CHAPTER XXVII.

OF THE WAYS TO ANSWER THE ARGUMENTS OF THE ADVERSARY.

An _argument_ is answered by an _opposite syllogism_, or by an _objection_.

The places of _opposite syllogisms_ are the same with the places of syllogisms, or enthymemes; for a rhetorical syllogism is an enthymeme.

The places of _objections_ are four.

First, from _the same_. As, to the adversary that proves love to be good by an enthymeme, may be _objected_, that, _No want is good, and yet love is want_; or particularly thus, _The love of Myrrha to her father was not good_.

The second from _contraries_. As, if the adversary say, _A good man does good to his friends_, an _objection_ might be made, that then _an evil man will do also evil to his friends_.

The third from _similitude_. As thus, if the adversary say, all men that are injured do hate those that have injured them, it may be _objected_, that then _all men that had received benefits should love their benefactors_, that is to say, be grateful.

The fourth from the _authority of famous men_. As when a man shall say, that drunken men ought to be pardoned those acts they do in their drunkenness, because they know not what they do; the _objection_ may be, that _Pittacus was of another mind, that appointed for such acts a double punishment; one for the act, another for the drunkenness_.

And forasmuch as all enthymemes are drawn from _probability_, or _example_, or from a _sign fallible_, or from a _sign infallible_: an enthymeme from _probability_ may be confuted _really_, by showing that for the most part it falls out otherwise; but _apparently_ or _sophistically_, by showing only that it does not fall out so always; whereupon the judge thinks the _probability_ not sufficient to ground his sentence upon. The reason whereof is this, that the judge, while he hears the fact proved _probable_, conceives it as true. For the understanding has no object but _truth_. And therefore, by-and-by, when he shall hear _an instance_ to the contrary, and thereby find that he had no necessity to think it _true_, presently changes his opinion, and thinks it _false_, and consequently not so much as _probable_. For he cannot at one time think the same thing both _probable_ and _false_; and he that says a thing is _probable_, the meaning is, he thinks it _true_, but finds not arguments enough to prove it.

An enthymeme, from a _fallible sign_, is answered by _showing_ the sign to be fallible.

An enthymeme from an _example_, is answered as an enthymeme from _probability_; _really_ by showing _more examples_ to the contrary; _apparently_, if he bring _examples_ enough to make it seem _not necessary_.

If the adversary have more examples than we, we must make it appear that they are not applicable to the case.

An enthymeme from an _infallible_ sign, if the proposition be _true_, is unanswerable.

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