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

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‘First of all then let us speak of example; for example is like induction, and induction is a beginning or origin’. δῆλον δὴ ὅτι ἡμῖν τὰ πρῶτα ἐπαγωγῇ γνωρίζειν ἀναγκαῖον: καὶ γὰρ αἴσθησις οὕτω τὸ καθόλου ἐμποιεῖ. Anal. Post. II 19, 100 b 3, and the whole chapter. Induction is a beginning, because from and by it, originally from objects of sense, we collect all our primary (πρῶτα) and universal first principles, the highest ἀρχαί, from which all our syllogisms must ultimately be deduced. It seems that this is assigned as a reason for beginning with παράδειγμα, which is a variety of induction, rather than with ἐνθύμημα, the rhetorical offshoot of ἀπόδειξις, demonstration or deduction. On παράδειγμα, or example in general, see Introd. p. 105, seq.

‘Of examples there are two kinds: one of them is to relate past facts, the other to invent them for oneself. Of the latter again, one kind is comparison or illustration; the other λόγοι, fables, like Aesop's and the Libyan’; (and the fables of Phaedrus, La Fontaine, and Gay). The illustration, ‘those of Aesop and the Libyan’, is confined to only one of the two kinds of λόγοι, fables proper, in which animals, plants, or even inanimate objects are endowed with speech and reason: the other includes fictions, tales, stories: analogous cases, fictitious, and made for the occasion, or more usually derived from the writings of poets, especially epic and tragic, philosophers, historians, or any authors of credit. See further on these terms and divisions, Introd. pp. 254—6, and the references there given: and on λόγοι, ‘fables’, p. 255, note. On the Fable, see some excellent remarks in Müller, H. G. L. c. XI 14, 15; and G. C. Lewis, in Phil. Mus. I 280, “On the fables of Babrius.” He begins with this definition:—“A fable may be defined to be an analogical narrative, intended to convey some moral lesson, in which irrational animals or objects are introduced as speaking.”