on itself, or if it is
not adapted to the original intention. And there will be a defect in
the argumentation itself, if the whole of it is entirely false, or
common, or ordinary, or trifling, or made up of remote suppositions;
if the definition contained in it be faulty, if it be controverted,
if it be too evident, if it be one which is not admitted, or
discreditable, or objected to, or contrary, or inconstant, or adverse
to one's object.

That is false in which there is evidently a lie; in this
manner:--"That man cannot be wise who neglects money. But Socrates
neglected money; therefore he was not wise." That is common which does
not make more in favour of our adversaries than of ourselves; in
this manner:--"Therefore, O judges, I have summed up in a few words,
because I had truth on my side." That is ordinary which, if the
admission be now made, can be transferred also to some other case
which is not easily proved; in this manner:--"If he had not truth on
his side, O judges, he would never have risked committing himself to
your decision." That is trifling which is either uttered after the
proposition, in this way:--"If it had occurred to him, he would not
have done so;" or if a man wishes to conceal a matter manifestly
disgraceful under a trifling defence, in this manner:--

"Then when all sought your favour, when your hand
Wielded a mighty sceptre, I forsook you;
But now when all fly from you, I prepare
Alone, despising danger, to restore you."

XLIX. That is remote which is sought to a superfluous extent, in this
manner:--"But if Publius Scipio had not given his daughter Cornelia in
marriage to Tiberius Gracchus, and if he had not had the two Gracchi
by her, such terrible seditions would never have arisen. So that all
this distress appears attributable to Scipio." And like this is that
celebrated complaint--

"Oh that the woodman's axe had spared the pine
That long on Pelion's lofty summit grew."[57]

For the cause is sought further back than is at all necessary. That
is a bad definition, when it either describes common things in this
manner:--"He is seditious who is a bad and useless citizen;" for this
does not describe the character of a seditious man more than of an
ambitious one,--of a calumniator, than of any wicked man whatever,
in short. Or when it says anything which is false; in this
manner:--"Wisdom is a knowledge how to acquire money." Or when it
contains something which is ne