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
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