Institutio Oratoria

Some, on the ground that rhetoric is a virtue, make the material with which it deals to be the whole of life. Others, on the ground that life regarded as a whole does not provide material for every virtue, since most of them are concerned only with departments of life (justice, courage and self-control each having their own duties and their own end), would consequently restrict oratory to one particular department of life and place it in the practical or pragmatic department of ethics, that is to say the department of morals which deals with the business of life.

For my own part, and I have authority to support me, I hold that the material of rhetoric is composed of everything that may be placed before it as a subject for speech. Plato, if I read him aright, makes Socrates [*](Gorg. 449 E. ) say to Gorgias that its material is to be

Cicero also in a passage [*](de Inv. i. 5. ) of one of his works, states that the material of rhetoric is composed of the things which are brought before it, but makes certain restrictions as to the nature of these things. In another passage, [*](de Or. I. vi. 21. I will not demand omniscience from an orator, although etc. ) however, he expresses his opinion that the orator has to speak about all kinds of things; I will quote his actual words:

although the very meaning of the name of orator and the fact that he professes to speak well seem to imply a promise and undertaking that the orator will speak with elegance and fullness on any subject that may be put before him.