De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii, Book V (De rhetorica), part 2 of 4 (about §§ 465-502)
The fourth question about the writing is that which is called syllogismus (inference), when from what is written we gather by argument what is not written, as in this: “let it be lawful to kill an exile caught within the borders. A man beat an exile he found. He is accused.” By the defender it is gathered that what was less than permitted was lawful to do. To this belong four modes: from the like, from the consequent, from the greater to the less, from the contrary. From the like, thus: because the killer of his father is sewn into a sack, this penalty ought to await the killer of his mother. From the consequent, thus: “the reward of the tyrannicide. One who persuaded a tyrant to lay down his rule asks the reward. He gathers that the merit is equal, because he restored liberty.” From the greater to the less [for I said above]: “it is permitted to cut the throat of an exile, it is therefore lawful also to beat him.” From the contrary: if the brave man deserves a reward, the deserter is worthy of punishment.
There remains the definitional question, flowing from ambiguity of the writing, when some word in a law or testament is doubtful and is made clear by definition, as: “let it be lawful to kill one caught at night with a weapon. A magistrate killed a man caught at night with a club. He is accused of murder. He protects himself indeed by the law but asks what a weapon is.” This kind of question differs from the principal states in that it is inquired not about the deed from which the pleading arose but only about the definition of the writing. It is argued by these legal writers, then, that the principal states are distinct and that these are called incidental, while those from which the cause is born are more rightly called constitutions or states. Now that the constitutions have been run through, let us look at the controversies of the DELIBERATIVE and DEMONSTRATIVE kinds. For there is no doubt that there are three kinds of causes and that in every cause a state ought to be engaged, although in the deliberative some have thought that negotial quality stands, because it deliberates about the future. Yet that quality is generally to be so reckoned that other states are not denied to be able to befall this kind. Now we affirm that the states in such can be found in such a way that we do not hold the rule from the rebuttal of the charge, as was shown in the conflicts. For what or who will charge, or in the usual order the persuader and dissuader clash, since in the constructions we are not forbidden to choose the other? Yet the dissuader seems to seize the accuser’s part. For he who shows that what he dissuades from is dishonorable or useless seems certainly to accuse the business itself. The persuader seizes the part of the defender and absolves the handling of the business from any objection of contrariety. Hence the persuader is to be remembered as rebutting, the dissuader as charging. And so, the conflict of the parts having been made, the state will be able to appear, as in such a cause: “the army fleeing often toward the walls, the commander deliberates whether to demolish them.” When he says the walls are to be demolished, does he not seem, if he does it, to be accused, then that the army will bear this gravely and seditiously? In this conjecture will be made about the outcome of the commotion. And soon if he says that victory is not to be called victory if the defence of the city is demolished, definition has been added. For it must be defined what state of the walls makes victory celebrated. Then if the dissuader adds, “this ought not to be done without the council of the senate,” prescription also seems to be added. It is certain, then, that the charge is rightly assigned to the dissuader and that all the states of the deliberative appear more readily. It must be known, however, that the dissuader, speaking as if pronouncing sentence, does not forbid as a judge, since his office is to persuade not to do it, by showing the reason that the thing is dishonorable or useless.
Now how the state emerges in the demonstrative is not easy to relate, for this reason, that blame does not immediately follow praise, so that whoever is not praiseworthy is held blameworthy, or on the contrary one who lacks blame is lifted by praises, as if someone were said to be praiseworthy from the fact that he has not committed homicide. There is, then, a middle [term], which it has pleased to call privation, because he who is deprived of praise is not at once given over to blame, or to be chosen contrariwise. So, however, the state of the demonstrative kind appears when you set up a praiser and a blamer, and attach to the blamer the charge of the accuser, to the praiser the parts of the defender. Or that is more subtly shaped, so that the hearer, poised between praise and blame, is placed as it were in the position of an adversary. For before you have shown anyone to be praiseworthy, he has not yet such a charge as not to believe him praiseworthy. Against this charge there is a contest for the praiser or the blamer, although in the former construction a certain evident conflict is approved, as when one praises someone and another accuses, as Tully praising Cato and Caesar accusing him in two volumes. From this it is gathered that the kinds of all causes are to be reckoned by states.
This found, you will examine the nature of the cause, which is contained either in a simple or in a double or in a manifold question. It is simple when one thing is inquired about in the whole action, as whether Milo rightly killed Clodius. But that which is inquired afterward through the judgment, which of the two laid snares for the other, is not single but joined from a double conjecture, which the Greeks call antikategoria: but an incidental question cannot make the kind of a cause. Double is made now from things, as in the speech for Caelius about the gold and the poison, now by comparison, as for Roscius, whether the son or the enemies cut the father’s throat. Manifold is a cause that consists of several questions, as in the case of extortion all the Verrines, and for Scaurus the death of Bostar, the wife of Arines, and three tithes are inquired into.
Next the TENOR of the cause is to be inspected. The tenor is the course of pleading through the whole cause, kept under some figure. There are five tenors: simple, subtle, figured, oblique, mixed. Simple is when the pleader’s purpose is not one thing and his words another, as if you praise one who has deserved well and accuse one who has done harm. Subtle, when the mind wills one thing and the speech does another, as: “a man disowns his son because he has no friends.” Here he does not truly disown, but threatens him to have friends. Figured is when modesty forbids saying openly something because of obscene matters, and things are shown clothed with another signification and with coverings. Oblique is when fear prevents saying something freely and through certain burrows of speech we point out what is to be objected, as in this: “a tyrant who had laid down tyranny under an amnesty acted bravely. He asks as reward the custody of the citadel and of the arms. The magistrates oppose.” Mixed is composed of both, when both shame and fear hinder freedom, as: “a tyrant who had two sons, one of whom had a wife of whom he was infamous, whose husband hanged himself, forces the other son to marry her. He opposes.” Here he can freely object neither incest nor tyranny. These are the tenors of artful treatment and of subtle diffusion through the whole speech. They are separated from the color in this, that color is kept in one part only, the tenor in the whole cause.
The tenor is found from the causative of the suit, that is, from the matter which makes the controversy, which is either of past time, as whether Ulysses killed Ajax, which holds the simple tenor; or, if it is of present or future time, it admits all tenors. Therefore the tenor is born of the purpose, the purpose arises from the causative of the suit. The causative is what makes the doubt, as in that case of the tyrant the causative of the suit is that the tyrant demands the custody of both the citadel and the arms. The first Philippic attests the tenor kept, which with wonderful subtlety secretly charges the domination of Antony, so that saying everything he seems to have said nothing harshly. All these having been gathered, the arguments are to be looked at by which belief can be brought to the ambiguity of the question. Belief, however, is made in three ways: by conciliating, by teaching, by moving. The first is called ethical, the next apodictic, the third pathetic. Although it is fitting to use conciliation in the whole cause, yet in the beginnings one must dwell more fully, and the epilogue ought especially to be strong in moving. To teach, above the rest, the narration itself ought, although the construction works not unlike for dissolving questions and urging charges. Now I shall begin on arguments.
An ARGUMENT is a speech which makes belief for a doubtful matter. A doubtful matter is the charge and the rebuttal, or the reason and the refutation of the reason. For when you have charged, “you killed,” to teach it you use argumentation and confirmation, especially when it is denied. Even “I did not kill” itself requires an argument, although to make belief those things also which are called inartificial ought to be applied, such as documents, testimonies, examinations, which I shall reserve to be discussed later. Now let the arguments be handled which are placed in the business under discussion or touch it. In the thing itself: now the whole, now its part, now the mark, which the Greeks call etymologia; they touch the business, however, which are drawn to it by the reason of relatives. And they are thirteen in number: from conjugates, from genus, from form or species, from the like, from the different, from the contrary, from conjuncts, from antecedents, from consequents, from incompatibles, from causes, from effects, from comparison, of which the parts are greater, less, equal. It appears that in all there is a relative reasoning. For of conjugates one is named from the other, and genus and species become relative to each other. The like itself is assimilated to something, and all the places of arguments take their name not from themselves but from another.
First, then, the whole which is being argued as doubtful must be defined, and so the arguments handled, in this way. Let the doubtful matter be “whether eloquence seems useful.” Eloquence is the whole. In the whole, then, we must define thus: “eloquence is the science of speaking well. To speak well, however, is useful: therefore eloquence is useful.” To the handling of this place Dialectic, whom you lately heard, is a help, by whom I think it is known what a genus is, what a species or difference, property, accident, and the rest which her precepts have held. Yet I shall run through these as briefly and compactly as I can. A GENUS, then, is a notion pertaining to many species and differences, as animal, which is referred to man, cattle, bird, fish and the rest, which are distinguished not only in number but also in species, because some are aerial, some aquatic and terrestrial, some rational, some without reason, which, when gathered under one name, are called by the name of the genus. A SPECIES is that which, depending on a genus, contains others distinguished only by number, as “man” contains both Demosthenes and Cicero, to whom there is one species but who differ in number. A difference is a distinction sufficient for the question, as if it is asked what lies between a man and a lion, it is answered that the man is gentle, the lion wild, which neither distinguishes man from other gentle animals nor the lion from other wild animals. A PROPERTY is what distinguishes some thing from the community of all, as laughter.
For this is not common to man with the rest. An ACCIDENT is that which, placed in something, is neither a part of it nor can be separated from it so as to exist by itself, as color in a body, discipline in a mind. An argument from the part is said not to prove the whole but some part which contains the question. For a part proved does not prove the whole, as, for instance, if the eye sees, the whole body does not therefore see [when it is refuted that the whole body sees]. But this is a dialectical treatise. Now I shall show how an argument is taken from part to part: “if we ought to guard our feet and arms, surely we should guard our eyes more carefully.” In the place of this argument another can sometimes intervene, which is said from the greater to the less. Yet the reason of the principal argument is not thereby disturbed, since nature permits arguments sometimes to be doubled. This commonly happens also in figures, of which we shall speak later. An argument from parts is sometimes also made in this way, when, a partition having been introduced and several parts proposed, the others being refuted, we conclude some part in which the question is set, as if you say: “this horse which you have, you either bought, or received as a gift, or it was born at home, or you stole it. But you did not buy it, nor was it given to you, nor was it born at home: therefore you stole it.” From the mark or etymologia, as the Greeks say, we take an argument thus: “a consul is one who consults for the republic: what else did Tully do when he punished the conspirators?” In this place one need attend only to the origin of the word. From those things, however, which seem to touch the business, arguments are drawn in this way: first from conjugates: with one name proposed as principal, through its derivation, the case or tense changed, we prove something, as “if piety is a virtue, what has been done piously ought to be praised.” For it is agreed that virtue is laudable. This place differs from the above in that it is one thing to search out whence the name was imposed, another to take the force of an argument by the kinship of a word turned from another. From genus, when what holds in the whole is also carried over to the species, as if woman is something variable and changeable, Dido too would seem variable and changeable and able to be turned from love to hatred. By this reasoning is built up that of Cicero: “For since you ought to have a careful regard for the interests of all provinces and allies, you ought especially for Sicily, judges.” He seems to imitate this place from the whole. But there is this difference, that in that the arguments are drawn from definition, in this from the very reason by which it is a genus, and that what is whole in a genus perishes by division, while the genus remains even distributed among the parts. From species or from form an argument is drawn, to make belief for a general question, as Cicero in the Philippics: “what was so peculiarly an act of Caesar as the law?” For “act” is a genus, which is proved from the species, that is, from a law carried by Caesar. This also is confirmed from like things: “seek the acts of Gracchus, the Sempronian laws will be produced. Seek Sulla’s, the Cornelian.” From the like by itself, as “as Helen was to the Trojans, so you were the seed of war to the citizens.” Likewise: “as sick men are often tossed with grievous disease, with heat and fever,” and the rest. Contrary to this is dissimilitude, which Cicero calls difference, which shows things different, not opposed, of which Cicero puts an example against Verres: “but you will be thought to have done the same if you did it with the same intent.” This is shown both in persons and in things and in time and in places and in others, which it would take too long to mention now.
From the CONTRARY, as life and death, and what [follows] from what; Terence thus: “For if you rebuke him who brought aid to life, what will you do to him who gave loss or harm?” Cicero: “if that consul deserved the cudgel, what of the legions that deserted the consul?” From CONJUNCTS, belief is sought when things that singly are weak, joined, take the force of truth, as: “what if it is added that you were poor before? what if that you are greedy? what if that you are bold? what if that you are an enemy of the man who was killed?” Because these singly do not suffice, they are put gathered together. From ANTECEDENTS, as Cicero: “since he did not hesitate to disclose what he thought, can you hesitate about what he did?” For the foretelling preceded, where the argument is; the deed followed, whence the question. From CONSEQUENTS the converse, so that the question is in the antecedents, the argument in the consequents, as if this followed, that must have preceded, as: “if she has borne a child, she has lain with a man.” An example from the Verrines: “if the Kalends of January bring an end by the praetor’s edict, why does not the beginning too arise from the Kalends of January?” From INCOMPATIBLES the argument is made when it is shown that two things cannot cohere, for example, that someone is a parasite and is not ridiculous, which are declared by negation not to be together, in this way: “Gnatho is not both a parasite and not ridiculous.” An example of this place is in the matter itself rather than in the form of words: “this man, then, not only freed by you from danger but also adorned with the most ample honor, is charged with wishing to kill you in his own house.” And in the first Cornelian speech he says there is incompatibility, as: “the distributors, whom he had wished to be ministers of his honor, he would wish to strike by the law of bribery.”
The place of CAUSES lies wide and is treated with much disputation. But for now it will be enough to show its form under this example: “but when they were given on account of your decrees, your judgments, your commands, one must not so ask by whose hand they were counted out, but by whose wrong they were compelled.” So also Virgil: “do you flee from me?” An argument from EFFECTS is made when there is doubt in the cause, as fate is proved from the fact that men were saved in life even against their will. For fate is the cause of life or death; the effects of fate are to be able to live or die. Cicero proves from this: “the life of Aulus Hirtius is dear to the people, because the people applaud him.” This is Virgil’s: “fear proves ignoble souls.” For fear is the cause that the soul is ignoble, which is the effect of fear. From COMPARISON of the greater: “who doubts that Verres sought money from the Sicilians when he demanded it from Marcus Octavius of Liguria?” Virgil: “you can arm like-minded brothers for battle.” From this he surely proves that he can also arm strangers, which is less. Terence: “for he who has set himself to lie to or deceive his father [or was listening], so much the more will dare the rest.” From comparison of the LESS, as: “Publius Scipio, the chief pontiff, as a private man, killed Tiberius Gracchus, who was moderately shaking the state of the republic.” Then he adds the question where there is a certain gradation: “shall we, the consuls, endure Catiline, who desires to lay waste the world with slaughter and fire?” From this place Terence: “this man, for the sake of a slight acquaintance, bears his death so familiarly.” From comparison of EQUALS: Cicero: “and though those days on which we are saved are not less pleasant and illustrious than those on which we are born.” And against Piso: “it makes no difference whether he himself as consul harasses the republic with wicked assemblies and ruinous laws, or allows others to harass it.”
These things briefly shown, those which are not devised by the orator but are suggested by the cause or by the accused are placed, as we said, in three things: in writing, as of documents; in authority, as of witnesses; in necessity, as of tortures. An argument from writing is sought when, for the proof of a doubtful matter, either a handwriting or a will or the tablets of a settlement are read out, and the rest of this kind, which are so well known that they do not seek examples from oratory. FROM AUTHORITY, as that Africanus said Tiberius Gracchus was rightly slain; or when testimony by which the truth is laid bare is brought, as: “the orator quickly brings in Gnaeus Pompeius as our witness about the grain sent.” Authority, then, is either of the judge or of the witness. To this part are added oracles and the rest of the kind. Necessity gives belief from tortures or sleep or madness or drunkenness, which extort the voice of something from the unwilling. All these, when they are applied to conjecture, to the cause, the person, the deed, that is, to the testimony itself or to the confession or the writing, gain or lose belief. For the cause of the speaker is attended to, and the person is treated, and the quality of the writing itself is compared with itself or with the cause.
It follows that the pleader bend his intention to those things which conciliate or move the hearers, since we have declared that these too pertain to making belief. Minds are conciliated, then, now by the dignity of the person, now by that of the thing. Of the person either of the hearer, or of the thing, or of the orator himself, or of the adversary. Of the hearer, thus: “such as you have shown yourself before to the Roman people, when you presided over this same question as judge, such show yourself to us and to the Roman people at this time.” Of the thing, however, as for Deiotarus: “I was accustomed before, with the whole senate, to adorn the king, for his perpetual deserts toward our republic.” Of the orator, when he speaks of himself not proudly but moderately, such as that: “when I had been quaestor in Sicily, judges, and had left that province in such a way as to leave to all the Sicilians a pleasant and lasting memory of the quaestorship and of me, it came about that, as in many old patrons, so also in me they judged that there was a refuge established for their fortunes.” But these I shall explain more fully in the precepts of exordia. From the person of the adversary, conciliation is made when, his injustice or arrogance being shown, our modesty is commended. But these later in the beginnings, since now we are numbering not the parts of the oration but the forms of speaking and the species of making belief. In this place we attend also to the faculty of the pathetic style, whose force is chiefly contained in the commonplaces or in the epilogues. Not even the beginnings among the ancients lacked this moving of minds, which will be shown when we treat the precepts of beginning. Meanwhile I shall not mark by any definition of parts, by kinds, the affections by which minds are stirred.