Kitap 3
5.14
There are, however, certain books attributed to Hermagoras which support this erroneous opinion, though whether the attribution is spurious or whether they were written by another Hermagoras is an open question. For they cannot possibly be by the famous Hermagoras, who wrote so much that was admirable on the art of rhetoric, since, as is clear from the first book of the Rhetorica of Cicero, de Inv. i. 6. he divided the material of rhetoric into theses and causes. Cicero objects to this division, contends that theses have nothing to do with an orator, and refers all this class of questions to the philosophers.
5.15
But Cicero has relieved me of any feeling of shame that I might have in controverting his opinion, since he has not only expressed his disapproval of his Rhetorica, but in the Orator, Orator xiv. 45. the de Oratore and the Topica de Or. iii. 30; Top. 21. instructs us to abstract such discussions from particular persons and occasions, because we can speak more fully on general than on special themes, and because what is proved of the whole must also be proved of the part.
