in Logic and Rhetoric, an argument consisting only of two propositions, an antecedent, and a consequent deduced from it. The word is Greek, *ἐνθυμημέν*, formed of the verb *ἐνθυμεῖν*, "to think, conceive," a compound of *ἐν* and *θυμός*, "mind."

The enthymeme is the most simple and elegant of all argumentations; being what a man, in arguing closely, commonly makes, without attending at all to the form. Thus, that verse remaining of Ovid's tragedy, entitled Medea, contains an enthymeme; *Servare potui, perdere an possim rogat*: "I was able to save you; consequently to have destroyed you." All the beauty would have been lost, had all the propositions been expressed; the mind is displeased with a rehearsal of what is nowise necessary.

Sometimes, also, the two propositions of an enthymeme are both included in a single proposition, which Aristotle calls an *enthymematical sentence*, and gives this instance thereof: *Mortal, do not bear an immortal hatred*. The whole enthymeme would be, *Thou art mortal, let not, therefore, thy hatred be immortal*.