Artificial proofs too much neglected, § 1-3. There are certain particulars common to all kinds of proofs, 4-7. 1. THE other sort of proofs, which come wholly under the head of art and consist in matters adapted to produce belief, is, for the most part, either altogether neglected or very lightly touched upon by those rhetoricians who, avoiding arguments as repulsive and rugged, repose themselves in more agreeable spots. Like those who are said by the poets to have preferred pleasure to security, being charmed with the taste of a certain herb among the Lotuphagi or with the song of the Sirens, these people pursued an empty semblance of glory and failed to obtain that success for which eloquence is exerted. 2. But other efforts of oratory, which run through the continued course of a speech, are designed as aids or embellishments to the arguments of a cause, and add to those sinews, by which it is strengthened, the appearance of a body, as it were, superinduced upon them. If anything is said to have been done, perchance, through anger, or fear, or covetousness, we can expatiate somewhat fully on the nature of those passions, and, in similar accessory parts, we praise, blame, exaggerate, extenuate, describe, deter, complain, console, or exhort. 3. Such oratorical efforts may be of great service in treating matters which are certain, or of which we speak as being certain, and I would not deny that there is some advantage in pleasing, and very much in exciting the feelings. But pleasure and excitement have the most effect when the judge thinks that he has acquired a full knowledge of the cause, knowledge which we cannot convey to him but by arguments and by every other means in support of facts. 4. But before I distinguish the different sorts of artificial proofs, I think it necessary to intimate that there are certain qualities common to all kinds of proof. For there is no question which does not relate either to a thing or to a person. Nor can there be any grounds for argument, except respecting matters that affect things or persons, and these matters are either to be considered by themselves or referred to something else. 5. Nor can there be any proof except from things consequent or opposite which we must seek either in the time that preceded the alleged fact, in the time at which it took place, or in the time that followed it, nor can anything be proved but from some other thing, which must either be greater or less than it, or equal to it. 6. As for arguments, they arise either from general questions, which may be considered in themselves, apart from any connection with things or persons, or from the cause itself, when anything is found in it not derived from common reasoning, but peculiar to that point on which the decision is to be pronounced. Of all conclusions, moreover, some are necessary, some probable, some not impossible. 7. Of all proofs, too, there are four forms: because one thing is, another is not, as, "It is day, therefore it is not night"; because there is one thing, there is also another, as, "The sun is above the earth, therefore it is day"; because one thing is not, another is, as, "It is not night, therefore it is day"; and because one thing is not, another is not, as, "He is not a rational being, therefore he is not a man." Having promised these general remarks, I shall proceed to particulars.
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