Chapter 36
54. There are also certain rules for a more copious kind of argument, which is
called eloquence, and these rules are not the less true that they can be used
for persuading men of what is false; but as they can be used to enforce the
truth as well, it is not the faculty itself that is to be blamed, but the
perversity of those who put it to a bad use. Nor is it owing to an arrangement
among men that the expression of affection conciliates the hearer, or that a
narrative, when it is short and clear, is effective, and that variety arrests
men's attention without wearying them. And it is the same with other
directions of the same kind, which, whether the cause in which they are used
be true or false, are themselves true just in so far as they are effective in
producing knowledge or belief, or in moving men's minds to desire and
aversion. And men rather found out that these things are so, than arranged
that they should be so.
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