acters. And that part, we too
say, is assigned to the orator, for we give him those three parts
which we have already mentioned,--the judicial, the deliberative, and
the demonstrative. But the examination he defines to be that
thing which has in itself a controversy of language, without the
interposition of any particular characters, in this way--"Whether
there is anything good besides honesty?"--"Whether the senses may be
trusted?"--"What is the shape of the world?"--"What is the size of
the sun?" But I imagine that all men can easily see that all such
questions are far removed from the business of an orator, for it
appears the excess of insanity to attribute those subjects, in
which we know that the most sublime genius of philosophers has been
exhausted with infinite labour, as if they were inconsiderable
matters, to a rhetorician or an orator.

But if Hermagoras himself had had any great acquaintance with these
subjects, acquired with long study and training, then it would be
supposed that he, from relying on his own knowledge, had laid down
some false principles respecting the duty of an orator, and had
explained not what his art could effect, but what he himself could do.
But as it is, the character of the man is such, that any one would
be much more inclined to deny him any knowledge of rhetoric, than to
grant him any acquaintance with philosophy. Nor do I say this because
the book on the art which he published appears to me to have been
written with any particular incorrectness, (for, indeed, he appears to
me to have shown very tolerable ingenuity and diligence in arranging
topics which he had collected from ancient writings on the subject,
and also to have advanced some new theories himself,) but it is the
least part of the business of an orator to speak concerning his art,
which is what he has done: his business is rather to speak from his
art, which is what we all see that this Hermagoras was very little
able to do. And so that, indeed, appears to us to be the proper
materials of rhetoric, which we have said appeared to be such to
Aristotle. VII. And these are the divisions of it, as numerous writers
have laid them down: Invention; Arrangement; Elocution; Memory;
Delivery. Invention, is the conceiving of topics either true or
probable, which may make one's cause appear probable; Arrangement, is
the distribution of the topics which have been thus conceived with
regular order; Elocution, is the adaptation of su