Institutio Oratoria

Quintilian

Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.

It will be necessary

v4-6 p.69

therefore for me to devote some care to the differentiation of the various features of this portion of a speech, in order that I may show under what circumstances each is specially useful. The statement will be either wholly in our favour or wholly in that of our opponent or a mixture of both. If it is entirely in our own favour, we may rest content with the three qualities just mentioned, the result of which is to make it easier for the judge to understand, remember and believe what we say.

Now I should regret that anyone should censure my conduct in suggesting that a statement which is wholly in our favour should be plausible, when as a matter of fact it is true. There are many things which are true, but scarcely credible, just as there are many things which are plausible though false. It will therefore require just as much exertion on our part to make the judge believe what we say when it is true as it will when it is fictitious.

These good qualities, which I have mentioned above, do not indeed cease to be virtues in other portions of the speech; for it is our duty to avoid obscurity in every part of our pleading, to preserve due proportion throughout and to say nothing save what is likely to win belief. But they require special observance in that portion of the speech which is the first from which the judge can learn the nature of the case: if at this stage of the proceedings he fails to understand, remember or believe what we say, our labour is but lost in the remainder of the speech.