The Complete Aristotle (eng.)

seem to surpass a greater number of
things than before. Hence Homer says that Meleager was roused to
battle by the thought of
All horrors that light on a folk whose city
is ta’en of their foes,
When they slaughter the men, when the burg is
wasted with ravening flame,
When strangers are haling young children to thraldom,
(fair women to shame.)
    The same effect is produced by piling up facts in a climax after
the manner of Epicharmus. The reason is partly the same as in the
case of division (for combination too makes the impression of great
superiority), and partly that the original thing appears to be the
cause and origin of important results. And since a thing is better
when it is harder or rarer than other things, its superiority may
be due to seasons, ages, places, times, or one’s natural powers.
When a man accomplishes something beyond his natural power, or
beyond his years, or beyond the measure of people like him, or in a
special way, or at a special place or time, his deed will have a
high degree of nobleness, goodness, and justice, or of their
opposites. Hence the epigram on the victor at the Olympic
games:
In time past, heaving a Yoke on my shoulders,
of wood unshaven,
I carried my loads of fish from, Argos to Tegea town.
    So Iphicrates used to extol himself by describing the low estate
from which he had risen. Again, what is natural is better than what
is acquired, since it is harder to come by. Hence the words of
Homer:
I have learnt from none but mysell.
    And the best part of a good thing is particularly good; as when
Pericles in his funeral oration said that the country’s loss of its
young men in battle was ‘as if the spring were taken out of the
year’. So with those things which are of service when the need is
pressing; for example, in old age and times of sickness. And of two
things that which leads more directly to the end in view is the
better. So too is that which is better for people generally as well
as for a particular individual. Again, what can be got is better
than what cannot, for it is good in a given case and the other
thing is not. And what is at the end of life is better than what is
not, since those things are ends in a greater degree which are
nearer the end. What aims at reality is better than what aims at
appearance. We may define what aims at appearance as what a man
will not choose if nobody is to know of his having it. This would
seem to show that to receive benefits is more desirable than to
confer them, since a man will choose the former even if nobody is
to know of it, but it is not the general view that he will choose
the latter if nobody knows of it. What a man wants to be is better
than what a man wants to seem, for in aiming at that he is aiming
more at reality. Hence men say that justice is of small value,
since it is more desirable to seem just than to be just, whereas
with health it is not so. That is better than other things which is
more useful than they are for a number of different purposes; for
example, that which promotes life, good life, pleasure, and noble
conduct. For this reason wealth and health are commonly thought to
be of the highest value, as possessing all these advantages. Again,
that is better than other things which is accompanied both with
less pain and with actual pleasure; for here there is more than one
advantage; and so here we have the good of feeling pleasure and
also the good of not feeling pain. And of two good things that is
the better whose addition to a third thing makes a better whole
than the addition of the other to the same thing will make. Again,
those things which we are seen to possess are better than those
which we are not seen to possess, since the former have the air of
reality. Hence wealth may be regarded as a greater good if its
existence is known to others. That which is dearly prized is better
than what is not-the sort of thing that some people have only one
of, though others have more like it. Accordingly, blinding a
one-eyed man inflicts worse injury than half-blinding a man with
two eyes; for the one-eyed man has been robbed of what he dearly
prized.
    The grounds on which we must base our arguments, when we are
speaking for or against a proposal, have now been set forth more or
less completely.
8
    The most important and effective qualification for success in
persuading audiences and speaking well on public affairs is to
understand all the forms of government and to discriminate their
respective customs,