Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

The juridical is that known in Greek as δικαιολογικός But just as Archedemus would not recognise the qualitative basis, so these reject the definitive which they include in the juridical, holding

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that in these questions we have to enquire whether it is just that the act with which the accused is charged should be called sacrilege or theft or madness.

Pamplihlus held this opinion but subdivided quality into several different species. The majority of later writers have classified bases as follows, involving however no more than a change of names:— those dealing with ascertained facts and those dealing with matters where there is a doubt. For a thing must either be certain or uncertain: if it is uncertain, the basis will be conjectural; if certain, it will be some one of the other bases.

Apollodorus says the same thing when he states that a question must either lie in things external, [*](e.g. circumstantial evidence. ) which give play to conjecture, or in our own opinions: the former he calls πραγματικός the latter περὶ ἐννοίας The same is said by those who employ the terms ἀπροληπτὸς [*](ἀπροληπτός lit. = unpresumed. ) and προληπτικός, that is to say doubtful and presumptive, by this latter term meaning those facts which are beyond a doubt.

Theodorus agrees with them, for he holds that the question is either as to whether such and such a thing is really so, or is concerned with the accidents of something which is an admitted fact: that is to say it is either περὶ οὐσίας or περὶ συμβεβηκότων For in all these cases the first basis is conjectural, while the second belongs to one of the other classes. As for these other classes of basis, Apollodorus holds that there are two, one concerned with quality and the other with the names of things, that is to say a definitive basis. Theodorus makes them four, concerned with existence, quality, quantity and relation.

There are some too who make questions of identity and difference come under the head of quality, others who place it under the head

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of definition. Posidonius [*](Fr. p. 232, Bake.) divides them into two classes, those concerned with words and those concerned with things. In the first case he thinks that the question is whether a word has any meaning; if so, what is its meaning, how many meanings has it, and how does it come to mean what it means? In the latter case, we employ conjecture, which he calls κατ᾽ αἴσθησιν, or inference from perception, quality, definition which he calls κατ᾽ ἔννοιαν, or rational inference, and relation. Hence also comes the division into things written and unwritten.

Even Cornelius Celsus stated that there were two general bases, one concerned with the question whether a thing is, the other with the question of what kind it is. He included definition under the first of these, because enquiry may equally be made as to whether sacrilege has been committed, when a man denies that he has stolen anything from a temple, and when he admits that he has stolen private money from a temple. He divides quality into fact and the letter of the law. Under the head of the letter of the law he places four classes, excluding questions of competence: [*](cp. § 23; translatio and exceptio are virtually identical. The four classes are Intention, Ambiguity, Contradictory Laws, Syllogism. ) quantity and intention he places under the head of conjecture. [*](i.e. the conjectural basis concerned with questions of fact. )

There is also another method of dividing bases into two classes: according to this disputes are either about substance or quality, while quality is treated either in its most general sense or in its special senses.