Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

That certain topics such as the question as to

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whether we should always believe a witness or whether we should rely on circumstantial evidence, are part and parcel of actual forensic pleading is so obvious that certain speakers, men too who have held civil office with no small distinction, have written out passages dealing with such themes, committed them to memory and kept them ready for immediate use, with a view to employing them when occasion arose as a species of ornament to be inserted into their extempore speeches.

This practice— for I am not going to postpone expressing my judgment on it—I used to regard a confession of extreme weakness. For how can such men find appropriate arguments in the course of actual cases which continually present new and different features? How can they answer the points that their opponents may bring up? how deal a rapid counterstroke in debate or cross-examine a witness? if, even in those matters which are of common occurrence and crop up in the majority of cases, they cannot give expression to the most familiar thoughts except in words prepared so far in advance.

And when they produce the same passage in a number of different cases, they must come to loathe it like food that has grown cold or stale, and they can hardly avoid a feeling of shame at displaying this miserable piece of furniture to an audience whose memory must have detected it so many times already: like the furniture of the ostentatious poor, it is sure to shew signs of wear through being used for such a variety of different purposes.

Also it must be remembered that there is hardly a single commonplace of such universal application that it will fit any actual case, unless some special link is provided to connect it with

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the subject: otherwise it will seem to have been tacked on to the speech, not interwoven in its texture,

either because it is out of keeping with the circumstances or like most of its kind is inappropriately employed not because it is wanted, but because it is ready for use. Some speakers, for example, introduce the most long-winded commonplaces just for the sake of the sentiments they contain, whereas rightly the sentiments should spring from the context.