Institutio Oratoria

But let us see whether this is the basis itself or rather that in which the basis is to be found. Hermagoras calls a basis that which enables the matter in question to be understood and to which the proofs of the parties concerned will also be directed. My own opinion has always been that, whereas there are frequently different bases of questions in connexion with a cause, the basis of the cause itself is its most important point on which the whole matter turns. If anyone prefers to call that the general question or general head of the cause, I shall not quarrel with him, any more than I have done hitherto if he produced a different technical term to express the same thing, although I know that whole volumes have been written on such disputes. I prefer however to call it the basis.

There is the greatest possible disagreement among writers about this as about everything else, but in this case as elsewhere they seem to me to have been misled by a passion for saying something different from their fellow-teachers. As a result there is still no agreement as to the number and names of bases, nor as to which are general and which special.