E. M. Cope, Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle

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‘Now of the general heads or classes of the specific topics that are useful or necessary we may be said to be pretty nearly in possession; for the premisses on each particular subject have been selected, so that the special topics from which enthymemes on the subjects of good or bad, fair or foul (right or wrong), just or unjust, must be derived’ (these are the εἴδη, analysed under the heads of the three branches of Rhetoric in the first book, from c. 4. 7, to 14), ‘and in like manner the topics of the characters, and feelings, and states of mind, have been previously taken and are before us’ (ὑπάρχουσιν are ready for us, for our use).

The construction of the preceding clause ὥστε—οἱ τόποι I understand to be this, though Vahlen [Transactions of the Vienna Acad. of Sciences, Oct. 1861, p. 131] declares ὥστε and τόπων to be indefensible. Τόπων is attracted, as usual, to the construction of the relative, for οἱ τόποι ἐξ ὧν δεῖ φέρειν τὰ ἐνθυμήματα: and οἱ τόποι is repeated at the end of the clause—unnecessarily perhaps, but not ungrammatically— in the second part of it introduced by καί. As to the ὥστε, readers of Aristotle must have remarked that his ὥστε's are not always to be very strictly interpreted; sometimes they almost lose the force of a logical consequence, and indicate little more than a sequence. I presume that Vahlen's meaning (which is not explained) is, that ὥστε κ.τ.λ. is a mere repetition, and no consequence at all. But the two things spoken of are not precisely identical, and there is a certain connexion of cause and effect between them: it is first said in general terms that the premisses upon each subject of Rhetoric have been already selected: and from this it may in a sense be said to follow that we are supplied in detail, with topics for our enthymemes, with εἴδη or special topics under the three branches of Rhetoric, and also for the ἤθη, πάθη and ἕξεις in Bk. II.

Vahlen, u. s. pp. 130, 1, for the reasons before mentioned (some account of his views on this subject has been given in the introductory observations on c. 18), condemns the whole of section 16, as the interpolation of an editor, who has inserted (we are not told why) a sentence ‘without motive, and disturbing’ the connexion, in which of course, following the altered arrangement (which is assumed) he has placed the ἤθη and πάθη immediately after the εἴδη (as they now stand).

Besides this he objects to παθημάτων and ἕξεων, with which we have next to deal. πάθημα in this sense for πάθος, is certainly very rare, perhaps unique. But, per contra, there are at least four passages where πάθημα is found in other senses, to express which πάθος is always elsewhere employed. Metaph. A 2, 982 b 16, τῶν τῆς σελήνης παθημάτων, and c. 4, 985 b 12, τὡν παθημάτων (τῆς ὑποκειμένης οὐσίας): Anal. Post. I 10, 76 b 13, τῶν καθ᾽ αὑτὰ παθημάτων, and Anal. Pr. II 27, 70 b 9 ὅσα φυσικά ἐστι παθήματα: which certainly seem to be sufficient to justify παθημάτων here¹.

As to ἕξεων, this, through a deviation from the author's usual phraseology, who generally confines himself to ἤθη and πάθη, appears again in this connexion, II 12 init., τὰ δ᾽ ἤθη ποῖοί τινες κατὰ τὰ πάθη καὶ τὰς ἕξεις κ.τ.λ. The author there himself tells us his meaning, interpreting ἕξεις by ἀρετὰς καὶ κακίας; and I can see no reason for condemning the word, as Vahlen does, except the very insufficient one, that it is unusual². The ἕξεις in this sense, do actually enter into, and in fact constitute the ἦθος, and I do not see why they should not be specially mentioned, if Aristotle chose to depart from his ordinary practice, and do so.

So far then we have been occupied with the εἴδη, special subjects derived from special sciences, and specially employed each in one of the three departments of Rhetoric—this is generally, not absolutely true; for though the three ends of Rhetoric, the good or useful, the just, and the noble or right, are more appropriate and more serviceable, each in one of the three branches, yet any of them can be, and sometimes is, introduced in them all—and we must now turn to the topics, the families, classes, of arguments into which enthymemes in general may be made to fall. This is for convenience of practice, that we may know where to look for them when we want them, and apply that which happens to be appropriate to the particular case. This classification is made in the 23rd chapter, which therefore is the rhetorical representative of the far more extensive and minute classification of dialectical topics, and is the object also of Cicero's Topica. And as the treatise on fallacies, the book περὶ σοφιστικῶν ἐλέγχων, is appended to the books of the Topics, so we have a similar chapter on rhetorical fallacies (c. 24) added to the analysis of the genuine arguments.

I will here remark (against Vahlen) that the word καθόλου § 17, which contrasts these universal τόποι with the special topics that have preceded, renders the actual mention of them in the foregoing section almost, if not quite, necessary.