Rudimenta artium dialecticae et rhetoricae

DIALECTICAE.

of the predicaments.

predicaments having been thus described, there is completed every Definition as well as Division.

What a definition is.

A Definition is a statement that briefly explains what a thing is: as, Rhetoric is the art of speaking well.

Parts of a definition.

It consists most briefly of Genus and Difference: which are terms of the Predicables, as we have long since learned.

Examples of definitions.

But come, let us give some example of a Definition from the Predicament of substance, which may consist of all the predicables at once. This is done as follows:

Man is a rational animal, which can speak, moving with an erect body.

Man, this term, pertains to the Predicament of substance: for man is, as is clear, a substance. Therefore, let substance be the highest genus of him in defining: for the Predicaments are the very genera of things or of terms, which are explained by defining: but because we more frequently assume the proximate genus, it will be more correctly said, Man is an animal, which term is also sought from the predicament of substance, as is easily seen in the provided table. And