Institutio Oratoria

My opponents further object that advocates often defend in one case what they have attacked in another. This is not the fault of the art, but of the man. Such are the main points that are urged against rhetoric; there are others as well, but they are of minor importance and drawn from the same sources.

That rhetoric is an art may, however,

be proved in a very few words. For if Cleanthes [*](Fr. 790.) definition be accepted that

Art is a power reaching its ends by a definite path, that is, by ordered methods,

no one can doubt that there is such method and order in good speaking: while if, on the other hand, we accept the definition which meets with almost universal approval that art consists in perceptions agreeing and cooperating to the achievement of some useful end, we shall be able to show that rhetoric lacks none of these characteristics.