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

---

---

Arguments for the establishment of the probability of future events and consequences clearly may be derived from the same source: for where the power and the wish to do anything are united, the thing will be done; as likewise when desire, anger, and calculation, are accompanied by the power of gratifying the two first, and carrying out the third. Spengel has again, without manuscript authority, bracketed καὶ λογισμῷ as an interpolation; doubtless because it is not mentioned in §§ 18, 19, of which this is a summary. The objection has been already anticipated and answered by Victorius. Calculation or reasoning is implied, he thinks, in the desires of good men, which are always directed to what is good. I cannot think however that this is what Ar. means here by λογισμός. And if we insist upon the strict interpretation of ἐπιθυμοῦσιν, as excluding any operation of the intellect, still it is hard to deny the author the opportunity of supplying in § 23 what he has omitted to notice in § 19. The statement is perfectly true: ‘calculation plus the power’ of carrying it out will produce future consequences: neither does it contradict anything that has been said before, but merely supplements it. After all even Aristotle is a man, and liable to human infirmities; and certainly his ordinary style of writing is not of that character which would lead us to expect rigorous exactness: on the contrary it is hasty and careless in a degree far beyond the measure of ordinary writing. Upon the whole, I see no reason whatsoever for excluding καὶ λογισμῷ from the text: the MSS warrant it, and Bekker retains it.

διὰ ταῦτα κ.τ.λ.] The meaning of this obscure sentence seems to be this:—It follows from what has just been stated, διὰ ταῦτα—the statement, that is, that the co-existence of impulse (desire and passion) with power, is a sure source or spring of action—that the intention which these impulses suggest,—whether it be immediately, in the very impulse (or, starting-point, first start) to action, or (future) when a man is anxiously waiting for his opportunity (ἐν μελλήσει),—is most likely to be carried out; and then an additional reason is assigned for the probability of the future event when it is on the point of taking place, either immediately, or not long hence, that things that are impending (acts or events) are for the most part much more likely to happen than those that are not impending. With ἐν ὁρμῇ comp. Soph. Phil. 566, οὕτω καθ᾽ ὁρμὴν δρῶσιν.

I subjoin Victorius' explanation. “Vi etiam horum locorum, si operam dabat ut gereret, ac iam iamque eam rem aggrediebature (hoc enim valere hic arbitror ἐν ὁρμῇ), aut denique si post facere aliquando statuerat (quod significari arbitror hoc verbo μελλήσει) dici potest id futurum: duos autem, si ita legatur, manifesto locos complectitur: quorum prior rei tentandae peragendaeque propinquior erat: alter tantum facere in animo habebat.”