Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Nor does it matter whether one recognises only one kind of basis or none at all, if all causes are of the same nature. Coniectura is derived from conicere

to throw together,

because it implies the concentration of the reason on the truth. For this reason interpreters of dreams and all other phenomena are called coniectores

conjecturers.

But the conjectural basis has received more names than one, as will appear in the sequel.

Some have recognised only two bases. Archedemus [*](Fr. 11, Arnim.) for instance admits only the conjectural and definitive and refuses to admit the qualitative, since he held that questions of quality take the form of

What is unfair? what is unjust? what is disobedience?

which he terms questions about identity and difference. [*](i.e. the question may be stated Does it conform to our conception of injustice or is it something different? Questions of quality are regarded as questions of definition. )

A different view was held by those who likewise only admitted two bases, but made them the negative and juridical. The negative basis is identical with that which we call the conjectural, to which some give the name of negative absolutely, others only in part, these latter holding that conjecture is employed by the accuser, denial only by the accused.

The juridical is that known in Greek as δικαιολογικός But just as Archedemus would not recognise the qualitative basis, so these reject the definitive which they include in the juridical, holding

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that in these questions we have to enquire whether it is just that the act with which the accused is charged should be called sacrilege or theft or madness.

Pamplihlus held this opinion but subdivided quality into several different species. The majority of later writers have classified bases as follows, involving however no more than a change of names:— those dealing with ascertained facts and those dealing with matters where there is a doubt. For a thing must either be certain or uncertain: if it is uncertain, the basis will be conjectural; if certain, it will be some one of the other bases.