Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

For the essential basis is not the first conflict, which we may represent by the clauses

You did such and such a thing

and

I did not do it.

It is rather the kind of question which arises from the first conflict,

v1-3 p.411

which we may represent as follows.

You did it,

I did not,

Did he do it?,

You did this,

I did not do this,

What did he do?

It is clear from these examples, that the first sort of question depends on conjecture, the second on definition, and that the contending parties rest their respective cases on these points: the bases of these questions will therefore be of a conjectural or definitive character respectively.

Suppose it should be asserted that sound is the conflict between two bodies, the statement would in my opinion be erroneous. For sound is not the actual conflict, but a result of the conflict. The error is, however, of small importance: for the sense is clear, whatever the expression. But this trivial mistake has given rise to a very serious error in the minds of those who have not understood what was meant: for on reading that the essential basis was the first conflict, they immediately concluded that the basis was always to be taken from the first question, which is a grave mistake.