Institutio Oratoria

For the essential basis is not the first conflict, which we may represent by the clauses

You did such and such a thing

I did not do it.

You did it,

I did not,

Did he do it?,

You did this,

I did not do this,

What did he do?

Suppose it should be asserted that sound is the conflict between two bodies, the statement would in my opinion be erroneous. For sound is not the actual conflict, but a result of the conflict. The error is, however, of small importance: for the sense is clear, whatever the expression. But this trivial mistake has given rise to a very serious error in the minds of those who have not understood what was meant: for on reading that the essential basis was the first conflict, they immediately concluded that the basis was always to be taken from the first question, which is a grave mistake.

For every question has its basis, since every question is based on assertion by one party and denial by another. But there are some questions which form an essential part of causes, and it is on these that we have to express an opinion; while others are introduced from without and are, strictly speaking, irrelevant, although they may contribute something of a subsidiary nature to the general contention. It is for this reason that there are said to be several questions in one matter of dispute.

Of these questions it is often the most trivial which occupies the first place. For it is a frequent artifice to drop those points in which we place least confidence, as soon as we have dealt with them; sometimes we make a free gift of them to our