Institutio Oratoria

But there is no disgrace in doing either of these things, as long as the motive be good: consequently there is nothing vicious in such action. Even a philosopher is at times permitted to tell a lie, while the orator must needs excite the passions, if that be the only way by which he can lead the judge to do justice.

For judges are not always enlightened and often have to be tricked to prevent them falling into error. Give me philosophers as judges, pack senates and assemblies with philosophers, and you will destroy the power of hatred, influence, prejudice and false witness; consequently there will be very little scope for eloquence whose value will lie almost entirely in its power to charm.

But if, as is

The point, however, that gives rise to the greatest number of these captious accusations against rhetoric, is found in the allegation that orators speak indifferently on either side of a case. From which they draw the following arguments: no art is self-contradictory, but rhetoric does contradict itself; no art tries to demolish what itself has built, but this does happen in the operations of rhetoric; or again:— rhetoric teaches either what ought to be said or what ought not to be said; consequently it is not an art because it teaches what ought not to be said, or because, while it teaches what ought to be said, it also teaches precisely the opposite.

Now it is obvious that all such charges are brought against that type of rhetoric with which neither good men nor virtue herself will have anything to do; since if a case be based on injustice, rhetoric has no place therein and consequently it can scarcely happen even under the most exceptional circumstances that an orator, that is to say, a good man, will speak indifferently on either side.

Still it is in the nature of things conceivable that just causes may lead two wise men to take different sides, since it is held that wise men may fight among themselves, provided that they do so at the bidding of reason. I will therefore reply to their criticisms in such a way that it will be clear that these arguments have no force even against those who concede the name of orator to persons of bad character. For rhetoric is not self-contradictory.

The conflict is

nor would the pilot's art exist, because in sea-fights pilots may be found on different sides; nor yet could there be an art of generalship, since general is pitted against general. In the same way rhetoric does not undo its own work. For the orator does not refute his own arguments, nor does rhetoric even do so, because those who regard persuasion as its end, or the two good men whom chance has matched against one another seek merely for probabilities: and the fact that one thing is more credible than another, does not involve contradiction between the two.

There is no absolute antagonism between the probable and the more probable, just as there is none between that which is white and that which is whiter, or between that which is sweet and that which is sweeter. Nor does rhetoric ever teach that which ought not to be said, or that which is contrary to what ought to be said, but solely what ought to be said in each individual case.

But though the orator will as a rule maintain what is true, this will not always be the case: there are occasions when the public interest demands that he should defend what is untrue. The following objections are also put forward in the second book of Cicero's de Oratore: [*](II. vii. 30.) —

Art deals with things that are known. But the pleading of an orator is based entirely on opinion, not on knowledge, because he speaks to an audience who do not know,

v1-3 p.343

and sometimes himself states things of which he has no actual knowledge.

Now one of these points, namely whether the judges have knowledge of what is being said to them, has nothing to do with the art of oratory. The other statement, that art is concerned with things that are known, does however require an answer. Rhetoric is the art of speaking well and the orator knows how to speak well.

But,

he does not know whether what he says is true.

But,

he does not know whether the cause which he has undertaken is true.

My opponents further object that advocates often defend in one case what they have attacked in another. This is not the fault of the art, but of the man. Such are the main points that are urged against rhetoric; there are others as well, but they are of minor importance and drawn from the same sources.