Institutio Oratoria

Some on the other hand pay no attention to results, as for example Aristotle, [*](Rhet. i. 2. ) who says

rhetoric is the power of discovering all means of persuading by speech.

Hermagoras, who asserts that its end is to speak persuasively, and others who express the same opinion, though in different words, and inform us that the end is to say everything which ought to be said with a view to persuasion, have been sufficiently answered above, when I proved that persuasion was not the privilege of the orator alone.

Various additions have been made to these definitions. For some hold that rhetoric is concerned with everything, while some restrict its activity to politics. The question as to which of these views is the nearer to the truth shall be discussed later in its appropriate place.

Aristotle seems to have implied that the sphere of the orator was all-inclusive when he defined rhetoric as the power to detect every element in any given subject which might conduce to persuasion; so too does Patrocles who omits the words in any given subject, but since he excludes nothing, shows that his view is identical. For he defines rhetoric as the power to discover whatever is persuasive in speech. These definitions like that quoted above include no more than the power of invention alone. Theodorus avoids this fault and holds that it is the power to discover and to utter forth in elegant language whatever is credible in every subject of oratory.

But, while others besides

. Plato makes Gorgias [*](Gorg. 454 B. ) say that he is a master of persuasion in the law-courts and other assemblies, and that his themes are justice and injustice, while in reply Socrates allows him the power of persuading, but not of teaching.

Those who refused to make the sphere of oratory allinclusive, have been obliged to make somewhat forced and long-winded distinctions: among these I may mention Ariston, the pupil of the Peripatetic Critolaus, who produced the following definition,

Rhetoric is the science of seeing and uttering what ought to be said on political questions in language that is likely to prove persuasive to the people.

Being a Peripatetic he regards it as a science, not, like the Stoics, as a virtue, while in adding the words

likely to prove persuasie to the people

Turning to those who regard rhetoric as an art, but not as a virtue, we find that Theodorus of Gadara is more cautious. For he says (I quote the words of his translators),

rhetoric is the art which discovers and judges and expresses, mith an elegance duly proportioned to the importance of all such elements of persuasion as may exist in any subject in the field of politics.

Similarly Cornelius Celsus defines the end of rhetoric as

rhetoric is the power of judging and holding forth on such political subjects as come before it with a certain persuasiveness, a certain action of the body and delivery of the words.

There are countless other definitions, either identical with this or composed of the same elements, which I shall deal with when I come to the questions concerned with the subject matter of rhetoric. Some regard it as neither a power, a science or an art; Critolaus calls it the practice of speaking (for this is the meaning of τριβή ), Athenaeus styles it the art of deceiving,

while the majority, content with reading a few passages from the Gorgias of Plato, unskilfully excerpted by earlier writers, refrain from studying that dialogue and the remainder of Plato's writings, and thereby fall into serious error. For they believe that in Plato's view rhetoric was not an art, but a certain adroitness in the production of delight and gratification, [*](Gorg. 462 c. )

or with reference to another passage the shadow of a small part of politics [*](ib. 463 p. ) and the fourth department of flattery. For Plato assigns [*](ib. 464 B. ) two departments of politics to the body, namely medicine and gymnastic, and two to the soul, namely law and justice, while he styles the art of cookery [*](ib. 464 B-465 E. ) a form of flattery of medicine, the art of the slave-dealer a flattery of gymnastic, for they produce a false complexion by the use of paint and a false robustness by puffing them out with fat: sophistry he calls a dishonest counterfeit of legal science, and rhetoric of justice.

All these statements occur in the Gorgias and are uttered by Socrates who appears to be the

Now it is only rhetoric as practised in their own day that is condemned by Plato or Socrates, for he speaks of it as

the manner in which you engage in public affairs

The rhetorician therefore must be just and the just man desirous to do what is just.

To this Gorgias makes no reply, but the argument is taken up by Polus, a hot-headed and headstrong young fellow, and it is to him that Socrates makes his remarks about

shadows

forms of flattery.

he who would truly be a rhetorician ought to be just and possess a knowledge of justice.

he makes it even clearer that the complete attainment of this art is impossible without the knowledge of justice, an opinion in which I heartily concur. Had this not been his view, would he have ever written the Apology of Socrates or the Funeral Oration [*](Menexenus.) in praise of those who had died in battle for their country, both of them works falling within the sphere of oratory.