Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 2 (1853).djvu/229

 contradiction not equivocal, from certain (assumptions), there will be no necessity of distinguishing against things ambiguous and equivocation, for he does not make a syllogism. Still we must make a division, for no other reason than because the conclusion appears to have the form of elenchus. Wherefore we must be cautious not of being confuted, but of seeming to be so, since ambiguous interrogations and those which are from equivocation, and other such deceptions, both obscure the true elenchus, and render it dubious whether a person is confuted by an elenchus or not. For since it is possible at the end, when a conclusion is made (for the respondent) to say that that he has denied, (viz. the interrogator) not what the respondent affirmed, but equivocally, even if he happens especially to tend to the same point, it is doubtful whether he is confuted by an elenchus, for it is dubious whether he now asserts the truth. If on the otber hand, dividing, he questions the equivocal or the ambiguous, the elenchus will not be obscure, and what the contentious less require now than formerly, viz. that the person questioned should answer yes or no, should occur. Nevertheless, now because querists do not question well, it is necessary that the person questioned should add something to his answer, correcting the faultiness of the proposition, since if he, the querist, disanguishes sufficiently, the respondent must necessarily say yes or no.

If, indeed, any one should suppose that to be an elenchus, which is according to equivocation, it will be impossible for the respondent in any way to avoid confutation by an elenchus, for in visible things it is necessary to deny the name which he affirms, and to affirm what he denied. For as some correct there is no benefit, for they say that Coriscus is not musical and unmusical, but that this Coriscus is musical, and