Institutio Oratoria

thirdly, those things which are established by law or have passed into current usage, if not throughout the whole world, at any rate in the nation or state where the case is being pleaded—there are for instance many rights which rest not on law, but on custom; finally, there are the things which are admitted by either party, and whatever has already been proved or is not disputed by our adversary.

Thus for instance it may be argued that since the world is governed by providence, the state should similarly be governed by some controlling power: it follows that the state must be so governed, once it is clear that the world is governed by providence.

Further, the man who is to handle arguments correctly must know the nature and meaning of everything and their usual effects. For it is thus that we arrive at probable arguments or εἰκότα as the Greeks call them.

With regard to credibility there are three degrees. First, the highest, based on what usually happens, as for instance the assumption that children are loved by

Consequently Aristotle in the second book of his Rhetoric has made a careful examination of all that commonly happens to things and persons, and what things and persons are naturally adverse or friendly to other things or persons, as for instance, what is the natural result of wealth or ambition or superstition, what meets with the approval of good men, what is the object of a soldier's or a farmer's desires, and by what means everything is sought or shunned.

For my part I do not propose to pursue this subject. It is not merely a long, but an impossible or rather an infinite task; moreover it is within the compass of the common understanding of mankind. If, however, anyone wishes to pursue the subject, I have indicated where he may apply.

But all credibility, and it is with credibility that the great majority of arguments are concerned, turns on questions such as the following: whether it is credible that a father has been killed by his son, or that a father has committed incest with his daughter, or to take questions of an opposite character, whether it is credible that a stepmother has poisoned her stepchild, or that a man of luxurious life has committed adultery; or again whether a crime has been openly committed, or false evidence given for a small bribe, since each of these crimes is the result of a special cast of character as a rule, though not always; if it were

Let us now turn to consider the

places