[21]
But let us see whether this is the basis
itself or rather that in which the basis is to be found.
Hermagoras calls a basis that which enables the
matter in question to be understood and to which the
proofs of the parties concerned will also be directed.
My own opinion has always been that, whereas there
are frequently different bases of questions in connexion
with a cause, the basis of the cause itself is its most
important point on which the whole matter turns.
If anyone prefers to call that the general question or
general head of the cause, I shall not quarrel with him,
any more than I have done hitherto if he produced
a different technical term to express the same thing,
although I know that whole volumes have been
written on such disputes. I prefer however to call
it the basis.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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