Two Books of the Elements of Rhetoric

requires the greatest force of nature for speaking, and then the knowledge of many good things. Therefore, it takes many and great aids, both from nature and from doctrine, besides these common precepts. Yet the precepts also have their own utility. For nature teaches men a certain way and reason for explaining great and obscure causes, which men endowed with a certain great force of intellect are accustomed to notice partly by the benefit of nature and partly to discover by use. Hence the art has arisen, which even if it guides artists in teaching, yet it is handed down in this beginning, not so that it may make Orators, but so that it may aid adolescents in reading the Orations of excellent Orators, and in judging long controversies. Nor are the precepts proposed only for those who are about to plead causes, but the authors of the art wished to consult everyone in common. For even those who do not plead causes, who write nothing, if they nevertheless wish to read or judge great matters, such as the controversies of religions, or forensic affairs, have need of a certain way and reason to understand long controversies. For no one can embrace long contentions and perplexed disputes in the mind unless he is aided by some art, which shows the series of parts, and intervals, and the counsels of the speakers, and hands down a way to explain and reveal obscure things. This utility