Cornelii Valerii Ultraiectini In universam benedicendi [sic] rationem tabula, summam artis rhetoricae complectens

is proved: then the confirmation of the reason, or verification: then the adornment, which is applied for the sake of enriching the matter: finally the collection, which concludes the proposition with the parts of the argumentation collected briefly. For the sake of example, let the proposition be: The best things must be learned first: The reason, since the first age is as docile as it is, so it retains more tenaciously what it has perceived. The confirmation, because the genius is still empty of cares, and not yet occupied by vices. The adornment; for just as something is inscribed more easily on empty tablets, and is imprinted on soft wax; and the vessel will long keep the scent with which it was once steeped while fresh: so the tender mind both perceives the best things more easily, and retains them more faithfully, etc. The collection, therefore the best things must be learned first and immediately. We also remember five-parted reasoning in Dialectics, and we have numbered its parts according to the opinion of Cicero in book 1 of De Inventione, so that we have placed the assumption in the place of the adornment; in which place we have also warned of that, which must be repeated here; that the order prescribed by the art is not always held, but is very often changed, and five parts are not always required, but it can consist of fewer, and the beginning of the argumentation itself is for the most part led from the assumption, sometimes also from the proof, not rarely so concluded, that both the proposition and the assumption are brought into one. There is a twofold treatment of places: One general and common, which looks to no kind of cause, which is properly that of the dialecticians. The other special, which certain places are accommodated to each kind by the rhetoricians. For there are certain precepts in each kind of causes.

The five parts of reasoning according to the opinion of Cicero are established so that the first is the proposition, to which the reason is soon attached; then the assumption, and the reason added to this: the last is the collection or conclusion.

Concerning the twofold treatment of places.