Such an History as that of Suelonius, which gives us a Succession of Absolute Princes, is to me an unanswerable Argument against Despotick Power.

This natural Tendency of Despotic Power to Ignorance and Barbarity, tho not insisted upon by others, is, I think, an unanswerable Argument against that Form of Government, as it shews how repugnant it is to the Good of Mankind, and the Perfection of human Nature, which ought to be the great Ends of all Civil Institutions.

A Bill of Mortality is in my Opinion an unanswerable Argument for a Providence.

The two first of them, a Captain and a Merchant, to strengthen their Argument, pretend to repeat after a Couple, a Brace of Ladies of Quality and Wit, That Venus was always kind to Mars; and what Soul that has the least spark of Generosity, can deny a Man of Bravery any thing?

And therefore Aristotle calls the same source of argument [Greek: sunbolou], which is equivalent to the Latin nota.

And that kind of argument is usually accounted one of the most irrefragable of all.

This argument, arriving at the point at which it aims by a comparison of many instances, is called induction, which in Greek is called [Greek: ipago].

and it is the kind of argument which Socrates employed a great deal in his discourses.

And in this kind of argument orators and philosophers are allowed to make even dumb things talk, so that the dead man be raised from the shades below, or that anything which intrinsically is absolutely impossible, may, for the sake of adding force to the argument, or diminishing, be spoken of as real and that figure is called hyperbole.

And in this kind of argument orators and philosophers are allowed to make even dumb things talk, so that the dead man be raised from the shades below, or that anything which intrinsically is absolutely impossible, may, for the sake of adding force to the argument, or diminishing, be spoken of as real and that figure is called hyperbole.

only let it be understood that in seeking for an argument it is not every contrary which is suitable to be opposed to another.

As then this topic is distributed in three divisions, into consequence, antecession, and inconsistency, there is one single topic to help us find the argument, but a threefold way of dealing with it.

But the dialecticians call that conclusion of the argument in which, when you have first made an assumption, that which is connected with it follows as a consequence of the assumption, the first mood of the conclusion; and when, because you have denied the consequence, it follows that that also to which it was a consequence must be denied also, that is the second mood.

Not that every sentence may not be legitimately called an enthymeme; but, as Homer on account of his preeminence has appropriated the general name of poet to himself as his own among all the Greeks; so, though every sentence is an enthymeme, still, because that which is made up of contraries appears the most acute argument of the kind, that alone has possessed itself of the general name as its own peculiar distinction.

And akin to this is that other argument also which we said was employed with respect to the subject in question and something else; and that is a species of definition.

And again, when the inquiry is not what is honourable or discreditable, all our argument must be addressed to the good or bad qualities of the mind.

For they can exist either in men's minds or bodies, or they may be external to both of these materials, then, as far as they are subordinate to argument, all the parts must be carefully turned over in the mind, and conjectures bearing on the subject before us must be derived from each part.

C. F. What divisions, then, are there in this part of the argument? C. P. One urges either that what has been done has been lawfully done, for the sake either of warding off or of avenging an injury, or under pretext of piety, or chastity, or religion, or one's country, or else that it has been done through necessity, out of ignorance, or by chance.

And you must attack his details, and by that means break down his whole argument.

C. P. The development, then, of an argument is argumentation; and that is when you assume things which are either certain or at least probable, from which to derive a conclusion, which taken by itself is doubtful, or at all events not very probable.

Is there any way or any respect in which those things which are said to be devoid of art, and which you said just now were accessories to the main argument, require art?

In the next place, the accuser must oppose to every argument that, which if it were not in the accusation, would prevent, there being any cause at all.

But the narration of the accuser will be a separate count, as it were, which will contain an explanation of every sort of transaction liable to suspicion, with every kind of argument scattered over it, and all the topics for the defence discredited.

The law must be stated to be likely to be unjust, or useless, or else that there is a reason for obeying part of it, and for abrogating part; it must be that the argument of the opponent and the law are at variance.

The point which Saunders failed to prove by argument, was pretty well proved to every one (though not admitted) by the agency of John Frost.