Quintilian’s chapter (III, vi) on _status_ is one of his most important, both as specific doctrine and as typical of ancient method. He has simplified a pedagogical device which, while it had been hampered by too analytical subdivision, had long vindicated itself as one of the most effective applications of the ancient theory of systematic guidance. _Status_, meaning the essential character of the case as it appeared to preliminary survey of all the material and all the bearings, had come to denote a uniform system for determining that essential character by leading questions. To gauge the sufficiency of his preparation and the line of his argument, to bring to bear not only his particular investigation, but the whole fund of his experience, the student was to ask himself what the case meant to him as a whole. He must interpret it as resting mainly on one of three issues: (1) of fact (_an sit_); (2) of definition (_quid sit_); or (3) of general considerations, as of right or expediency (_an recte sit_). The first was called _status coniecturalis_, or _coniectura_; the second, _status definitivus_, or _finis_; the third, _status generalis_, or _qualitas_.[11] Even if two of these entered, or all three, one must always be the focus. The first _status_ (_coniecturalis_, _an sit_) is most frequently determining in criminal cases at law; but it may be determining in any debate involving history, for instance on the question of the recognition of Anglican orders by the Roman or the Eastern Church, or on the question of the historical justification of the fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Whether it is to be determining must usually be forecast by experiment; for the ancient system presupposes that all three _status_ will be tried in preparation before one is chosen. Actually many arguments against the validity of Anglican orders have interpreted the _status_ as _coniecturalis_; i.e., they rely mainly on establishing certain facts of the English Reformation. Others have chosen _status definitivus_. Though neither excludes the other, one, according to the ancient system and by the very conditions of public address, will always be for that particular speech _the status_. There can be no cogency without unity. Erskine’s defense of Lord George Gordon in a trial for treason was based on the second _status_ (_definitivus_, _quid sit_). The facts alleged he admitted. That Gordon was concerned in a riot he did not challenge. _Status coniecturalis_ he simply waived. He organized his case to show that what Gordon admittedly did could not be construed as coming within the term treason.