Institutes of Oratory

Since almost no cause arises without the need to return from a defined question to an infinite one. Thus, if it is debated in the deliberative genre whether Sparta should be surrounded by walls, the thesis original: "theſis" must also be examined: whether it is beneficial for cities to be walled. Nor in the demonstrative genre The branch of rhetoric used for praise or blame. will the eloquence of Tullius The Roman orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. or the justice of Aristides An Athenian statesman known as "the Just." be praised without descending into a common place A general theme or "topos" applicable to many cases. regarding the praises of eloquence and justice. Nor in a judicial matter will it be asked whether Milo killed Clodius lawfully without this defined question being called back to the infinite one: whether for any reason it is permitted for a man to kill a man. And that is why Tullius says in his Topics that a proposition (so he calls a thesis original: "θέσιν") is part of a cause, or hypothesis original: "ὑποθέσεως". To this belongs that saying of the same author in his Partitions: When, he says, I have spoken of the cause, in which the proposition is contained, I shall have spoken of both. Nor should it seem inconsistent with the truth that he says the infinite question is contained within the finite one. For although a genus potentially includes a species (just as "animal" potentially contains "man," since an animal can be something other than a man), the species nevertheless actually contains the genus, just as every man is actually an animal. One must have greater regard for the actual state than for the potential. Therefore, when Rhetoricians, who intended to fully explain what pertains to a hypothesis original: "ὑπόθεσιν", believed they should present not only what is primarily in the hypothesis, but also what suits it by reason of the infinite question (in which the hypothesis exists potentially), it certainly becomes clear that few rules will be needed for the person who has learned what is explained about the hypothesis, both generally and in detail, by the masters of speaking.

But they also raise another difficulty. This concerns the simple theme, without which they say Rhetoric would be crippled and mutilated. To me, however, even this part does not seem to have been neglected by the Rhetoricians. Indeed, he who understands the demonstrative genre will not labor greatly over a simple theme. The demonstrative genre has so much in common with it, yet in the meantime it requires much more oratorical skill than the simple theme requires. I am not unaware that many will call this very point into controversy; but there is a reason at hand by which it may be made clear. For a theme is simple if you deal with "man," "temperance," or "kingship," and you handle the definition, parts, properties, and other things which the Logicians original: "Logici" command to be considered in a simple theme for the sake of knowledge. But the question becomes a "joined" one of the demonstrative genre if these same things are handled under the form of praise or blame. The most important difference between the two treatments will be that a treatment of a simple theme is perfect when it only [considers] the whole original: "τὸ ὅλον" in its individual parts—