Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 2 (1853).djvu/204

 destruction, and is contrary to life, so that life is generation, and to live is to be generated, but this is impossible, wherefore soul and life are not the same. It is not, however, syllogistically concluded, for the impossible happens even if some one should not say that life is the same as soul, but only that life is contrary to death, which is corruption, and generation to corruption. Such arguments, then, are not simply unsyllogistic, but unsyllogistic as to the thing proposed, and a matter of this kind frequently escapes, no less the observation of the interrogators themselves.

Such, then, are the arguments which result from what is consequent, and from what is not a cause, but others from making two interrogations one, when it escapes notice that there are many, and one answer is given as if there were one (interrogation). In some cases, therefore, it is easy to perceive that there are many (interrogations), and that one answer must not be given, as, whether is the earth sea, or the heaven? in others it is less (easy), and as if there were one interrogation, men either assent, because they do not answer what is asked, or seem to be confuted, as, whether is this person, and this, a man? so that if some one should beat this, and that person, he will beat a man, and not men. Or again, in those things of which some are good, but others not good, are all good or not good? for whatever a man replies, it is possible to appear either to assert an elenchus or what is apparently false; for to say that some one of the things not good is good, or that some one of the things good is not good, is a falsehood. Still, sometimes, there may be a true elenchus from certain assumptions, for instance, if a man should grant that things white, naked, and blind, are similarly called one and many, for if that is blind which has not sight, but is adapted to have it by nature, those also will be blind which have not sight, but are naturally adapted to have it; when therefore, one thing has it, but another has not, both will see or will be blind, which is impossible.