[6]
For it will
not, I imagine, be represented that sufficient skill
in division is possessed by the man who, after resolving a controversial theme into questions such as
the following, whether a hero is to be granted any
reward that he may claim, whether he is allowed to
claim private property, whether he may demand any
woman in marriage, whether he may claim to marry
a woman who already possesses a husband, or this
particular woman, then, although it is his duty to
deal with the first question first, proceeds to deal
with them indiscriminately as each may happen to
occur to him, and ignores the fact that the first
point which should be discussed is whether we
should stand by the letter or the intention of the
law, and fails to follow the natural order,
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.