Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

Again, the objection that to discourse of what is good, expedient or just is the duty of philosophy presents no difficulty. For when such critics speak of a philosopher, they mean a good man. Why then should I feel surprised to find that the orator whom I identify with the good man deals with the same material?

There is all the less reason, since I have already shown in the first book [*]( Pref. § 10 sqq. ) that philosophers only usurped this department of knowledge after it had been abandoned by the orators: it was always the peculiar property of rhetoric and the philosophers are really trespassers. Finally, since the discussion of whatever is brought before it is the task of dialectic, which is really a concise form of oratory, why should not this task be regarded as also being the appropriate material for continuous oratory?

v1-3 p.363

There is a further objection made by certain critics, who say

Well then, if an orator has to speak on every subject, he must be the master of all the arts.

I might answer this criticism in the words of Cicero, [*](de Or. I. vi. 20. ) in whom I find the following passage:—

In my opinion no one can be an absolutely perfect orator unless he has acquired a knowledge of all important subjects and arts.

I however regard it as sufficient that an orator should not be actually ignorant of the subject on which he has to speak.

For he cannot have a knowledge of all causes, and yet he should be able to speak on all. On what then will he speak? On those which he has studied. Similarly as regards the arts, he will study those concerning which he has to speak, as occasion may demand, and will speak on those which he has studied.