The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

as may be
on the road to health; it is possible to give excellent treatment
even to those who can never enjoy sound health. Furthermore, it is
plain that it is the function of one and the same art to discern
the real and the apparent means of persuasion, just as it is the
function of dialectic to discern the real and the apparent
syllogism. What makes a man a ‘sophist’ is not his faculty, but his
moral purpose. In rhetoric, however, the term ‘rhetorician’ may
describe either the speaker’s knowledge of the art, or his moral
purpose. In dialectic it is different: a man is a ‘sophist’ because
he has a certain kind of moral purpose, a ‘dialectician’ in
respect, not of his moral purpose, but of his faculty.
    Let us now try to give some account of the systematic principles
of Rhetoric itself-of the right method and means of succeeding in
the object we set before us. We must make as it were a fresh start,
and before going further define what rhetoric is.
2
    Rhetoric may be defined as the faculty of observing in any given
case the available means of persuasion. This is not a function of
any other art. Every other art can instruct or persuade about its
own particular subject-matter; for instance, medicine about what is
healthy and unhealthy, geometry about the properties of magnitudes,
arithmetic about numbers, and the same is true of the other arts
and sciences. But rhetoric we look upon as the power of observing
the means of persuasion on almost any subject presented to us; and
that is why we say that, in its technical character, it is not
concerned with any special or definite class of subjects.
    Of the modes of persuasion some belong strictly to the art of
rhetoric and some do not. By the latter I mean such things as are
not supplied by the speaker but are there at the outset-witnesses,
evidence given under torture, written contracts, and so on. By the
former I mean such as we can ourselves construct by means of the
principles of rhetoric. The one kind has merely to be used, the
other has to be invented.
    Of the modes of persuasion furnished by the spoken word there
are three kinds. The first kind depends on the personal character
of the speaker; the second on putting the audience into a certain
frame of mind; the third on the proof, or apparent proof, provided
by the words of the speech itself. Persuasion is achieved by the
speaker’s personal character when the speech is so spoken as to
make us think him credible. We believe good men more fully and more
readily than others: this is true generally whatever the question
is, and absolutely true where exact certainty is impossible and
opinions are divided. This kind of persuasion, like the others,
should be achieved by what the speaker says, not by what people
think of his character before he begins to speak. It is not true,
as some writers assume in their treatises on rhetoric, that the
personal goodness revealed by the speaker contributes nothing to
his power of persuasion; on the contrary, his character may almost
be called the most effective means of persuasion he possesses.
Secondly, persuasion may come through the hearers, when the speech
stirs their emotions. Our judgements when we are pleased and
friendly are not the same as when we are pained and hostile. It is
towards producing these effects, as we maintain, that present-day
writers on rhetoric direct the whole of their efforts. This subject
shall be treated in detail when we come to speak of the emotions.
Thirdly, persuasion is effected through the speech itself when we
have proved a truth or an apparent truth by means of the persuasive
arguments suitable to the case in question.
    There are, then, these three means of effecting persuasion. The
man who is to be in command of them must, it is clear, be able (1)
to reason logically, (2) to understand human character and goodness
in their various forms, and (3) to understand the emotions-that is,
to name them and describe them, to know their causes and the way in
which they are excited. It thus appears that rhetoric is an
offshoot of dialectic and also of ethical studies. Ethical studies
may fairly be called political; and for this reason rhetoric
masquerades as political science, and the professors of it as
political experts-sometimes from want of education, sometimes from
ostentation, sometimes owing to other human failings. As a matter
of fact, it is a branch of dialectic and similar to it, as we said
at the outset. Neither rhetoric nor