Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
Those who hold that every question concerns either things or words, mean much the same. It is also agreed that questions are either definite or indefinite. Indefinite questions are those which may be maintained or impugned without reference to persons, time or place and the like. The Greeks call them theses, Cicero [*](Top. xxi. 79. ) propositions, others general questions relating to civil life, others again questions suited for philosophical discussion, while Athenaeus calls them parts of a cause.
Cicero [*](Top. 81; Part. Or. xviii. 62. ) distinguishes two kinds, the one concerned with knowledge, the other with action. Thus
Is the world governed byis a question of knowledge, whilev1-3 p.401providence?
Should we enter politics?is a question of action. The first involves three questions, whether a thing is, what it is, and of what nature: for all these things may be unknown: the second involves two, how to obtain power and how to use it.