Rhetoric
By Aristotle
Written 350 B.C.E
Translated by W. Rhys Roberts
Part 1
Rhetoric is the counterpart of Dialectic. Both alike are concerned with
such things as come, more or less, within the general ken of all men and
belong to no definite science. Accordingly all men make use, more or less,
of both; for to a certain extent all men attempt to discuss statements
and to maintain them, to defend themselves and to attack others. Ordinary
people do this either at random or through practice and from acquired habit.
Both ways being possible, the subject can plainly be handled systematically,
for it is possible to inquire the reason why some speakers succeed through
practice and others spontaneously; and every one will at once agree that
such an inquiry is the function of an art.
Now, the framers of the current treatises on rhetoric have constructed
but a small portion of that art. The modes of persuasion are the only true
constituents of the art: everything else is merely accessory. These writers,
however, say nothing about enthymemes, which are the substance of rhetorical
persuasion, but deal mainly with non-essentials. The arousing of prejudice,
pity, anger, and similar emotions has nothing to do with the essential
facts, but is merely a personal appeal to the man who is judging the case.
Consequently if the rules for trials which are now laid down some states-especially
in well-governed states-were applied everywhere, such people would have
nothing to say. All men, no doubt, think that the laws should prescribe
such rules, but some, as in the court of Areopagus, give practical effect
to their thoughts and forbid talk about non-essentials. This is sound law
and custom. It is not right to pervert the judge by moving him to anger
or envy or pity-one might as well warp a carpenter's rule before using
it. Again, a litigant has clearly nothing to do but to show that the alleged
fact is so or is not so, that it has or has not happened. As to whether
a thing is important or unimportant, just or unjust, the judge must surely
refuse to take his instructions from the litigants: he must decide for
himself all such points as the law-giver has not already defined for
him.
Now, it is of great moment that well-drawn laws should themselves
define all the points they possibly can and leave as few as may be to the
decision of the judges; and this for several reasons. First, to find one
man, or a few men, who are sensible persons and capable of legislating
and administering justice is easier than to find a large number. Next,
laws are made after long consideration, whereas decisions in the courts
are given at short notice, which makes it hard for those who try the case
to satisfy the claims of justice and expediency. The weightiest reason
of all is that the decision of the lawgiver is not particular but prospective
and general, whereas members of the assembly and the jury find it their
duty to decide on definite cases brought before them. They will often have
allowed themselves to be so much influenced by feelings of friendship or
hatred or self-interest that they lose any clear vision of the truth and
have their judgement obscured by considerations of personal pleasure or
pain. In general, then, the judge should, we say, be allowed to decide
as few things as possible. But questions as to whether something has happened
or has not happened, will be or will not be, is or is not, must of necessity
be left to the judge, since the lawgiver cannot foresee them. If this is
so, it is evident that any one who lays down rules about other matters,
such as what must be the contents of the 'introduction' or the 'narration'
or any of the other divisions of a speech, is theorizing about non-essentials
as if they belonged to the art. The only question with which these writers
here deal is how to put the judge into a given frame of mind. About the
orator's proper modes of persuasion they have nothing to tell us; nothing,
that is, about how to gain skill in enthymemes.
Hence it comes that, although the same systematic principles apply
to political as to forensic oratory, and although the former is a nobler
business, and fitter for a citizen, than that which concerns the relations
of private individuals, these authors say nothing about political oratory,
but try, one and all, to write treatises on the way to plead in court.
The reason for this is that in political oratory there is less inducement
to talk about nonessentials. Political oratory is less given to unscrupulous
practices than forensic, because it treats of wider issues. In a political
debate the man who is forming a judgement is making a decision about his
own vital interests. There is no need, therefore, to prove anything except
that the facts are what the supporter of a measure maintains they are.
In forensic oratory this is not enough; to conciliate the listener is what
pays here. It is other people's affairs that are to be decided, so that
the judges, intent on their own satisfaction and listening with partiality,
surrender themselves to the disputants instead of judging between them.
Hence in many places, as we have said already, irrelevant speaking is forbidden
in the law-courts: in the public assembly those who have to form a judgement
are themselves well able to guard against that.
It is clear, then, that rhetorical study, in its strict sense,
is concerned with the modes of persuasion. Persuasion is clearly a sort
of demonstration, since we are most fully persuaded when we consider a
thing to have been demonstrated. The orator's demonstration is an enthymeme,
and this is, in general, the most effective of the modes of persuasion.
The enthymeme is a sort of syllogism, and the consideration of syllogisms
of all kinds, without distinction, is the business of dialectic, either
of dialectic as a whole or of one of its branches. It follows plainly,
therefore, that he who is best able to see how and from what elements a
syllogism is produced will also be best skilled in the enthymeme, when
he has further learnt what its subject-matter is and in what respects it
differs from the syllogism of strict logic. The true and the approximately
true are apprehended by the same faculty; it may also be noted that men
have a sufficient natural instinct for what is true, and usually do arrive
at the truth. Hence the man who makes a good guess at truth is likely to
make a good guess at probabilities.
It has now been shown that the ordinary writers on rhetoric treat
of non-essentials; it has also been shown why they have inclined more towards
the forensic branch of oratory.
Rhetoric is useful (1) because things that are true and things
that are just have a natural tendency to prevail over their opposites,
so that if the decisions of judges are not what they ought to be, the defeat
must be due to the speakers themselves, and they must be blamed accordingly.
Moreover, (2) before some audiences not even the possession of the exactest
knowledge will make it easy for what we say to produce conviction. For
argument based on knowledge implies instruction, and there are people whom
one cannot instruct. Here, then, we must use, as our modes of persuasion
and argument, notions possessed by everybody, as we observed in the Topics
when dealing with the way to handle a popular audience. Further, (3) we
must be able to employ persuasion, just as strict reasoning can be employed,
on opposite sides of a question, not in order that we may in practice employ
it in both ways (for we must not make people believe what is wrong), but
in order that we may see clearly what the facts are, and that, if another
man argues unfairly, we on our part may be able to confute him. No other
of the arts draws opposite conclusions: dialectic and rhetoric alone do
this. Both these arts draw opposite conclusions impartially. Nevertheless,
the underlying facts do not lend themselves equally well to the contrary
views. No; things that are true and things that are better are, by their
nature, practically always easier to prove and easier to believe in. Again,
(4) it is absurd to hold that a man ought to be ashamed of being unable
to defend himself with his limbs, but not of being unable to defend himself
with speech and reason, when the use of rational speech is more distinctive
of a human being than the use of his limbs. And if it be objected that
one who uses such power of speech unjustly might do great harm, that is
a charge which may be made in common against all good things except virtue,
and above all against the things that are most useful, as strength, health,
wealth, generalship. A man can confer the greatest of benefits by a right
use of these, and inflict the greatest of injuries by using them
wrongly.
It is clear, then, that rhetoric is not bound up with a single
definite class of subjects, but is as universal as dialectic; it is clear,
also, that it is useful. It is clear, further, that its function is not
simply to succeed in persuading, but rather to discover the means of coming
as near such success as the circumstances of each particular case allow.
In this it resembles all other arts. For example, it is not the function
of medicine simply to make a man quite healthy, but to put him as far as
may be on the road to health; it is possible to give excellent treatment
even to those who can never enjoy sound health. Furthermore, it is plain
that it is the function of one and the same art to discern the real and
the apparent means of persuasion, just as it is the function of dialectic
to discern the real and the apparent syllogism. What makes a man a 'sophist'
is not his faculty, but his moral purpose. In rhetoric, however, the term
'rhetorician' may describe either the speaker's knowledge of the art, or
his moral purpose. In dialectic it is different: a man is a 'sophist' because
he has a certain kind of moral purpose, a 'dialectician' in respect, not
of his moral purpose, but of his faculty.
Let us now try to give some account of the systematic principles
of Rhetoric itself-of the right method and means of succeeding in the object
we set before us. We must make as it were a fresh start, and before going
further define what rhetoric is.
Part 2
Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given
case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of any other
art. Every other art can instruct or persuade about its own particular
subject-matter; for instance, medicine about what is healthy and unhealthy,
geometry about the properties of magnitudes, arithmetic about numbers,
and the same is true of the other arts and sciences. But rhetoric we look
upon as the power of observing the means of persuasion on almost any subject
presented to us; and that is why we say that, in its technical character,
it is not concerned with any special or definite class of
subjects.
Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the art of rhetoric
and some do not. By the latter I mean such things as are not supplied by
the speaker but are there at the outset-witnesses, evidence given under
torture, written contracts, and so on. By the former I mean such as we
can ourselves construct by means of the principles of rhetoric. The one
kind has merely to be used, the other has to be invented.
Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there are
three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character of the speaker;
the second on putting the audience into a certain frame of mind; the third
on the proof, or apparent proof, provided by the words of the speech itself.
Persuasion is achieved by the speaker's personal character when the speech
is so spoken as to make us think him credible. We believe good men more
fully and more readily than others: this is true generally whatever the
question is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and
opinions are divided. This kind of persuasion, like the others, should
be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people think of his character
before he begins to speak. It is not true, as some writers assume in their
treatises on rhetoric, that the personal goodness revealed by the speaker
contributes nothing to his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character
may almost be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses.
Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech stirs
their emotions. Our judgements when we are pleased and friendly are not
the same as when we are pained and hostile. It is towards producing these
effects, as we maintain, that present-day writers on rhetoric direct the
whole of their efforts. This subject shall be treated in detail when we
come to speak of the emotions. Thirdly, persuasion is effected through
the speech itself when we have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means
of the persuasive arguments suitable to the case in
question.
There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The
man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1) to reason
logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness in their various
forms, and (3) to understand the emotions-that is, to name them and describe
them, to know their causes and the way in which they are excited. It thus
appears that rhetoric is an offshoot of dialectic and also of ethical studies.
Ethical studies may fairly be called political; and for this reason rhetoric
masquerades as political science, and the professors of it as political
experts-sometimes from want of education, sometimes from ostentation, sometimes
owing to other human failings. As a matter of fact, it is a branch of dialectic
and similar to it, as we said at the outset. Neither rhetoric nor dialectic
is the scientific study of any one separate subject: both are faculties
for providing arguments. This is perhaps a sufficient account of their
scope and of how they are related to each other.
With regard to the persuasion achieved by proof or apparent proof:
just as in dialectic there is induction on the one hand and syllogism or
apparent syllogism on the other, so it is in rhetoric. The example is an
induction, the enthymeme is a syllogism, and the apparent enthymeme is
an apparent syllogism. I call the enthymeme a rhetorical syllogism, and
the example a rhetorical induction. Every one who effects persuasion through
proof does in fact use either enthymemes or examples: there is no other
way. And since every one who proves anything at all is bound to use either
syllogisms or inductions (and this is clear to us from the Analytics),
it must follow that enthymemes are syllogisms and examples are inductions.
The difference between example and enthymeme is made plain by the passages
in the Topics where induction and syllogism have already been discussed.
When we base the proof of a proposition on a number of similar cases, this
is induction in dialectic, example in rhetoric; when it is shown that,
certain propositions being true, a further and quite distinct proposition
must also be true in consequence, whether invariably or usually, this is
called syllogism in dialectic, enthymeme in rhetoric. It is plain also
that each of these types of oratory has its advantages. Types of oratory,
I say: for what has been said in the Methodics applies equally well here;
in some oratorical styles examples prevail, in others enthymemes; and in
like manner, some orators are better at the former and some at the latter.
Speeches that rely on examples are as persuasive as the other kind, but
those which rely on enthymemes excite the louder applause. The sources
of examples and enthymemes, and their proper uses, we will discuss later.
Our next step is to define the processes themselves more
clearly.
A statement is persuasive and credible either because it is directly
self-evident or because it appears to be proved from other statements that
are so. In either case it is persuasive because there is somebody whom
it persuades. But none of the arts theorize about individual cases. Medicine,
for instance, does not theorize about what will help to cure Socrates or
Callias, but only about what will help to cure any or all of a given class
of patients: this alone is business: individual cases are so infinitely
various that no systematic knowledge of them is possible. In the same way
the theory of rhetoric is concerned not with what seems probable to a given
individual like Socrates or Hippias, but with what seems probable to men
of a given type; and this is true of dialectic also. Dialectic does not
construct its syllogisms out of any haphazard materials, such as the fancies
of crazy people, but out of materials that call for discussion; and rhetoric,
too, draws upon the regular subjects of debate. The duty of rhetoric is
to deal with such matters as we deliberate upon without arts or systems
to guide us, in the hearing of persons who cannot take in at a glance a
complicated argument, or follow a long chain of reasoning. The subjects
of our deliberation are such as seem to present us with alternative possibilities:
about things that could not have been, and cannot now or in the future
be, other than they are, nobody who takes them to be of this nature wastes
his time in deliberation.
It is possible to form syllogisms and draw conclusions from the
results of previous syllogisms; or, on the other hand, from premisses which
have not been thus proved, and at the same time are so little accepted
that they call for proof. Reasonings of the former kind will necessarily
be hard to follow owing to their length, for we assume an audience of untrained
thinkers; those of the latter kind will fail to win assent, because they
are based on premisses that are not generally admitted or
believed.
The enthymeme and the example must, then, deal with what is in
the main contingent, the example being an induction, and the enthymeme
a syllogism, about such matters. The enthymeme must consist of few propositions,
fewer often than those which make up the normal syllogism. For if any of
these propositions is a familiar fact, there is no need even to mention
it; the hearer adds it himself. Thus, to show that Dorieus has been victor
in a contest for which the prize is a crown, it is enough to say 'For he
has been victor in the Olympic games', without adding 'And in the Olympic
games the prize is a crown', a fact which everybody
knows.
There are few facts of the 'necessary' type that can form the basis
of rhetorical syllogisms. Most of the things about which we make decisions,
and into which therefore we inquire, present us with alternative possibilities.
For it is about our actions that we deliberate and inquire, and all our
actions have a contingent character; hardly any of them are determined
by necessity. Again, conclusions that state what is merely usual or possible
must be drawn from premisses that do the same, just as 'necessary' conclusions
must be drawn from 'necessary' premisses; this too is clear to us from
the Analytics. It is evident, therefore, that the propositions forming
the basis of enthymemes, though some of them may be 'necessary', will most
of them be only usually true. Now the materials of enthymemes are Probabilities
and Signs, which we can see must correspond respectively with the propositions
that are generally and those that are necessarily true. A Probability is
a thing that usually happens; not, however, as some definitions would suggest,
anything whatever that usually happens, but only if it belongs to the class
of the 'contingent' or 'variable'. It bears the same relation to that in
respect of which it is probable as the universal bears to the particular.
Of Signs, one kind bears the same relation to the statement it supports
as the particular bears to the universal, the other the same as the universal
bears to the particular. The infallible kind is a 'complete proof' (tekmerhiou);
the fallible kind has no specific name. By infallible signs I mean those
on which syllogisms proper may be based: and this shows us why this kind
of Sign is called 'complete proof': when people think that what they have
said cannot be refuted, they then think that they are bringing forward
a 'complete proof', meaning that the matter has now been demonstrated and
completed (peperhasmeuou); for the word 'perhas' has the same meaning (of
'end' or 'boundary') as the word 'tekmarh' in the ancient tongue. Now the
one kind of Sign (that which bears to the proposition it supports the relation
of particular to universal) may be illustrated thus. Suppose it were said,
'The fact that Socrates was wise and just is a sign that the wise are just'.
Here we certainly have a Sign; but even though the proposition be true,
the argument is refutable, since it does not form a syllogism. Suppose,
on the other hand, it were said, 'The fact that he has a fever is a sign
that he is ill', or, 'The fact that she is giving milk is a sign that she
has lately borne a child'. Here we have the infallible kind of Sign, the
only kind that constitutes a complete proof, since it is the only kind
that, if the particular statement is true, is irrefutable. The other kind
of Sign, that which bears to the proposition it supports the relation of
universal to particular, might be illustrated by saying, 'The fact that
he breathes fast is a sign that he has a fever'. This argument also is
refutable, even if the statement about the fast breathing be true, since
a man may breathe hard without having a fever.
It has, then, been stated above what is the nature of a Probability,
of a Sign, and of a complete proof, and what are the differences between
them. In the Analytics a more explicit description has been given of these
points; it is there shown why some of these reasonings can be put into
syllogisms and some cannot.
The 'example' has already been described as one kind of induction;
and the special nature of the subject-matter that distinguishes it from
the other kinds has also been stated above. Its relation to the proposition
it supports is not that of part to whole, nor whole to part, nor whole
to whole, but of part to part, or like to like. When two statements are
of the same order, but one is more familiar than the other, the former
is an 'example'. The argument may, for instance, be that Dionysius, in
asking as he does for a bodyguard, is scheming to make himself a despot.
For in the past Peisistratus kept asking for a bodyguard in order to carry
out such a scheme, and did make himself a despot as soon as he got it;
and so did Theagenes at Megara; and in the same way all other instances
known to the speaker are made into examples, in order to show what is not
yet known, that Dionysius has the same purpose in making the same request:
all these being instances of the one general principle, that a man who
asks for a bodyguard is scheming to make himself a despot. We have now
described the sources of those means of persuasion which are popularly
supposed to be demonstrative.
There is an important distinction between two sorts of enthymemes
that has been wholly overlooked by almost everybody-one that also subsists
between the syllogisms treated of in dialectic. One sort of enthymeme really
belongs to rhetoric, as one sort of syllogism really belongs to dialectic;
but the other sort really belongs to other arts and faculties, whether
to those we already exercise or to those we have not yet acquired. Missing
this distinction, people fail to notice that the more correctly they handle
their particular subject the further they are getting away from pure rhetoric
or dialectic. This statement will be clearer if expressed more fully. I
mean that the proper subjects of dialectical and rhetorical syllogisms
are the things with which we say the regular or universal Lines of Argument
are concerned, that is to say those lines of argument that apply equally
to questions of right conduct, natural science, politics, and many other
things that have nothing to do with one another. Take, for instance, the
line of argument concerned with 'the more or less'. On this line of argument
it is equally easy to base a syllogism or enthymeme about any of what nevertheless
are essentially disconnected subjects-right conduct, natural science, or
anything else whatever. But there are also those special Lines of Argument
which are based on such propositions as apply only to particular groups
or classes of things. Thus there are propositions about natural science
on which it is impossible to base any enthymeme or syllogism about ethics,
and other propositions about ethics on which nothing can be based about
natural science. The same principle applies throughout. The general Lines
of Argument have no special subject-matter, and therefore will not increase
our understanding of any particular class of things. On the other hand,
the better the selection one makes of propositions suitable for special
Lines of Argument, the nearer one comes, unconsciously, to setting up a
science that is distinct from dialectic and rhetoric. One may succeed in
stating the required principles, but one's science will be no longer dialectic
or rhetoric, but the science to which the principles thus discovered belong.
Most enthymemes are in fact based upon these particular or special Lines
of Argument; comparatively few on the common or general kind. As in the
therefore, so in this work, we must distinguish, in dealing with enthymemes,
the special and the general Lines of Argument on which they are to be founded.
By special Lines of Argument I mean the propositions peculiar to each several
class of things, by general those common to all classes alike. We may begin
with the special Lines of Argument. But, first of all, let us classify
rhetoric into its varieties. Having distinguished these we may deal with
them one by one, and try to discover the elements of which each is composed,
and the propositions each must employ.
Part 3
Rhetoric falls into three divisions, determined by the three classes
of listeners to speeches. For of the three elements in speech-making--speaker,
subject, and person addressed--it is the last one, the hearer, that determines
the speech's end and object. The hearer must be either a judge, with a
decision to make about things past or future, or an observer. A member
of the assembly decides about future events, a juryman about past events:
while those who merely decide on the orator's skill are observers. From
this it follows that there are three divisions of oratory-(1) political,
(2) forensic, and (3) the ceremonial oratory of display.
Political speaking urges us either to do or not to do something:
one of these two courses is always taken by private counsellors, as well
as by men who address public assemblies. Forensic speaking either attacks
or defends somebody: one or other of these two things must always be done
by the parties in a case. The ceremonial oratory of display either praises
or censures somebody. These three kinds of rhetoric refer to three different
kinds of time. The political orator is concerned with the future: it is
about things to be done hereafter that he advises, for or against. The
party in a case at law is concerned with the past; one man accuses the
other, and the other defends himself, with reference to things already
done. The ceremonial orator is, properly speaking, concerned with the present,
since all men praise or blame in view of the state of things existing at
the time, though they often find it useful also to recall the past and
to make guesses at the future.
Rhetoric has three distinct ends in view, one for each of its three
kinds. The political orator aims at establishing the expediency or the
harmfulness of a proposed course of action; if he urges its acceptance,
he does so on the ground that it will do good; if he urges its rejection,
he does so on the ground that it will do harm; and all other points, such
as whether the proposal is just or unjust, honourable or dishonourable,
he brings in as subsidiary and relative to this main consideration. Parties
in a law-case aim at establishing the justice or injustice of some action,
and they too bring in all other points as subsidiary and relative to this
one. Those who praise or attack a man aim at proving him worthy of honour
or the reverse, and they too treat all other considerations with reference
to this one.
That the three kinds of rhetoric do aim respectively at the three
ends we have mentioned is shown by the fact that speakers will sometimes
not try to establish anything else. Thus, the litigant will sometimes not
deny that a thing has happened or that he has done harm. But that he is
guilty of injustice he will never admit; otherwise there would be no need
of a trial. So too, political orators often make any concession short of
admitting that they are recommending their hearers to take an inexpedient
course or not to take an expedient one. The question whether it is not
unjust for a city to enslave its innocent neighbours often does not trouble
them at all. In like manner those who praise or censure a man do not consider
whether his acts have been expedient or not, but often make it a ground
of actual praise that he has neglected his own interest to do what was
honourable. Thus, they praise Achilles because he championed his fallen
friend Patroclus, though he knew that this meant death, and that otherwise
he need not die: yet while to die thus was the nobler thing for him to
do, the expedient thing was to live on.
It is evident from what has been said that it is these three subjects,
more than any others, about which the orator must be able to have propositions
at his command. Now the propositions of Rhetoric are Complete Proofs, Probabilities,
and Signs. Every kind of syllogism is composed of propositions, and the
enthymeme is a particular kind of syllogism composed of the aforesaid
propositions.
Since only possible actions, and not impossible ones, can ever
have been done in the past or the present, and since things which have
not occurred, or will not occur, also cannot have been done or be going
to be done, it is necessary for the political, the forensic, and the ceremonial
speaker alike to be able to have at their command propositions about the
possible and the impossible, and about whether a thing has or has not occurred,
will or will not occur. Further, all men, in giving praise or blame, in
urging us to accept or reject proposals for action, in accusing others
or defending themselves, attempt not only to prove the points mentioned
but also to show that the good or the harm, the honour or disgrace, the
justice or injustice, is great or small, either absolutely or relatively;
and therefore it is plain that we must also have at our command propositions
about greatness or smallness and the greater or the lesser-propositions
both universal and particular. Thus, we must be able to say which is the
greater or lesser good, the greater or lesser act of justice or injustice;
and so on.
Such, then, are the subjects regarding which we are inevitably
bound to master the propositions relevant to them. We must now discuss
each particular class of these subjects in turn, namely those dealt with
in political, in ceremonial, and lastly in legal, oratory.
Part 4
First, then, we must ascertain what are the kinds of things, good
or bad, about which the political orator offers counsel. For he does not
deal with all things, but only with such as may or may not take place.
Concerning things which exist or will exist inevitably, or which cannot
possibly exist or take place, no counsel can be given. Nor, again, can
counsel be given about the whole class of things which may or may not take
place; for this class includes some good things that occur naturally, and
some that occur by accident; and about these it is useless to offer counsel.
Clearly counsel can only be given on matters about which people deliberate;
matters, namely, that ultimately depend on ourselves, and which we have
it in our power to set going. For we turn a thing over in our mind until
we have reached the point of seeing whether we can do it or
not.
Now to enumerate and classify accurately the usual subjects of
public business, and further to frame, as far as possible, true definitions
of them is a task which we must not attempt on the present occasion. For
it does not belong to the art of rhetoric, but to a more instructive art
and a more real branch of knowledge; and as it is, rhetoric has been given
a far wider subject-matter than strictly belongs to it. The truth is, as
indeed we have said already, that rhetoric is a combination of the science
of logic and of the ethical branch of politics; and it is partly like dialectic,
partly like sophistical reasoning. But the more we try to make either dialectic
rhetoric not, what they really are, practical faculties, but sciences,
the more we shall inadvertently be destroying their true nature; for we
shall be re-fashioning them and shall be passing into the region of sciences
dealing with definite subjects rather than simply with words and forms
of reasoning. Even here, however, we will mention those points which it
is of practical importance to distinguish, their fuller treatment falling
naturally to political science.
The main matters on which all men deliberate and on which political
speakers make speeches are some five in number: ways and means, war and
peace, national defence, imports and exports, and legislation.
As to Ways and Means, then, the intending speaker will need to
know the number and extent of the country's sources of revenue, so that,
if any is being overlooked, it may be added, and, if any is defective,
it may be increased. Further, he should know all the expenditure of the
country, in order that, if any part of it is superfluous, it may be abolished,
or, if any is too large, it may be reduced. For men become richer not only
by increasing their existing wealth but also by reducing their expenditure.
A comprehensive view of these questions cannot be gained solely from experience
in home affairs; in order to advise on such matters a man must be keenly
interested in the methods worked out in other lands.
As to Peace and War, he must know the extent of the military strength
of his country, both actual and potential, and also the mature of that
actual and potential strength; and further, what wars his country has waged,
and how it has waged them. He must know these facts not only about his
own country, but also about neighbouring countries; and also about countries
with which war is likely, in order that peace may be maintained with those
stronger than his own, and that his own may have power to make war or not
against those that are weaker. He should know, too, whether the military
power of another country is like or unlike that of his own; for this is
a matter that may affect their relative strength. With the same end in
view he must, besides, have studied the wars of other countries as well
as those of his own, and the way they ended; similar causes are likely
to have similar results.
With regard to National Defence: he ought to know all about the
methods of defence in actual use, such as the strength and character of
the defensive force and the positions of the forts-this last means that
he must be well acquainted with the lie of the country-in order that a
garrison may be increased if it is too small or removed if it is not wanted,
and that the strategic points may be guarded with special
care.
With regard to the Food Supply: he must know what outlay will meet
the needs of his country; what kinds of food are produced at home and what
imported; and what articles must be exported or imported. This last he
must know in order that agreements and commercial treaties may be made
with the countries concerned. There are, indeed, two sorts of state to
which he must see that his countrymen give no cause for offence, states
stronger than his own, and states with which it is advantageous to
trade.
But while he must, for security's sake, be able to take all this
into account, he must before all things understand the subject of legislation;
for it is on a country's laws that its whole welfare depends. He must,
therefore, know how many different forms of constitution there are; under
what conditions each of these will prosper and by what internal developments
or external attacks each of them tends to be destroyed. When I speak of
destruction through internal developments I refer to the fact that all
constitutions, except the best one of all, are destroyed both by not being
pushed far enough and by being pushed too far. Thus, democracy loses its
vigour, and finally passes into oligarchy, not only when it is not pushed
far enough, but also when it is pushed a great deal too far; just as the
aquiline and the snub nose not only turn into normal noses by not being
aquiline or snub enough, but also by being too violently aquiline or snub
arrive at a condition in which they no longer look like noses at all. It
is useful, in framing laws, not only to study the past history of one's
own country, in order to understand which constitution is desirable for
it now, but also to have a knowledge of the constitutions of other nations,
and so to learn for what kinds of nation the various kinds of constitution
are suited. From this we can see that books of travel are useful aids to
legislation, since from these we may learn the laws and customs of different
races. The political speaker will also find the researches of historians
useful. But all this is the business of political science and not of
rhetoric.
These, then, are the most important kinds of information which
the political speaker must possess. Let us now go back and state the premisses
from which he will have to argue in favour of adopting or rejecting measures
regarding these and other matters.
Part 5
It may be said that every individual man and all men in common
aim at a certain end which determines what they choose and what they avoid.
This end, to sum it up briefly, is happiness and its constituents. Let
us, then, by way of illustration only, ascertain what is in general the
nature of happiness, and what are the elements of its constituent parts.
For all advice to do things or not to do them is concerned with happiness
and with the things that make for or against it; whatever creates or increases
happiness or some part of happiness, we ought to do; whatever destroys
or hampers happiness, or gives rise to its opposite, we ought not to
do.
We may define happiness as prosperity combined with virtue; or
as independence of life; or as the secure enjoyment of the maximum of pleasure;
or as a good condition of property and body, together with the power of
guarding one's property and body and making use of them. That happiness
is one or more of these things, pretty well everybody
agrees.
From this definition of happiness it follows that its constituent
parts are:-good birth, plenty of friends, good friends, wealth, good children,
plenty of children, a happy old age, also such bodily excellences as health,
beauty, strength, large stature, athletic powers, together with fame, honour,
good luck, and virtue. A man cannot fail to be completely independent if
he possesses these internal and these external goods; for besides these
there are no others to have. (Goods of the soul and of the body are internal.
Good birth, friends, money, and honour are external.) Further, we think
that he should possess resources and luck, in order to make his life really
secure. As we have already ascertained what happiness in general is, so
now let us try to ascertain what of these parts of it
is.
Now good birth in a race or a state means that its members are
indigenous or ancient: that its earliest leaders were distinguished men,
and that from them have sprung many who were distinguished for qualities
that we admire.
The good birth of an individual, which may come either from the
male or the female side, implies that both parents are free citizens, and
that, as in the case of the state, the founders of the line have been notable
for virtue or wealth or something else which is highly prized, and that
many distinguished persons belong to the family, men and women, young and
old.
The phrases 'possession of good children' and 'of many children'
bear a quite clear meaning. Applied to a community, they mean that its
young men are numerous and of good a quality: good in regard to bodily
excellences, such as stature, beauty, strength, athletic powers; and also
in regard to the excellences of the soul, which in a young man are temperance
and courage. Applied to an individual, they mean that his own children
are numerous and have the good qualities we have described. Both male and
female are here included; the excellences of the latter are, in body, beauty
and stature; in soul, self-command and an industry that is not sordid.
Communities as well as individuals should lack none of these perfections,
in their women as well as in their men. Where, as among the Lacedaemonians,
the state of women is bad, almost half of human life is
spoilt.
The constituents of wealth are: plenty of coined money and territory;
the ownership of numerous, large, and beautiful estates; also the ownership
of numerous and beautiful implements, live stock, and slaves. All these
kinds of property are our own, are secure, gentlemanly, and useful. The
useful kinds are those that are productive, the gentlemanly kinds are those
that provide enjoyment. By 'productive' I mean those from which we get
our income; by 'enjoyable', those from which we get nothing worth mentioning
except the use of them. The criterion of 'security' is the ownership of
property in such places and under such Conditions that the use of it is
in our power; and it is 'our own' if it is in our own power to dispose
of it or keep it. By 'disposing of it' I mean giving it away or selling
it. Wealth as a whole consists in using things rather than in owning them;
it is really the activity-that is, the use-of property that constitutes
wealth.
Fame means being respected by everybody, or having some quality
that is desired by all men, or by most, or by the good, or by the
wise.
Honour is the token of a man's being famous for doing good. it
is chiefly and most properly paid to those who have already done good;
but also to the man who can do good in future. Doing good refers either
to the preservation of life and the means of life, or to wealth, or to
some other of the good things which it is hard to get either always or
at that particular place or time-for many gain honour for things which
seem small, but the place and the occasion account for it. The constituents
of honour are: sacrifices; commemoration, in verse or prose; privileges;
grants of land; front seats at civic celebrations; state burial; statues;
public maintenance; among foreigners, obeisances and giving place; and
such presents as are among various bodies of men regarded as marks of honour.
For a present is not only the bestowal of a piece of property, but also
a token of honour; which explains why honour-loving as well as money-loving
persons desire it. The present brings to both what they want; it is a piece
of property, which is what the lovers of money desire; and it brings honour,
which is what the lovers of honour desire.
The excellence of the body is health; that is, a condition which
allows us, while keeping free from disease, to have the use of our bodies;
for many people are 'healthy' as we are told Herodicus was; and these no
one can congratulate on their 'health', for they have to abstain from everything
or nearly everything that men do.-Beauty varies with the time of life.
In a young man beauty is the possession of a body fit to endure the exertion
of running and of contests of strength; which means that he is pleasant
to look at; and therefore all-round athletes are the most beautiful, being
naturally adapted both for contests of strength and for speed also. For
a man in his prime, beauty is fitness for the exertion of warfare, together
with a pleasant but at the same time formidable appearance. For an old
man, it is to be strong enough for such exertion as is necessary, and to
be free from all those deformities of old age which cause pain to others.
Strength is the power of moving some one else at will; to do this, you
must either pull, push, lift, pin, or grip him; thus you must be strong
in all of those ways or at least in some. Excellence in size is to surpass
ordinary people in height, thickness, and breadth by just as much as will
not make one's movements slower in consequence. Athletic excellence of
the body consists in size, strength, and swiftness; swiftness implying
strength. He who can fling forward his legs in a certain way, and move
them fast and far, is good at running; he who can grip and hold down is
good at wrestling; he who can drive an adversary from his ground with the
right blow is a good boxer: he who can do both the last is a good pancratiast,
while he who can do all is an 'all-round' athlete.
Happiness in old age is the coming of old age slowly and painlessly;
for a man has not this happiness if he grows old either quickly, or tardily
but painfully. It arises both from the excellences of the body and from
good luck. If a man is not free from disease, or if he is strong, he will
not be free from suffering; nor can he continue to live a long and painless
life unless he has good luck. There is, indeed, a capacity for long life
that is quite independent of health or strength; for many people live long
who lack the excellences of the body; but for our present purpose there
is no use in going into the details of this.
The terms 'possession of many friends' and 'possession of good
friends' need no explanation; for we define a 'friend' as one who will
always try, for your sake, to do what he takes to be good for you. The
man towards whom many feel thus has many friends; if these are worthy men,
he has good friends.
'Good luck' means the acquisition or possession of all or most,
or the most important, of those good things which are due to luck. Some
of the things that are due to luck may also be due to artificial contrivance;
but many are independent of art, as for example those which are due to
nature-though, to be sure, things due to luck may actually be contrary
to nature. Thus health may be due to artificial contrivance, but beauty
and stature are due to nature. All such good things as excite envy are,
as a class, the outcome of good luck. Luck is also the cause of good things
that happen contrary to reasonable expectation: as when, for instance,
all your brothers are ugly, but you are handsome yourself; or when you
find a treasure that everybody else has overlooked; or when a missile hits
the next man and misses you; or when you are the only man not to go to
a place you have gone to regularly, while the others go there for the first
time and are killed. All such things are reckoned pieces of good
luck.
As to virtue, it is most closely connected with the subject of
Eulogy, and therefore we will wait to define it until we come to discuss
that subject.
Part 6
It is now plain what our aims, future or actual, should be in urging,
and what in depreciating, a proposal; the latter being the opposite of
the former. Now the political or deliberative orator's aim is utility:
deliberation seeks to determine not ends but the means to ends, i.e. what
it is most useful to do. Further, utility is a good thing. We ought therefore
to assure ourselves of the main facts about Goodness and Utility in
general.
We may define a good thing as that which ought to be chosen for
its own sake; or as that for the sake of which we choose something else;
or as that which is sought after by all things, or by all things that have
sensation or reason, or which will be sought after by any things that acquire
reason; or as that which must be prescribed for a given individual by reason
generally, or is prescribed for him by his individual reason, this being
his individual good; or as that whose presence brings anything into a satisfactory
and self-sufficing condition; or as self-sufficiency; or as what produces,
maintains, or entails characteristics of this kind, while preventing and
destroying their opposites. One thing may entail another in either of two
ways-(1) simultaneously, (2) subsequently. Thus learning entails knowledge
subsequently, health entails life simultaneously. Things are productive
of other things in three senses: first as being healthy produces health;
secondly, as food produces health; and thirdly, as exercise does-i.e. it
does so usually. All this being settled, we now see that both the acquisition
of good things and the removal of bad things must be good; the latter entails
freedom from the evil things simultaneously, while the former entails possession
of the good things subsequently. The acquisition of a greater in place
of a lesser good, or of a lesser in place of a greater evil, is also good,
for in proportion as the greater exceeds the lesser there is acquisition
of good or removal of evil. The virtues, too, must be something good; for
it is by possessing these that we are in a good condition, and they tend
to produce good works and good actions. They must be severally named and
described elsewhere. Pleasure, again, must be a good thing, since it is
the nature of all animals to aim at it. Consequently both pleasant and
beautiful things must be good things, since the former are productive of
pleasure, while of the beautiful things some are pleasant and some desirable
in and for themselves.
The following is a more detailed list of things that must be good.
Happiness, as being desirable in itself and sufficient by itself, and as
being that for whose sake we choose many other things. Also justice, courage,
temperance, magnanimity, magnificence, and all such qualities, as being
excellences of the soul. Further, health, beauty, and the like, as being
bodily excellences and productive of many other good things: for instance,
health is productive both of pleasure and of life, and therefore is thought
the greatest of goods, since these two things which it causes, pleasure
and life, are two of the things most highly prized by ordinary people.
Wealth, again: for it is the excellence of possession, and also productive
of many other good things. Friends and friendship: for a friend is desirable
in himself and also productive of many other good things. So, too, honour
and reputation, as being pleasant, and productive of many other good things,
and usually accompanied by the presence of the good things that cause them
to be bestowed. The faculty of speech and action; since all such qualities
are productive of what is good. Further-good parts, strong memory, receptiveness,
quickness of intuition, and the like, for all such faculties are productive
of what is good. Similarly, all the sciences and arts. And life: since,
even if no other good were the result of life, it is desirable in itself.
And justice, as the cause of good to the community.
The above are pretty well all the things admittedly good. In dealing
with things whose goodness is disputed, we may argue in the following ways:-That
is good of which the contrary is bad. That is good the contrary of which
is to the advantage of our enemies; for example, if it is to the particular
advantage of our enemies that we should be cowards, clearly courage is
of particular value to our countrymen. And generally, the contrary of that
which our enemies desire, or of that at which they rejoice, is evidently
valuable. Hence the passage beginning:
"Surely would Priam exult.
"
This principle usually holds good, but not always, since it may
well be that our interest is sometimes the same as that of our enemies.
Hence it is said that 'evils draw men together'; that is, when the same
thing is hurtful to them both.
Further: that which is not in excess is good, and that which is
greater than it should be is bad. That also is good on which much labour
or money has been spent; the mere fact of this makes it seem good, and
such a good is assumed to be an end-an end reached through a long chain
of means; and any end is a good. Hence the lines beginning:
"And
for Priam (and Troy-town's folk) should
"they leave behind them
a boast; "
and
"Oh, it were shame
"To have tarried so long and return
empty-handed
"as erst we came; "
and there is also the proverb about 'breaking the pitcher at the
door'.
That which most people seek after, and which is obviously an object
of contention, is also a good; for, as has been shown, that is good which
is sought after by everybody, and 'most people' is taken to be equivalent
to 'everybody'. That which is praised is good, since no one praises what
is not good. So, again, that which is praised by our enemies [or by the
worthless] for when even those who have a grievance think a thing good,
it is at once felt that every one must agree with them; our enemies can
admit the fact only because it is evident, just as those must be worthless
whom their friends censure and their enemies do not. (For this reason the
Corinthians conceived themselves to be insulted by Simonides when he wrote:
"Against the Corinthians hath Ilium no complaint.)
"
Again, that is good which has been distinguished by the favour
of a discerning or virtuous man or woman, as Odysseus was distinguished
by Athena, Helen by Theseus, Paris by the goddesses, and Achilles by Homer.
And, generally speaking, all things are good which men deliberately choose
to do; this will include the things already mentioned, and also whatever
may be bad for their enemies or good for their friends, and at the same
time practicable. Things are 'practicable' in two senses: (1) it is possible
to do them, (2) it is easy to do them. Things are done 'easily' when they
are done either without pain or quickly: the 'difficulty' of an act lies
either in its painfulness or in the long time it takes. Again, a thing
is good if it is as men wish; and they wish to have either no evil at an
or at least a balance of good over evil. This last will happen where the
penalty is either imperceptible or slight. Good, too, are things that are
a man's very own, possessed by no one else, exceptional; for this increases
the credit of having them. So are things which befit the possessors, such
as whatever is appropriate to their birth or capacity, and whatever they
feel they ought to have but lack-such things may indeed be trifling, but
none the less men deliberately make them the goal of their action. And
things easily effected; for these are practicable (in the sense of being
easy); such things are those in which every one, or most people, or one's
equals, or one's inferiors have succeeded. Good also are the things by
which we shall gratify our friends or annoy our enemies; and the things
chosen by those whom we admire: and the things for which we are fitted
by nature or experience, since we think we shall succeed more easily in
these: and those in which no worthless man can succeed, for such things
bring greater praise: and those which we do in fact desire, for what we
desire is taken to be not only pleasant but also better. Further, a man
of a given disposition makes chiefly for the corresponding things: lovers
of victory make for victory, lovers of honour for honour, money-loving
men for money, and so with the rest. These, then, are the sources from
which we must derive our means of persuasion about Good and
Utility.
Part 7
Since, however, it often happens that people agree that two things
are both useful but do not agree about which is the more so, the next step
will be to treat of relative goodness and relative utility.
A thing which surpasses another may be regarded as being that other
thing plus something more, and that other thing which is surpassed as being
what is contained in the first thing. Now to call a thing 'greater' or
'more' always implies a comparison of it with one that is 'smaller' or
'less', while 'great' and 'small', 'much' and 'little', are terms used
in comparison with normal magnitude. The 'great' is that which surpasses
the normal, the 'small' is that which is surpassed by the normal; and so
with 'many' and 'few'.
Now we are applying the term 'good' to what is desirable for its
own sake and not for the sake of something else; to that at which all things
aim; to what they would choose if they could acquire understanding and
practical wisdom; and to that which tends to produce or preserve such goods,
or is always accompanied by them. Moreover, that for the sake of which
things are done is the end (an end being that for the sake of which all
else is done), and for each individual that thing is a good which fulfils
these conditions in regard to himself. It follows, then, that a greater
number of goods is a greater good than one or than a smaller number, if
that one or that smaller number is included in the count; for then the
larger number surpasses the smaller, and the smaller quantity is surpassed
as being contained in the larger.
Again, if the largest member of one class surpasses the largest
member of another, then the one class surpasses the other; and if one class
surpasses another, then the largest member of the one surpasses the largest
member of the other. Thus, if the tallest man is taller than the tallest
woman, then men in general are taller than women. Conversely, if men in
general are taller than women, then the tallest man is taller than the
tallest woman. For the superiority of class over class is proportionate
to the superiority possessed by their largest specimens. Again, where one
good is always accompanied by another, but does not always accompany it,
it is greater than the other, for the use of the second thing is implied
in the use of the first. A thing may be accompanied by another in three
ways, either simultaneously, subsequently, or potentially. Life accompanies
health simultaneously (but not health life), knowledge accompanies the
act of learning subsequently, cheating accompanies sacrilege potentially,
since a man who has committed sacrilege is always capable of cheating.
Again, when two things each surpass a third, that which does so by the
greater amount is the greater of the two; for it must surpass the greater
as well as the less of the other two. A thing productive of a greater good
than another is productive of is itself a greater good than that other.
For this conception of 'productive of a greater' has been implied in our
argument. Likewise, that which is produced by a greater good is itself
a greater good; thus, if what is wholesome is more desirable and a greater
good than what gives pleasure, health too must be a greater good than pleasure.
Again, a thing which is desirable in itself is a greater good than a thing
which is not desirable in itself, as for example bodily strength than what
is wholesome, since the latter is not pursued for its own sake, whereas
the former is; and this was our definition of the good. Again, if one of
two things is an end, and the other is not, the former is the greater good,
as being chosen for its own sake and not for the sake of something else;
as, for example, exercise is chosen for the sake of physical well-being.
And of two things that which stands less in need of the other, or of other
things, is the greater good, since it is more self-sufficing. (That which
stands 'less' in need of others is that which needs either fewer or easier
things.) So when one thing does not exist or cannot come into existence
without a second, while the second can exist without the first, the second
is the better. That which does not need something else is more self-sufficing
than that which does, and presents itself as a greater good for that reason.
Again, that which is a beginning of other things is a greater good than
that which is not, and that which is a cause is a greater good than that
which is not; the reason being the same in each case, namely that without
a cause and a beginning nothing can exist or come into existence. Again,
where there are two sets of consequences arising from two different beginnings
or causes, the consequences of the more important beginning or cause are
themselves the more important; and conversely, that beginning or cause
is itself the more important which has the more important consequences.
Now it is plain, from all that has been said, that one thing may be shown
to be more important than another from two opposite points of view: it
may appear the more important (1) because it is a beginning and the other
thing is not, and also (2) because it is not a beginning and the other
thing is-on the ground that the end is more important and is not a beginning.
So Leodamas, when accusing Callistratus, said that the man who prompted
the deed was more guilty than the doer, since it would not have been done
if he had not planned it. On the other hand, when accusing Chabrias he
said that the doer was worse than the prompter, since there would have
been no deed without some one to do it; men, said he, plot a thing only
in order to carry it out.
Further, what is rare is a greater good than what is plentiful.
Thus, gold is a better thing than iron, though less useful: it is harder
to get, and therefore better worth getting. Reversely, it may be argued
that the plentiful is a better thing than the rare, because we can make
more use of it. For what is often useful surpasses what is seldom useful,
whence the saying:
"The best of things is water.
"
More generally: the hard thing is better than the easy, because
it is rarer: and reversely, the easy thing is better than the hard, for
it is as we wish it to be. That is the greater good whose contrary is the
greater evil, and whose loss affects us more. Positive goodness and badness
are more important than the mere absence of goodness and badness: for positive
goodness and badness are ends, which the mere absence of them cannot be.
Further, in proportion as the functions of things are noble or base, the
things themselves are good or bad: conversely, in proportion as the things
themselves are good or bad, their functions also are good or bad; for the
nature of results corresponds with that of their causes and beginnings,
and conversely the nature of causes and beginnings corresponds with that
of their results. Moreover, those things are greater goods, superiority
in which is more desirable or more honourable. Thus, keenness of sight
is more desirable than keenness of smell, sight generally being more desirable
than smell generally; and similarly, unusually great love of friends being
more honourable than unusually great love of money, ordinary love of friends
is more honourable than ordinary love of money. Conversely, if one of two
normal things is better or nobler than the other, an unusual degree of
that thing is better or nobler than an unusual degree of the other. Again,
one thing is more honourable or better than another if it is more honourable
or better to desire it; the importance of the object of a given instinct
corresponds to the importance of the instinct itself; and for the same
reason, if one thing is more honourable or better than another, it is more
honourable and better to desire it. Again, if one science is more honourable
and valuable than another, the activity with which it deals is also more
honourable and valuable; as is the science, so is the reality that is its
object, each science being authoritative in its own sphere. So, also, the
more valuable and honourable the object of a science, the more valuable
and honourable the science itself is-in consequence. Again, that which
would be judged, or which has been judged, a good thing, or a better thing
than something else, by all or most people of understanding, or by the
majority of men, or by the ablest, must be so; either without qualification,
or in so far as they use their understanding to form their judgement. This
is indeed a general principle, applicable to all other judgements also;
not only the goodness of things, but their essence, magnitude, and general
nature are in fact just what knowledge and understanding will declare them
to be. Here the principle is applied to judgements of goodness, since one
definition of 'good' was 'what beings that acquire understanding will choose
in any given case': from which it clearly follows that that thing is hetter
which understanding declares to be so. That, again, is a better thing which
attaches to better men, either absolutely, or in virtue of their being
better; as courage is better than strength. And that is a greater good
which would be chosen by a better man, either absolutely, or in virtue
of his being better: for instance, to suffer wrong rather than to do wrong,
for that would be the choice of the juster man. Again, the pleasanter of
two things is the better, since all things pursue pleasure, and things
instinctively desire pleasurable sensation for its own sake; and these
are two of the characteristics by which the 'good' and the 'end' have been
defined. One pleasure is greater than another if it is more unmixed with
pain, or more lasting. Again, the nobler thing is better than the less
noble, since the noble is either what is pleasant or what is desirable
in itself. And those things also are greater goods which men desire more
earnestly to bring about for themselves or for their friends, whereas those
things which they least desire to bring about are greater evils. And those
things which are more lasting are better than those which are more fleeting,
and the more secure than the less; the enjoyment of the lasting has the
advantage of being longer, and that of the secure has the advantage of
suiting our wishes, being there for us whenever we like. Further, in accordance
with the rule of co-ordinate terms and inflexions of the same stem, what
is true of one such related word is true of all. Thus if the action qualified
by the term 'brave' is more noble and desirable than the action qualified
by the term 'temperate', then 'bravery' is more desirable than 'temperance'
and 'being brave' than 'being temperate'. That, again, which is chosen
by all is a greater good than that which is not, and that chosen by the
majority than that chosen by the minority. For that which all desire is
good, as we have said;' and so, the more a thing is desired, the better
it is. Further, that is the better thing which is considered so by competitors
or enemies, or, again, by authorized judges or those whom they select to
represent them. In the first two cases the decision is virtually that of
every one, in the last two that of authorities and experts. And sometimes
it may be argued that what all share is the better thing, since it is a
dishonour not to share in it; at other times, that what none or few share
is better, since it is rarer. The more praiseworthy things are, the nobler
and therefore the better they are. So with the things that earn greater
honours than others-honour is, as it were, a measure of value; and the
things whose absence involves comparatively heavy penalties; and the things
that are better than others admitted or believed to be good. Moreover,
things look better merely by being divided into their parts, since they
then seem to surpass a greater number of things than before. Hence Homer
says that Meleager was roused to battle by the thought of
"All
horrors that light on a folk whose city
"is ta'en of their foes,
"When they slaughter the men, when the burg is
"wasted
with ravening flame,
"When strangers are haling young children
to thraldom,
"(fair women to shame.) "
The same effect is produced by piling up facts in a climax after
the manner of Epicharmus. The reason is partly the same as in the case
of division (for combination too makes the impression of great superiority),
and partly that the original thing appears to be the cause and origin of
important results. And since a thing is better when it is harder or rarer
than other things, its superiority may be due to seasons, ages, places,
times, or one's natural powers. When a man accomplishes something beyond
his natural power, or beyond his years, or beyond the measure of people
like him, or in a special way, or at a special place or time, his deed
will have a high degree of nobleness, goodness, and justice, or of their
opposites. Hence the epigram on the victor at the Olympic games:
"In
time past, hearing a Yoke on my shoulders,
"of wood unshaven,
"I
carried my loads of fish from, Argos to Tegea town.
"
So Iphicrates used to extol himself by describing the low estate
from which he had risen. Again, what is natural is better than what is
acquired, since it is harder to come by. Hence the words of Homer:
"I
have learnt from none but mysell. "
And the best part of a good thing is particularly good; as when
Pericles in his funeral oration said that the country's loss of its young
men in battle was 'as if the spring were taken out of the year'. So with
those things which are of service when the need is pressing; for example,
in old age and times of sickness. And of two things that which leads more
directly to the end in view is the better. So too is that which is better
for people generally as well as for a particular individual. Again, what
can be got is better than what cannot, for it is good in a given case and
the other thing is not. And what is at the end of life is better than what
is not, since those things are ends in a greater degree which are nearer
the end. What aims at reality is better than what aims at appearance. We
may define what aims at appearance as what a man will not choose if nobody
is to know of his having it. This would seem to show that to receive benefits
is more desirable than to confer them, since a man will choose the former
even if nobody is to know of it, but it is not the general view that he
will choose the latter if nobody knows of it. What a man wants to be is
better than what a man wants to seem, for in aiming at that he is aiming
more at reality. Hence men say that justice is of small value, since it
is more desirable to seem just than to be just, whereas with health it
is not so. That is better than other things which is more useful than they
are for a number of different purposes; for example, that which promotes
life, good life, pleasure, and noble conduct. For this reason wealth and
health are commonly thought to be of the highest value, as possessing all
these advantages. Again, that is better than other things which is accompanied
both with less pain and with actual pleasure; for here there is more than
one advantage; and so here we have the good of feeling pleasure and also
the good of not feeling pain. And of two good things that is the better
whose addition to a third thing makes a better whole than the addition
of the other to the same thing will make. Again, those things which we
are seen to possess are better than those which we are not seen to possess,
since the former have the air of reality. Hence wealth may be regarded
as a greater good if its existence is known to others. That which is dearly
prized is better than what is not-the sort of thing that some people have
only one of, though others have more like it. Accordingly, blinding a one-eyed
man inflicts worse injury than half-blinding a man with two eyes; for the
one-eyed man has been robbed of what he dearly prized.
The grounds on which we must base our arguments, when we are speaking
for or against a proposal, have now been set forth more or less
completely.
Part 8
The most important and effective qualification for success in persuading
audiences and speaking well on public affairs is to understand all the
forms of government and to discriminate their respective customs, institutions,
and interests. For all men are persuaded by considerations of their interest,
and their interest lies in the maintenance of the established order. Further,
it rests with the supreme authority to give authoritative decisions, and
this varies with each form of government; there are as many different supreme
authorities as there are different forms of government. The forms of government
are four-democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, monarchy. The supreme right
to judge and decide always rests, therefore, with either a part or the
whole of one or other of these governing powers.
A Democracy is a form of government under which the citizens distribute
the offices of state among themselves by lot, whereas under oligarchy there
is a property qualification, under aristocracy one of education. By education
I mean that education which is laid down by the law; for it is those who
have been loyal to the national institutions that hold office under an
aristocracy. These are bound to be looked upon as 'the best men', and it
is from this fact that this form of government has derived its name ('the
rule of the best'). Monarchy, as the word implies, is the constitution
a in which one man has authority over all. There are two forms of monarchy:
kingship, which is limited by prescribed conditions, and 'tyranny', which
is not limited by anything.
We must also notice the ends which the various forms of government
pursue, since people choose in practice such actions as will lead to the
realization of their ends. The end of democracy is freedom; of oligarchy,
wealth; of aristocracy, the maintenance of education and national institutions;
of tyranny, the protection of the tyrant. It is clear, then, that we must
distinguish those particular customs, institutions, and interests which
tend to realize the ideal of each constitution, since men choose their
means with reference to their ends. But rhetorical persuasion is effected
not only by demonstrative but by ethical argument; it helps a speaker to
convince us, if we believe that he has certain qualities himself, namely,
goodness, or goodwill towards us, or both together. Similarly, we should
know the moral qualities characteristic of each form of government, for
the special moral character of each is bound to provide us with our most
effective means of persuasion in dealing with it. We shall learn the qualities
of governments in the same way as we learn the qualities of individuals,
since they are revealed in their deliberate acts of choice; and these are
determined by the end that inspires them.
We have now considered the objects, immediate or distant, at which
we are to aim when urging any proposal, and the grounds on which we are
to base our arguments in favour of its utility. We have also briefly considered
the means and methods by which we shall gain a good knowledge of the moral
qualities and institutions peculiar to the various forms of government-only,
however, to the extent demanded by the present occasion; a detailed account
of the subject has been given in the Politics.
Part 9
We have now to consider Virtue and Vice, the Noble and the Base,
since these are the objects of praise and blame. In doing so, we shall
at the same time be finding out how to make our hearers take the required
view of our own characters-our second method of persuasion. The ways in
which to make them trust the goodness of other people are also the ways
in which to make them trust our own. Praise, again, may be serious or frivolous;
nor is it always of a human or divine being but often of inanimate things,
or of the humblest of the lower animals. Here too we must know on what
grounds to argue, and must, therefore, now discuss the subject, though
by way of illustration only.
The Noble is that which is both desirable for its own sake and
also worthy of praise; or that which is both good and also pleasant because
good. If this is a true definition of the Noble, it follows that virtue
must be noble, since it is both a good thing and also praiseworthy. Virtue
is, according to the usual view, a faculty of providing and preserving
good things; or a faculty of conferring many great benefits, and benefits
of all kinds on all occasions. The forms of Virtue are justice, courage,
temperance, magnificence, magnanimity, liberality, gentleness, prudence,
wisdom. If virtue is a faculty of beneficence, the highest kinds of it
must be those which are most useful to others, and for this reason men
honour most the just and the courageous, since courage is useful to others
in war, justice both in war and in peace. Next comes liberality; liberal
people let their money go instead of fighting for it, whereas other people
care more for money than for anything else. Justice is the virtue through
which everybody enjoys his own possessions in accordance with the law;
its opposite is injustice, through which men enjoy the possessions of others
in defiance of the law. Courage is the virtue that disposes men to do noble
deeds in situations of danger, in accordance with the law and in obedience
to its commands; cowardice is the opposite. Temperance is the virtue that
disposes us to obey the law where physical pleasures are concerned; incontinence
is the opposite. Liberality disposes us to spend money for others' good;
illiberality is the opposite. Magnanimity is the virtue that disposes us
to do good to others on a large scale; [its opposite is meanness of spirit].
Magnificence is a virtue productive of greatness in matters involving the
spending of money. The opposites of these two are smallness of spirit and
meanness respectively. Prudence is that virtue of the understanding which
enables men to come to wise decisions about the relation to happiness of
the goods and evils that have been previously mentioned.
The above is a sufficient account, for our present purpose, of
virtue and vice in general, and of their various forms. As to further aspects
of the subject, it is not difficult to discern the facts; it is evident
that things productive of virtue are noble, as tending towards virtue;
and also the effects of virtue, that is, the signs of its presence and
the acts to which it leads. And since the signs of virtue, and such acts
as it is the mark of a virtuous man to do or have done to him, are noble,
it follows that all deeds or signs of courage, and everything done courageously,
must be noble things; and so with what is just and actions done justly.
(Not, however, actions justly done to us; here justice is unlike the other
virtues; 'justly' does not always mean 'nobly'; when a man is punished,
it is more shameful that this should be justly than unjustly done to him).
The same is true of the other virtues. Again, those actions are noble for
which the reward is simply honour, or honour more than money. So are those
in which a man aims at something desirable for some one else's sake; actions
good absolutely, such as those a man does for his country without thinking
of himself; actions good in their own nature; actions that are not good
simply for the individual, since individual interests are selfish. Noble
also are those actions whose advantage may be enjoyed after death, as opposed
to those whose advantage is enjoyed during one's lifetime: for the latter
are more likely to be for one's own sake only. Also, all actions done for
the sake of others, since less than other actions are done for one's own
sake; and all successes which benefit others and not oneself; and services
done to one's benefactors, for this is just; and good deeds generally,
since they are not directed to one's own profit. And the opposites of those
things of which men feel ashamed, for men are ashamed of saying, doing,
or intending to do shameful things. So when Alcacus said
"Something
I fain would say to thee,
"Only shame restraineth me,
"
Sappho wrote
"If for things good and noble thou wert yearning,
"If to speak baseness were thy tongue not burning,
"No
load of shame would on thine eyelids weigh;
"What thou with honour
wishest thou wouldst say. "
Those things, also, are noble for which men strive anxiously, without
feeling fear; for they feel thus about the good things which lead to fair
fame. Again, one quality or action is nobler than another if it is that
of a naturally finer being: thus a man's will be nobler than a woman's.
And those qualities are noble which give more pleasure to other people
than to their possessors; hence the nobleness of justice and just actions.
It is noble to avenge oneself on one's enemies and not to come to terms
with them; for requital is just, and the just is noble; and not to surrender
is a sign of courage. Victory, too, and honour belong to the class of noble
things, since they are desirable even when they yield no fruits, and they
prove our superiority in good qualities. Things that deserve to be remembered
are noble, and the more they deserve this, the nobler they are. So are
the things that continue even after death; those which are always attended
by honour; those which are exceptional; and those which are possessed by
one person alone-these last are more readily remembered than others. So
again are possessions that bring no profit, since they are more fitting
than others for a gentleman. So are the distinctive qualities of a particular
people, and the symbols of what it specially admires, like long hair in
Sparta, where this is a mark of a free man, as it is not easy to perform
any menial task when one's hair is long. Again, it is noble not to practise
any sordid craft, since it is the mark of a free man not to live at another's
beck and call. We are also to assume when we wish either to praise a man
or blame him that qualities closely allied to those which he actually has
are identical with them; for instance, that the cautious man is cold-blooded
and treacherous, and that the stupid man is an honest fellow or the thick-skinned
man a good-tempered one. We can always idealize any given man by drawing
on the virtues akin to his actual qualities; thus we may say that the passionate
and excitable man is 'outspoken'; or that the arrogant man is 'superb'
or 'impressive'. Those who run to extremes will be said to possess the
corresponding good qualities; rashness will be called courage, and extravagance
generosity. That will be what most people think; and at the same time this
method enables an advocate to draw a misleading inference from the motive,
arguing that if a man runs into danger needlessly, much more will he do
so in a noble cause; and if a man is open-handed to any one and every one,
he will be so to his friends also, since it is the extreme form of goodness
to be good to everybody.
We must also take into account the nature of our particular audience
when making a speech of praise; for, as Socrates used to say, 'it is not
difficult to praise the Athenians to an Athenian audience.' If the audience
esteems a given quality, we must say that our hero has that quality, no
matter whether we are addressing Scythians or Spartans or philosophers.
Everything, in fact, that is esteemed we are to represent as noble. After
all, people regard the two things as much the same.
All actions are noble that are appropriate to the man who does
them: if, for instance, they are worthy of his ancestors or of his own
past career. For it makes for happiness, and is a noble thing, that he
should add to the honour he already has. Even inappropriate actions are
noble if they are better and nobler than the appropriate ones would be;
for instance, if one who was just an average person when all went well
becomes a hero in adversity, or if he becomes better and easier to get
on with the higher he rises. Compare the saying of lphicrates, 'Think what
I was and what I am'; and the epigram on the victor at the Olympic games,
"In time past, bearing a yoke on my shoulders,
"of wood
unshaven, "
and the encomium of Simonides,
"A woman whose father, whose husband,
whose
"brethren were princes all. "
Since we praise a man for what he has actually done, and fine actions
are distinguished from others by being intentionally good, we must try
to prove that our hero's noble acts are intentional. This is all the easier
if we can make out that he has often acted so before, and therefore we
must assert coincidences and accidents to have been intended. Produce a
number of good actions, all of the same kind, and people will think that
they must have been intended, and that they prove the good qualities of
the man who did them.
Praise is the expression in words of the eminence of a man's good
qualities, and therefore we must display his actions as the product of
such qualities. Encomium refers to what he has actually done; the mention
of accessories, such as good birth and education, merely helps to make
our story credible-good fathers are likely to have good sons, and good
training is likely to produce good character. Hence it is only when a man
has already done something that we bestow encomiums upon him. Yet the actual
deeds are evidence of the doer's character: even if a man has not actually
done a given good thing, we shall bestow praise on him, if we are sure
that he is the sort of man who would do it. To call any one blest is, it
may be added, the same thing as to call him happy; but these are not the
same thing as to bestow praise and encomium upon him; the two latter are
a part of 'calling happy', just as goodness is a part of
happiness.
To praise a man is in one respect akin to urging a course of action.
The suggestions which would be made in the latter case become encomiums
when differently expressed. When we know what action or character is required,
then, in order to express these facts as suggestions for action, we have
to change and reverse our form of words. Thus the statement 'A man should
be proud not of what he owes to fortune but of what he owes to himself',
if put like this, amounts to a suggestion; to make it into praise we must
put it thus, 'Since he is proud not of what he owes to fortune but of what
he owes to himself.' Consequently, whenever you want to praise any one,
think what you would urge people to do; and when you want to urge the doing
of anything, think what you would praise a man for having done. Since suggestion
may or may not forbid an action, the praise into which we convert it must
have one or other of two opposite forms of expression
accordingly.
There are, also, many useful ways of heightening the effect of
praise. We must, for instance, point out that a man is the only one, or
the first, or almost the only one who has done something, or that he has
done it better than any one else; all these distinctions are honourable.
And we must, further, make much of the particular season and occasion of
an action, arguing that we could hardly have looked for it just then. If
a man has often achieved the same success, we must mention this; that is
a strong point; he himself, and not luck, will then be given the credit.
So, too, if it is on his account that observances have been devised and
instituted to encourage or honour such achievements as his own: thus we
may praise Hippolochus because the first encomium ever made was for him,
or Harmodius and Aristogeiton because their statues were the first to be
put up in the market-place. And we may censure bad men for the opposite
reason.
Again, if you cannot find enough to say of a man himself, you may
pit him against others, which is what Isocrates used to do owing to his
want of familiarity with forensic pleading. The comparison should be with
famous men; that will strengthen your case; it is a noble thing to surpass
men who are themselves great. It is only natural that methods of 'heightening
the effect' should be attached particularly to speeches of praise; they
aim at proving superiority over others, and any such superiority is a form
of nobleness. Hence if you cannot compare your hero with famous men, you
should at least compare him with other people generally, since any superiority
is held to reveal excellence. And, in general, of the lines of argument
which are common to all speeches, this 'heightening of effect' is most
suitable for declamations, where we take our hero's actions as admitted
facts, and our business is simply to invest these with dignity and nobility.
'Examples' are most suitable to deliberative speeches; for we judge of
future events by divination from past events. Enthymemes are most suitable
to forensic speeches; it is our doubts about past events that most admit
of arguments showing why a thing must have happened or proving that it
did happen.
The above are the general lines on which all, or nearly all, speeches
of praise or blame are constructed. We have seen the sort of thing we must
bear in mind in making such speeches, and the materials out of which encomiums
and censures are made. No special treatment of censure and vituperation
is needed. Knowing the above facts, we know their contraries; and it is
out of these that speeches of censure are made.
Part 10
We have next to treat of Accusation and Defence, and to enumerate
and describe the ingredients of the syllogisms used therein. There are
three things we must ascertain first, the nature and number of the incentives
to wrong-doing; second, the state of mind of wrongdoers; third, the kind
of persons who are wronged, and their condition. We will deal with these
questions in order. But before that let us define the act of
'wrong-doing'.
We may describe 'wrong-doing' as injury voluntarily inflicted contrary
to law. 'Law' is either special or general. By special law I mean that
written law which regulates the life of a particular community; by general
law, all those unwritten principles which are supposed to be acknowledged
everywhere. We do things 'voluntarily' when we do them consciously and
without constraint. (Not all voluntary acts are deliberate, but all deliberate
acts are conscious-no one is ignorant of what he deliberately intends.)
The causes of our deliberately intending harmful and wicked acts contrary
to law are (1) vice, (2) lack of self-control. For the wrongs a man does
to others will correspond to the bad quality or qualities that he himself
possesses. Thus it is the mean man who will wrong others about money, the
profligate in matters of physical pleasure, the effeminate in matters of
comfort, and the coward where danger is concerned-his terror makes him
abandon those who are involved in the same danger. The ambitious man does
wrong for sake of honour, the quick-tempered from anger, the lover of victory
for the sake of victory, the embittered man for the sake of revenge, the
stupid man because he has misguided notions of right and wrong, the shameless
man because he does not mind what people think of him; and so with the
rest-any wrong that any one does to others corresponds to his particular
faults of character.
However, this subject has already been cleared up in part in our
discussion of the virtues and will be further explained later when we treat
of the emotions. We have now to consider the motives and states of mind
of wrongdoers, and to whom they do wrong.
Let us first decide what sort of things people are trying to get
or avoid when they set about doing wrong to others. For it is plain that
the prosecutor must consider, out of all the aims that can ever induce
us to do wrong to our neighbours, how many, and which, affect his adversary;
while the defendant must consider how many, and which, do not affect him.
Now every action of every person either is or is not due to that person
himself. Of those not due to himself some are due to chance, the others
to necessity; of these latter, again, some are due to compulsion, the others
to nature. Consequently all actions that are not due to a man himself are
due either to chance or to nature or to compulsion. All actions that are
due to a man himself and caused by himself are due either to habit or to
rational or irrational craving. Rational craving is a craving for good,
i.e. a wish-nobody wishes for anything unless he thinks it good. Irrational
craving is twofold, viz. anger and appetite.
Thus every action must be due to one or other of seven causes:
chance, nature, compulsion, habit, reasoning, anger, or appetite. It is
superfluous further to distinguish actions according to the doers' ages,
moral states, or the like; it is of course true that, for instance, young
men do have hot tempers and strong appetites; still, it is not through
youth that they act accordingly, but through anger or appetite. Nor, again,
is action due to wealth or poverty; it is of course true that poor men,
being short of money, do have an appetite for it, and that rich men, being
able to command needless pleasures, do have an appetite for such pleasures:
but here, again, their actions will be due not to wealth or poverty but
to appetite. Similarly, with just men, and unjust men, and all others who
are said to act in accordance with their moral qualities, their actions
will really be due to one of the causes mentioned-either reasoning or emotion:
due, indeed, sometimes to good dispositions and good emotions, and sometimes
to bad; but that good qualities should be followed by good emotions, and
bad by bad, is merely an accessory fact-it is no doubt true that the temperate
man, for instance, because he is temperate, is always and at once attended
by healthy opinions and appetites in regard to pleasant things, and the
intemperate man by unhealthy ones. So we must ignore such distinctions.
Still we must consider what kinds of actions and of people usually go together;
for while there are no definite kinds of action associated with the fact
that a man is fair or dark, tall or short, it does make a difference if
he is young or old, just or unjust. And, generally speaking, all those
accessory qualities that cause distinctions of human character are important:
e.g. the sense of wealth or poverty, of being lucky or unlucky. This shall
be dealt with later-let us now deal first with the rest of the subject
before us.
The things that happen by chance are all those whose cause cannot
be determined, that have no purpose, and that happen neither always nor
usually nor in any fixed way. The definition of chance shows just what
they are. Those things happen by nature which have a fixed and internal
cause; they take place uniformly, either always or usually. There is no
need to discuss in exact detail the things that happen contrary to nature,
nor to ask whether they happen in some sense naturally or from some other
cause; it would seem that chance is at least partly the cause of such events.
Those things happen through compulsion which take place contrary to the
desire or reason of the doer, yet through his own agency. Acts are done
from habit which men do because they have often done them before. Actions
are due to reasoning when, in view of any of the goods already mentioned,
they appear useful either as ends or as means to an end, and are performed
for that reason: 'for that reason,' since even licentious persons perform
a certain number of useful actions, but because they are pleasant and not
because they are useful. To passion and anger are due all acts of revenge.
Revenge and punishment are different things. Punishment is inflicted for
the sake of the person punished; revenge for that of the punisher, to satisfy
his feelings. (What anger is will be made clear when we come to discuss
the emotions.) Appetite is the cause of all actions that appear pleasant.
Habit, whether acquired by mere familiarity or by effort, belongs to the
class of pleasant things, for there are many actions not naturally pleasant
which men perform with pleasure, once they have become used to them. To
sum up then, all actions due to ourselves either are or seem to be either
good or pleasant. Moreover, as all actions due to ourselves are done voluntarily
and actions not due to ourselves are done involuntarily, it follows that
all voluntary actions must either be or seem to be either good or pleasant;
for I reckon among goods escape from evils or apparent evils and the exchange
of a greater evil for a less (since these things are in a sense positively
desirable), and likewise I count among pleasures escape from painful or
apparently painful things and the exchange of a greater pain for a less.
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