Various Works Page 37

  which, we urge that the irrational sometimes does not violate

  reason; just as 'it is probable that a thing may happen contrary to

  probability.'

  Things that sound contradictory should be examined by the same rules

  as in dialectical refutation- whether the same thing is meant, in

  the same relation, and in the same sense. We should therefore solve

  the question by reference to what the poet says himself, or to what is

  tacitly assumed by a person of intelligence.

  The element of the irrational, and, similarly, depravity of

  character, are justly censured when there is no inner necessity for

  introducing them. Such is the irrational element in the introduction

  of Aegeus by Euripides and the badness of Menelaus in the Orestes.

  Thus, there are five sources from which critical objections are

  drawn. Things are censured either as impossible, or irrational, or

  morally hurtful, or contradictory, or contrary to artistic

  correctness. The answers should be sought under the twelve heads above

  mentioned.

  POETICS|26

  XXVI

  The question may be raised whether the Epic or Tragic mode of

  imitation is the higher. If the more refined art is the higher, and

  the more refined in every case is that which appeals to the better

  sort of audience, the art which imitates anything and everything is

  manifestly most unrefined. The audience is supposed to be too dull

  to comprehend unless something of their own is thrown by the

  performers, who therefore indulge in restless movements. Bad

  flute-players twist and twirl, if they have to represent 'the

  quoit-throw,' or hustle the coryphaeus when they perform the Scylla.

  Tragedy, it is said, has this same defect. We may compare the

  opinion that the older actors entertained of their successors.

  Mynniscus used to call Callippides 'ape' on account of the

  extravagance of his action, and the same view was held of Pindarus.

  Tragic art, then, as a whole, stands to Epic in the same relation as

  the younger to the elder actors. So we are told that Epic poetry is

  addressed to a cultivated audience, who do not need gesture;

  Tragedy, to an inferior public. Being then unrefined, it is

  evidently the lower of the two.

  Now, in the first place, this censure attaches not to the poetic but

  to the histrionic art; for gesticulation may be equally overdone in

  epic recitation, as by Sosistratus, or in lyrical competition, as by

  Mnasitheus the Opuntian. Next, all action is not to be condemned-

  any more than all dancing- but only that of bad performers. Such was

  the fault found in Callippides, as also in others of our own day,

  who are censured for representing degraded women. Again, Tragedy

  like Epic poetry produces its effect even without action; it reveals

  its power by mere reading. If, then, in all other respects it is

  superior, this fault, we say, is not inherent in it.

  And superior it is, because it has an the epic elements- it may even

  use the epic meter- with the music and spectacular effects as

  important accessories; and these produce the most vivid of

  pleasures. Further, it has vividness of impression in reading as

  well as in representation. Moreover, the art attains its end within

  narrower limits for the concentrated effect is more pleasurable than

  one which is spread over a long time and so diluted. What, for

  example, would be the effect of the Oedipus of Sophocles, if it were

  cast into a form as long as the Iliad? Once more, the Epic imitation

  has less unity; as is shown by this, that any Epic poem will furnish

  subjects for several tragedies. Thus if the story adopted by the

  poet has a strict unity, it must either be concisely told and appear

  truncated; or, if it conforms to the Epic canon of length, it must

  seem weak and watery. [Such length implies some loss of unity,] if,

  I mean, the poem is constructed out of several actions, like the Iliad

  and the Odyssey, which have many such parts, each with a certain

  magnitude of its own. Yet these poems are as perfect as possible in

  structure; each is, in the highest degree attainable, an imitation

  of a single action.

  If, then, tragedy is superior to epic poetry in all these

  respects, and, moreover, fulfills its specific function better as an

  art- for each art ought to produce, not any chance pleasure, but the

  pleasure proper to it, as already stated- it plainly follows that

  tragedy is the higher art, as attaining its end more perfectly.

  Thus much may suffice concerning Tragic and Epic poetry in

  general; their several kinds and parts, with the number of each and

  their differences; the causes that make a poem good or bad; the

  objections of the critics and the answers to these objections....

  -THE END-

  .

  350 BC

  PRIOR ANALYTICS

  by Aristotle

  translated by A. J. Jenkinson

  Book I

  1

  WE must first state the subject of our inquiry and the faculty to

  which it belongs: its subject is demonstration and the faculty that

  carries it out demonstrative science. We must next define a premiss, a

  term, and a syllogism, and the nature of a perfect and of an imperfect

  syllogism; and after that, the inclusion or noninclusion of one term

  in another as in a whole, and what we mean by predicating one term

  of all, or none, of another.

  A premiss then is a sentence affirming or denying one thing of

  another. This is either universal or particular or indefinite. By

  universal I mean the statement that something belongs to all or none

  of something else; by particular that it belongs to some or not to

  some or not to all; by indefinite that it does or does not belong,

  without any mark to show whether it is universal or particular, e.g.

  'contraries are subjects of the same science', or 'pleasure is not

  good'. The demonstrative premiss differs from the dialectical, because

  the demonstrative premiss is the assertion of one of two contradictory

  statements (the demonstrator does not ask for his premiss, but lays it

  down), whereas the dialectical premiss depends on the adversary's

  choice between two contradictories. But this will make no difference

  to the production of a syllogism in either case; for both the

  demonstrator and the dialectician argue syllogistically after

  stating that something does or does not belong to something else.

  Therefore a syllogistic premiss without qualification will be an

  affirmation or denial of something concerning something else in the

  way we have described; it will be demonstrative, if it is true and

  obtained through the first principles of its science; while a

  dialectical premiss is the giving of a choice between two

  contradictories, when a man is proceeding by question, but when he

  is syllogizing it is the assertion of that which is apparent and

  generally admitted, as has been said in the Topics. The nature then of

  a premiss and the difference between syllogistic, demonstrative, and

  dialectical premisses, may be taken as sufficiently defined by us in

&
nbsp; relation to our present need, but will be stated accurately in the

  sequel.

  I call that a term into which the premiss is resolved, i.e. both the

  predicate and that of which it is predicated, 'being' being added

  and 'not being' removed, or vice versa.

  A syllogism is discourse in which, certain things being stated,

  something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their

  being so. I mean by the last phrase that they produce the consequence,

  and by this, that no further term is required from without in order to

  make the consequence necessary.

  I call that a perfect syllogism which needs nothing other than

  what has been stated to make plain what necessarily follows; a

  syllogism is imperfect, if it needs either one or more propositions,

  which are indeed the necessary consequences of the terms set down, but

  have not been expressly stated as premisses.

  That one term should be included in another as in a whole is the

  same as for the other to be predicated of all of the first. And we say

  that one term is predicated of all of another, whenever no instance of

  the subject can be found of which the other term cannot be asserted:

  'to be predicated of none' must be understood in the same way.

  2

  Every premiss states that something either is or must be or may be

  the attribute of something else; of premisses of these three kinds

  some are affirmative, others negative, in respect of each of the three

  modes of attribution; again some affirmative and negative premisses

  are universal, others particular, others indefinite. It is necessary

  then that in universal attribution the terms of the negative premiss

  should be convertible, e.g. if no pleasure is good, then no good

  will be pleasure; the terms of the affirmative must be convertible,

  not however, universally, but in part, e.g. if every pleasure,is good,

  some good must be pleasure; the particular affirmative must convert in

  part (for if some pleasure is good, then some good will be

  pleasure); but the particular negative need not convert, for if some

  animal is not man, it does not follow that some man is not animal.

  First then take a universal negative with the terms A and B. If no B

  is A, neither can any A be B. For if some A (say C) were B, it would

  not be true that no B is A; for C is a B. But if every B is A then

  some A is B. For if no A were B, then no B could be A. But we

  assumed that every B is A. Similarly too, if the premiss is

  particular. For if some B is A, then some of the As must be B. For

  if none were, then no B would be A. But if some B is not A, there is

  no necessity that some of the As should not be B; e.g. let B stand for

  animal and A for man. Not every animal is a man; but every man is an

  animal.

  3

  The same manner of conversion will hold good also in respect of

  necessary premisses. The universal negative converts universally; each

  of the affirmatives converts into a particular. If it is necessary

  that no B is A, it is necessary also that no A is B. For if it is

  possible that some A is B, it would be possible also that some B is A.

  If all or some B is A of necessity, it is necessary also that some A

  is B: for if there were no necessity, neither would some of the Bs

  be A necessarily. But the particular negative does not convert, for

  the same reason which we have already stated.

  In respect of possible premisses, since possibility is used in

  several senses (for we say that what is necessary and what is not

  necessary and what is potential is possible), affirmative statements

  will all convert in a manner similar to those described. For if it

  is possible that all or some B is A, it will be possible that some A

  is B. For if that were not possible, then no B could possibly be A.

  This has been already proved. But in negative statements the case is

  different. Whatever is said to be possible, either because B

  necessarily is A, or because B is not necessarily A, admits of

  conversion like other negative statements, e.g. if one should say,

  it is possible that man is not horse, or that no garment is white. For

  in the former case the one term necessarily does not belong to the

  other; in the latter there is no necessity that it should: and the

  premiss converts like other negative statements. For if it is possible

  for no man to be a horse, it is also admissible for no horse to be a

  man; and if it is admissible for no garment to be white, it is also

  admissible for nothing white to be a garment. For if any white thing

  must be a garment, then some garment will necessarily be white. This

  has been already proved. The particular negative also must be

  treated like those dealt with above. But if anything is said to be

  possible because it is the general rule and natural (and it is in this

  way we define the possible), the negative premisses can no longer be

  converted like the simple negatives; the universal negative premiss

  does not convert, and the particular does. This will be plain when

  we speak about the possible. At present we may take this much as clear

  in addition to what has been said: the statement that it is possible

  that no B is A or some B is not A is affirmative in form: for the

  expression 'is possible' ranks along with 'is', and 'is' makes an

  affirmation always and in every case, whatever the terms to which it

  is added, in predication, e.g. 'it is not-good' or 'it is not-white'

  or in a word 'it is not-this'. But this also will be proved in the

  sequel. In conversion these premisses will behave like the other

  affirmative propositions.

  4

  After these distinctions we now state by what means, when, and how

  every syllogism is produced; subsequently we must speak of

  demonstration. Syllogism should be discussed before demonstration

  because syllogism is the general: the demonstration is a sort of

  syllogism, but not every syllogism is a demonstration.

  Whenever three terms are so related to one another that the last

  is contained in the middle as in a whole, and the middle is either

  contained in, or excluded from, the first as in or from a whole, the

  extremes must be related by a perfect syllogism. I call that term

  middle which is itself contained in another and contains another in

  itself: in position also this comes in the middle. By extremes I

  mean both that term which is itself contained in another and that in

  which another is contained. If A is predicated of all B, and B of

  all C, A must be predicated of all C: we have already explained what

  we mean by 'predicated of all'. Similarly also, if A is predicated

  of no B, and B of all C, it is necessary that no C will be A.

  But if the first term belongs to all the middle, but the middle to

  none of the last term, there will be no syllogism in respect of the

  extremes; for nothing necessary follows from the terms being so

  related; for it is possible that the first should belong either to all

  or to none of the last, so that neither a particular nor a universal

  conclusion is necessary. But if there is no necessary consequ
ence,

  there cannot be a syllogism by means of these premisses. As an example

  of a universal affirmative relation between the extremes we may take

  the terms animal, man, horse; of a universal negative relation, the

  terms animal, man, stone. Nor again can syllogism be formed when

  neither the first term belongs to any of the middle, nor the middle to

  any of the last. As an example of a positive relation between the

  extremes take the terms science, line, medicine: of a negative

  relation science, line, unit.

  If then the terms are universally related, it is clear in this

  figure when a syllogism will be possible and when not, and that if a

  syllogism is possible the terms must be related as described, and if

  they are so related there will be a syllogism.

  But if one term is related universally, the other in part only, to

  its subject, there must be a perfect syllogism whenever universality

  is posited with reference to the major term either affirmatively or

  negatively, and particularity with reference to the minor term

  affirmatively: but whenever the universality is posited in relation to

  the minor term, or the terms are related in any other way, a syllogism

  is impossible. I call that term the major in which the middle is

  contained and that term the minor which comes under the middle. Let

  all B be A and some C be B. Then if 'predicated of all' means what was

  said above, it is necessary that some C is A. And if no B is A but

  some C is B, it is necessary that some C is not A. The meaning of

  'predicated of none' has also been defined. So there will be a perfect

  syllogism. This holds good also if the premiss BC should be

  indefinite, provided that it is affirmative: for we shall have the

  same syllogism whether the premiss is indefinite or particular.

  But if the universality is posited with respect to the minor term

  either affirmatively or negatively, a syllogism will not be