καὶ ἐὰν τὸ μέγιστον τοῦ μεγίστου ὑπερέχῃ κ.τ.λ.] Top. Γ 2, 117 b 33, ἔτι εἰ ἁπλῶς τοῦτο τούτου βέλτιον, καὶ τὸ βέλτιστον τῶν ἐν τούτῳ βέλτιον τοῦ ἐν τῷ ἑτέρῳ βελτίστου, οἷον εἰ βέλτιον ἄνθρωπος ἵππου, καὶ ὁ βέλτιστος ἄνθρωπος τοῦ βελτίστου ἵππου βελτίων. καὶ εἰ τὸ βέλτιστον τοῦ βελτίστου βέλτιον, καὶ ἁπλῶς τοῦτο τούτοι βέλτιον, οἷον εἰ ὁ βέλτιστος ἄνθρωπος τοῦ βελτίστου ἵππου βελτίων, καὶ ἁπλῶς ἄνθρωπος ἵππου βελτίων. A practical application of this rule occurs in Pol. IV (VII) 1, 1323 b 13, ὅλως τε δῆλον ὡς ἀκολουθεῖν φήσομεν τὴν διάθεσιν τὴν ἀρίστην ἑκάστου πράγματος πρὸς ἄλληλα κατὰ τὴν ὑπεροχήν, ἥνπερ εἴληχε διάστασιν ὧν φαμὲν αὐτὰς εἶναι διαθέσεις ταύτας. ὥστ᾽ εἴπερ ἐστὶν ἡ ψυχὴ καὶ τῆς κτήσεως καὶ τοῦ σώματος τιμιώτερον καὶ ἁπλῶς καὶ ἡμῖν ἀναγκὴ καὶ τὴν διάθεσιν τὴν ἀρίστην ἑκάστου ἀνάλογον τούτων ἔχειν. ἀνάλογον ἔχουσιν] ‘are proportional to one another’. In Bacon's Colours of Good and Evil1, (‘a table of colours or appearances of good and evil and their degrees, as places of persuasion and dissuasion, and their several fallaxes, and the elenches of them’,) this topic is given in the form, cuius excellentía vel exuperantia melior id toto genere melius. ‘This appearance, though it seem of strength, and rather logical than rhetorical, yet is very oft a fallax’; and he proceeds accordingly to ‘reprehend’ it. Bacon's works, ed. Ellis and Spedding, vol. VII. p. 78. He certainly proves the non-universality of the rule; but by the theory of Rhetoric all these positions are alike open to question, and can always be argued on either side.
1 Some of the topics selected for ‘reprehension’ are identical with those of Aristotle, and probably borrowed from him. The meaning of the word ‘Colours’ in this application is thus explained by Erasmus, Adagia, s. v. fucus, p. 1915, “Qui ad exornationes atque figuras se conferunt apud Gallos proverbio dicuntur ‘rhetoricis coloribus’ uti: hoc est, fucatis pigmentis, quibus nihil ineptius si bonis sententiis non fuerint conjuncta”. And by Bacon himself in his preface.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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