Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
An indefinite question is always the more comprehensive, since it is from the indefinite question that the definite is derived. I will illustrate what I mean by an example. The question
Should a man marry?is indefinite; the question
Should Cato marry?is definite, and consequently may be regarded as a subject for a deliberative theme. But even those which have no connexion with particular persons are generally given a specific reference. For instance the question
Ought we to take a share in the government of our country?is abstract, whereas
Ought we to take part in the government of our country under the sway of a tyrant?has a specific reference.
But in this latter case we may say that a person is tacitly implied. For the mention of a tyrant doubles the question, and there is an implicit admission of time and quality; but all the same you would scarcely be justified in calling it a cause or definite question. Those questions which I have styled indefinite are also called general: if this is correct, we shall have to call definite questions special questions. But in every special question the general question is implicit, since the genus is logically prior to the species.
And perhaps even in actual causes wherever the notion of quality comes into question, there is a certain intrusion of
Milo killed Clodius: he was justified in killing one who lay in wait for him.Does not this raise the general question as to whether we have the right to kill a man who lies in wait for us? What again of conjectures? May not they be of a general character, as for instance,
What was the motive for the crime? hatred? covetousness?or
Are we justified in believing confessions made under torture?or
Which should carry greater weight, evidence or argument?As for definitions, everything that they contain is undoubtedly of a general nature.
There are some who hold that even those questions which have reference to persons and particular cases may at times be called theses, provided only they are put slightly differently: for instance, if Orestes be accused, we shall have a cause: whereas if it is put as question, namely
Was Orestes rightly acquitted?it will be a thesis. To the same class as this last belongs the question
Was Cato right in transferring Marcia to Hortensius?These persons distinguish a thesis from a cause as follows: a thesis is theoretical in character, while a cause has relation to actual facts, since in the former case we argue merely with a view to abstract truth, while in the latter we have to deal with some particular act.
Some, however, think that general questions are useless to an orator, since no profit is to be derived from proving that we ought to marry or to take part in politics, if we are prevented from so doing by age or ill health. But not all general questions are liable to this kind of objection. For instance questions such as
Is virtue an end in itself?or
Is the world governed by providence?cannot be countered in this way.
Further in questions
whether he personally is to marry,unless the general question
whether marriage is desirableis first settled? And how is he to deliberate
whether he should marry Marcia,unless it is proved that it is the duty of Cato to marry?
There are, however, certain books attributed to Hermagoras which support this erroneous opinion, though whether the attribution is spurious or whether they were written by another Hermagoras is an open question. For they cannot possibly be by the famous Hermagoras, who wrote so much that was admirable on the art of rhetoric, since, as is clear from the first book of the Rhetorica of Cicero, [*](de Inv. i. 6. ) he divided the material of rhetoric into theses and causes. Cicero objects to this division, contends that theses have nothing to do with an orator, and refers all this class of questions to the philosophers.