Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

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.

Substance is dealt with by conjecture: for in enquiring into anything, we ask whether it has been done, is being done, or is likely to be done, and sometimes also consider its intention: this method is preferable to that adopted by those who style the conjectural basis a basis of fact, as though we only enquired into the past and what has

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actually been done.