Book 3
18.5
Ambiguous questions should be answered by defining them by a regular explanation, and not too concisely; those that appear likely to make us contradict ourselves should be solved at once in the answer, before the adversary has time to ask the next question or to draw a conclusion; for it is not difficult to see the drift of his argument. Both this, however, and the means of answering will be sufficiently clear from the Topics.Aristot. Top. 8.4.
18.6
If a conclusion is put in the form of a question, we should state the reason for our answer. For instance, SophoclesCp. 1.14.3. being asked by Pisander whether he, like the rest of the Committee of Ten, had approved the setting up of the Four Hundred, he admitted it. What then? asked Pisander, did not this appear to you to be a wicked thing? Sophocles admitted it. So then you did what was wicked? Yes, for there was nothing better to be done. The Lacedaemonian, who was called to account for his ephoralty, being asked if he did not think that the rest of his colleagues had been justly put to death, answered yes. But did not you pass the same measures as they did? Yes. Would not you, then, also be justly put to death? No; for my colleagues did this for money; I did not, but acted according to my conscience. For this reason we should not ask any further questions after drawing the conclusion, nor put the conclusion itself as a question, unless the balance of truth is unmistakably in our favor.
18.7
As for jests, since they may sometimes be useful in debates, the advice of Gorgias was good—to confound the opponents' earnest with jest and their jest with earnest. We have stated in the PoeticsThe chapters are lost (cp. 1.11.29). how many kinds of jests there are, some of them becoming a gentleman, others not. You should therefore choose the kind that suits you. Irony is more gentlemanly than buffoonery; for the first is employed on one's own account, the second on that of another.
