Two Books of the Elements of Rhetoric

, which Rhetoricians also use. But they say the difference is this: Dialectic proposes things bare, while Rhetoric adds elocution, as if it were clothing. Although some reject this distinction, I do not repudiate it, because it aids the grasp of adolescents and shows what is most proper to Rhetoric, namely elocution, from which the very name of Rhetoric is derived. And if one considers it subtly, one will understand that this distinction can be rightly defended. For if Rhetoric is not only concerned with forensic and suasory persuasive materials, but in general with all materials about which one must speak, Dialectic, which is the method of teaching perfectly, can in no way be severed from it. For often the Orator will use this way in teaching, as Cicero does in his first book of De Officiis On Duties, and in many other disputes; he follows the precepts of Dialectic in teaching, and adds elocution from Rhetoric. And in our own times, learned and copious men do the same when they teach people about religion.

The ancients distinguished them thus: they assigned forensic and suasory materials to Rhetoric, but all other questions, about which men are to be taught by a certain Method and reason, to Dialectic. According to this distinction, the proper end of Dialectic is to teach, while that of Rhetoric is to move