Wow.
I find that Ramus is very hard to get through, not because the reading is difficult, but because the guy is... wow.
I think Ramus could have made all of the same points, and made them in a way that his readers may be more willing to accept them if he wasn't such a self-important snot.
His tone throughout his attack on Quintillian is frustrating because it is hard to read past his contempt to even be able to pick out his argument.
The one thing that I can agree with Ramus on is his contempt for the notion that an orator must be 'a good man speaking well.' Finally, we see a division between morality and Rhetoric. I had missed that. Maybe it's because I'm a pessimist at heart, but I think there is more merit to be had in looking at humanity for what it is and not what it would be if every man thought the same or behaved along the same moral spectrum.
If every man in the world saw the world through the same moral spectrum that Quintillian did, then 'a good man speaking well' would be an an apt description for an orator. But not all men who use the art of Rhetoric to further their cause are 'good' and they seem to be able to orate with the best of them.
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