Institutio Oratoria

These gentlemen talk a great deal, but the arguments on which they base their statements are few. I will therefore select the most important of them and will deal with them briefly, to prevent the discussion lasting to all eternity.

Their first contention is based on the subject-matter; for they assert that all arts have their own subject-matter (which is true) and go on to say that rhetoric has none, which I shall show in what follows to be false.

Another slander is to the effect that no art will acquiesce in false opinions: since an art must be based on direct perception, which is always true: now, say they, rhetoric does give its assent to false conclusions and is therefore not an art.