1pFFjZK

ARISTOTLE J\
mode of treatment by negation is one that is applicable indifferently
to things both good and bad, as occasion may require.
It is the source of the epithets which poets use, such as
"
stringless, lyreless music "; for they add privative epithets,
as these are popular in proportional metaphors, *as e.g. in
calling the trumpet-blast " a lyreless music."
The conditions of propriety in a speech are that the
should be emotional and ethical, and at the same
style
lime proportionate to the subject-matter. By a p^iety!
proportionate style I mean that the manner of
the composition should not be slovenly if the subject is
pompous, or dignified if it is humble ;
and that there
should be no ornamental epithets attached to unimportant
words; otherwise the composition has the air of a comedy,
like
fClcophon's poetry, which contains some expressions
as ridiculous as J it would be to "
say e.g. a sovereign
fig."
The means of expressing emotion, if the matter
is an insult, is the language of anger;
if it is
impiety
or foulness, that of indignation and of a shrinking from the
very mention of such a thing;
if it is
something laudable,
that of admiration; if something pitiable, that of depression,
and so on. This appropriateness of is
language one means of
giving an air of probability to the case, as the minds of the
audience draw a wrong inference of the speaker's truthfulness
from the similarity of their own feelings in similar circumstances,
and are thus led to suppose that the facts are as he
sents them, even if this is not really so. It should be
"
*The "proportional metaphor has been already illustrated; sec marginal
reference. Here the "proportion" would apparently be this:
Trumpet : trumpet-blast : : lyre music of : lyre (/*Aot).
t A tragic poet whose name occurs more than once in the Poetic.
t ( >mitting 4r or perhaps better tl before ttwtuv.
i There is no good reason for omitting the clause tl *ai M*; ovrwt Ix "