[15]
Another topic may be employed when it is
necessary to exhort or dissuade
in regard to two
opposites, and one has to employ the method previously stated in the case of
both. But there is this difference, that in the former case things of any kind
whatever are opposed, in the latter opposites. For instance, a priestess refused
to allow her son to speak in public; “For if,” said she,
“you say what is just, men will hate you; if you say what is unjust,
the gods will.” On the other hand, “you should
speak in public; for if you say what is just, the gods will love you, if you say
what is unjust, men will.” This is the same as the proverb,
“To buy the swamp with the salt”1; and retorting a dilemma on its
proposer takes place when, two things being opposite, good and evil follow on
each, the good and evil being opposite like the things themselves.
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Aristotle in 23 Volumes, Vol. 22, translated by J. H. Freese. Aristotle. Cambridge and London. Harvard University Press; William Heinemann Ltd. 1926.
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