I well know that there are some who will not sanction any care in
composition, contending that our words as they flow by chance, however
uncouth they may sound, are not only more natural, but likewise more
manly. If what first sprang from nature, indebted in nowise to care and
industry, be only what they deem natural, I admit that the art of
oratory in this respect has no pretensions to that quality. For it is
certain that the first men did not speak according to the exactness of
the rules of composition; neither were they acquainted with the art of
preparing by an exordium, informing by a narration, proving by
arguments, and moving by passions. They were deficient in all these
particulars, and not in composition only; and if they were not allowed
to make any alterations for the better, of course they would not have
exchanged their cottages for houses, nor their coverings of skins for
more decent apparel, nor the mountains and forests in which they ranged
for the abode of cities in which they enjoy the comforts of social
intercourse. And, indeed, what art do we find coeval with the world, and
what is there of which the value is not enhanced by improvement? Why do
we restrain the luxuriance of our vines? Why do we dig about them? Why
do we grub up the bramble-bushes in our fields? Yet the earth produces
them. Why do we tame animals? Yet are they born with intractable
dispositions. Rather let us say that that is very natural which nature
permits us to meliorate in her handiwork.