Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

There are other conclusions which, as I have said, are not necessary, whether as regards both cause and effect or only one of the two. For instance,

the sun colours the skin, but not
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everyone that is coloured receives that colour from the sun; a journey makes the traveller dusty, but every journey does not produce dust, nor is everyone that is dusty just come from a journey.

As examples of necessary conclusions on the other hand I may cite the following:

If wisdom makes a man good, a good man must needs be wise
; and again,
It is the part of a good man to act honourably, of a bad man to act dishonourably,
or
Those who act honourably are considered good, those who act dishonourably are considered bad men.
In these cases the conclusion is correct. On the other hand,
though exercise generally makes the body robust, not everyone who is robust is given to exercise, nor is everyone that is addicted to exercise robust. Nor again, because courage prevents our fearing death, is every man who has no fear of death to be regarded as a brave man; nor is the sun useless to man because it sometimes gives him a headache.

Arguments such as the following belong in the main to the hortative department of oratory:—

Virtue brings renown, therefore it should be pursued; but the pursuit of pleasure brings ill-repute, therefore it should be shunned.
But the warning that we should not necessarily search for the originating cause is just: an example of such error is provided by the speech of Medea [*]( The opening of Ennius' translation of the Medea of Euripides. ) beginning

Ah! would that never there in Pelion's grove,
as though her misery or guilt were due to the fact that there
  1. The beams of fir had fallen to the ground
    ;
or I might cite the words addressed by Philoctetes to Paris, [*]( From the Philoctetes of Accius, Ribbeck fr. 178. )
  1. Hadst thou been other than thou art, then I
  2. Had ne'er been plunged in woe.
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By tracing back causes on lines such as these we may arrive anywhere.

But for the fact that Cicero [*](Top. iii. 12. ) has done so, I should regard it as absurd to add to these what is styled the conjugate argument, such as

Those who perform a just act, act justly,
a self-evident fact requiring no proof; or again,
Every man has a common right to send his cattle to graze in a common pasture.

Some call these arguments derived from causes or efficients by the Greek name ἐκβάσεις that is, results; for in such cases the only point considered is how one thing results from another. Those arguments which prove the lesser from the greater or the greater from the less or equals from equals are styled apposite or comparative.

A conjecture as to a fact is confirmed by argument from something greater in the following sentence:

If a man commit sacrilege, he will also commit theft
; from something less, in a sentence such as
He who lies easily and openly will commit perjury
; from something equal in a sentence such as
He who has taken a bribe to give a false verdict will take a bribe to give false witness.

Points of law may be proved in a similar manner; from something greater, as in the sentence

If it is lawful to kill an adulterer, it is lawful to scourge him
; from something less,
If it is lawful to kill a man attempting theft by night, how much more lawful is it to kill one who attempts robbery with violence
; from something equal,
The penalty which is just in the case of parricide is also just in the case of matricide.
In all these cases we follow the syllogistic method. [*](See III. vi. 15, 43, 88.)

The following type of argument on the other hand is more serviceable in questions turning

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on definition or quality. [*]( See iii. 6. passim. )
If strength is good for the body, health is no less good.
If theft is a crime, sacrilege is a greater crime.
If abstinence is a virtue, so is self-control.
If the world is governed by providence, the state also requires a government.
If a house cannot be built without a plan, what of a whole city?
If naval stores require careful supervision, so also do arms.

I am content to treat this type of argument as a genus without going further; others however divide it into species. For we may argue from several things to one or from one thing to several; hence arguments such as

What has happened once may happen often.
We may also argue from a part to a whole, from genus to species, from that which contains to that which is contained, from the difficult to the easy, from the remote to the near, and similarly from the opposites of all these to their opposites.

Now all these arguments deal with the greater or the less or else with things that are equal, and if we follow up such fine distinctions, there will be no limit to our division into species. For the comparison of things is infinite; things may be more pleasant, more serious, more necessary, more honourable, more useful. I say no more for fear of falling into that very garrulity which I deprecate.

The number of examples of these arguments which I might quote is likewise infinite, but I will only deal with a very few. As an example of argument from something greater take the following example from the pro Caecina [*](XV. 43.)

Shall we suppose that that which alarms whole armies caused no alarm to a peaceful company of lawyers?
As an instance of argument from something easier, take this passage
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from the speech against Clodius and Curio: [*]( A lost speech of Cicero to which reference is made in III. vii. 2. )
Consider whether it would have been easy for you to secure the praetorship, when he in whose favour you withdrew failed to secure election?

The following [*]( xvi. 45. Caecina had attempted to take possession of lands left him by will, but was driven off by armed force. Cicero has just pointed out that there were precedents for regarding the mere sight of armed men in occupation of the property claimed as sufficient proof of violence. ) provides an example of argument from something more difficult:

I beg you, Tubero, to remark that I, who do not hesitate to speak of my own deed, venture to speak of that performed by Ligarius
; and again,
Has not Ligarius reason for hope, when I am permitted to intercede with you for another?
For an argument drawn from something less take this passage from the pro Caecinaa [*](pro Lig. iii. 8 and x. 31. Cicero's point is that he has been a much more bitter opponent of Caesar than Ligarius, and yet he has been pardoned while Ligarius has not. ) :
Really! Is the knowledge that the men were armed sufficient to prove that violence was offered, and the fact that he fell into their hands insufficient?
Well, then, to give a brief summary of the whole question, arguments are drawn from persons, causes, place and time (which latter we have divided into preceding, contemporary and subsequent), from resources (under which we include instruments), from manner (that is, how a thing has been done), from definition, genus, species, difference, property, elimination, division, beginnings, increase, consummation, likes, unlikes, contradictions, consequents, efficients, effects, results, and comparison, which is subdivided into several species.

I think I should also add that arguments are drawn not merely from admitted facts, but from fictitious suppositions, which the Greeks style καθ᾽ ὑπόθεσιν and that this latter type of argument falls into all the same divisions as those which I have

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mentioned above, since there may be as many species of fictitious arguments as there are of true arguments.

When I speak of fictitious arguments I mean the proposition of something which, if true, would either solve a problem or contribute to its solution, and secondly the demonstration of the similarity of our hypothesis to the case under consideration. To make this the more readily intelligible to youths who have not yet left school, I will first of all illustrate it by examples of a kind familiar to the young.

There is a law to the effect that

the man who refuses to support his parents is liable to imprisonment.
A certain man fails to support his parents and none the less objects to going to prison. He advances the hypothesis that he would be exempt from such a penalty if he were a soldier, an infant. or if he were absent from home on the service of the state. Again in the case where a hero is allowed to choose his reward [*](cp. VII. v. 4. ) we might introduce the hypotheses of his desiring to make himself a tyrant or to overthrow the temples of the gods.

Such arguments are specially useful when we are arguing against the letter of the law, and are thus employed by Cicero in the pro Caecina [*]( xix. 55. Quintilian merely quotes fragments of Cicero's arguments. The sense of the passages omitted is supplied in brackets. The interdict of the praetor had ordered Caecina's restoration. His adversary is represented by Cicero as attempting to evade compliance by verbal quibbles. ) :

[The interdict contains the words,] ' whence you or your household or your agent had driven him.' If your steward alone had driven me out, [it would not, I suppose, be your household but a member of your household that had driven me out]. . . . If indeed you owned no slave except the one who drove me out, [you would cry, 'If I possess a household at all, I admit that my household drove you out'].
Many other examples might be quoted from the same work.

But fictitious suppositions are also exceedingly useful when we are concerned with the quality of an act [*](pro Mur —. xxxix. 83. Cicero argues that Murena's election as consul is necessary to save the state from Catiline. If the jury now condemn him, they will be doing exactly what Catiline and his accomplices, now in arms in Etruria, would do if they could try him. ) :

If
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Catiline could try this case assisted by a jury composed of those scoundrels whom he led out with him he would condemn Lucius Murena.
It is useful also for amplification [*](Phil. II. xxv. 63. This = vomiting. Cicero contimes who would not have thought it disgraceful. ) :
If this had happened to you during dinner in the midst of your deep potations
; or again, [*]( Probably an allusion to Cat. i. 7, where Cicero makes the state reproach Catiline for his conduct. )
If the state could speak.

Such in the main are the usual topics of proof as specified by teachers of rhetoric, but it is not sufficient to classify them generically in our instructions, since from each of them there arises an infinite number of arguments, while it is in the very nature of things impossible to deal with all their individual species. Those who have attempted to perform this latter task have exposed themselves in equal degree to two disadvantages, saying too much and yet failing to cover the whole ground.

Consequently the majority of students, finding themselves lost in an inextricable maze, have abandoned all individual effort, including even that which their own wits might have placed within their power, as though they were fettered by certain rigid laws, and keeping their eyes fixed upon their master have ceased to follow the guidance of nature.