Tabulae totius dialectices, aliarum artium instrumenti ...

A double method, one of dissolution, the other of construction: the former the Greeks call analysin analysis, the latter synthesin synthesis. Order of the book.

he calls topiken topical, the latter kritiken critical. The Topic asks what can be said about any thing; the Critic weighs what has been found and prescribes the arrangement and the correct form of teaching, both in explaining and in arguing. Questions, the degrees of words—which are commonly called Predicables—, the Categories—which are called Predicaments—, and Arguments—which are sought from topoi places—are referred to invention. The treatment of a simple theme, of Enunciation, and of Argumentation pertains to judgment or the arrangement and form of teaching and disputing. But since there are two methods of teaching and learning: one by which we dissolve a thing into its parts, the other by which we compose a whole from parts, and having started from the most minute, we progress to the greater, and thence to others, that by continuous progression we may arrive at the end; we follow this order of construction, which Aristotle also held, and we exhibit it to be viewed in a short table, which is appended to the book.

How the arts of discourse differ among themselves; and what is the matter of Dialectics; what a question is. II.

Rhetoric is a copious and ornate speech; Dialectics is brief and unpolished.

Zeno the Stoic, combining both arts (as Cicero reports in Orator ad Brutum, and Quintilian repeats in book 11, chapter xx), was wont to demonstrate with his hand what the difference between Dialectics and Rhetoric might be, and he used to say that Dialectics was like a clenched fist, and Rhetoric, with the same fingers extended and spread out, was like an open palm: because the former is a method of disputing that is