[67]
The residue after elimination is shown to be true as follows: “This slave whom
you claim was either born in your house or bought or
given you or left you by will or captured from the
enemy or belongs to another.” By the elimination
of the previous suppositions he is shown to belong to
another. This form of argument is risky and must
be employed with care; for if, in setting forth the
alternatives, we chance to omit one, our whole case
will fail, and our audience will be moved to laughter.
It is safer to do what Cicero1
1 pro Caec. xiii. 37.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1921.
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