better than those of any other extant. Many of the rhetoricians, posterior to the time in which Aristotle wrote, have adopted, in their essays, the fundamental rules of the art, which he has laid down. Quintilian's triple division of the orator's duty perfectly corresponds with that of our author "Tria sunt autem quae praestare debet orator ut doceat, moneat, delectet." Quintil. Rhet. b. iii. p. 47. And Cicero, in his "Rhetorica ad C. Herennium," derives his construction of artificial proofs, very evidently from the ristotelian system; "Omnis igitur probatio artificialis constat aut signis, aut argu mentis, aut exemplis." The same writer, in his two books, "De Inventione Rhetoricâ," has bottomed himself upon the Places of our author's treatise. There is, however, this difference between the Rhetoric of Aristotle and that of every other writer upon the subject, down to Blair; that the former universally combines with the art the great elementary principles of human action, thus making it an Ethico-Rhetorical treatise, while the others pay too much attention to the figurative ornaments of diction alone.
Page:Aristotle - Rhetoric, translator Crimmin, 1811.djvu/11