Institutio Oratoria

Can lie hope to get a thorough grasp of such information at the very moment when he is required to produce it in his speech? Can he make his assertions with confidence or speak with native simplicity as though his arguments were his own? Grant that he may do so in his actual speech. But what will he do in a debate, when he has continually to meet fresh points raised by his opponent and is given no time to learn

up his case? What will do, if he has no legal expert to advise him or if his prompter through insufficient knowledge of the subject provides him with information that is false? It is the most serious drawback of such ignorance, that he will always believe that his adviser knows what he is talking about.