I should like, however, to consider the point more fully and explicitly by appealing to the actual work of oratory. For how will the orator succeed in panegyric unless he can distinguish between what is honourable and the reverse? How can he urge a policy, unless he has a clear perception of what is expedient? How can he plead in the law-courts, if he is ignorant of the nature of justice? Again, does not oratory call for courage, since it is often directed against the threats of popular turbulence and frequently runs into peril through incurring the hatred of the great, while sometimes, as for instance in the trial of Milo, the orator may have to speak in the midst of a crowd of armed soldiers? Consequently, if oratory be not a virtue, perfection is beyond its grasp.

If, on the other hand, each living thing has its own peculiar virtue, in which it excels the rest or, at any rate, the majority (I may instance the courage of the lion and the swiftness of the horse), it may be regarded as certain that the qualities in which man excels the rest are, above all, reason and powers of speech. Why, therefore, should we not consider that the special virtue of man lies just as much in eloquence as in reason? It will be with justice then that Cicero de Or. III. xiv. 55. makes Crassus say that eloquence is one of the highest virtues, and that Cicero himself calls it a virtue in his letters to Brutus Lost. and in other passages.

But, it may be urged, a bad man will at times produce an exordium or a statement of facts, and will argue a case in a manner that leaves nothing to be desired. No doubt; even a robber may fight bravely without courage ceasing to be a virtue; even a wicked slave may bear torture without a groan, and we may still continue to regard endurance of pain as worthy of praise. We can point to many acts which are identical with those of virtue, but spring from other sources. However, what I have said here must suffice, as I have already dealt with the question of the usefulness of oratory.

As to the material of oratory, some have asserted that it is speech, as for instance Gorgias Gorg. 449 E. in the dialogue of Plato. If this view be accepted in the sense that the word speech is used of a discourse composed on any subject, then it is not the material, but the work, just as a statue is the work of the sculptor. For speeches like statues require art for their production. If on the other hand we interpret speech as indicating the words themselves, they can do nothing unless they are related to facts. Some again hold that the material consists of persuasive arguments. But they form part of the work, are produced by art and require material themselves.

Some say that political questions provide the material. The mistake made by these lies not in the quality of their opinion but in its limitation. For political questions are material for eloquence but not the only material.