Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 2 (1853).djvu/182

 alone is a solution, the rest being certain preventions and hindrances to the conclusions.

Chapter 11
reprehension of an argument is not the same with respect to the argument itself, and when it forms the subject of interrogation, as often the person questioned is the cause of the argument not being well discussed, because he does not allow things from which it might be properly argued against the thesis, since it does not belong to the other alone, that the common work is properly effected. Wherefore sometimes it is necessary to argue against the speaker, and not against the thesis, when the respondent, out of contumely, makes observations contrary to the questionist; hence they cause through perverseness, the exercises to be contentious and not dialectic. Besides, since arguments of this kind are for the sake of exercise and experiment, and not of doctrine, it is evident that not only what is true, but also what is false, must be collected, neither always through what is true, but sometimes also through the false, for often when what is true is laid down, it is necessary for the disputant to subvert it, so that false assertions must be proposed. Sometimes, also, when the false is laid down, it must be subverted through falsities, since there is nothing to prevent things which have no existence, seeming to some person to be, rather than those which are true, so that when the argument subsists from things appearing (true) to him, he will be more persuaded than profited. Still, it is necessary that he who would transfer the reasoning properly, should transfer it dialectically, and not contentiously, as the geometrician (argues) geometrically, whether what is concluded be false or true; of what nature however, dialectic syllogisms are, we have shown before. Yet since he is a depraved associate, who impedes a common work, it is evident that (this is true also) in arguments, for there is something common proposed in these also, except amongst those who dispute, for the sake of