Erotesis, a figure of rhetoric, in which the passion of the speaker introduces a thing by way of interrogation, to make its truth more conspicuous.

The interrogation is a kind of apostrophe which the speaker makes to himself; and it must be owned that this figure is suited to express most passions and emotions of the mind, and that it serves also to press and bear down an adversary, and generally adds an uncommon briskness, action, force, and variety, to discourse.

in Grammar, is a point which serves to distinguish those parts of a discourse, where the author speaks as if he were asking questions. Its form is this (7).