Institutio Oratoria
Quintilian
Quintilian. Institutio Oratoria, Volume 1-4. Butler, Harold Edgeworth, translator. Cambridge, Mass; London: Harvard University Press, William Heinemann Ltd., 1920-1922.
There is no doubt about his guilt; the question is whether the name given by the law applies to the charge. It is therefore debated whether the act constitutes sacrilege. The accuser employs this term on the ground that the money was stolen from a temple: the accused denies that the act is sacrilege, on the ground that the money stolen was private property, but admits that
It is sacrilege to steal anything from a sacred place.The accused will reply with another definition,
It is sacrilege to steal something sacred.Each impugns the other's definition.
A definition may be overthrown on two grounds: it may be false or it may be too narrow. There is indeed a possible third ground, namely irrelevance, but this is a fault which no one save a fool will commit.
[It is a false definition if you say,
A horse is a rational animal,for though the horse is an animal, it is irrational. Again, a thing which is common to something else cannot be a property of the thing defined.] In the case under discussion, then, the accused alleges that the definition given by the accuser is false, whereas the accuser cannot do the same by his opponent's definition, since to steal a sacred object is undoubtedly sacrilege. He therefore alleges that the definition is too narrow and requires the addition of the words
or from a sacred place.
But the most effective method of establishing and refuting definitions is derived from the examination of properties and differences, and sometimes even from considerations of etymology, while all these considerations will, like others, find further support in equity and occasionally in conjecture. [*]( Conjecture is here used in the ordinary sense, not the technical. ) Etymology is rarely of assistance, but the following will provide an example of its use.
For what else is a 'tumult' but a disturbance of such violence as to give rise to abnormal alarm? And the name itself is derived from this fact.[*]( Cic. Phil. VIII. i. 3. Tumultus is here used by Cicero in its special sense, civil war or Gallic invasion. He derives it from timor multus. )