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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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