Page - 2295 - in The Complete Aristotle

represents the father himself as attacking his daughter in the lampoon Think nought impossible at all, Nor swear that it shall not befall… and puts into the mouth of Charon the carpenter the lampoon which begins Not for the wealth of Gyes… So too Sophocles makes Haemon appeal to his father on behalf of Antigone as if it were others who were speaking. Again, sometimes you should restate your enthymemes in the form of maxims; e.g. ‘Wise men will come to terms in the hour of success; for they will gain most if they do’. Expressed as an enthymeme, this would run, ‘If we ought to come to terms when doing so will enable us to gain the greatest advantage, then we ought to come to terms in the hour of success.’ 18 Next as to Interrogation. The best moment to a employ this is when your opponent has so answered one question that the putting of just one more lands him in absurdity. Thus Pericles questioned Lampon about the way of celebrating the rites of the Saviour Goddess. Lampon declared that no uninitiated person could be told of them. Pericles then asked, ‘Do you know them yourself?’ ‘Yes’, answered Lampon. ‘Why,’ said Pericles, ‘how can that be, when you are uninitiated?’ Another good moment is when one premiss of an argument is obviously true, and you can see that your opponent must say ‘yes’ if you ask him whether the other is true. Having first got this answer about the other, do not go on to ask him about the obviously true one, but just state the conclusion yourself. Thus, when Meletus denied that Socrates believed in the existence of gods but admitted that he talked about a supernatural power, Socrates proceeded to to ask whether ‘supernatural beings were not either children of the gods or in some way divine?’ ‘Yes’, said Meletus. ‘Then’, replied Socrates, ‘is there any one who believes in the existence of children of the gods and yet not in the existence of the gods themselves?’ Another good occasion is when you expect to show that your opponent is contradicting either his own words or what every one believes. A fourth is when it is impossible for him to meet your question except by an evasive answer. If he answers ‘True, and yet not true’, or ‘Partly true and partly not true’, or ‘True in one sense but not in another’, the audience thinks he is in difficulties, and 2295