[34]
the folly
[p. 333]
shown in their commission is out of all proportion to
the skill required to deal with them: I refer to
mistakes such as advancing a disputable argument
as indisputable, a controversial point as admitted, a
point common to a number of cases as peculiar to
the case in hand, or the employment of trite,
superfluous, or incredible arguments. For careless
speakers are liable to commit a host of errors: they
will exaggerate a charge which has still got to be
proved, will argue about an act when the question is
who committed it, will attempt impossibilities, drop
an argument as if it were complete, whereas it is
scarcely begun, speak of the individual in preference
to the case,
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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