What is the source of the following quotation?
"...alluding to certain doctrines only symbolically; scattering or
suppressing the premises of an argument; dealing with subjects outside
their proper context; speaking enigmatically to call attention to
significant points; transposing words and letters; deliberately using
equivocal terms; introducing contradictory premises by which to divert
the reader; employing extreme brevity to state the truth; refraining
from drawing obvious conclusions; i.e., silence; and attributing one's
views to prestigious forebears.superscript 125

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Request for Question Clarification by pafalafa-ga on 25 Apr 2004 18:07 PDT

Mindwarrior-ga,

Where did you come across this quote?  What leads you to believe it
harks back to Arabic philosophy?


The more you can tell us about context, history, time period,
authorship -- any other information at all -- the better our chances
of tracking it down for you.

To my colleagues:

The above quotation appears on this Finnish website, where it is
attributed to the Islamic philosopher and scholar Averroes
(Abu'l-Walid Ibn Rushd, 1126-1198):
http://194.100.30.11/tietoyhteiskunta//suomi/st21/sitra165II2.htm

I tend to believe that it is not a direct quote but rather a summary
of some of Averroe's statements on rhetoric, written by one of the
authors listed in the sources at the bottom of the page.
Unfortunately, I was not able to confirm that.

The main aspects mentioned in the quotation also appear in Averroe's
"Commentary on Aristotle's 'Rhetoric'":
http://umcc.ais.org/~maftab/ip/pdf/bktxt/aver-shrt-com.pdf

Maybe one of you will find out more...

Scriptor

The reply from "scriptor-ga" sent me (by way of the references
attached to the Finnish text) to Toby Huff's The Rise of Early Modern
Science, p. 82, the source of the quote.  Huff cites as his source (n.
125) Kogan's Averroes, p. 21. Thanks for you interest and assistance. 
Cheers, MW