Lucius Seneca - Yale Required Reading - Collected Works (Vol. 2)

Catulus then observed, "It is as you say, Antonius, that most philosophers deliver no precepts of eloquence, and yet are prepared with something to say on any subject. But Aristotle, whom I admire more than any of them, has set forth certain topics from which every line of argument may be deduced, not only for the disputations of philosophy, but even for the reasoning which we use in pleading cases; from whose notions your discourse, Antonius, has for some time past not varied; whether you, from a resemblance to that divine genius, hit upon his track, or whether you have read and made yourself master of his writings; a supposition indeed which seems to be more probable than the other, for I see that you have paid more attention to the Greek writers than we had imagined." "You shall hear from myself," said he, "Catulus, what is really the case: I always thought that an orator would be more agreeable to the Roman people, and better approved, who should give, above all, as little indication as possible of artifice, and none at all of having studied Greek literature. At the same time, when the Greeks undertook, professed, and executed such great things, when they offered to teach mankind how to comprehend the most obscure subjects, to live virtuously and to speak eloquently, I thought it the part of an irrational animal rather than a man, not to pay them some degree of attention, and, if we cannot venture to hear them openly, for fear of diminishing our authority with our own fellow-citizens, to catch their words at least by listening privately, and from a distance overhearing what they stated; and thus I have acted, Catulus, and have gained a general notion of the arguments and subjects of all their writers."

"Really and truly," said Catulus, "you have steered your ship to the coasts of philosophy with the utmost caution, as if you had been approaching some rock of unlawful desire, 2though this country has never despised philosophy. For Italy was formerly full of Pythagoreans, at the time when part of this country was called Magna Graecia: 3(whence some report that Numa Pompilius, one of our kings, was a Pythagorean; though he lived many years before the time of Pythagoras; for which reason he is to be accounted the greater man, as he had the wisdom and knowledge to regulate our state, almost two centuries before the Greeks knew that it had arisen in the world;) and certainly this country never produced men more renowned for glorious actions, or of greater gravity and authority, or possessed of more accomplished learning than Publius Africanus, Gaius Laelius, and Lucius Furius, who always had about them publicly the most learned men from Greece. I have often heard them say, that the Athenians did what was very pleasing to them, and to many of the leading men in the city, in sending, when they despatched ambassadors to the senate about important concerns of their own, the three most illustrious philosophers of that age, Carneades, Critolaus, and Diogenes; who, during their stay at Rome, were frequently heard lecturing by them and others. And when you had such authorities as these, Antonius, I wonder why you should, like Zethus in Pacuvius's play, 4almost declare war against philosophy." "I have not by any means done so," replied Antonius, "for I have determined rather to philosophise, like Ennius's Neoptolemus, a little, since to be absolutely a philosopher is not agreeable to me. But my opinion, which I think I have clearly laid down, is this: I do not disapprove of such studies, if they be but moderately pursued; but I think that the reputation of that kind of learning, and all suspicion of artifice, can harm the orator in the opinion of those who are empowered to decide affairs; for it diminishes the authority of the speaker and the credit of his speech."

"But that our conversation may return to the point from which it digressed, do you observe that of those three illustrious philosophers, who, as you said, came to Rome, one was Diogenes, who professed to teach the art of reasoning well, and distinguishing truth from falsehood, which he called by the Greek name dialectic, or logic. In this art, if it be an art, there are no directions how truth may be discovered, but only how it may be judged. For everything of which we speak we either affirm to be or not to be; 5and if it be expressed absolutely, the logicians take it in hand to judge whether it be true or false; or, if it be expressed conditionally, and qualifications are added, they determine whether such qualifications are rightly added, and whether the conclusion of each syllogism is true; and at last they torment themselves with their own subtleties, and, after much examination, find out not only what they themselves cannot resolve, but even arguments, by which what they had before begun to resolve, or rather had almost made clear, is again involved in obscurity. Here, then, that Stoic 6can be of no assistance to me, because he does not teach me how to find out what to say; he is rather even an impediment to me; for he finds many difficulties which he says can by no means be cleared, and unites with them a kind of language that is not clear, easy, and fluent; but poor, dry, succinct, and concise; and if any one shall approve such a style, he will approve it with the acknowledgment that it is not suited to the orator. For our mode of speaking is to be adapted to the ear of the multitude, to fascinate and excite their minds, and to prove matters that are not weighed in the scales of the goldsmith, but in the balance, as it were, of popular opinion; we may therefore entirely dismiss an art which is too silent about the invention of arguments, and too full of words in pronouncing judgment on them. That Critolaus, whom you mention as having come here with Diogenes, might, I fancy, have been of more assistance to our studies, for he belonged to the school of that Aristotle from whose method I seem to you not greatly to differ. Between this Aristotle, (of whom I have read, as well that book in which he explains the rhetorical systems of all who went before him, as those in which he gives us some notions of his own on the art,) between him, I say, and the professed teachers of the art, there appeared to me to be this difference: that he with the same acuteness of intellect with which he had penetrated the qualities and nature of things throughout the universe, saw into everything that pertained to the art of rhetoric, which he thought beneath him; but they, who thought this art alone worthy of cultivation, passed their whole lives in contemplating this one subject, not with as much ability as he, but with constant practice in their single pursuit, and greater devotion to it. As to Carneades, that extraordinary force and variety of eloquence which he possessed would be extremely desirable for us; a man who never took up any argument in his disputations which he did not prove; never attacked any argument that he did not overthrow. But this is too arduous an accomplishment to be expected from those who profess and teach rhetoric.

"If it were my desire that a person totally uneducated should be instructed in the art of speaking, I would willingly send him to these perpetual workers at the same employment, who hammer day and night on the same anvil, and who would put his literary food into his mouth, in the smallest pieces, minced as fine as possible, as nurses put theirs into the mouths of children. But if he were one who had had a liberal education, and some degree of practice, and seemed to have some acuteness of genius, I would instantly conduct him, not where a little brook of water was confined by itself, but to the source whence a whole flood gushed forth; to an instructor who would show him the seats and abodes, as it were, of every sort of arguments, and would illustrate them briefly, and define them in proper terms. For what point is there in which he can hesitate, who shall see that whatever is assumed in speaking, either to prove or to refute, is either derived from the peculiar force and nature of the subject itself, or borrowed from something foreign to it? From its own peculiar force: as when it is inquired, 'what the nature of a whole thing is,' or 'a part of it' or 'what name it has,' or whatever belongs to the whole matter. From what is foreign to it: as when circumstances which are extraneous, and not inherent in the nature of the thing, are enumerated in combination. If the inquiry regard the whole, its whole force is to be explained by a definition, thus: 'If the majesty of a state be its greatness and dignity, he is a traitor to its majesty who delivers up an army to the enemies of the Roman people, not he who delivers up him who has violated it into the power of the Roman people.' But if the question respect only a part, the matter must be managed by partition in this manner: 'Either the senate should have been obeyed concerning the safety of the republic, or some other authority should have been constituted, or he should have acted on his own judgment: to constitute another authority would have been haughty; to act on his own judgment would have been arrogant; therefore he had to obey the direction of the senate.' If we argue from a name, we may express ourselves like Carbo : 'If he be a consul who consults the good of his country, what else has Opimius done?' But if we argue from what is intimately connected with the subject, there are many sources of arguments and common-places; for we shall look to connected terms, to general views, to particulars falling under general views, to things similar and dissimilar, contrary, consequential; to such as agree with the case, and are, as it were, forerunners of it, and such as are at variance with it; we shall investigate the causes of circumstances, and whatever has arisen from those causes; and shall notice causes that are stronger, or similar, or weaker.