C.  F. What do you mean by topics?

C.  P. Things in which arguments are concealed.

C.  F. What is an argument?

C.  P. Something discovered which has a probable influence in producing belief.

C.  F. How, then, do you divide these two heads?

C.  P. Those things which come into the mind without art I call remote arguments, such as testimony.

C.  F. What do you mean by those topics which exist in the thing itself?

C.  P. I cannot give a clearer explanation of them.

C.  F. What are the different kinds of testimony?

C.  P. Divine and human.  Divine,—­such as oracles, auspices, prophecies, the answers of priests, soothsayers, and diviners:  human,—­which is derived from authority, from inclination, and from speech either voluntary or extorted; and under this head come written documents, covenants, promises, oaths, inquiries.

C.  F. What are the arguments which you say belong to the cause?

C.  P. Those which are fixed in the things themselves, as definition, as a contrary, as those things which are like or unlike, or which correspond to or differ from the thing itself or its contrary, as those things which have as it were united, or those which are as it were inconsistent with one another, or the causes of those things which are under discussion, or the results of causes, that is to say, those things which are produced by causes, as distributions, and the genera of parts, or the parts of genera, as the beginnings and as it were outriders of things, in which there is some argument, as the comparisons between things, as to which is greater, which is equal, which is less, in which either the natures or the qualities of things are compared together.

III. C.  F. Are we then to derive arguments from all these topics?

C.  P. Certainly we must examine into them all, and seek them from all, but we must exercise our judgment in order at all times to reject what is trivial, and sometimes pass over even common topics, and those which are not necessary.

C.  F. Since you have now answered me as to belief, I wish to hear your account of how one is to raise feelings.

C.  P. It is a very reasonable question, but what you wish to know will be explained more clearly when I come to the system of orations and inquiries themselves.

C.  F. What, then, comes next?

C.  P. When, you have discovered your arguments, to arrange them properly, and in an extensive inquiry the order of the topics is very nearly that which I have set forth, but in a definite one, we must use those topics also which relate to exciting the required feelings in the minds of the hearers.

C.  F. How, then, do you explain them?