Book 7
2.11
Consequently the syllogism, to which I shall return later, is virtually a weaker form of definition, since while definition seeks to determine whether one thing has the same name as another, syllogism seeks to determine whether one thing is to be regarded as identical with another.
2.12
There is moreover great variety in definitions. For instance, persons will give different verbal expression to things about which they are really in agreement: thus rhetoric is defined as the science of speaking well, as the science of correct conception or correct expression of what we have to say, as the science of speading in accordance with the excellence of an orator and again of speaking to the purpose. And we must take care to discover how it is that definitions, identical in meaning, differ in the form in which they are expressed. However, this is a subject for discussion and not for a quarrel.
2.13
Definition is sometimes required to explain rare or obscure words such as clarigatio A formal demand for redress under threat of war. or erctum citum, An undivided inheritance. or again to explain familiar words such as penus Store of provisions. or litus. Shore, see v. xiv. 34, where its derivation is explained as qua fiuctus eludit. This variety in definition has caused some writers to include it under conjecture, others under quality and others again under legal questions.
