1. There are three kinds of causes: deliberative, epideictic, judicial. The deliberative kind is that in which there is a discussion as to what ought or ought not to be done in regard to any of the practical affairs of life. The epideictic, in which a character is shown to be praiseworthy or reprehensible.
2. The judicial, in which opinion as to reward or punishment with reference to an act of an individual is given.
Chapter 16. Style and diction.
2. One must use good Latin and speak to the point. He speaks good Latin who constantly uses the true and natural names of things, and is not at variance with the style and literary refinement of the present time. Let it not be enough for him to be careful of what he says, without saying it in a clear, attractive manner; nor that only, without saying what he says wittily also.
Chapter 21. On figures.
1. Speech is amplified and adorned by the use of figures. Since direct, unvaried speech creates a weariness and disgust both of speaking and hearing, it must be varied and turned into other forms, so that it may give renewed power to the speaker, and become more ornate and turn the judge from an aloof countenance and attention.
ON DIALECTIC
INTRODUCTION
In tracing the fortunes of logic through the period of decadence and the dark ages the effect upon it of a transition from a pagan to a Christian environment need scarcely be taken into consideration. Such marks of degeneration as it shows must be attributed simply to the general decay of thought, which was marked in both pagan and Christian spheres. By its character logic was well adapted to pass from the service of Greek philosophy and science to that of Christian theology: it had been worked out mainly as a method of Greek science, which was especially backward in the fields where induction plays a large part; consequently the Greek logic is not inductive. It is the logic of universals ready-made, and it has nothing to do with their making; it receives universals as authoritative. It was therefore most welcome to Christian thinkers, since it was precisely adapted to “the task of drawing out the implications of dogmatic premises.”[224]
It was not until a very late period that logic appeared in the Latin language in the form of a school text. In fact, with the exception of Varro’s Dialectic in his “Nine Books of the Disciplines,” which has been lost, there were no writings on logic in the Latin down to the fourth century. Instruction in the subject was apparently given in Greek and to but few pupils. In the fourth century, however, Greek was going out of use, and it became necessary, if logic was to be saved in the schools, to have Latin text-books.[225] The need was met by a line of text-writers, of whom Marius Victorinus (c. 350) was the first. The oldest Latin school-book on logic that has survived, however, is that of Martianus Capella. Neither he nor his two successors, Cassiodorus and Isidore, were versed in the subject; they were merely compilers of educational encyclopedias. Such was the perfunctory origin of the Latin text-books on logic.[226]