[9]
If, on the
other hand, each living thing has its own peculiar
virtue, in which it excels the rest or, at any rate, the
majority (I may instance the courage of the lion
and the swiftness of the horse), it may be regarded
as certain that the qualities in which man excels
the rest are, above all, reason and powers of speech.
Why, therefore, should we not consider that the
special virtue of man lies just as much in eloquence as in reason? It will be with justice then
that Cicero1 makes Crassus say that “eloquence is
one of the highest virtues,” and that Cicero himself
calls it a virtue in his letters to Brutus2 and in
other passages.
Quintilian. With an English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1920.
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