Summary: This volume treats those explicit and implicit beliefs that are used in persuasion, recognizing the middle ground between absolute proof and arbitrary reason-giving. The good orator both is good at persuasion and persuades towards the good (scientia bene dicendi, 25, from Quintilian). The volume is comprehensive on its general level, and it carries the style and precision of a textbook, using examples copiously in order to analyze the rhetorical strategies of the prose.