Institutio Oratoria

Again it is scarcely necessary for me to point out that like other arts it is based on examination and practice. And if logic is an art, as is generally agreed, rhetoric must also be an art, since it differs from logic in species rather than in genus. Nor must I omit to point out that where it is possible in any given subject for one man to act without art and another with art, there must necessarily be an art in connexion with that subject, as there must also be in any subject in which the man who has received instruction is the superior of him who has not.

But as regards the practice of rhetoric, it is not merely the case that the trained speaker will get the better of the untrained. For even the trained man will prove inferior to one who has received a better training. If this were not so, there would not be so many rhetorical rules, nor would so many great men have come forward to teach them. The truth of this must be acknowledged by everyone, but more especially by us, since we concede the possession of oratory to none save the good man. [*](i.e. since our ideals are so high. )

Some arts, however, are based on examination, that is to say on the knowledge and proper appreciation of things, as for instance astronomy,

Thirdly there are others which consist in producing a certain result and achieve their purpose in the completion of a visible task: such we style productive, and painting may be quoted as an illustration. In view of these facts we must come to the conclusion that, in the main, rhetoric is concerned with action; for in action it accomplishes that which it is its duty to do.

This view is universally accepted, although in my opinion rhetoric draws largely on the two other kinds of art. For it may on occasion be content with the mere examination of a thing. Rhetoric is still in the orator's possession even though he be silent, while if he gives up pleading either designedly or owing to circumstances over which he has no control, he does not therefore cease to be an orator, any more than a doctor ceases to be a doctor when he withdraws from practice.

Perhaps the highest of all pleasures is that which we derive from private study, and the only circumstances under which the delights of literature are unalloyed are when it withdraws from action, that is to say from toil, and can enjoy the pleasure of self-contemplation.

But in the results that the orator obtains by writing speeches or historical narratives, which we may reasonably count as part of the task of oratory, we shall recognise features resembling those of a productive art. Still, if rhetoric is to be regarded as one of these three classes of art, since it is with action that its

I quite realise that there is a further question as to whether eloquence derives most from nature or from education. This question really lies outside the scope of our inquiry, since the ideal orator must necessarily be the result of a blend of both. But I do regard it as of great importance that we should decide how far there is any real question on this point.

For if we make an absolute divorce between the two, nature will still be able to accomplish much without the aid of education, while the latter is valueless without the aid of nature. If, on the other hand, they are blended in equal proportions, I think we shall find that the average orator owes most to nature, while the perfect orator owes more to education. We may take a parallel from agriculture. A thoroughly barren soil will not be improved even by the best cultivation, while good land will yield some useful produce without any cultivation; but in the case of really rich land cultivation will do more for it than its own natural fertility.

Had Praxiteles attempted to carve a statue out of a millstone, I should have preferred a rough block of Parian marble to any such statue. On the other hand, if the same artist had produced a finished statue from such a block of Parian marble, its artistic value would owe more to his skill than to the material. To conclude, nature is the raw material for education: the one forms, the other is formed. Without material art can do nothing, material without art does possess a certain value, while the perfection of art is better than the best material.

More important is the question whether rhetoric is to be regarded as one of the indifferent arts, which in themselves deserve neither praise nor blame, but are useful or the reverse according to the character of the artist; or whether it should, as not a few even among philosophers hold, be considered as a virtue.

For my own part I regard the practice of rhetoric which so many have adopted in the past and still follow to-day, as either no art at all, or, as the Greeks call it, ἀτεχνία (for I see numbers of speakers without the least pretension to method or literary training rushing headlong in the direction in which hunger or their natural shamelessness calls them); or else it is a bad art such as is styled κακοτεχνία. For there have, I think, been many persons and there are still some who have devoted their powers of speaking to the destruction of their fellow-men.

There is also an unprofitable imitation of art, a kind of ματαιοτεχνία which is neither good nor bad, but merely involves a useless expenditure of labour, reminding one of the man who shot a continuous stream of vetch-seeds from a distance through the eye of a needle, without ever missing his aim, and was rewarded by Alexander, who was a witness of the display, with the present of a bushel of vetch-seeds, a most appropriate reward.

It is to such men that I would compare those who spend their whole time at the expense of much study and energy in composing declamations, which they aim at making as unreal as possible. The rhetoric on the other hand, which I am endeavouring to establish and the ideal of which I have in my mind's eye, that rhetoric which befits a good man and is in a word the only true rhetoric, will be a virtue.

Philosophers arrive

and if there are virtues, of which nature has given us some rudimentary sparks, even before we were taught anything about them, as for instance justice, of which there are some traces even among peasants and barbarians, it is clear that man has been so formed from the beginning as to be able to plead on his own behalf, not, it is true, with perfection, but yet sufficiently to show that there are certain sparks of eloquence implanted in us by nature.

The same nature, however, is not to be found in those arts which have no connexion with virtue. Consequently, since there are two kinds of speech, the continuous which is called rhetoric, and the concise which is called dialectic (the relation between which was regarded by Zeno as being so intimate that he compared the latter to the closed fist, the former to the open hand), even the art of disputation will be a virtue. Consequently there can be no doubt about oratory whose nature is so much fairer and franker.

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

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,

But,

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.