tself is
doubtful, or at all events not very probable. But there are two kinds
of arguing, one of which aims directly at creating belief, the other
principally looks to exciting such and such feelings. It goes straight
on when it has proposed to itself something to prove, and assumed
grounds on which it may depend; and when these have been established,
it comes back to its original proposition, and concludes. But the
other kind of argumentation, proceeding as it were backwards and in an
inverse way, first of all assumes what it chooses, and confirms it;
and then, having excited the minds of the hearers, it throws on to the
end that which was its original object. But there is this variety, and
a distinction which is not disagreeable in arguing, as when we ask
something ourselves, or put questions, or express some command, or
some wish, as all these figures are a kind of embellishment to an
oration. But we shall be able to avoid too much sameness, if we do not
always begin with the proposition which we desire to establish, and if
we do not confirm each separate point by dwelling on it separately,
and if we are at times very brief in our explanation of what is
sufficiently clear, and if we do not consider it at all times
necessary to sum up and enumerate what results from these premises
when it is sufficiently clear.

XIV. _C. F._ What comes next? Is there any way or any respect in which
those things which are said to be devoid of art, and which you said
just now were accessories to the main argument, require art?

_C. P._ Indeed they do. Nor are they called devoid of art because
they really are so, but because it is not the art of the orator which
produces them, but they are brought to him from abroad, as it were,
and then he deals with them artistically; and this is especially the
case as to witnesses. For it is often necessary to speak of the whole
class of witnesses, and to show how weak it is; and to urge that
arguments refer to facts, testimony to inclination; and one must have
recourse to precedents of cases where witnesses were not believed;
and with respect to individual witnesses, if they are by nature vain,
trifling, discreditable, or if they have been influenced by hope, by
fear, by anger, by pity, by bribery, by interest; and they must be
compared with the authority of the witnesses in the case cited,
where the witnesses were not believed. Often, also, one must resist
examinations under torture, because many