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3. Now, the art of rhetoric being available for the enforcing either
of truth or falsehood, who will dare to say that truth in the person of
its defenders is to take its stand unarmed against falsehood? For
example, that those who are trying to persuade men of what is false are
to know how to introduce their subject, so as to put the hearer into a
friendly, or attentive, or teachable frame of mind, while the
defenders of the truth shall be ignorant of that art? That the former
are to tell their falsehoods briefly, clearly, and plausibly, while
the latter shall tell the truth m such a way that it is tedious to
listen to, hard to understand, and, in fine, not easy to believe
it? That the former are to oppose the to melt, to enliven, and to
rouse them, while the latter shall in defence of the truth be
sluggish, and frigid, and somnolent? Who is such a fool as to think
this wisdom? Since, then, the faculty of eloquence is available for
both sides, and is of very great service in the enforcing either of
wrong or right, why do not good men study to engage it on the side of
truth, when bad men use it to obtain the triumph of wicked and
worthless causes, and to further injustice and error?
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