4o6 ANTIENT METAPHYSICS. Book V. 



It does not argue, as I have faid, from the nature of the thing, nor 

 from axioms belonging to particular fciences. It has, therefore, no- 

 thing to do with definition, nor with principles of fcience. From this 

 account of it, the reader will be apt to imagine that it is merely an 

 art of fophiilry, teaching men to argue and difpute without any 

 fcience, and upon fubjcds which they do not underftand. But, though 

 it was very much ufed, and abufed too, by the fophifts of old, yet, as 

 Ariftotle has taught it, it is not an art of fophiflry or deceit, which to 

 have taught, would have been moft unworthy of a philofopher ; but 

 it is an art that has its principles from which it fairly draws its con- 

 clufions. 



Thefe principles are either afTumed by the fpeaker, as probable 

 truths generally believed ; or they are granted by thofe to whom he 

 fpeaks ; and, from thefe principles, he argues by the means of the ge- 

 neral propofitions, called, by Ariftotle, topics, being the place or feat 

 of arguments, y^<3'^j argumentorum^ as Cicero has explained the word*. 



The thing will be beft Illuftrated by two or three examples. Sup- 

 pofe the queftion to be proved is, ' that temperance is good or benefi- 

 cial.' To prove this from the nature of virtue, would be to argue 

 from the principles of a particular fcience, viz. morals, and is not an 

 argument of the kind of which I fpeak. But, in order to prove the 

 point dialeB'ically, I afluiiie, either from common opinion, or the 

 conftflion of my adverfary, that ' intemperance is evil or prejudicial.' 

 And then I argue thus : If intemperance is an evil, temperance, which 

 is the contrary, is good. And the topic, or general propofition, in 

 which this argunient is included, is, that, * \Vhen two things are op- 



* pofite, whatever follows from the one, the contrary thereof will fol- 



* low from the other if.' 



Again, 



* Cicero's Topics, in initio. 



t Ariftotle's iopics, lib. 2. cap. 8. — Rhetoric, lib. 2. cap. 3. in initis. 



