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

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‘Fables are adapted to public speaking, and the virtue they have lies in this, that whereas (μέν) similar facts that have really happened are hard to find, fables are easier (to invent—εὑρεῖν being unconsciously used in two different senses); for they must be invented, like the parallel, analogous, cases; (which, as we have seen, are invented for the occasion, but must be conformable to the circumstances of real life,) that is to say, if one has the faculty of seeing the analogy, which may be facilitated by the study of philosophy’. Philosophy is used here in a vague and popular sense, for intellectual study, and mental exercise in general. So research and philosophising are identified, Pol. V (VIII) 11, sub fin. 1331 a 16, ζητεῖν καὶ φιλοσοφεῖν. Comp. III 11. 5, οἷον καὶ ἐν φιλοσοφίᾳ τὸ ὅμοιον καὶ ἐν πολὺ διέχουσιν θεωρεῖν εὐστόχου, and the note there. The tracing of resemblances in nature is the foundation of analogous reasoning, and consequently of the inductive method. ζητεῖν δὲ δεῖ ἐπιβλέποντα ἐπὶ τὰ ὅμοια˙ καὶ ἀδιάφορα, πρῶτον τί ἅπαντα ταὐτὸν ἔχουσιν, κ.τ.λ. Anal. Post. II 13, 96 b 7. In Top. A 13, 105 a 25, ἡ τοῦ ὁμοίου σκέψις is said to be one of four ὄργανα δἰ ὧν εὐπορήσομεν τῶν συλλογισμῶν. Comp. c. 17, 108 a 7, seq. on analogies. See Trendelenburg, El. Log. Ar. § 59, p. 137. On the various senses of φιλοσοφία and πραγματεία (which are often identified) see Waitz, ad Org. 96 b 15, II. p. 415.

On Isocrates' comprehensive use of this word see note in Camb. Journal of Cl. and Sacred Phil. Vol. II, No. 5, p. 150, and especially the passage of περὶ ἀντιδόσεως §§ 180—192, ‘where he includes in it all branches of mental education, in which Rhetoric of course occupies the foremost place.’ Other references are there given¹ [Comp. Isocr. Paneg. § 10 τὴν περὶ τοὺς λόγους φιλοσοφίαν (with note) and especially Jebb's Attic Orators, II, p. 37.]

λόγοι δημηγορικοί] δημηγορικὸν γένος, or δημηγορία, is one of the alternative names of the first branch of Rhetoric, the συμβουλευτικόν. I 1. 10, περὶ τὰ δημηγορικὰ καὶ δικανικά, τῆς δημηγορικῆς πραγματείας, ἐν τοῖς δημηγορικοῖς, ἡ δημηγορία. III 12. 5, ἡ δημηγορικὴ λέξις. Historical examples (as indeed we are told in the next section) of similar cases that have already occurred, must of course be more useful to one who is addressing a public assembly on matters of state policy, than to the pleader in a court of justice, or a declaimer in an epideictic speech. But these, says our text, are not always easy to be found; either there are none at all, or they are rare; or at all events easily forgotten: whereas fables, and other analogous cases, which may be invented for the occasion, may be easily supplied if the faculty of tracing resemblances already exists; if not, it may be cultivated by exercise in philosophical study.

ἀγαθόν] some virtue, something good (about them), comp. I 2. 10, φανερὸν ὅτι καὶ ἑκάτερον ἔχει ἀγαθὸν τὸ εἶδος τῆς ῥητορικῆς.