Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

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

Consequently arguments which have no individual force on the ground of strength will acquire force in virtue of their number, since all tend to prove the same thing. For instance, if one man is accused of having murdered another for the sake of his property, it may be argued as follows:

You had expectations of succeeding to the inheritance, which was moreover very large: you were a poor man, and at the time in question were specially hard pressed by your creditors: you had also offended him whose heir you were, and knew that he intended to alter his will.

These arguments are trivial and commonplace in detail, but their cumulative force is damaging. They may not have the overwhelming force of a thunderbolt, but they will have all the destructive force of hail.

There are certain arguments, which must not merely be stated, but supported as well. If we say,

The motive for the crime was greed,

we must show the force of greed as a motive: if we say that anger was the motive, we must show the sway that this passion has over the minds of men. Thus our arguments will not only be strengthened, but will be more ornamental as well, since we shall have produced something more than a mere fleshless skeleton. It also makes an enormous difference,

supposing that we allege hatred as the motive for a crime, whether such hatred was due to envy, injury or unlawful influence, whether it was recent or of long standing, whether it was directed against an

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inferior, an equal or a superior, against a stranger or a relative. There are special methods for the treatment of all these arguments, and tile treatment to be selected will depend on the interests of the case which we are defending.

On tile other hand we must not always burden the judge with all the arguments we have discovered, since by so doing we shall at once bore him and render him less inclined to believe us. For he will hardly suppose those proofs to be valid which we ourselves who produce them regard as insufficient. On the other hand, where the facts are fairly obvious, it would be as foolish to argue about them as to bring some artificial light into broad sunlight.