Excerpt from Quinctilian's Institutes of Eloquence, or the Art of Speaking in Public, in Every Character and Capacity, Vol. 2 of 2: Translated Into English, After the Best Latin Editions, With Notes Critical and Explanatory

In like manner, speaking, without an order being observed, is no other than a confused heap of words, ¿oating, like a ship without a steersman, without any determined course. The speaker is guilty of many repetitions, and many omissions, and is no better than a traveller wandering in the night-time in a strange country. For, having marked out neither beginning, progress, nor end, he is guided by chance rather than design.* The whole of this book, therefore, treats of dis position. And if any certain rules could be laid down to answer all occasions, by far the greatest number of writers would not have been ignorant of it. But, as the number of causes is infinite, and as there never were, nor ever will be, two causes te sembling each other in all respects, the pleader is to pry, he is to watch, he is to invent, he is to judge, and he is to ask counsel from his own breast. At the same time, I do not deny that some part of this divi sion admits of rules, and I shall not omit them.

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