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‘And if (in a relation of prior and posterior, antecedent and consequent) the usual consequent (of the antecedent) has happened, then (we may argue that) the antecedent also has happened; as, for instance, the having forgotten something implies a previous learning, some time or other, of the same’. Learning is the necessary antecedent of forgetting; without the first the second is impossible. As this is a necessary connexion, the argument from it is a τεκμήριον, a certain indication: it is not however convertible, as a necessary sequence; for it does not follow that, because a man can't forget without having first learnt, he also can't learn without afterwards forgetting: the converse is only probable, not necessary.
Commentary on the Rhetoric of Aristotle. Edward Meredith Cope. Cambridge. Cambridge University Press. 1877.
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