Volume 1 - Discourses - Books I - II - College of Stoic Philosophers

BOOK I. vii. 30-vin. 2sluggish^ seeking excuses whereby we may avoidtoiling or even late hours, as we try to perfect ourown reason ? If, then,, I err in these matters,, I havenot murdered my own father., have I ?Slave, praywhere was there in this case a father for you tomurder? What,, then, have you done, you ask?You have committed what was the only possibleerror in the matter. Indeed this is the very remarkI made toRufus when he censured me for not discoveringthe one omission in a certain syllogism.Well/' said 1, "it isn't as bad as if I had burned(Cdown the Capitol." But he answered, Slave, theomission here is the Capitol." Or are there no othererrors than setting fire to the Capitol and murderingone's father? But to make a reckless and foolishand haphazard use of the external impressions thatcome to one, to fail to follow an argument, or demonstration,or sophism in a word, to fail to see inquestion and answer what is consistent with one'sposition or inconsistent is none of these things anerror ?CHAPTER VIIIThat the reasoning faculties, in the case of theuneducated, are not free from errorIN as many ways as it is possible to vary the meaningof equivalent terms, in so many ways may a manalso vary the forms of his controversial argumentsand of his enthymemes I in reasoning. Take this1An enthymemeis defined by Aristotle (Rhet. I. i. 11) as" a rhetorical demonstration," that is, an argument expressedin ordinary literary style, not in the formal fashion of asyllogism. It is thus called an " incomplete syllogism" {3below), as falling short of the "definite proof" accorded bythe syllogism.59