This _place_ would be ridiculous, where the _defendant_ were not in much more estimation than the _accuser_. A seventh from the _definition_; as that of Socrates; _A spirit is either God, or the creature of God; and therefore he denies not that there is a God, that confesses there are spirits_. An eighth from the _distinction of an ambiguous word_. A ninth from _division_: as, _If all men do what they do for one of three causes, whereof two are impossible; and the accuser charge not the defendant with the third; it follows that he has not done it_. A tenth from _induction_: as, _At Athens, at Thebes, at Sparta, &c.; and therefore every where_. An eleventh from _authority_, or precedent sentence; as that of Sappho, that _Death is evil; for that the gods have judged it so, in excepting themselves from mortality_. A twelfth from the _consequence_; as, _It is not good to be envied; therefore neither to be learned. It is good to be wise, therefore also to be instructed._ A thirteenth from _two contrary consequences_; as, _It is not good to be an orator; because if he speak the truth, he shall displease men, if he speak falsely, he shall displease God_. Here is to be noted, that sometimes this argument may be retorted: as thus, _If you speak truth, you shall please God; if you speak untruth, you shall please men; therefore by all means be an orator_. A fourteenth from the _quality that men have to praise one thing and approve another_: as, _We ought not to war against the Athenians upon no precedent injury; for all men discommend injustice_. Again, _We ought to war against the Athenians; for otherwise our liberty is at their mercy, that is, is no liberty: but the preservation of liberty is a thing that all men will approve_. A fifteenth from _proportion_: as, _Seeing we naturalize strangers for their virtues, why should we not banish this stranger for his vices?_ A sixteenth from _the similitude of consequents_: as _He that denies the immortality of the gods, is no worse than he that has written the generation of the gods: for the same consequence follows of both, that sometimes there are none_. A seventeenth from that, _that men change their mind_: as, _If when we were in banishment, we fought to recover our country, why should we not fight now to retain it?_ An eighteenth from _a feigned end_: as that _Diomedes chose Ulysses to go with him, not as more valiant than another, but as one that would partake less of the glory_. A nineteenth from the _cause_; as if he would infer he did it from this, _that he had cause to do it_. A twentieth from _that which is incredible, but true_: as that _laws may need a law to mend them, as well as fish bred in the salt water may need salting_. ========== CHAPTER XXV. OF THE PLACES OF ENTHYMEMES THAT LEAD TO IMPOSSIBILITY.