Institutio Oratoria

If to this kind of evidence anyone should wish to add evidence of the sort known as supernatural, based on oracles, prophecies and omens, I would remind him that there are two ways in which these may be treated. There is the general method, with regard to which there is an endless dispute between the adherents of the Stoics and the Epicureans, as to whether the world is governed by providence. The other is special and is concerned with particular departments of the art of divination, according as they may happen to affect the question at issue.

For the credibility of oracles may be established or destroyed in one way, and that of soothsayers, augurs, diviners and astrologers in another, since the two classes differ entirely in nature. Again the task of establishing or demolishing such evidence as the following will give the orator plenty to do; as for example if certain words have been uttered under

The following method may not merely be used with great effect, but may even be badly missed when it is not employed. You gave me the money. Who counted it out? Where did this occur and from what source did the money come? You accuse me of poisoning. Where did I buy the poison and from whom? What did I pay for it and whom did I employ to administer it? Who was my accomplice? Practically all these points are discussed by Cicero in dealing with the charge of poisoning in the pro Cluentio. [*](cp. IX. 167. ) This concludes my observations upon inartificial proofs. I have stated them as briefly as I could.

The second class of proofs are wholly the work of art and consist of matters specially adapted to produce belief. They are, however, as a rule almost entirely neglected or only very lightly touched on by those who, avoiding arguments as rugged and repulsive things, confine themselves to pleasanter regions and, like those who, as poets tell, were bewitched by tasting a magic herb in the land of the Lotus-eaters or by the song of the Sirens into preferring pleasure to safety, follow the empty semblance of renown and are robbed of that victory which is the aim of eloquence.

And yet those other forms of eloquence, which have a more continuous sweep and flow, are employed with a view to assisting and embellishing the arguments and produce the appearance of super inducing a body upon the sinews, on which the whole case rests; thus if it is asserted

But such rhetorical devices may be employed in connexion with matters about which there is no doubt or at least which we speak of as admitted facts. Nor would I deny that there is some advantage to be gained by pleasing our audience and a great deal by stirring their emotions. Still, all these devices are more effective, when the judge thanks he has gained a full knowledge of the facts of the case, which we can only give him by argument and by the employment of every other known means of proof.

Before, however, I proceed to classify the various species of artificial proof, I must point out that there are certain features common to all kinds of proof. For there is no question which is not concerned either with things or persons, nor can there be any ground for argument save in connexion with matters concerning things or persons, which may be considered either by themselves or with reference to something else;

while there can be no proof except such as is derived from things consequent or things opposite, which must be sought for either in the time preceding, contemporaneous with or subsequent to the alleged fact, nor can any single thing be proved save by reference to something else which must be greater, less than or equal to it.