ascribe an inductive origin to the common
Axioms properly so called, but only to the special _principia_
belonging to each science. Zabarella refutes this doctrine, and
maintains that the Axioms (Dignitates) are derived from Induction
(Comm. in Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 649, ed. Venet., 1617):--"Quum
igitur inductio non sit proprie discursus, nec ratio, jure dicit
Aristoteles principiorum notitiam non esse cum ratione, quia non ex
aliis innotescunt, sed ex seipsis dum per inductionem innotescunt.
Propterea in illa propositione, quæ in initio **primi libri
legitur, sub doctrina discursiva cognitio principiorum non
comprehenditur, quia non est dianoëtica. Hoc, quod modo diximus, si
nonnulli advertissent, fortasse non negassent principia communia, quæ
dicuntur Dignitates, inductione cognosci. Dixerunt enim Aristotelem
hic de principiis loquentem sola principia propria considerasse, quæ
cum non proprio lumine cognoscantur, inductione innotescunt; at
Dignitates (inquiunt) proprio lumine ab intellectu nostro
cognoscuntur per solam terminorum intelligentiam, ut quod omne totum
majus est suâ parte; hoc enim non magis est evidens sensui in
particulari, quam intellectui in universali, proinde inductione non
eget. Sed hanc sententiam hic Averroes refutat, dicens hæc quoque
inductione cognosci, sed non animadverti nobis tempus hujus
inductionis; id enim omnino confitendum est, omnem intellectualem
doctrinam à sensu originem ducere, et nihil esse in intellectu quod
prius in sensu non fuerit, ut ubique asserit Aristoteles."
To the same purpose Zabarella expresses himself in an earlier portion
of his Commentary on the Analyt. Post., where he lays it down that
the truth of the proposition, Every whole is greater than its part,
is known from antecedent knowledge of particulars by way of
Induction. Compare the Scholion of Philoponus, ad Analyt. Post. p.
225, a. 32, Brand., where the same is said about the Axiom, Things
equal to the same are equal to each other.]
[Footnote 71: Analyt. Post. II. xix. p. 100, b. 5: [Greek: e)pei\ de\
tô=n peri\ tê\n dia/noian e(/xeôn, ai(=s a)lêtheu/omen, ai( me\n
a)ei\ a)lêthei=s ei)si/n, ai( de\ e)pide/chontai to\ pseu=dos], &c.]
[Footnote 72: Ibid. fin. p. 100.]
The manner in which Aristotle here describes how the _principia_ of
Syllogism become known to the mind deserves particular attention. The
march up to _principia_ is not only different from, but the reverse
of, the march down from _principia_; like the athlete who runs first
to the end of the stadium, and then back.[73] Generalizing or
universalizing is an acquired intellectual habit or permanent
endowment; growing out of numerous particular acts or judgments of
sense, remembered, compared, and coalescing into one mental group
through associating resemblance. As the ethical, moral, practical
habits, are acquirements growing out of a repetition of particular
acts, so also the intellectual, theorizing habits are mental results
generated by a multitude of particular judgments of sense, retained
and compared, so as to imprint upon the mind a lasting stamp of some
identity common to all. The Universal (_notius naturâ_) is thus
generated in the mind by a process of Induction out of particulars
which are _notiora nobis_; the potentiality of this process, together
with sense and memory, is all that is innate or connatural.
[Footnote 73: Aristot. Eth. Nikom. I. iv. p. 1095, b. 1.]
The _principia_, from which the conclusions of Syllogism are deduced,
being thus obtained by Induction, are, in Aristotle's view,
appreciated by, or correlated with, the infallible and unerring Noûs
or Intellect.[74] He conceives repeated and uncontradicted Induction
as carrying with it the maximum of certainty and necessity: the
syllogistic deductions constituting Science he regards as also
certain; but their certainty is only derivative, and the _principia_
from which they flow he ranks still higher, as being still more
certain.[75] Both the one and the other he pointedly contrasts with
Opinion and Calculation, which he declares to be liable to error.
[Footnote 74: The passages respecting [Greek: a)rchai\] or
_principia_, in the Nikomachean Ethica (especially Books I. and VI.),
are instructive as to Aristotle's views. The _principia_ are
universal notions and propositions, not starting up ready-made nor as
original promptings of the intellect, but gradually built up out of
the particulars of sense and Induction, and repeated particular acts.
They are judged and sanctioned by [Greek: Nou=s] or Intellect, but it
requires much care to define them well. They belong to the [Greek:
o(/ti], while demonstration belongs to the [Greek: dio/ti]. Eth. Nik.
I. vii. p. 1098, a. 33: [Greek: ou)k a)paitête/on d' ou)de\ tê\n
ai)ti/an e)n a(/pasin o(moi/ôs, a)ll' i(kano\n e)/n tisi to\ o(/ti
deichthê=nai kalô=s, oi(=on kai\ peri\ ta\s a)rcha/s; to\ d' o(/ti
prô=ton kai\ a)rchê/. tô=n a)rchô=n d' ai( me\n e)pagôgê=|
theôrou=ntai, ai( d' ai)sthê/sei, ai( d' e)thismô=| tini, kai\
a)/llai d' a)llô=s. metie/nai de\ peirate/on e(ka/stas ê(=|
pephu/kasin, kai\ spoudaste/on o(/pôs o(risthô=si kalô=s; mega/lên
ga\r e)/chousi r(opê\n pro\s ta\ e(po/mena.]
Compare Eth. Nik. VI. iii. p. 1139, b. 25, where the Analytica is
cited by name--[Greek: ê( me\n dê\ e)pagôgê\ a)rchê/ e)sti kai\ tou=
katho/lou, o( de\ sullogismo\s e)k tô=n katho/lou; ei)si\n a)/ra
a)rchai\ e)x ô(=n o( sullogismo/s, ô(=n ou)/k e)sti sullogismo/s;
e)pagôgê\ a)/ra.]--ib. p. 1141, a. 7: [Greek: lei/petai nou=n ei)=nai
tô=n a)rchô=n.]--p. 1142, a. 25: [Greek: o( me\n ga\r nou=s tô=n
o(/rôn, ô(=n ou)/k e)sti lo/gos].--p. 1143, b. 1.]
[Footnote 75: Analyt. Post. I. ii. p. 72, a. 37: [Greek: to\n de\
me/llonta e(/xein tê\n e)pistê/mên tê\n di' a)podei/xeôs ou) mo/non
dei= ta\s a)rcha\s gnôri/zein kai\ ma=llon au)tai=s pisteu/ein ê)\
tô=| deiknume/nô|, a)lla\ mêd' a)/llo au)tô=| pisto/teron ei)=nai
mêde\ gnôrimô/teron tô=n a)ntikeime/nôn tai=s a)rchai=s, e)x ô(=n
e)/stai sullogismo\s o( tê=s e)nanti/as a)pa/tês, ei)/per dei= to\n
e)pista/menon a(plô=s a)meta/peiston ei)=nai.]]
Aristotle had inherited from Plato this doctrine of an infallible
Noûs or Intellect, enjoying complete immunity from error. But,
instead of connecting it (as Plato had done) with reminiscences of an
anterior life among the Ideas, he assigned to it a position as
terminus and correlate to the process of Induction.[76] The like
postulate and pretension passed afterwards to the Stoics, and various
other philosophical sects: they could not be satisfied without
finding infallibility somewhere. It was against this pretension that
the Academics and Sceptics entered their protest; contending, on
grounds sometimes sophistical but often very forcible, that it was
impossible to escape from the region of fallibility, and that no
criterion of truth, at once universal and imperative, could be set
up.
[Footnote 76: Ibid. iii. p. 72, b. 20-30. [Greek: kai\ ou) mo/non
e)pistê/mên a)lla\ kai\ a)rchê\n e)pistê/mês ei)=nai tina/ phamen,
ê(=| tou\s o(/rous gnôri/zomen.]
Themistius, p. 14: [Greek: ô(=n dê\ a)/rchei pa/lin o( nou=s ô(=|
tou\s o(/rous thêreu/omen, e)x ô(=n sugkei\tai ta\ a)xiô/mata.]
The Paraphrase of Themistius (pp. 100-104) is clear and instructive,
where he amplifies the last chapter, and explains [Greek: Nou=s] as
the generalizing or universalizing aptitude of the soul, growing up
gradually out of the particulars furnished by Sense and Induction.]
It is to be regretted that Aristotle should have contented himself
with proclaiming this Inductive process as an ideal, culminating in
the infallible Noûs; and that he should only have superficially
noticed those conditions under which it must be conducted in reality,
in order to avoid erroneous or uncertified results. This is a
deficiency however which has remained unsupplied until the present
century.[77]
[Footnote 77: Sir W. Hamilton, Lectures on Logic, Vol. III. Lect.
xix. p. 380, says:--"In regard to simple syllogisms, it was an
original dogma of the Platonic School, and an early dogma of the
Peripatetic, that philosophy (science strictly so-called) was only
conversant with, and was exclusively contained in, universals; and
the doctrine of Aristotle, which taught that all our general
knowledge is only an induction from an observation of particulars,
was too easily forgotten or perverted by his followers. It thus
obtained almost the force of an acknowledged principle, that
everything to be known must be known under some general form or
notion. Hence the exaggerated importance attributed to definition and
deductions, it not being considered that we only take out of a
general notion what we had previously placed therein, and that the
amplification of our knowledge is not to be sought for from above but
from below,--not from speculation about abstract generalities, but
from the observation of concrete particulars. But however erroneous
and irrational, the persuasion had its day and influence, and it
perhaps determined, as one of its effects, the total neglect of one
half, and that not the least important half, of the reasoning
process. For while men thought only of looking upward to the more
extensive notions, as the only objects and the only media of science,
they took little heed of the more comprehensive notions, and
absolutely contemned individuals, as objects which could neither be
scientifically known in themselves nor supply the conditions of
scientifically knowing aught besides. The Logic of Comprehension and
of Induction was therefore neglected or ignored,--the Logic of
Extension and Deduction exclusively cultivated, as alone affording
the rules by which we might evolve higher notions into their
subordinate concepts."
(Hamilton, in this passage, considers the Logic of _Induction_ to be
the same as the Logic of _Comprehension_.)]
CHAPTER IX.
TOPICA.
I.
In treating of the Analytica Posteriora I have already adverted, in
the way of contrast, to the Topica; and, in now approaching the
latter work, I must again bring the same contrast before the mind of
the reader.
The treatise called Topica (including that which bears the separate
title De Sophisticis Elenchis, but which is properly its Ninth or
last Book, winding up with a brief but memorable recapitulation of
the Analytica and Topica considered as one scheme) is of considerable
length, longer than the Prior and Posterior Analytics taken together.
It contains both a theory and precepts of Dialectic; also, an
analysis of the process called by Aristotle Sophistical Refutation,
with advice how to resist or neutralize it.
All through the works of Aristotle, there is nothing which he so
directly and emphatically asserts to be his own original performance,
as the design and execution of the Topica: _i.e._, the deduction of
Dialectic and Sophistic from the general theory of Syllogism. He had
to begin from the beginning, without any model to copy or any
predecessor to build upon: and in every sort of work, he observes
justly, the first or initial stages are the hardest.[1] In regard to
Rhetoric much had been done before him; there were not only masters
who taught it, but writers who theorized well or ill, and laid down
precepts about it; so that, in his treatise on that subject, he had
only to enlarge and improve upon pre-existing suggestions. But in
regard to Dialectic as he conceives it--in its contrast with
Demonstration and Science on the one hand, and in its analogy or
kinship with Rhetoric on the other--nothing whatever had been done.
There were, indeed, teachers of contentious dialogue, as well as of
Rhetoric;[2] but these teachers could do nothing better than