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

---

---

‘Also, when you are trying to excite emotion (appealing to the feelings) use no logical argument: for either it will knock out (drive out, expel) the emotion, or (the emotion will get the better of it and) the argument will have been stated in vain: all simultaneous motions mutually drive out one another, and are either obliterated altogether (by the coexistence) or (the less powerful) is (still further) weakened’; overpowered by the stronger. Comp. Poet. XXIV 22, νῦν δὲ τοῖς ἄλλοις ἀγαθοῖς ὁ ποιητὴς ἀφανίζει ἡδύνων τὸ ἄτοπον, and again § 23, ἀποκρύπτει γὰρ πάλιν ἡ λίαν λαμπρὰ λέξις τά τε ἤθη καὶ τὰς διανοίας. Long. de Subl. § 15, φύσει δέ πως, ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις ἅπασιν, ἀεὶ τοῦ κρείττονος ἀκούομεν: ὅθεν ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀποδεικτικοῦ περιελκόμεθα εἰς τὸ κατὰ φαντασίαν ἐμπληκτικόν, ᾧ τὸ πραγματικὸν ἐγκρύπτεται περιλαμπόμενον. And again § 17 ult. τῶν λόγων τὰ πάθη καὶ τὰ ὕψη, ταῖς ψυχαῖς ἡμῶν ἐγγυτέρω κείμενα διά τε φυσικήν τινα συγγένειαν καὶ διὰ λαμπρότητα, ἀεὶ τῶν σχημάτων προεμφανίζεται, καὶ τὴν τέχνην αὐτῶν ἀποσκιάζει καὶ οἷον ἐν κατακαλύψει τηρεῖ. Twining ad Poet. p. 424, note 227.

‘Nor again, when you would give the speech an ethical cast, should there be any attempt to combine enthymeme with it; for proof has no moral character nor moral purpose’. When the hearer's mind, says Schrader (in substance), is occupied with the impression of the moral and intellectual good qualities which the speaker is endeavouring to convey to them, of his intelligence and good intentions, he has neither time nor inclination to attend to the proof of anything else.