Book 5
10.95
I think I should also add that arguments are drawn not merely from admitted facts, but from fictitious suppositions, which the Greeks style καθ᾽ ὑπόθεσιν and that this latter type of argument falls into all the same divisions as those which I have mentioned above, since there may be as many species of fictitious arguments as there are of true arguments.
10.96
When I speak of fictitious arguments I mean the proposition of something which, if true, would either solve a problem or contribute to its solution, and secondly the demonstration of the similarity of our hypothesis to the case under consideration. To make this the more readily intelligible to youths who have not yet left school, I will first of all illustrate it by examples of a kind familiar to the young.
10.97
There is a law to the effect that the man who refuses to support his parents is liable to imprisonment. A certain man fails to support his parents and none the less objects to going to prison. He advances the hypothesis that he would be exempt from such a penalty if he were a soldier, an infant. or if he were absent from home on the service of the state. Again in the case where a hero is allowed to choose his reward cp. VII. v. 4. we might introduce the hypotheses of his desiring to make himself a tyrant or to overthrow the temples of the gods.
