established by arguments drawn from contraries, in this manner—­“It is then the very greatest madness to build hopes on the good faith of those men by whose treachery you have been so repeatedly deceived,”—­or so that that inference alone be drawn which is already announced, in this manner—­“Let us then destroy their city,”—­or so that the conclusion which is desired must necessarily follow from the assertion which has been established, in this way—­“If she has had a child, she has laid with a man.  But she has had a child.”  This then is established.  “Therefore she has lain with a man.”  If you are unwilling to draw this inference, and prefer inferring what follows, “Therefore she has committed incest,” you will have terminated your argumentation but you will have missed an evident and natural summing up.

Wherefore in long argumentations it is often desirable to draw influences from combinations of circumstances, or from contraries.  And briefly to explain that point alone which is established, and in those in which the result is evident, to employ arguments drawn from consequences.  But if there are any people who think that argumentation ever consists of one part alone they will be able to say that it is often sufficient to carry-on an argumentation in this way.—­“Since she has had a child, she has lain with a man.”  For they say that this assertion requires no proof, nor assumption, nor proof of an assumption, nor summing up.  But it seems to us that they are misled by the ambiguity of the name.  For argumentation signifies two things under one name, because any discussion respecting anything which is either probable or necessary is called argumentation, and so also is the systematic polishing of such a discussion.

When then they bring forward any statement of this kind,—­“Since she has had a child, she has lain, with a man,” they bring forward a plain assertion, not a highly worked up argument, but we are speaking of the parts of a highly worked up argument.

XLI.  That principle then has nothing to do with this matter.  And with the help of this distinction we will remove other obstacles which seem to be in the way of this classification, if any people think that it is possible that at times the assumption may be omitted, and at other times the proposition, and if this idea has in it anything probable or necessary, it is quite inevitable that it must affect the hearer in some great degree.  And if it were the only object in view, and if it made no difference in what manner that argument which had been projected was handled, it would be a great mistake to suppose that there is such a vast difference between the greatest orators and ordinary ones.