Page:O. F. Owen's Organon of Aristotle Vol. 2 (1853).djvu/234

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(interrogation) only, for the conclusion is true. So that they who desire to solve an argument, should first consider if it is conclusive or inconclusive; next, whether the conclusion is true or false, that we may solve it either by division or subversion, and subverting it either in this or that way, as was observed before. Still, it makes a great difference whether a person, being interrogated or not, solves the argument, since to foresee is difficult, but to consider at leisure is easy.

Chapter 19

Of elenchi which are from equivocation and ambiguity, some have an interrogation signifying many things, but others a conclusion multifariously stated; for instance in the case, that he who is silent speaks, the conclusion is two-fold, but in this, that he who knows, at the same time does not know, one interrogation is ambiguous, and what is two-fold is at one time (true), and at another not, for the two-fold signifies that which is, and that which is not.

In those assertions, therefore, in the conclusion of which there is the multifarious, except (the opponent) assumes contradiction, there is not an elenchus, as in this, that the blind man sees, for without contradiction there was not an elenchus; but in those in the interrogations, of which (there is the multifarious), it is not necessary previously to deny what is two-fold, for the argument does not subsist with reference to this, but on account of this. In the beginning, then, since both the name and the