Kitap 3
5.66
I used to follow the majority of authorities in adhering to three rational bases, the conjectural, qualitative and definitive, and to one legal basis. See III. v. 4. These were my general bases. The legal basis I divided into five species, dealing with the letter of the law and intention, contradictory laws, the syllogism, ambiguity and competence.
5.67
It is now clear to me that the fourth of the general bases may be removed, since the original division which I made into rational and legal bases is sufficient. The fourth therefore will not be a basis, but a kind of question; if it were not, it would form one of the rational bases.
5.68
Further I have removed competence from those which I called species. For I often asserted, as all who have attended my lectures will remember, and even those discourses which were published against my will See I. Proem. 7. included the statement, that the basis concerned with competence hardly ever occurs in any dispute under such circumstances that it cannot more correctly be given some other name, and that consequently some rhetoricians exclude it from their list of bases.
