/^9 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOPtlC. BY <:^ cr: JOHN BASCOM, PROFESSOE OF EHETORIC IN WILLIAMS COLLEGE; AUTHOR OF "ESTHETICS, OR SCIENCE OF BEAUTY," ETC. WOOLWORTH, AINSWORTH & COMPANY, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. ^^" rP' ^ Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by WOOLWORTH, AiNSWORTH, & COMPANY, In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. STEREOTYPED AT THE BOSTON STEREOTYPE Fo'uNDRT^ Ifo. U luring Lane. PEEFACE. There is much seeming boldness in offering a new work on Khetoric. Few subjects have re- ceiyed so mueh attention from so many able writers. The following treatise has arisen from considerable experience in instruction. It aims to be what it is entitled, a Philosophy of Rhet- oric, giving the principles as well as the rules on which excellence depends. The. discussions present the mental and moral laws, of influence. The work is chiefly designed for the later years of collegiate instruction. A simple rhetoric of rules prepares the beginner for his earlier efforts : afterward, when the nature* and difficulties of the (3) 4 PKEFACE. task are better understood, he is ready for a somewhat more extensive and philosophical dis-^ cussion of the principles it involves. A complete and succinct statement of these is the object of this work, and it is designed to take, in a course of training, a later position, such as is assigned Whately or Campbell. CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION. FAGK. Science, Art, Definitions of. — Relations of. — Principles. — Eules. -- Skill. — Ehetoric, what. — Its Eelations to Arts and Sciences. — Its Philosophy, what. — Four Steps. — Eelations of Eules to Nature, to Genius, to Success •• 9-20 BOOK I. Ends. CHAPTER I. DEPAETMENTS OF COMPOSITION. No Composition aimless. — Leading Aims. — Three Departments of Composition.- Eelation of the Understanding, Emotions, and Will. —Historic Progress 21-27 V CHAPTER II. PEOSE. Double Office of. — History. — Philosophy. — Novel. — Prose allows no distinct Form 28-31 CHAPTER III. POETEY. Ehetoric includes Poetry; why ?— Kind of Emotions called forth. — Its Eelations to Metre; to Esthetics 32-35 CHAPTER IV. OEATOEY. Its End. — This defines the Means. — Eelation to Hearers ; to Speaker.— / Divisions of. — Three Sources of Impulse. — The Eight, Emotions ^' (5) CONTENTS. sustaining it. — Pleasure, Emotions giving Rise to it. — Interest. — Its Emotions. — Pulpit Oratory. — Advantages. — DiflElculties. — Ad- dress to the Individual. — To the Assembly collectively. — Delibera- tive Oratory. — Eloquence of the Bar 36-52 BOOK II. Means. TwoKinds.— Division especially applicable to Oratory 53,54 CHAPTER I. LAW OF INFLUENCE. Relation of the Individual to others. — Law of Influence that of Eight. — Obligation of Speaker to himself; to others. — Necessary to Suc- cess. — Nature of Oratory 55-62 CHAPTER II. ARGUMENTS. Sources of Proof, two : Intuition, Experience. — Four Forms of Intui- tive Proof. — Experience. — Connections on which it proceeds. — Fal- lacies. — Testimony, two Kinds: of Fact, of Opinion. — The two confounded. — Calculation of Chances. — Proof either Intuitive or Rationative. — Arguments Inductive or Deductive. — Character of each. — Principles which determine the Choice and Arrangement of Arguments. — Burden of Proof. — Different Forms of Oratory. — Treatment of Opponent. — Answering Objections. — Importance of Argument 63-94 CHAPTER III. EMOTIONS. Relation of. — Sympathy, OflBce of. — Estimate of Speaker's Character. — Sects and Parties. — Office of Introduction. — Qualities which wia Sympathy. — Effect on Orator. — Kinds of Feeling to be used by f Orator. — How secured. — Growth of Feeling. — How remove ad- / verse Feeling. — Two States interfering with Success. . . . 95-112 CHAPTER IV. IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. Instrumental Faculties. — Imagination, Source of vivid Ideas, of Convic- tion. — Sources of Imagery. — Memory. — Importance. — Method of Employment 113-118 CONTENTS. i CHAPTER V. "WIT, HUMOR, AND KIDICULE. Definitions.— The Resemblance in Wit. — Habit of Mind to which it gives Rise. — Its Office. — Ridicule. — Its Office 119-124 CHAPTER VI. LAWS OF LANGUAGE. Relations of Language to Thought. — Growth of Language. — Lead- ing Constituents. — Change in Words. — Their Meaning. — Their figurative Force. — Philosophy. — Use. — Qualities of. — Purity. — Propriety. — Why regard these Qualities. — Permanence. — Symme- try. — Intelligibility. — How Use established. — Divided Use. — Canons 125-151 CHAPTER VII. BARBARISM. Kinds. — Foreign Words. — Provincialisms. — Vulgarisms. — Obsolete Words. — Compounds. — Rules for Formation 152-158 CHAPTER VIII. SOLECISM AND IMPROPRIETY. Solecism, what. — Arrangement. — Marks of Declension. — Frequent Solecisms. — The Verb. — Moods. — Tenses. — Passive Forms. — Conjunctions. — Improprieties. — Synonymes. — Plurals. — Efiect of Solecisms J of Improprieties . 159-178 BOOK III. Methods. CHAPTER I. STYLE. Style, what. — Kinds. — Qualities. — Perspicuity. — Elegance. — Energy. — Relation of these to each other; to Mind; to Composition. . 179-184 CHAPTER II. PERSPICUITY. Importance of. — Relation to Capacity; to Subject. — Dependence on Honesty; on Discipline; on the Choice of End; of Means. — Di- visions. — Comparisons. — Objects of. — Antithesis. — Choice of 8 ' CONTENTS. "Words. — Drollery. — Common Life. — Anglo-Saxon. — Number of "Words. — Arrangement. — Adverbs. — Pronouns. — Perspicuity, rel- ative. — Not always needed in full Degree 185-206 CHAPTER III. ELEGANCE. What. — Dependence on Emotions. — Relation to various Kinds of Composition. — Exercise, in Nature, in Society, in Literature. — Re- lation between Style and Subject; between the Parts and the Whole. — Proportion. — Relation between the Discourse and the Circum- Btances and Persons. — Relation to the Speaker 207-222 CHAPTER IV. ENERGY. Dependence on the Desires; on the Will; on Virtue; on the Distinct- ness of the End. — Three Forms : Strength, Vivacity, Vigor. — Qual- ities of Thought. — Thoroughness. — Rapidity. — Directness. — Di- rectness, how lost, by Philosophical, by Poetical Excellence. — Choice of Words. — Speciality. — Strength of Words. — Asseverations. — Epithets. — Number of Words. — Tautology. — Pleonasm. — Ver- bosity. — Arrangement. — Period. — Loose Sentence. — Figures. — Tropes. — Delivery. 223-248 INTKODUCTION. SciEi^OES and arts, though closely related, are in themselves quite distinct. This difference we need to understand for the right apprehension of either. A science has reference to an intellectual end ; an art, to a practical end : the one informs and gratifies the mind by a knowledge of the real character and dependence of things ; the other guides and fortifies life in their use and government. A science is a stricter form of knowing ; or, accurately, it is a department understood in its facts and laws. The impulse of knowledge which belongs to mind urges it ever to inquire. What is? and, Why it is? And these questions fully and wisely an- swered give science. An art is the application of knowledge — is that system of rules by which we reach a practical end. Not every 1* (9) 10 INTRODUCTION. end is so fixed or inclusive as to involve any methods of action, any determinate means, tlie mastery of which makes the artisan. Around all the general and settled pursuits of life, however, are clustered guiding precepts ; and these constitute the arts. Art must precede science ; since the wants of life arise at once, and before that leisure is secured which is the condition of inquiry and accurate knowledge. The imperfect and inaccurate information involved in the rudiments of art and civiKzed life will not be ripened into science, till, the appetites of the body in a measure appeased, the -mind can secure attention to its OAvn wants. This step, however, once taken, the sciences are established on their own footing, and henceforward take the lead. The rules of art become the scholiums of knowledge — the application of its principles. The foundation of a complete and broad control of Nature is laid in an extensive understandino- of her forces. Art o can hardly reach any high point till adopted of science, and taken under her instruction. Though our inferior, physical life is immediate and importunate in its claims ; it can be lifted into broad, abundant, and safe enjoy- ments only as it is endowed with the mastery, and protected by the guidance, of the intellect. INTRODUCTION. 11 Skill arises from a practical familiarity with rules^. It is the acquisition by muscle and mind of the quick- ness, the ease, which arise from habit. Both_mind and body are greatly dependent for rapidity and precision^^^^^ ,^^f_actioiL-JMir-p^aetice. To this the artisan and orator^ o wa jfieir fSHKEy S3^^ execution . The acqui- sition of skill in any art is what is usually understood by learning that art. As skill arises from a transfer of action from the slow and hesitating movements of thought to the quick mechanical movements of habit, -^^froHL-aM-^^^setous-^RxrtL tiO . .anv.^amcQnsciQua. pQweiv-=-it»««— * depends wholly on familiarity, on a protracted use of rules. This is as true in higher as in lower art ; of the artist as of the artisan. Elegance of manners, ease of expression, and even the highest virtue, arise from forgetfulness of rules in their perfect and unconscious application. Facility of execution we may expect, there- fore, to nnd associated with rules ; and this will be all the greater, because of their limited application. A priticiple as involving a law of nature, as stating a condition under which all action takes place, is to be distinguished from a rule. The one is . a specific direc- tion by which a given end is reached ; the other, a statement of that method or order of Nature to which 12 INTRODUCTION.. any of iier phenomena are conformed. A knowledge of /principles is requisite for understanding the reason of ' rules ; for fertility and fulness of resources in meeting untried exigencies ; for the subjugation of new forces in nature, and their varied application beyond the stretch of limited experience. Principles give us scope and power in device ; rules, ease and perfection in execution. Principles belong to science ; rules, to art. Invention is dependent on both — on a knowledge of the condi- tions under which natural forces act, and on that inge- nuity and manipular skill by w^hich those conditions are met, and power is successfully applied to the production of a given result. There may be much good work within an art with little mastery of its principles ; there can be no thorough knowledge of an art, or great power to develop its resources, vrithout tracing its rules to the laws on v^hich they depend. f Every art stands in intimate relations with one or more sciences, that furnish the principles which govern and explain its operations. Every combination of machinery is to be understood by the mechanical powers employed — the measurements of carpentry by the solu- tions of geometry which they involve ; the enjoyments of poetry and oratory by the laws of the human mind INTRODUCTION. 13 under which they arise. A single science, like that of chemistry, may render its aid to many arts, and a single art, like that of agriculture, may receive assistance from the most various forms of knowledge. Thought and action are inextricably interwoven, and sustain each other at a thousand points. The philosophy of an art is the reference of its rules to their appropriate principles. The mind is never sat- isfied till all its action becomes rational ; that is, till it has explained to itself the reasons on which it rests. The mind thus assumes that supervision and govern- ment which belong to it. Art is made amenable to science, and science tests its power by expounding and guiding art. Rhetoric is an art. It strives to render aid to action, to prescribe its methods. What is the action whose rules are furnished by rhetoric? It is the mind's action, we answer, in communicating itself, its thoughts, con- ceptions, feelings, through language. There has been a general tendency to limit rhetoric to direct address — oratory, so called. We cannot regard this as desirable, since, in that case, we must have an additional art to guide the mind in other forms of composition — an art, the body of whose precepts must be identical with those 14 INTRODUCTION. already given in rhetoric. Expression of thought in language in all its varieties is but one department, governed by the same fundamental principles. The differences between the several forms of composition are those of species, rather than those of genera, giving rise to a varied adaptation of rules to something diverse, but not radically new, in methods or in ends. We define rhetoric as the art which teaches the rules of composition. By composition we understand the expression in language of thoughts, emotions, for some definite end. There are various arts and sciences subsidiary to rhetoric. Grammar gives- us Jhe rules by which the words of a language are united in a correct construc- tion. Logic tests the vahdity of the arguments em- ployed in address, and defines the form of sound judgments. Elocution guides in the delivery of dis- course, and enhances the impression secured by rhetoric. The philosophy of rhetoric is the reference of its rules to the principles of mental and moral science on which they are dependent. Mind expresses itself according to its own laws, toward its own ends. When affected from abroad, it is by the influence of mind — of those INTRODUCTION. 15 for whom the composition is prepared. Whether com- position is sought as a means of expression or of per- suasion, its end is reached in mind, and mind gives the governing principles. The first step toward rhetoric is, as in other arts, practical — the use of language in communicating thought. Not till some literature has arisen under the art, can the art itself separately arise. Composition must be the object of criticism and correction. Men will seek guidance and skill only in that about which they are employed. The necessity of rules will not be felt, nor will that be present from which they may, by experience and observation, be drawn, till literature has accumulated the material of criticism. The second step toward rhetoric will be one of sep- aration and classification, by which the several forms of language and parts of composition are distinguished, the one from the other ; the figurative from the literal, the argumentative from the emotional. This analysis will give the terminology of the art, expressing the distinct features and forms of utterance which appear in the complex whole — composition. Different methods and separable parts are now open to observation ; their several effects become traceable ; and 16 INTRODUCTION. the results of composition, favorable or unfavorable, are referred to this and that manner of presentation. The mind thus takes the third step — the formation of rules which treasure up and make most available the knowl- edge derived from experience. At this point, rhetoric as an art appears. It states and combines the rules which hterature in its progress has developed. The second and third steps alone strictly give an art ; the first is merej^ conditional for them. If rhetoric arises in the manner now pointed out, we see how erroneous is the idea that rules, when correctly applied, can hamper genius, or take away any just liberty. These rules are a concise general expression of the manner in which it has been found that past successes have been achieved. They have been arrived at by the study of the works of genius. Just rules are natural, not artificial. Nature, -powerful na- ture, genius, achieves success through its own spon- taneous apprehension of law. The method of this ac- tion — in the highest degree natural, since it is that of vigorous nature — now becomes a subject of in- quiry, and is expressed in a precept. This precept, within its own limits, if rightly established, genius cannot henceforward reject, since therein is defined the INTRODUCTION. 17 manner of its own efforts. Nor can Nature reject it, since she alone has established it. Rules exist latently in all the powerful, successful movements of mind. Genius shows itself to be genius by the certainty and celerity with which it reaches and acts upon great prin- ciples ; by the precision and perfection with which it expresses the natural force that is in it. Rules, -precepts, arise from the desire to make our best efforts the guides of our future exertions ; to render the path opened by genius accessible to industry ; to shed' the light of inspired men and inspired moments over ordinary men and ordinary moments. It is equally false to affirm the complete success and thq^ complete failure of such efforts. Native power is indispensable ; acquired power is indisputable. The law which the first has established, the second may adopt, and in its adoption develop rapidly and to the utmost its resources. A life which is not vigorous enough to force growth against obstacles, may yet be nourished into healthful activity. An intellect which cannot strike out the best method, can yet naturally and successfully pursue it. Experience is a teacher, and her precepts, when rightly apprehended and adopted, become a truer nature than <4ie awkward, unkindly growth they displace. 18 INTRODUCTION. It is a mistake to suppose that everything that has arisen without design is natural in any just use of the word, or that what arises from effort and discipline is artificial. The pugilist that strikes by a right rule, rightly applied, strikes most efficaciously, and most efficaciously because most natm-aUy. This naturalness, perchance, does not spring from his own nature, but belongs to the best physical formation in the highest execution of its power. What is most perfect in any form of life or action is most natural, most nearly the fulness of natural law ; that which is least perfect is least natm'al. All awkwardness, error, and imbecility are unnaiuraL however universal they may have become. There are two things requisite for the success of rules that aim to give pohshed power to action. They must spring from nature ; they must be incorporated into nature. While they must hit upon the natural, the right method, he who uses them must be so familiar with them, that his own native forces can find habitual, spontaneous expression under them. Art is, indeed, no substitute for force, thought, life ; but it can develop native and acquired powers into a strength and sym- metry of form not otherwise attainable. A true rule, springing from the most perfect expression of the most INTRODUCTION. 19 perfect nature, must be incorporated into the mind, must become a part of it, unconsciously guiding its ac- tion ; must be ingrafted upon it as a higher and better nature than its own. All just disparagement of art has arisen from its be- coming artificial; that is, from its separation as a dead form from the life which it was designed to express. No perfection of form that is vitalized by adequate energies can be amiss. Rhetoric shapes what science in all its departments has furnished. It cannot go beyond its material ; it is enough if it make the most of this material. Art comes in for the guidance of power, and can do little till this, the condition of its action, is fur- nished. Fine art always implies a culture radical and broad, of which it is the expression, and in fault of this can be but the merest surface work. This third step being taken, by which rhetoric is reached as a system of rules, there remains a fourth — the explanation of these rules through the principles on which they dep^d. This is properly the philosophy of rhetoric. Rules, especially those which govern the mind's action, are more easily and freely obeyed when their true force is seen. We shall strive, therefore, to ground our art in nature by referring all its precepts to 20 INTRODUCTION. the principles which give them validity. We shall thus not only know what we are to do, but why we are to do it ; have a reason rendered from nature as well^ as from experience ; and enlarge and strengthen our practical results by our theoretical conclusions. We shall present the art in three parts — its ends, its means, its methods ; thus answering the three questions. What do we pursue? By what means ? In what manner ? PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC BOOK I. CHAPTER I. DEPARTMENTS OF COMPOSITION. No composition is aimless, not even soliloquy. If it were aimless, there could be no criticism, no excellence, no rules guiding its structure, since these imply that some end is to be reached, some right method to be employed. Composition, in all the forms in which it adds itself either to the labor or literature of the world, pursues some appreciable end, and thus lays itself open to criti- cism as right or wrong in its object, right or wrong in its method. i§o obvious is this, that we need not dwell upon it. Any composition absolutely without an end must be without connection, without meaning. There is some method even iil madness. The three leading ends of composition are defined by the three divisions of man's intellectual powers — under- (21) 22 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. standing, emotions, and will. Truth to be adduced and established, or to be conveyed, feeling to be uttered, the purposes of men to be shaped, are each the objects of literary effort. Address, usiog the term broadly, may find its object in the understanding, in the emotions, or in the will. The philosophical essay does its chief work in the intellect. Its connections are logical, its conclusions those of the understanding. The poegn springs from the heart, and acts upon the heart. Its excellency is tested by the character and scope of the emotions which it arouses. It has reached its end when men are moved to a just appreciation of its beauty and sentiment. The oration, when clothed in power, when possessed of its true generic character, moves men to action ; is satisfied with no conclusions, is content with no feelings which do not issue in the desired effect. Oratory seeks to sweep through the whole man, to bind him to a purpose, and press him on in a career. Language is so governed by the form of composition, and has so little reference to its intrinsic character, that any production is termed poetry which bears its external mark of metre. All productions destitute of this are hurriedly grouped as prose ; while every composition which chances to be spoken is indifferently styled an oration. A more philosophical classification, if not a more convenient one, woidd distinguish prose, poetry, DEPARTMENTS OF COMPOSITION. 23 and oratory according to their subject matter, whether addressed to the thoughts, emotions, or will of man. With these divisions, we have much under the poetical garb which is not poetry ; much spqken which does not belong to oratory ; much in a prose form which is im- pregnate with a true poetical fire. We do not insist on these divisions. They serve a profitable end in thought, if not always regarded in language. There are three departments of composition in their typical forms stril£ingly distinct ; and though, as in almost all vital products, the shore-marks of division may neitlfer be always straight nor well defined, the mind is greatly aided in its grasp of things by a recognition of those outstanding features, those prominent peaks from which the sloping sides, ultimately meeting on common ground, take their departure. Prose, the province of the understanding ; poetry, of passion ; ora- tory, of the whole man gathered and uttered in volition, — become, in view of the effect sought, the three great forms of composition, each possessed of fundamental characteristics. The logical order of address, in its transition through the understanding, the emotions, and the will, is that in which they are here placed. Emotion is conditioned on apprehension, volition on emotion. We first see, then feel, and afterward act. The passions, 'aside from the 24 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOEIC. grosser appetites, are not accessible save through the intellect, nor the will save through the passions. In the passions, emotions, we here include the moral sen- timents. There is no direct address to the sensibilities or to the will. I can exhort a man at once to think on the topic offered, but not, with propriety, to feel or will concerning it. Emotion and volition must depend for their character on the character and relations of the topic, and these must be presented as the indispensable condition of feeling and action. Presentation is first, is immediate, and this is to the intellect ; emotion fol- lows the presence of the appropriate object ; and voli- tion is subsequent to both. A pure address to the understanding, however, is very different from one which passes like light through the lens of thought, only to be lodged with its warmth in the emotions. The one presents truth for its own sake ; the other, for the feelings which it is fitted to arouse. In the one case, the topic and treatment are chosen in reference to the elucidation of truth ; in the other, in reference to their power over the heart. For the one purpose, they are thoughtful ; for the other, passionate and poetical. A kindred diversity exists between those forms of ad- dress which terminate respectively in the passions and will. Some feelings leave the mind wrapped in emo- l\\ DEPARTMENTS OF COMPOSITION. 25 tion — lost in the beauty, pathos, or grandeur of the accompanying conception. Others hurry it on to action ; the theme fills the mind with indignation or with desire, and thus drives it along the path of gratification. It is these different relations of emotions to the mind itself, and its active powers, which determine the result, and leave the theme, now lodged in the affections of the man, and now, as passing words of exhortation, lost in his life. Though the logical relation of man's faculties is that now pointed out, their order in individual and historical development is somewhat different. The emotional nature is earlier aroused than the intellectual, and hence poetry, its natural expression, precedes prose. The passions, quickening and quickened by the imagination, incite physical effort, make life adventurous, anticipate the judgment, outstrip systematic thought, and, with no more of the intellectual element than is involved in the presentation of appropriate objects, inflame the mind with heroic verse. The emotions, though, indeed, reached through the understanding, are roughly and strongly shaken before any clear light is shed through the mind, or any strong pleasure experienced in its more refined action. Many are ready to insist, that the passions in the outset move us only the more strongly from the murky intellectual ! 2 ' 26 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. medium in which their subjects are presented, and the great predominance of sensible over intelligible objects. We would rather say, that in its early periods emotion is more rude and demonstrative, not more strong, than in its later periods. Oratory, especially in its first forms, is more closely alKed to the emotions than the*thoughts, and hence has followed quickly upon poetry. It seeks also a practical end, — an immediate influence fo be exerted on human action, — and has, therefore, an advantage over the more remote and abstract aims of thought. A thorough and logical development of the intellect, a search after truth and satisfaction in it, are among the later steps of mental progress ; yet these, once taken, react strongly on poetry and oratory, and impart to them a new character. While the movement of mind, though substantial, is yet crude and incomplete, it may tend to render both poetry and oratory somewhat formal and barren, to restrict them to its own didactic method ; but when culture becomes deep, rich, and productive, its emotional products will be more profoundly passion- ate than those of any previous period ; more just and symmetrical, they will also be thoroughly vital. Not till the mind has worked its way through the periods of scepticism and destruction into those of belief and construction, out from uncertainty and doubt into hearty . DEPARTMENTS OP COMPOSITION. 27 faith and advocacy, will the emotions claim and fulfil their highest part in the progress of man. The stream of human life does not run shallow as we advance. The most profoundly emotional truths committed to the mind, like morning stars, appear late above its horizon. In the fullest discipline of the human mind, therefore, we seem to return to the order first presented, in which a delicately, broadly, profoundly apprehensive intellect stands at the threshold of human faculties. 28 PHILOSOPHY OP KHETORIC. CHAPTER n. PROSE. Prose, as distinguished both from poetry and ora- tory, arises in the service of the understanding ; it is the storehouse of knowledge, of the processes and results of thought. It has the double office of estab- lishing and imparting truth. In the one case, convic- tion is secured ; in the other, information is imparted. The one process opposes itself to error, the other to ignorance. Argument is the means employed by the first, statement by the second. These distinctions, often just, seem lost again in the fullest form of proof. Indisputable scientific proposi- tions are stated in themselves, and in their proof, as things of knowledge, not of controversy. Argument differs from proof in implying unbelief to be combated, a proposition to be established against the tacit or avowed opposition of certain persons. Proof is ar- ranged with sole reference to interior logical connec- tions, while argument contemplates these in connection PROSE. 29 with that phase of belief it would controvert, and the persons it would convince. The chief connections of facts, as simple unexplained facts, are those of place and time. The rendering of them, under the first of these relations, is description; under the second, is narrative. History rests chiefly on the last. While prose describes and narrates princi- pally for the facts themselves, it justly strives to render them in their real, their living force, though at this point the emotional elements of poetry indirectly enter. The connections of things as grouped and explained by the mind are resemblance and cause and effect. These two are the scientific links of thought, and are chiefly employed in philosophical prose. Objects are treated according to their inherent and permanent agree- ments, or their causal dependence one on another ; and these substantial connections of things become the for- mal connections of thought. Science and philosophy rest on these relations, and here prose is severely true to itsdf. There is a connection, an involution of ideas, inde- pendent of things, by which the one contains or includes the other. This gives play to deduction, in each of its steps demonstrative. Interior, logical connections only are considered, and by these are successively unfolded the minor truths of some pregnant major premise. Thus 30 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOEIC. from a few simple notions are evolve^ the many propo- sitions of geometry. Here, most of all, is prose na- kedly true to the relations of thought. The form of prose composition which is most anoma- lous, unless it be the degenerate prose drama, is the novel. The novel is in its aim poetical. It has chiefly to do with emotion, and especially with that of love. It presents life on the side of its affections and passions, and makes information and influence subordinate to this end. The moral aim or effect of the composition is involved in the narrative, not evolved from it, or enforced or illustrated by it. A segment of life, just or fanciful, is presented, and the reader is left to the natu- ral effect of the principles of morality contained in it. The tale may show its prose character by relaxing into discussion and criticism, but these are aside from its proper office. The early romances were chiefly, almost exclusively, metrical, and the modern novel seems to be a prose poem — a transitional form between depart- ments in their typical products quite distinct. * In prose the form of the expression is shaped exclu- sively by the exigencies of the thought, and admits of as much variety, and as many modifications,, as this will suffer. In poetry and oratory, impression being pre- eminent, a variety of things may enter into the product, may concur with and enhance its impression on the erao- PUOSE. 81 tions. In prose, the mind alone being addressed, any adjunct of metre, anything granted to the form merely, serves to distract the attention and weaken the thought. A measured flow of syllables thus becomes in prose a blemish. The harmony of alliteration, when em- ployed, must indicate a kindred harmony of ideas, and arise as an undesigned coincidence. An antithesis of words is only justified by the antithesis of the thought. The emotions are influenced by harmony, by concur- rence of impressions. The intellect seeks distinction, division, single and explicit statement. Therefore thought, as thought, accepts no method which to it would be either constraint or distraction. The rule softens as the aim of prose becomes more inclusive, adding pleasure to instruction. PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. CHAPTER in. POETKY. CoNTEAEY to the usual method, we shall treat rhet- oric as inclusive of all forms of composition ; since no one form can be understood without apprehending its relations to the remaining forms ; since each mode rests on essentially the same principles, and employs the same means, modified by the particular end proposed ; since the three departments of expression are complementary divisions under one general movement, the communica- tion of mind to mind through language. Poetry arises from the interchange of emotion, emo- tion expressed for its own sake, with no ulterior refer- ence to action. Feeling is aroused and nourished in man by the things and movements about him. Beauty, objects of hope and apprehension, of affection and aver- sion, reward and retribution, stir powerfully the human soul, and force its emotions into language. The mind is first and chiefly moved through sensible objects, and under their forms continues to present its feelings. The imagery of the imagination gathers in its procession POETRY. 83 • things sublime and terrible, beautiful and joyful, homely and mirthful, and the heart is by turns awed with a sol- emn pageant, saddened with a dark retinue, cheered with a sportive troop, or made merry with a mock carnival. The emotions, ever varying in character and depth, are prane to utterance, to seek the sympathy, the reali- zation, and extension of language, and hence have given rise to this most adequate and full medium of expression — poetry. Poetry, in its perfect type, its strictly charac- teristic form, is emotional conception expressed in met- rical language. The substance and life of poetry is feeling; its peculiar and appropriate form -is rhythm. The latter affords 'the more convenient, but not the more important distinction. Poetry properly demands them both. There is no limit but that of the emotions to the sub- ject matter of poetry, and no restrictions on its metrical forms but the possibilities of language. The more extended and weighty the feeling, the less it will cumber itself with the demands of form. This is seen in the themes appropriafe to blank verse, and in the constant tendency of humor and satire to rhyme. The more brief and isolated the emotion, the more intricate and care- fully wrought out the measure. The stones of which a temple is reared are individually treated slightly. 34 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. The stone of which a brooch is made is wrought into some rare and exquisite form. An intricate and perfect rhythm, if long continued, wearies more than plainer verse. There is a fitness between emotion and metrical language which makes the latter the almost necessary yehicle of the former. To repeat a song is not to ren- der it ; to state an emotion, or speak of its object, is not to express it. The passions of men have always sought, as their most copious utterance, song, — poetry united to music, — and will not readily part, on any plea, with the remnant of this association — metre. Music and metre are as much the elocution of poetry as emphasis and gesture of oratory. As emotion is the great modu- lator of the voice, by inversion sound becomes a chief medium of emotion ; and passionate composition — poetry — looks to it for aid. Feeling is often contained more in the tone than in the word, and can never divorce itself from this, its most natural expression, nor stand in the same undefined relation to it as prose. Poetry searches for all the avenues of emotion, arouses the senses, and in its flow of sounds soothes, saddens, or quickens the soul. This vocal form is the natural outgrowth of feeling. Poetry receives character and value from the natm-e of the emotions which gave rise to it, and which it is fitted to impart. The more common divisions of poetry POETRY. 85 have little reference one to another, and rest their dis- tinctions now on subject matter, now on form. Epic and drama, ode and sonnet, furnish convenient designa- tions for ordinary speech, but do not spring from any systematic apprehensif)n of the subjects of poetry ; nor do they, save in single features, define its field. We need to see the cardinal divisions of the emotions, that we may therein find the offices and relations of poetry. The most profound impulses, as well as the most simple and sensible pleasures of the soul, are realized in verse. The oration is a weapon carefully shaped for an imme- diate and explicit purpose ; the poem is a germ contain- ing within itself, and for itself, the full-balanced forces of one form^of emotional Kfe — a life with which dis- semination is an interior necessity. Poetry, occupied with conceptions which arise under feeling, and are by it perfected into beauty, becomes a fine art, and belongs, by generic features to rhetoric, by individual character- istics to esthetics. PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. CHAPTER W. ORATORY. Oratory diiFers from the forms of composition al- ready mentioned in its end, and consequently in its relations and means. Oratory proposes an immediate eifect — in some way to guide or govern action. As that mental state which results in action is completed in volition, oratory aims to affect the will. Thought is not elaborated for its own sake, nor emotioj^ aroused for itself, but only to be immediately employed in persua- sion — in deciding the state of the will. The means and method appropriate are determined by this practical end of immediate influence, and all that is merely philosophical or poetical, occupying without constraining the mind, becomes inefficacious ^nd wrong. Thoughts and emotions are considered only in their bearings on the proposed action, and are made, with light and heat, to converge at this point as a perfect focus. . The mind must be convinced, but convinced of the value and practicability of the action proposed ; the heart must be aroused, but aroused to the motives of ORATORY. o i duty, profit, and pleasure which press upon it. By true oratory the whole soul is thrown into a single current, setting outward toward effort, — this effort becoming more protracted and thorough in proportion to the deep and inclusive character of the desired end. The highest oratory can only be called forth when the energies of the whole nature, with its fundamental forces, moral and religious, are to be aroused, and to be determined in the permanent direction of holy living. As a further result of this outward end, oratory is thrown into relations wholly diverse from those of poetry and philosophy. The philosopher, the poet, are abstracted, the one by his thought, the other by his conception, %om all other objects. Everything aside from the one thing in hand is foreign, is alien, to the idea, and to the mind occupied with it. The thought is governed by its own logical relations, the emotion arises with its own sympathetic connections, and therefore the work of composition proceeds by separation — by render- ing an individual thing in its individual way. The success of the labor is dependent on this interior de- velopment of the thing treated. The orator, on the other hand, considers not more the intrinsic power of the theme than its relations to those whose action he purposes to influence by it. The last is with him the controlling consideration. The truth, like iron, must be 38 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. « shaped into an instrument wherewith to accomplish most perfectly and quickly a given work. It is with him as with the agriculturist, whose task is assigned under given conditions of soil and climate ; not to subject all his efforts to these is immediate and utter failure. The oration grows up under a vital power not less than the poem ; but in the last we mark the native force and fulness of a life freely developed, like a plant in an open and rich field ; in the first we note how this and that favoring and unfavoring circumstance have modified the tree, pushing its way with persistent power among its fellows, and gathering nutriment, sunlight, and air as it was able. The oration is the complex product of exterior and interior force, not the peaceAil product of the last only. That which here rules the form, which defines and explains it, is the exigency of the circum- stances under which it has arisen. A given audience, through whom a given end ii to be reached, is the ever- present and controlKng thought of the orator. He may not withdraw into speculation, or at the beck of imagi- nation turn aside to the retreats of beauty. He has no privacy, but is ever haunted by that sea of faces, whose surface is the condensed utterance of many human' hearts. His is no single conflict; a host is to be met, and with no other weapon than that of his theme : in the same instant and by the same action, he is to ORATORY. 39 reacli and vanquish .each individual, trenched as he may- be in dulness and inanity, trenched as he may be in prejudice and passion. The relations, therefore, of the orator to the audience and the theme become vital considerations. * A poem is the metrical utterance of emotion ; philo- sophical prose, a logical statement of thought ; while oratory is just and impassioned persuasion, the legitimate influencino' of the will through both the understandino- and the feelings. If either of tljese elements is want- ing, if the passion is irrational, or the reason unimpas- sioned, there is no eloquence. The leading divisions of oratory arise firom diversity of ends. The orator seeks to secure action under cer-- tain principles of human conduct. He does not origi- nate impulses, but shows the relation of lines of effort to the native impulses of the mind. The person per- suaded is impelled by his own desires, the speaker pre- senting the object and opening up the way through which these are to be Ratified. The oration will receive its character from the character of the constitutional force of w^hich it avails itself in securing effort, from the idea to which it addresses and unites its argument. The chief original inapulses which supply the im- pelling power in human action, are right, interest, and pleasure. The first of these is wholly peculiar ; the last 40 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. two are more closely related. The sense of right is in all men simple and original, and enters into the compe- tition of motives with its own native force. With self- affirmed and incontrovertible authority, it claims to restrain, quicken, and guide all action. It is, in the order of man's constitution, the only independent, always just, always present impulse, and therefore it alone can rightly order the whole field of action, and give that vigor and that proportion of parts which are just. The emotions which directly sustain and enforce the right are an antecedent sense of obligation, and, subse- quent to the action, the feelings of approval, or of guilt, of shame and remorse. Indirectly, the affections also strengthen the right, as they themselves are nom- ished by it. These are disinterested, and only arise in full force in connection with virtue. Once present, they strongly animate the mind, and render its obedi- ence spontaneous and cheerful. They enforce virtue by the enjoyments which they bring. They are reverence, love, benevolence, pity, gratitude, indignation, scorn, according to the character and condition of the person drawing them forth. The word "love" has come to cover a great variety of feelings, but more specifically applies to moral affection. Any or all these feelings may be called forth as the grounds of moral action. Pleasure and interest present motives of action of ORATORY. 41 another class, legitimate or illegitimate, according as they are retained within or transcend the limits assigned them by morality. Ultimately both of these rest on the appetites and .passions for impulse. Our appetites are most immediate inlets of pleasure, and hence, in the anticipation and provision which they require, most obvious incentives to action. Nor are they exclusively those of the body. The love of truth and of beauty are essentially of this nature. These tastes of the mind, like appetites, furnish a direct motive to action. The passions are distinguished from the affections in having perpetual reference to self; in finding at this point the spring of feeling ; and in the sudden and complete control which they often attain. Though social, they are, as far as the good of others is con- cerned, either indifferent or malevolent. Of the first class are vanity, pride, 'contempt. Vanity and pride, from their religious use, convey almost exclusively censure, and are applied only to the stronger feelings of their class, whije self-love and self-respect mark the milder exercise of the same emotions. We use the one term to cover all degrees of satisfaction in view of the admiration to be elicited by one's possessions or accom- plishments ; the other, all degrees of esteem in which one holds himself. So used, it is obvious they mark very powerful and persuasive feelings, furnishing con- 42 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. stant motives to action. Indeed, vanity and pride lie at the very root of interested effort. The malevolent passions, arising from some disturbance of self by another, are anger, hatred, envy, jealousy. To urge any action by its immediate relation to appetite or passion, is to appeal to pleasure. More frequently, however, the gratification is remote. Means to be secured by labor intervene, and toward them the effort is directed. These means call forth desire — a feeling differing in the object toward which it is directed, but in its nature the same. The mind is not indifferent to the things which afford gratification, but is thrown by them, one and all, into a state of desire. These means to ulterior pleasure which call forth the desires are wealth, power, position, and knowledge. There are other things whose presence is a condition of our enjoyment, as life and society, and are, therefore, said to be objects of desire. They, however, stand in a different relation to desire from the four former. These are the constant objects of effort, the immediate and pervasive motives of action. An action springing from any one of them is said to be interested, since it seeks means which may afford pleasure. These desires sometimes become so intense, so overlook the end in view, as to be termed passions. Of this nature is avarice. There are also passions ORATORY. 43 directly aroused by the relations of objects to desire, as joy, sorrow, hope, fear, disappointment, regret. Mo- tives drawn from the desires, or the passions immediately dependent on them, are those of interest ; and from one of the three sources of action, right, 'pleasure, and interest, all motives must be taken. The higher may include the lower motive, or the lower may strengthen the higher, or there may be a present conflict between them. The highest form of eloquence is evidently that which most thoroughly and deeply searches the human heart for motives resulting in the broadest and most valuable action. So judged, that oratory which acts on the moral impulses, and seeks to change character, is preeminent. Here the end is most inclusive — the trans- formation of the w^hole man, the government of all action by the pervasive law of right. No purpose can be more profound than this. The impulses to which the orator trusts are tliose of conscience and the affec- tions, the holiest portions of our nature. In the great- ness of the work and the weight of the motives, no persuasion can surpass that which enforces virtue. As the moral affections are chiefly aroused by religion, as virtue has only been persistently and successfully en- forced in connection witl^ tlie Christian religion, this kind of oratory*has been termed that of the pulpit. 44 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. The moral nature, in the duties which it imposes in our relations to God, gives rise to religion, and virtue becomes holiness. The moral law cannot fail, if rightly apprehended, to extend itself to, and enforce, religion ; and the facts -of religion, in turn, cannot fail to throw about all moral duties new sanctions, and to evolve minor obhgations in their natural dependence from the chief obligation — that of man to God. Revelation en- larges the sphere of conscience, not by arbitrary com- mands, but by bringing to light new and fundamental facts, in themselves inclusive of old duties, and imposing fresh ones. Religion of necessity thus involves and includes the highest morality ; because its peculiar in- junctions are, in their consequences, more weighty than any other ; because the minor duties of man to man it enforces from a new and higher stand-point, a broader apprehension of the relations from which they spring, and the results to which they lead ; and because in its own promises and threatenings, and the power with^ which it arouses the affections, it adopts and reinvigor- ates the moral law. There thus arises sacred eloquence, — the eloquence oi a Christian pulpit, — immeasurably superior in the motives and emotions with which it urges the mind and heart. The immediate conse- quences of virtue and vice are lost in their more per- manent results ; the breadth of eternity is given to ORATORY. 45 action ; the grace of God stoops to bless man to his utmost capacity ; the justice of God walls in and pur- sues his transgressions. In weight, terror, sublimity, joy, and hope, no motives can for an instant compare with those which in sacred eloquence inspire and over- power the mind. Virtue is caught up and inwrapped with the ineiFable glory of God ; the virtuous man is caught up and inwrapped in the glory of an incarnate Christ. Armed as is this oratory with weapons of celestial temper, it has utmost occasion for them all. If sacred oratory is great in its theme, great also are the difficul- ties which it has to overcome. It opposes itself not to isolated actions, but to the very current of conduct. It proposes to reach the whole life, and shape it from its very centre ; to re-beget the man into truth and love. Indifference strengthening into aversion is to be met ; the ear is to be won ; the intellect to be convinced ; the heart to be convicted ; and the religious nature so aroused and inspired, that it can cast down and rule the long dominant impulses of the soul. Yet the chief obstacle to success is in the mind of the orator himself. He is ever liable to lose conviction, to share the spirit which he is to correct, and to try with unsubstantial and inoperative ideas to exorcise the spirit of unbelief. There is no oratory whose whole power depends so much on its inspiration as this, since it seeks to issue 46 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. in vitalizing truth. God must breathe into its nostrils the breath of life, that it may become a living soul. How wholly sacred oratory is the offspring of the Christian religion is seen in the fact, that the demonstra- tive oration of the ancients, which most nearly cor- responds to it, is ever liable to sink out of the depart- ment of eloquence by lacking an immediate practical end. A eulogy, a presentation of character, is not strictly oratory, save as it oversteps the limits of praise, and holds up for instruction the conduct presented ; save as it condenses into motive the narrative of an illustrious life, and presses the hearer from idle admiration to active emulation. The difficulty with which it reaches a practical end, and the facihty with which, in the symmetry of an artistic labor, it loses itself, separate this form of oratory very far from sacred eloquence. It belongs rather to those transitional, doubtful products, which, indeed, retain oral delivery, but lack the essential feature of strict address — its hold on action. The interests and pleasures of men furnish the de- partment of secular eloquence. These, as motives of action, are intimately related, the difference between them being chiefly one of time. What contributes to our present interest or advantage is expected to con- tribute to our future pleasure. It is an anticipated enjoyment which imparts present value to objects whose possession is coveted. OEATOIiY. ' 47 Address contemplates an audience, an assembly of individuals, to be influenced by common considerations. This address may aim at individual action or at joint action ; at the action of man as man under his individ- ual responsibilities, or at those joint measures by which communities and associations determine and regulate their conduct. In the first case, oratory will be almost wholly of a moral or sacred .character, and belong to the type already spoken of; in the second case, it will be chiefly of a secular character, the expediency and wis- dom of a proposed measure being the object of discus- sion. It is only the moral and religious impulses, which, fundamentally the same in all, need to be aroused and directed by oratory — to be called forth for the gov- ernment of the life. Individual pleasure and interest are so diverse in the lines of conduct which they secure, as to allow little except instruction furnishing general principles for their guidance ; are so prompt and exces- sive in their action, as to require little aside from the restraint and government of the moral nature. Virtue, therefore, in its individual forms, as temperance, — in its collective and most authoritative forms, as religion, — becomes the controlling, the well nigh exclusive motive of all oratory, which seeks to influence man in his strictly personal life. This form of address, having to do with that which is sacred in man, — with virtue, — 48 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. partakes, in all its branches, of the character, and is subject to the laws, of its fullest type — pulpit oratory. While the interests and pleasure of the individual fall out of oratory, and become questions of private pur- suit, those interests which are reached or protected by the joint action of men afford points of grave delibera- tion. The law of right still remains as a governing principle, by which all action should be restrained ; but the question is constantly arising, What, within the limits assigned by moral law, do the interests of the community demand? What, within the constitutional law of man's nature, should become civil law? This question is propounded again and again in each or- ganic assembly, from the highest legislative body to the low^est, and in each it is to be answered on principles of general advantage. It is points of common interest, and not of individual morality, which are committed to legislation, and it is in its relations to the first that the second is discussed. In the pulpit, on the other hand, the first is treated in its bearings on the second. Here secular distinguishes itself broadly from sacred elo- quence. It has to do with the life, the action, of the community, as opposed to the life, the action, of the individual. This is strictly private, of no moment, save as, leaving its province, it dkectly affects that which is public — the safety and temporal well-being ORATORY. 49 of others, the well-being of government. Sacred elo- quence, on the other hand, penetrates at once the pri- vacy of the individual heart, and laboring here, only shows itself indirectly, though most efficiently, in ques- tions of social and political concernment. The highest legislative body W4)rks within man's original native rights ; the lowest, within these, and also within those further regulations established and defined by superior civil law. Alhed to these are the questions which occupy every deliberative body, from the most perma- nent corporate association to the most transient popular meeting. Even a religious body, as a body, is occu- pied with questions of prudence and vdsdom — of the judicious choice of means. Deliberative eloquence is one of the long-recognized departments of oratory. As contrasted with pulpit ora- tory, its advantages are found in the singleness and ex- plicitness of the action proposed, and the spontaneous interest which it usually calls forth ; its inferiority in the relatively narrow, though weighty, motives wdth which it presses the heart. "What faith and love are to sacred oratory, liberty, public weal, and patriotism are to secular oratory. Much will be left to the deliberation of men in a free government, little in a tyrannical. Oratory will become a most coveted and just instrument of influence in legis- 3 D 60 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. lative and popular assemblies, when these are them- selves the source of power. Freedom gives play to action, and action may then be controlled by the just, the natural law of persuasion. The mass-meeting, the hall, and the senate chamber have not existed without a vast influence on oratory in our own country. A subsidiary, and, in the form in which it now exists, a most peculiar, type of eloquence is that of the bar. Law established is yet to be applied. To determine what is law, and what are the facts on which it is to be administered, requires much investigation and discrimi- nation. This, in a trial had before a limited bench of learned judges, resolves itself into an almost exclusively logical process, and, losing the emotional element, ceases to be oratory. Occasionally, however, the judge, in setting aside or establishing precedents, is for the time being a legislator ; broad and weighty motives of general interest may be urged upon the mind, and the plea become a most thoughtful, yet impassioned, product. In the trial by jury, more of the popular element is preserved ; and though the question is here strictly one of facts, of proof, and therefore somewhat severe and barren, the orator easily steals away from the legal evi- dence and character of the act to its social effects and dj'amatic bearings. The plea thus often becomes more emotional than it of right ought to be, and the moral ORATORY. 51 law of oratory, which regulates the just influence of mind over mind, is in a measure set aside. The judge and jury being by oath and by common integrity bound to the line of legal, of just action, there is given to evi- dence and argument, in judicial oratory, a preponderance which does not belong to them in the symmetrical ora- tion. Persuasion is in many forms positively imperti- nent, since it implies a want of integrity in those to whom it is addressed. To escape as far as may be the dulness of demonstra- tioai, and yet, on the one hand, not fall into the impro- priety of a popular harangue, nor, on the other, employ surreptitious motives, becomes the difficult task of the advocate. Ancient judicial eloquence was quite different from modern, through the unsettled laws, and the num- ber and popular character of the judges ; it was appro- priately, therefore, a more impassioned appeal. The chief divisions of oratory, according as individual or collective action is aimed at, are sacred and secular. The chief form of secular oratory is deliberative. In modern society, in the application of law, occasion is given for a second and restricted form — that of judicial oratory. There is a large and increasing class of lec- tures, addresses, orations, which may not seem readily to fall into any of the above divisions. Many of these 80 lack the force and form of address, or are so strictly 52 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. didactic, as not to belong to oratory. A large number aim to affect the moral state of the individual, to inspire philanthropy, patriotism, a love of excellence, or a regard for truth. These derive their incentives from the moral nature, and direct themselves to it, and hence belong to the class of sacred oratory. Many preach besides those who profess to. A smaller class of casual speeches, proposing some social or associate action, belong to the class of deliberative o.rations. BOOK II The means of composition which we now proceed to discuss are of two kinds — the very material, the thought, the feehng, which the mind furnishes, and the language, which gives shape to it. These two stand to each other in the relation of substance and form, and we must know the nature of the one, and the laws which govern the other, before we can advantageously employ them. Few will hesitate to speak of language as a means, something to be employed in composition, and therefore to be studied in its rhetorical laws and relations, while a knowledge of its construction and grammatical prin- ciples is presupposed. It will not, however, seem so plain that the subject matter of composition, the argu- ment and emotion employed, should be regarded as means. This use of language is applicable to oratory, rather than to poetry or philosophy. The oration, having in view an immediate external (53)' 54 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. end, must select from its resources that vvhich shall be to it the means of present success. The essay, the poem, on the other hand, aiming to present what is already contained in the mind and the emotions, have occasion for a right method, but not for a choice of means, since the truths, the conception to be presented, are both end and means. In philosophy, argument is not the instrument of an advocate, wielded for a pur- pose, opening a way toward an ulterior object, but' is the unfolding of inherent connections and intrinsic rela- tions, by which we come to see things as they are. Vision is here aimed at, and the eye is directed along the line of exposition and argument as the vista of truth. Truth is only known when known in itself and in its premises : the premises are more a portion of it than a means to it. It is not belief, but the grounds of belief, that philosophy inculcates. The ends and means, therefore, are the same ; and while it requu'es perspicuity of presentation, the thought in hand furnishes the limit and substance of its labor. The same is true of poetry. Its emotions are not means, but ends ; not necessities, but indulgences ; not the straight lines of effort, but the iddying circuits of pleasure. Our first inquiries, therefore, must have chief refer- ence to oratory, since this alone aims directly at influ- ence, and needs alone to seek directly its means. THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 55 CHAPTEE I. THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. While man has an individual life, complete in itself, the development and fulness of that life are most strictly dependent on his social connections. The bud of the vine has latent within it the entire power of its species ; yet no bud blossoms or bears the clustering grapes, except as it is one of a community of buds, receiving nourishment from a common stock. The mature fruit of the tree is not reached by divided, but by com-, pounded life. It is borne aloft on trunk and branches, the growth of years, and nourished by the associated life of which it is but a feeble portion. Thus is it with man. Man alone is a savage : one in the community of the family, of the state, and of civilized nations, he becomes civilized, and completes the circle of his com- forts with the products of all climates, and the labors of all men. Individual life is a bud far up, and far out, on the common stock. It is sustained by the knowledge, the strength, of those who have gone before it, and nourished by the activity of those about it. 56 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. This is equally true of it in its physical and intellectual dependences. The influence of man over man is not only admissible, it is inevitable ; not only inevitable, but the condition and law of his progress. Among the various forms of influence which men exert one upon another, none is more legitimate, more respects the integrity and free- dom of individual action, than persuasion. The limit, the law of persuasion, defining its end and means, is that of right. Not that action, as virtuous, is the only end to be proposed by the orator ; but his aims and methods are ever to be enclosed within those of virtue, lying in the same direction with them, always receiving their sanction, often enforced by their obligations. It is only by accepting the law of virtue as the line and limit of influence, that the orator respects his own nature. Right is, or should be, the rule of his intel- lectual and social life. Not till he can invalidate a claim enforced in his own conscience, and annul the grand distinction and justification of conduct, may he set it aside in the most delicate and widely influential of his acts. The claims of the intellectual and moral nature of the persons persuaded against virtue are also disre- garded. To reach an illegitimate end, the orator must avail himself of ignorance, resort to misrepresentation, THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 6T excite or cherish excessive or unworthy emotion. To withhold truth and arouse evil passions is a wrong done to the parties affected by such action ; much more is it a wrong when these means are used to induce action, and make the persons persuaded partners in evil. Ora- tory, relying on the spontaneous, free movement of the mind, referring all its motives to its approval and adop- tion, cannot neglect the great laws of thought, truth, and right. If, however, we take the low ground that success gives law to every department of effort, and that ora- tory, as an arty only asks what can be done by the ora- tor with ultimate advantage to himself, we still reach the same conclusion. Eight is the law of broad and permanent success in influence. The orator must lose hold upon truth, when he ceases to present it, to make it the staple of his own thinking and acting. If he deserts the right at one time, he cannot return to it with deep conviction at another. It becomes to him like his other methods — a device and a trick, requiring only skill to be well played off. What- ever may be said of rhetoric, the man himself, the ora- tor, cannot prosper intellectually and emotionally on such a method. The depth, sincerity, and vigor of his nature are lost. All the distinctions which judgment and conscience make are in practice thrown away, and 3* 58 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. the mind , employed as an instrument of cunning expe- dients, first grows weary of, and then despises, all genu- ine, thorough work. There can be no moral affection, no enthusiasm for truth ; for the heart is either never called forth, or shortly betrayed. The power of will is lost, as it systematically yields to circumstances, nothing being proposed save temporary success. The whole man, therefore, being weakened and wasted by such a method, what shall become of the orator? Scepticism, suspicion, and insincerity, however crafty they may be, cannot compass any weighty moral ends. The powers of a world of conviction, faith, and hon- esty have become a mockery to them, and therefore forever elude them. Virtue is the law of intellectual, emotional, and voluntary life in the orator, and, there- fore, the law of oratory. To think the contrary is to suppose that falsehood is as productive as truth, and that a mind which betrays itself in all its best impulses shall yet lose none of its strength. If we look at the persons addressed, we shall also see that virtue assigns the law of successful persuasion. The orator who avails himself of the ignorance and passions of men incurs the risk, that, in wiser and calmer moments, the fact may be discerned, and prove henceforth the occasion of distrust and separation. The grounds of influence in oratory are confidence and sym- THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 69 pathy. Without these, the mind holds itself aloof, and the emotions sought for are not aroused. Nothing more excites men of ordinary intelligence to resistance, to close all the avenues of the heart, than the discovery that they have been deceived and designedly misled. The reserve with which men listen to a plea at the bar or the harangue of a politician, the suspicion and cau- tion with which they follow its arguments, illustrate the loss of confidence with which those persons are received whose aims are divided between interest and truth. The orator, to secure confidence, — the great condition of influence, — must either, therefore, be virtuous, or per- fectly simulate virtue, or rely on an ignorance and rudeness too great even to discover or heed the funda- mental character of the measures and means employed. It is evident that but one of these ways can be certainly and constantly successful. The greater the intelligence and virtue of those addressed, the broader and more im- portant the field of oratory, the more does right become the inviolable law of influence. Whatever may be thought of ignorant and vicious men, wise and virtuous men will not long yield themselves to the mischievous management of a monger of lies. The notion of oratory which regards it as open to all expedients and forms of trickery, is radically false. True words, words powerful to convince and persuade, 60 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. are not mere words, are not hollow, but full, swelling with the life and character of the man who utters them. Only so far as speech embodies emotion and becomes genuine in the mouth of him whose it is, can it arouse and inspire men. Fire cannot be kindled without fire. The mind of the orator is the point of greatest heat : here all becomes molten, concurrent, ready to issue into the world of action. It is his character which gives character to the words of a great orator. They are quick with his life. They are thrown forth by his assertion, they penetrate hj his power. One cannot steal the mail, neither can he steal the eloquence, of a nobler man. Words measure, and are measured by, the mind's dimensions, and, repeated without the power which first uttered them, are well nigh lost. It is im- possible to swell out the contour of a great oration with- out a corresponding life, since the one can only be by, and because of, the other. Greatness is not born of- nothing, and least of all in the department of moral influence. We must not be suffered to forfyet the fa- o mous words of the great orator, — " True eloquence, indeed, does not consist in speech. It cannot be brouoht from far. Labor and learninof may toil for it, but they will toil in vain. Words and phrases may be marshalled in every way, but they can- not compass it. It must exist in the man, in the sub- THE LAW OF INFLUENCE. 01 ject, and in the occasion. Affected passion, intense expression, the pomp of declamation, all may aspire to it ; they cannot reach it. It comes, if it come at all, like the outbreaking of a fountain from the earth, or the bursting forth of volcanic fires, with spontaneous, ori- ginal, native force. The graces taught in the schools, the costly ornaments and studied contrivances of speech, shock and disgust men, when their own lives, and the fate of their wives, their children, and their country, hang on the decision of the hour. Then words have lost their power, rhetoric is vain, and all elaborate oratory contemptible. Even genius itself then feels rebuked and subdued, as in the presence of higher qualities. Then patriotism is eloquent ; then self-devo- tion is eloquent. The clear conception, outrunning the deductions of logic, the high purpose, the firm resolve, the dauntless spirit, speaking on the tongue, beaming from the eye, informing every feature, and urging the w^hole man onward, right onward to his object, — this, this is eloquence ; or rather it is something greater and higher than all eloquence; it is action, noble, sublime, godlike action." Eloquence must then rely on moral force, since this is the force of character, and there is no strong rational life that is not locked together by a moral purpose. The chief ends of oratory are directly moral; the 62 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. included ends of prosperity and social well-being are so indirectly. In advocating these, there is ever an ulterior reference to the moral conditions of society — a sub- servience of immediate to remote good, of individual to general good, which subjects the labor and views of the orator to virtue. Success in just ends, through and within moral inter- ests, is the law of influence in oratory. If we cannot enumerate robbery among the methods of production or of exchange, much more can we not admit deception among the means of influence. The former is not more totally destructive of the conditions of commercial suc- cess than the latter of the ends of speech. AEGUMENTS. * 63 CHAPTER II. AKGUMENTS. Facts, truths, are the only safe basis and guide of action. Our action, to be successful, must unite itself to things as they are, and lie in the line of the forces which govern the world. Without this, all effort is futile, all issues are false. The first necessity of rational action, therefore, is truth ; a presentation of the facts on which effort^ is to be grafted, and of the principles by which it is to be governed. As an accurate and correct statement of facts and principles is not readily arrived -at, as many motives exist which may induce others to mislead us, presentation must assume, more or less, the form of proof, according to the difficulty and doubt involved. If we have confidence in the knowledge and good intention of the person bringing forward the facts, we require no proof beyond the testimony of a simple statement. More frequently, however, suspicious of the many unconscious errors of opinion ; of the warp- ing effect of feeling, habit, and interest; of the zeal of the advocate, the partisan attachments of the orator, 64 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETOEIC. or the limited relations of the preacher, — we require an independent basis of rational belief to -be furnished to our own minds. Presentation thus becomes argument, proof, support- ing a proposition, establishing a fact, or sweeping away an error. The sources and kinds of proof, and their relations to conviction, become, therefore, important sub- sidiary inquiries to the strictly rhetorical work — the best choice, arrangement, and statement of arguments for their effect on the mind. The'* sources of proof are two — intuition and experi- ence. The word " intuition " is taken from the action of one of our senses, but is capable of an easy extension to all those faculties of internal or external perception which directly or independently report anything to the mind. First among the intuitive powers of the mind are the senses. These present distinct and peculiar phenomena, and are our most adequate authority for them. We can have no better proof for a fact than that we ourselves have seen or heard it. This testimony of the senses is independent and authoritative, and can only be modified by the conclusions of an experience which has pro- ceeded on the ground of its general validity. When and how far the eye and the ear are to be trusted, we can only decide by testimony which they themselves give ARGUMENTS. 65 US. Within these limits, their proof is as perfect as any proof can be. A second form of intuitive knowledge is that direct apprehension which the mind has of its own action. It is more usually termed the testimony of consciousness. It does not arise from any one faculty, but from the very nature of mind. Thought that it may be thought, must be known to itself; feeling that it may be feeling, must be aware of itself; mind that it may be mind, must be conscious of its own phenomena. Complete sleep or unconsciousness would involve the perfect sus- pension of intellectual life. Consciousness testifies di- rectly to mental phenomena — to their existence and character, not to their correctness or the truth of their results. A third source of intuitive knowledge is memory— ~ the testimony which the mind gives to facts which have occurred in its past experience. This, of all the forms of direct proof, is the most uncertain, is subject to the most limitations and corrections from experience. These restrictions, however carefully established, do not give to memory its authority : this is independent and original; experience only defining the bounds within which it can be relied on. Though a man should see but six feet, it is, nevertheless, sight which carries knowledge thus far. Memory is verified by memory, E 66 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. and the experience wliich corrects it depends upon it. A certain picture which memory has given I may after- ward be able to confront with the facts themselves derived from an independent source, as testimony or vision ; yet even in this most favorable case of testing her power, I still trust the distinctness and precision of her statement for one member of the comparison. The validity of memory is more easily judged than that of most of our intuitive powers ; and the fact that in so many cases it seems so signally to fail, may appear to cast, some suspicion on our other intuitive faculties. As nothing can be more destructive to faith in human knowledoje than a want of trust in the oric^inal and unverified action of the mind, it is important to see that the uncertain action of memory does not imply similar uncertainty in the testimony of kindred faculties. The chief fault of memory is negative — that it does not retain the matter intrusted to it ; but this does not invalidate its own positive testimony, much less the positive testimony of other powers. Again, the results of memory are readily confounded with those of other faculties — of imagination, of reason- ing. The partial premises which memory has actually given we complete from our fancy, or by the conclu- sions of the judgment. The whole is then stored in the mind, and afterward reported by memory, and on the ARGUMENTS. . 67 authority of memory ; a portion — that furnished by imagination* or inference — is found false. Here the falsification of memory is apparent, not real. There has not been a just separation of the mind's action ; and if this separation should have taken place by memory, her failure to make it is a defective assertion ratlier than a false assertion. Much which seems to be erroneous is simply defective. That we are compelled to define closely and carefully the safe limits of memory, we are ready to admit, and are quite willing to carry the asser- tion over with its whole force to the other intuitive faculties ; but that within these limits they are not each and all perfectly reliable, cannot be admitted. That these limitations should be numerous in the case of memory is not surprising, since we have here so many concurrent sources of certainty. A fourth and most important intuitive faculty is that of the reason. By the term we designate the power which gives us the regulative ideas of knowledge. Things are known only as they are known in certain relations — in their arrangement in space, in their order in time, in the connection of cause and effect. The regulative ideas of space, time, cause, by which we arrange impressions into knowledge, are given us di- rectly by the mind, are perceived at once by the reason in the appropriate phenomena. These regulative ideas 08 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. are those of existence, resemblance, space, number, time, cause, consciousness, beauty, right, freedom,? the infinite. Under some of these, as that of space, are included many subordinate intuitions — the axioms of geometry. These the mind apprehends without proof. The chief fallacies of this form of proof are mistak- ing the results of reflection or association for those of intuition, or overlooking the conditions of the safe action of our intuitive faculties. The mind interested in its own movement, in the parade of argument, gives more attention to rationative than to intuitive proof. As, however, the latter is the foundation of the former, it must evidently furnish us just premises, before the sim- ply logical, deductive process can be safely instituted. The more rigid this movement of mind, the more cer- tainly does it elaborate error, unless it first freely ac- cepts as premises all the data furnished by intuition. The second source of proof is experience. Experi- ence acts only on the facts furnished by the intuitions. The phenomena presented are dwelt upon by the mind, till their resemblances and connections are seen and stated in general terms. Each object is to the eye individual; and named, the name is a proper noun. When, however, other objects are seen closely to resem- ble it, and this fact is marked by the application to them of the same name, the word becomes a common I ARGUMENTS. 69 noun, and contains a first truth of experience. The mind thus proceeds through the innumerable objects of the external and the internal world, and groups them in classes according to permanent resemblances, con- stantly transforming its proper into common nouns, and greatly multiplying the latter. Each name of a class contains a fact of experience, and language be- comes the storehouse of knowledge. Scientific knowl- edge difiers from popular speech only in the more fun- damental and connected character of the resemblances on which it proceeds. A term of scientific classification is part of a system designating hot merely one kind of agreement, but constituting the complement of other terms by which the interconnections of an entire depart- ment are noted. A first product of experience is the application to agreeing things of common nouns ; a more mature product, their scientific classification. Things agree, not only in appearances, but also in their action one upon another. To mark this agree- ment, and thus learn the laws of cause and effect by which things are united in events, and move on in an ever-changing universe, becomes a second most impor- tant and more difficult labor of experience. This effort, in its incipient and rude form, at once shows itself in language, and verbs expressing some given action mark by their application the character of the event. 70 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. Here, again, the chief difFerence between the popular and the scientific terms in which these truths of experi- ence are treasured, lies in the more accurate, well- defined agreements on which the latter rest. An apple falls to the earth, and gravitates to the earth. The one word marks the fact, the other the fact in its precise manner or law. Man, as he becomes increasingly thoughtful, notes more and more the character of the forces at work about him, and thus reaches the exact truths of experience. Experience proceeds on the permanent character of nature — that things remain in properties what they are, and, as involved therein, that forces everywhere adhere to their fixed law of action. From agreement, there- fore, in appearances and properties, it infers sameness of nature, and attributes to the same species an identity of inherent powers. On the other hand, from agree- ment of causes, of governing circumstances, it antici- pates a similarity of effects. Experience ever argues from resemblance — from similar effects to identity of causes, from identity of causes to similarity of effects. But resemblance has many degrees. It passes from perfect identity through sameness, resemblance, and analogy into the most transient and accidental agree- ments. From this fact, great uncertainty attaches to many of the conclusions of experience, and the substan- ARGUMENTS. ' 71 tial and safe features of likeness in every department must be learned by discriminating and protracted ex- perience within that department. Not till observation itself has taught us can we tell how much stress to lay on the agreement of plants in the number and arrange- ment of leaves ; in the number and arrangement of the parts of the flower ; in the form of the seed vessel. The more complex the efifects or the causes considered, the less able shall we be to affirm a complete agreement, or such an agreement as to secure the safety of our argument. Medicine, administered to a patient, is only one among many and most active and efficacious causes ; we shall trace its eJ0Pects, therefore, with great uncer- tainty in the results, and cannot conclude, at once, that these will be the same in each case. There is, hence, often the semblance of proof without any real strength in its connections. A superficial re- semblance is argued from as if it were an inherent agreement : the premises include a likeness at one point, while the conclusion requires it at quite another : an effect which arises from a complex state is attributed to one of the causes at work, though, for aught that appears, this may be the least efficient of them all, or even adverse. A comparison, therefore, becomes a most open and effective way for the admission of a fallacy. It appeals 72 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. to experience, carries its conclusions over with ease and directness, does not challenge criticism, and scarcely seems to suffer error. The substitution of apparent for real resemblance has sorely vexed philosophy, and rendered of no avail the logic of the most acute minds. This is well illustrated in the freedom of the will. • If the will is free, it is thereby wholly unique, wholly unHke anything in nature, and, therefore, can be ap- proached or expounded by no resemblance whatsoever. Its chief characteristic is, by the supposition of free- dom, radically diverse from everything else. To affirm that a motive has influence, and afterward proceed to analyze this word " influence " by the analogies of the physical world, is of necessity to destroy the idea we are treating. By comparing influence in the one field of liberty to influence in the other of necessity, we hide in the very word the notion of necessity, and afterward, of course, succeed by analysis in reaching it. We con- ceal the goblet in Benjamin's sack, and then pluck it out as triumphant proof against him. Of the second form of fallacy, in which resemblance at one point is substituted for resemblance at another, the argument turning on a different consideration from that brought forward in the premises, an ever-returEing illustration is found in the justification of an action on the ground of its fitness at some previous time. Pres- ARGUMENTS. 73 ent conditions and relations determine the rightness of action. To justify an institution, therefore, by com- paring it with one previously accepted, is fallacious, unless we can also show an identity of circumstances. Once right, always right, is not an axiom of morals. It precludes the idea of progress, which is their basis. Medicine is fruitful in examples of the third fallacy, confidently expecting from one cause effects due to many causes. There is here the opportunity of a double error. The premises may be erroneous, effects being referred to a given remedy which do not belong to it ; the argu- ment may be misapplied, there not being in the two cases an agreement of efBcient circumstances. The pleasing and effective nature of comparison, turning the attention from the logical limits of the argument in- volved to the resemblance of familiar objects, should make us the more careful in scrutinizing its character. Though the form of knowledge is given in the regula- tive ideas of the mind, the contents of this form, the great bulk of knowledge, is furnished by experience. What is? In what manner is it? are questions which the race, from the beginning, have been busy in answer- ing. This knowledge, accumulated by the joint efforts of men, comes to the individual testified to by those who have gone before him, and the larger share of liis knowledge is referable, not to personal experience, but 4 74 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. to testimony. Testimony is the great source of facts and prtQciples to the individual, and proof is often resolved into the credibility of testimony. This itself is determined by experience, and is chiefly dependent on the knowledge and integrity of the witness, weighed with the opportunities he may have had for the one, and with the motives which tend to sway him fiom the other. An easy fallacy of testimony is confounding facts with conclusions dravni from them. For competent testimony to the first, actual observation is all that is requisite. Men, though by no means equal in their power to observe or report events, are so relatively. The value of an opinion, on the other hand, depends almost exclusively on him who gives it. False conclu- sions, therefore, disguised under the facts, and stated as a portion of them, may readily embarrass testimony and mislead the judgment. A man is said to be in- solent, to be proud, to be angry, to be drunk. It is a question, not purely of facts, but of inference from words and actions. Certain circumstances, forming a chain of proof, are to be given. The mind may have already united them by a theory of its own, and, if so, inevitably gives col- oring and relation to them according to its own explana- tion of them. In a science like mental philosophy, it ARGUMENTS. 75 is much more than half the labor to secure impartial testimony to naked phenomena of mind. This error is often mingled with one already referred to. A patient testifies to the effect of medicine as if his statement were the explicit delivery of facts, and not the most uncertain of all opinions. On an agricultural question, as the eifect on a crop of this or that mode of treat- ment, — on a social question, as the results of this or that institution, — it is most difficult to secure the facts, so enlarged, retrenched, and warped are they by the uncon- scious influence of opinion. Hence is it that the mind relies so much on the undesigned coincidence of testimony. The perverting elements of interest and feeling are eliminated, and the essential truth of the statements becomes requisite to explain their agreement. Here appears a new form of experience. When we know the causes, we readily reason from them to their effects ; but when we are ignorant of them, or they are too various and irregular to be separately estimated, we yet draw conclusions often possessed of great certainty. A calculation of chances, though sometimes leading to results of little worth for a single transaction, may yet aiford safe guidance as cases multiply. Accidents assume a certain equality, preserve a certain ratio, when taken in large numbers. Accidents are not 76 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. uncaused events, but events which have no stated cause. Under given circumstances, on a large field, they assume certain limits. From these limits they do not greatly vary. If they were to vary, either^to increase or di- minish, it would imply the pressure of some steady force, securing this result. The eiFect would be no longer accidental. Dice thrown a large number of times will show equal- ity in the presentation of the several faces. If, how- ever, there was a steady tendency discoverable to present one number, this would be adequate proof that the dice were not fairly made, — that there was in them some inequality of weight. In the accidents by which property is destroyed, when we have measured the limits reached by any one form of loss, as by fire, on a field large enough to include the whole range of chances, we are sure that these will not be much overpassed without some assignable, gen- eral, and steady cause. In other words, there is a gauge of partial and fluctuating causes, which experi- ence teaches us may be taken, and that accidents, be- cause they are accidents, can show no steady tendency to preponderate on the one side or the other. What is termed circumstantial evidence depends chiefly on a calculation of chances. A dozen things, which might with little difficulty be accounted for sepa- ARGUMENTS. . 77 ratelj, together form a network of proof from which there is no escape. The distinct threads now draw together, and, as in a cord, must be broken at once. On what supposition shall they all be accounted for? is the pregnant question. The chances that one solu- tion should solve them all, and not be the true solution, are as the chances that a key shall open a complex lock, and not be the key. In reasoning from a calculation of chances, two points are of importance : that the number of cases taken be so great as to include the extreme range of accident, — an entire cycle of chances ; — and that in passing from one field to another there remains a perfect agreement in the known causes at work. Where these cannot be readily estimated, the measurement of chances must be again taken, so as to include them. The loss by fire in cities must obviously be greater than in the country, and in one city than in another, according to the mate- rial employed in building. But the amount of these differences can be ascertained only by independent cal- culations. Proof, or evidence, may be of two kinds — intui- tive or rationative. The intuitive faculties are the most immediate and satisfactory sources of proof. The man who cannot be convinced by seeing, cannot be convinced at all ; nay, has lost the very use of 78 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. those faculties throiigli which conviction comes. It is no assumption to start with all that any faculty testifies to. It is a most perplexing and impossible form of proof to struggle to establish through argu- ment what rests on the immediate insight of the mind. Axioms cannot be proved save as axioms. Doubt them as axioms, and they are forever lost. That is a most perverse rhetoric which strives to get lower than the foundations. The testimony of the mind should be taken, where it can be taken, without hesi- tancy or distrust. Let the mind lose trust in itself, and all adroitness of argument afterward becomes, like the skill of an equilibrist, of no practical value. There is no conviction so deep and perfect as that which arises when man's moral nature is directly appealed to, and the testimony of the reason invoked. Every other witness is far off, compared with conscience. Arguments are of two kinds — inductive and deductive : the differences between them are radical. Inductive reasoning proceeds from specific examples to a general principle, inclusive of all kindred cases. Deductive reasoning evolves from a general truth or principle what is contained in it. In the one case, the conclusion reaches beyond the premises ; in the other, it is included within them. In induction the argument rests on re- semblance, and springs from experience ; it passes from ARGUMENTS. 79 like to like, from wkat has been to what shall be, ever assuming the permanent, self-consistent character of causes. In deduction the argument is a logical evolu- tion of principles oftentimes wholly independent of experience. Induction is never, and can never be, demonstrative. There is more affirmed in the conclu- sion than is given in the premises. With no insight into the nature of causes, we learn their effects from experience, and under its guidance anticipate similar results in future, without being able to establish an absolute identity, but only a more or less perfect resem- blance of causes. The conviction, that the same cause will ever produce the same effect, is axiomatic, and does not, when involved, destroy the demonstrative character of an argument. Induction and experience fail of abso- lute proof by not being able to establish identity of causes, and by being constantly compelled to assume this on the ground of resemblances more or less perfect. Deductive evidence, on the other hand, meets the conditions of a complete syllogism, is always demon- strative in form, and would be so in fact, did it hot often start with principles resting only on induction. The reasoning of mathematics is demonstrative, because it unfolds what is contained in ideas distinctly and neces- sarily present to the mind. If, taught by experience, we secure a distinct notion, an adequate definition, of a 80 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETOHIC. force in nature, we may demonstratively unfold its effects when assumed as present under given conditions. This is done in mechanics, in astronomy, and proof resting originally on induction becomes demonstrative through the simple and defined character of the causes concerned. Deduction, strictly, is always demonstrative. The argument, if correct, is adequate from the given premises to absolutely prove the conclusion. If any doubt enters, it does not attach to the deductive process, but to some of the steps preparatory to it. The syllo- gism is in its perfect form demonstrative, no matter what its contents. All deductive argument assumes the perfect form. Virtue and intelligence secure success. A. has virtue and intelligence. Therefore A. will succeed. This is a deductive argument. Success is evolved from A.'s virtue and intelligence. 'No doubt can enter between the premises and the conclusions. The deduc- tive steps are just as demonstrative as those of mathe- matics. If any distrust still lingers about the conclu- sion, it must arise either from the minor premise — a disbelief in the fact of A.'s virtue and intelligence — or from the major premise — a doubt of the correctness I ARGUMENTS. 81 of the induction, by which, from given cases, the prin- ciple is established. It is a mistake to suppose that what is sometimes termed moral evidence is not, in many of its forms, demonstrative. The circumstances, however, with which it deals, are not often so well known or estab- lished as to allow it to avail itself of this fact. In this respect it is like mixed mathematics. A hypothetical system of morals can readily be constructed, demon- strative in all its parts. The preacher, at least, has quite as often to do with deductive as with inductive argument — to unfold and apply what is conceded as to establish principles. The lawyer and statesman, on the other hand, dealing with facts, must constantly guide their steps by experience, and rest their conclusions on the history of the past. The process is more often the establishment of a principle, or the including of a given case under a principle, than the deductive unfolding of the principle itself. A chief difficulty in the reasonings which pertain to ordinary life, is a want of precision in the terms em- ployed. Words shift their force in the same connection, contam more in the conclusion than in the premises, more for one mind than for another, and thus the argu- ment staggers or sinks altogether, from the fleeting character of the floating symbols on which it traverses 4* r 82 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. the tide of talk. In the proof above given, as accura.te as most, v^hat precisely is meant by success, and what degree of virtue and intelligence is requisite to secure it? So various are the forces which oppose progress, so various "the power which virtue brings against them, that the most which can be affirmed with absolute cer- tainty is, that all degrees of vu'tue and intelligence favor success, and that any high degree will usually secure it. Life fails to be reduced to a demonstration, not from the uncertainty of the connections, the dependences between things, but from our uncertain hold of the things themselves. Definition is the basis of demon- stration, and our ordinary notions are at masquerade, because we so poorly define them. They elude us ; they are never themselves ; never twice alike ; and have no false connections, because they have no true ones. Science is little more than accuracy, than defi- nition ; and where this can be reached, argument quickly approaches absolute proof. In philosophical productions, where the precision and justness of the thought are everything, all must proceed from the most clear and v\^ell-defined ideas, and the laws of thought become the laws of composition. In oratory, however, the argu- ment is used, not presented, and this fact gives us some further principles. Truth is not furnished for its own ARGUMENTS. 83 sake, but proof is urged as the motive and basis of just action. A first principle, therefore, is, that proof should be strictly pertinent, called for by the end in view. To present arguments, hov^ever just in themselves, vrhich are not needed to bring the will into action, is at very best a loss of time, and usually, therefore, a loss of interest and opportunity. To determine what is requisite in argument, we need to know what we can trust to the intuitions of our audi- ence. A direct appeal to their own sense of truth and right is, when first principles are involved, by far the most efficacious method, both because this is the appro- priate proof of such principles, and because it indicates our reliance on their integrity and honesty, and makes them cheerful parties to the conclusion. On the other hand, subtle arguments on such points are always unsat- isfactory ; the auditor is thrown into a cold, critical state ; and a spirit of scepticism is evoked, which will not be readily laid. We should also know what is already admitted by those addressed, that on these points, if the argument is treated at all, it may be in the most succinct state- ment. Let it not seem, for an 'instant, that a question encumbered with serious difficulties is to be handled at a safe distance in its obvious features, with an oversight 84 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. of its more perplexed parts. The impression of bold- ness, directness, and thoroughness of argument are worth everything. It is also a preliminary point of some moment to determine with whom the burden of proof lies. If it rests with one's opponent, this fact affords a just and often very grave advantage. In this case, as when one defends a citadel, not to be vanquished is to vanquish. After each unsuccessful assault, the holder is left in more secure possession. It is a just advantage, since it arises from the nature of the case. 'No one is called on to prove innocency. The accusation of guilt must be specific and well established, and it is sufficient to meet it when presented. One quietly conscious of in- tegrity will not be put on his defence, mil not entertain the necessity of proof, till the danger becomes distinct and imminent. Virtue rests on a silent appeal to char- acter ; guilt must be established by proof. All that is, either as springing from nature, or from the opinions of men, has in its favor the presumption of right. Action and opinion, if changed rationally, must be changed for a reason. Whatever a custom may be, therefore, before laying it aside, or adopting a new method, we justly demand an adequate motive — proof of its impropriety, proof of the superiority oF that offered in its place. Till this is given, we rightly ARGUMENTS. 85 remain where we are. However much one may be haunted with a vague notion of the unreliable character of the opinions which education or accident have made his, he cannot wisely reject them, till, one by one, they have been satisfactorily disproved. It is more rational to content one's self with an old lie, an old doubt, than it is to accept a new one ; since, by the supposition, we have not improved oUr position by changing it, and have therein acted without a motive. A good illustration of the advantage afforded by the burden of proof resting on an adversary is seen in the establishment of any reli- gious form. The presumption is, that the form of any action, if not explicitly defined and enjoined, is unim- portant. Hence the advocates of any one form must establish it, not by establishing the action itself, but by the explicit enforcement of it under the given method, to the exclusion of every other. The burden of proof, like occupancy, affords an advantage which ought not to be resigned unless in view of easy and certain success. Once waived, and the argument entered on, it cannot be readily recovered. We may decline to enter the field of debate on the ground that it cannot be claimed of us; but being pu6h(^,d, we cannot so readily retreat to the assump- tion of right Having settled what must be proved to secure rational 86 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. conviction, it remains to choose and arrancre our arg-u- ments. A chief principle here is, their careful adapta- tion, in matter and manner, to the powers of the persons addressed. Arguments are more often obscure through the language used, than through any inherent abstruse- ness of thought. The educated mind is more and more removed from the popular mind in the form of its ideas and their manner of expression. Terms used in a technical and limited signification become not only familiar to it, but the staple of its vocabulary, and its ideas assume a mode of expression so diverse from that of ordinary speech as effectually to perplex the untrained mind. Whatever the subject matter, language, illustration, must have sole reference to the hearers. It cannot be too familiar and easy. It must be made for them the most perfect and perspicuous medium of thought. It is the skill, the instinct, of the orator, that teaches him where and how to find his audience. There is also a choice in arguments. Not those most conclusive, but those most convincing, are to be taken. The intricacy of a deductive argument which taxes to the utmost the intellect is highly unfavorable to oratory, since it leaves the mind weary, prepared for rest, not aroused by quick flashes of truth to earnest action. Comparisons and examples, though less accurate, are ARGUMENTS. 87 much more efficacious methods of proof. The audience is brought to the conclusion in the freshness of its power, quickened, not taxed, by thought. Kapidity thus becomes an important element of suc- cess. To dwell long on arguments, or to convince by their laborious accumulation, makes the way tedious, and the hearers are either exhausted by it or cease to follow it. If the mind is to be set aglow, there must be quick- ness of movement ; and once brought to the right point, it cannot long be retained there. Strike while the iron is hot, is a precept of broad application. The effort to gather up the details of an argument may, by restor- ing the attention to particulars, to minutiae of proof, so cool the mind that it shall become less and less pliant to our purpose. The exact measure of rapidity which the orator should employ must depend on the power of the audience. We cannot move successfully faster, nor much slower, than the minds of those who listen. The attention is more fixed, and a stronger effect pro- duced, by a thorough treatment of a few arguments than by their multiplication. The uncultivated are especially impatient of protracted proof. Their opinions are formed hastily by a few points well put. Proof requires impression almost as much as matter less logical. To evolve an argument, and urge it from many sides till it comes to possess the mind, is most 88 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. essential. The mere statement of proof is cold and barren. Conduct is not so wedded to conviction as this would imply. The arrangement of arguments must be such as to secure a growth of impression. It cannot, therefore, proceed from greater to less. Nor need the order be exclusively that of a climax, since a gTOwth of convictions may often be secured without this. As in a sentence, the earlier and later positions, those considerations which first invite and last occupy the mind, are most important. Attention should be commanded by the weight of the proof brought forward ; and the mind should be con- firmed in its convictions by an eiFective, final point. Arguments much below the level of those adduced with them, hardly add to the strength of a cause. The necessity of employing them implies weakness, and they are liable to weary the mind, and to render it suspicious. Arguments, of course, come early in the oration. They occupy the mind while it is yet quiet, and clear the way for rational feeling. No sooner is the subject before the mind, than it wishes to know the ground of action : to state and establish this becomes the imme- diate duty of the speaker. The argumentative and emotional parts of discourse are not so much distinct sections, readily separable and following one the other, ARGUMENTS. . 89 as interwoven members everywhere sustaining each other. The feelino^ must beoin to arise with the arou- ment, and the argument can only close at the full tide of feeling. The earlier movement is more exclusively thoughtful, the later more strikingly impulsive ; but the emotion has sprung up everywhere in the track of truth, and to the very end is nourished by the argument to which in quick snatches of conviction it is ever return- ing. Like opposite poles in the electric current, they rest on each other, and coexist everywhere. Different forms of oratory stand in different relations to the argument. Pulpit oratory has more occasion to enforce and apply than to establish truth ; the bar is chiefly occupied with the more strict processes of proof. The first, with more undoubted claims, and less delayed by the exigencies of argument, can bring forward more confidently and quickly the stirring appeal, and press onward to the immediate end of action. Misled by this general conviction of the goodness of the cause, and freed from attack, the sacred orator may become less cautious of the soundness of the considera- tions advanced, and commit the unpardonable error of weak and puerile argument employed in the defence of unmistakable truths. The cause is thus damaged by those who sustain it. A more common mistake, resting on the conviction of undeniable right, is the hortatory 90^ PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. form which discourse often assumes fi:om the beoinmn*!: to the end. Now, exhortation requires a basis, if not in argument, jet in presentation. Not till truth has been more vi^ddly brous^ht before the mind, or more broadly unfolded, is it prepared with any new energy to espouse or obey it. Exhortation is properly the conclu- sion, not the body, of discourse. There are at this point two opposed errors, almost equally fatal, which men fall into according to their several characteristics — a direct appeal without that presentation of truth which gives it propriety and power ; a discussion of principles without that enforcement which gives them value. It is only when the body of thought is animated by fitting emotion, that we have a living product ; only when the will is reached through the intellect as well as the heart, that man achieves progress. As the truths which the minister enforces stand in various relations, and are chosen not in reference to any one mooted question, the sermon demands and receives an application. The whole armament is turned upon a single point, and from this concentration of aim the efibrt receives its law, and becomes an oration The lawyer, on the other hand, has constantly occa- sion to discuss and establish the ever-doubtful conditions of action, and can do nothing rightly till some basis of action has been found in fact or in law. The plea. ARGUMENTS. 91 therefore, is preeminently argumentative ; and as proof is often difficult, it is made exhaustive, and every con- sideration is thrown into the vacillating balance. Plausi- bility — a preparation for proof, rather than proof itself — here often becomes important. Events separately established are to be united into a narrative, natural in all its connections. The facts proved, w^hen thus con- curring, have their full force, and the way of argument is made easy. When the facts are undoubted, plausi- bility may be neglected ; but when all the resources of proof are requisite, its strength cannot be further taxed by inherent improbability. A first consideration in treating an opponent is candor and fairness, for what they are in themselves, in their effect on others, and in the strength they imply. Thorough knowledo^e and a calm confidence of success beget these qualities, and these in turn become their index. The irritable acrimony, the assumed contempt, with which an adversary is often treated, are feeble makeshifts, and evidence of a mind seeking personal ends rather than truth. Conviction is often readily secured by the fakness with which a real difficulty is stated and removed, when it could not possibly be reached by any amount of independent proof. This principle is of broad application, but is possessed of 92 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOIIIC. special force in legal oratory, already too much sus- pected of petty devices and sharp practice. That an opponent's arguments should be met and answered at the proper time is a point of some impor- tance. To answer objections at the outset, whether urged by another or known already to exist, may fre- quently consume too much time, embarrass the argu- ment, and be less satisfactory than when this is done in connection with the just view which the speaker him- self is to propose. There are cases, however, which will not admit delay. The mind is so occupied by difficulties as to be closecf to any argument till these are removed. An important rule is, when the hearer is preoccupied either by the arguments of an adversary or opinions of his own, these must be in a measure met, preparatory to an independent presentation of opposing principles. When, however, the mind is sufficiently candid and open to give due weight to what is urged, the most easy and complete refutation of false opinions will be made in connection with an establishment of the truth. It then becomes natural to mark the lines of deviation which error has taken. A common fallacy is to attach too much consequence to the refutation of a single argument. As arguments often stand alone, it may be a point of little moment ARGUMENTS. 93 that one has been overthrown. The eclat, hovfever, which attends a successful refutation, and the quick judgment which is arrived at, that remaining consider- ations are of the same character, sometimes make an imimportant advantage equivalent to a complete over- throw. The popular mind judges so much by retorts, by the apparent relations of parties, as to render shal- low adroitness in debate more than a match for awkward and ponderous strength. Here is furnished another rea- son why any position relatively weak should not be taken, lest its overthrow prove the signal of defeat. There is often a panic in discussion, as in arms. In debate 'a speech does not stand in connection with the subject and audience merely, but with the exigencies of the instant. It becomes the part of a more inclusive whole, and is alone no longer a symmetrical production. It assumes the argument and passion already put forth, and unites itself to the movement at the point which these may have reached. Not to be able to do this is to fail. Argument, the subject now presented, is the basis of permanent success. No one can long succeed, no one ought to succeed without supporting the truth, and without its support. Here lies the justice, and there- fore the strength, of one's cause. All forms of knowl- 9-1 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. edge are the sources and instruments of argument. It is by a broad survey of real relations alone, that one can discover and maintain thq truth. Rhetorical culture implies all other culture, and must have it. Nothing is more superficial than superficial oratory. Eloquence roots itself in all knowledge, and only a rich soil can yield a rank, native growth. EMOTIONS. 95 CHAPTER m. EMOTIONS. Inteemediate between tlie intellect and the will, in the line of action, lie the emotions. Through these, desire is called forth, the will determined, and the whole man set in motion. Thought becomes power only by the intervention of feeling, and is judged, therefore, by the orator solely in reference to the emo- tions it is fitted to arouse, and the relation of. these to the end in view. Neither the laws of thought nor of feeling alone are considered by him, but both in their connections with each other and with the will. Thus only can all the complex conditions of a volition, the fulness and completion of mental activity, be reached. Oratory «s the dynamics of mind. It contemplates it aroused and active, and studies the laws of the forces which then control it. A first condition of easy and perfect success in arous- ing emotion is the sympathy of those who are to expe- rience it with him who calls it forth. Fire is kindled by fire, feeling by feeling. A cold statement of appro- 96 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. priate truths does not necessitate warmth of conviction in the hearer any more than the heaping up of combus- tible material secures heat. The spark of ignition must come from the earnestness of the speaker. He is the fountain of feeling, and looking with him at the sub- ject, the audience insensibly catch his emotion. Great dramatic art may show some exceptions, but the chief condition on which the power of the speaker to make others feel deeply will depend, is depth in his own emotions. But this feeling cannot be transferred without that sympathy which removes opposition, and leaves the hearer open to the subject presented. It is by con- current thinking the heart is to be aroused ; and if each movement is arrested by the barrier of prejudice, each effort met -with a counter effort, there can be no com- munity of action. The opinion which the audience entertain of the speaker thus becomes an important consideration, since by it the way of influence is opened or closed* It may be said that justice requires that behefs should be separated from persons, and judged on their own ab- stract merit. However true this may be in given instances, the mass of conclusions are not so reached. Persons and opinions are identified, and views are greatly prejudiced or promoted by the character of those EMOTIONS. 97 who hold them. This is unavoidable, and, for the most part, not undesirable. Complex questions must, in the bustle of life, be settled, not always by considerations truly fundamental and carefully considered, but often also by superficial marks and tendencies more quickly reached. Among these secondary indications of the character of opinions, few are more reliable than the purposes and influence of those who sustain them. One can often decide by these when not able to form a well- balanced opinion on the case itself. It is in vain to try to rob men of this quick and generally just method of judging measures. To distrust the man, and trust his schemes, is too nice an equipoise of mind for most purposes, or most men. The agent gives char- acter to the agency, and becomes its efficient moral force. This is perfectly just so far as the person seeking to exert influence is concerned. He ought to be held to a rigorous account as to the method in which he has hitherto employed power^ the opinions he has advocated, and the paths in which he has sought to lead men. Vi:*'tue ought to accumulate strength, vice to lose it. Benevolence ought to win favor, and selfishness to for- feit it ; integrity to secure confidence, and trickery to destroy it. The momentum and power of personal character are a most wholesome law in the world. 5 Q 98 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. The points at which the character of the speaker is chiefly judged are intelligence and virtue. Of these the last is obviously the most important. Intelligence alone only increases the power to deceive ; suspicion is on the alert, and will not suflfer the mind to accept just reasoning, lest it be found a gloss of language. A distrust of one's virtue may lead to the immediate rejec- tion of discourse ; of one's intelligence, to a more care- ful and scrutinizing inquiry into it. In the one case, the character of the speaker turns us from him ; in the other, draws us to him, and disposes us to give his opinions honest consideration* The admiration which genius excites, however, in part counteracts this ten- dency, and gives an undue weight to the intellectual element in character. The relation of the speaker to a sect or party may also be an occasion of prejudice against him. Partisan feelino^s are stron2:er and blinder in the illiterate than in the more intelligent. The one class rest their opinions .on conviction, and neither need nor seek any firmness beyond that derived from views deliberately formed and discriminatingly held. They are both able and wUling to canvass a subject whose bearings they understand. The other class, arriving at their views largely by acci- dental and external influences, steady themselves in them by the superinduced obstinacy of party feeling, EMOTIONS. 99 and do not venture on discussion beyond a few familiar cant phrases, conscious that their power is not here. Liable, if they once give way to argument, to be blown about at random, they make it a first principle of honesty and honor to adhere faithfully to any party or sect with which caprice or accident has identified them. As change, with their limited ability to canvass all its motives, would be capricious, they arm themselves against it by personal and party obstinacy. They yield to a first caprice, and ever after abjure it. Partisan feel- ings, taking the place of deep convictions, are very strong with the ignorant. Though blindly driven by old leaders, they do not readily yield to new ones. When these prejudices, therefore, lie in the way of the orator, they require skilful treatment, lest in the outset they extinguish all sympathy. Allied to differences of party are differences of doc- trine. Doctrine often assumes so settled and obdurate a form as to close the mind to all opposing considera- tions, and cut off the opportunity of conviction. A creed made up is- like a fortress with its defences, and cannot be lightly approached. If it be the difficult task of the orator to attack opinions and customs long estab- lished, a conciliatory and adroit method is requisite to obtain an honest hearing — a thing most rare among rare thinirs. 100 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. The most important office of introductions is that of concihation. A favorable state of feeling is, if possi- ble, to be assumed. It is one of the more offensive forms of egotism to refer, at the outset, to one's personal relations to the audience, v^hen these are not prominent, — to assume the existence of hostile feeling, when there is little or no feeling. When, however, either the speaker or subject stands in an obviously unfavorable light before the audience, a conciliatory introduction, winning favor, or at least attention, becomes a matter of great importance. A fair hearing for one's self or subject may be invoked, the generosity and candor of the hearer appealed to, and the motives which urge to a broad and kind consideration of all the points involved be pressed. The general office of an introduction is to secure concurrent sympathetic action between the speaker and listener. When conciliation is not required, it may still be necessary to win attention, and to lead the thoughts, with some interest and expectation, to the theme. In proportion as the subject is before the minds of all, and has secured the interest of all, ' does an introduction become short and unimportant, since the condition of sympathetic action is already present. The qualities in the speaker which win interest and attention are frankness, earnestness, and self-control . EMOTIONS. 101 An undisguised and open method inspires confidence, and assures us of the honesty of the speaker. We feel that we are not to be practised upon, and may, at our ease, listen to that which shall be said. Earnestness is always pleasing, and especially so in the presentation of opinions, as it impKes confidence in them and attachment to them. No man fails to feel the power of an earnest manner. There is an honesty in it which works conviction. Self- control, controlled emotion, is always requisite for the orator. Men are not to be driven by wild gusts of passion, but to be urged by just feelings springing from correct views. The speaker occupies the position of an adviser and guide, and no one can direct wisely who does not perfectly govern himself. No burst of oratory can, to advantage, pass the limit of perfect self-control. The orator must ever command the expression, and shape it strictly in view of the exigencies of the subject and the occasion. It is not every theme which will admit strong emotion, and misplaced eloquence is bombast. The theme must be the adequate source of all feeHng which is employed in urging it. Feeling, on the part of the orator, which seems to the audience excessive, destroys sympathy, and produces an effect quite the opposite of that intended. This may arise, not only from uncontrolled passion, but also from 102 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. the too great rapidity with which the subject sometimes acts on the mind of the speaker. He must not only commence where the listener is, but be sure to keep with him through all the discussion. When the orator dissevers himself from the audience, and hastens on under his own momentum, he soon becomes a spectacle to idle or critical lookers-on. The increments of mo- tion, as when an engine toils at its load, are often small in oratory. Precipitation then becomes disruption and failure. In brief, sympathy — that is, unity of action — must both be secured and maintained : when this is lost, success becomes impossible Aside from the direct relations of the speaker, sub- ject, and audience, sympathy may be increased by many incidental methods. The circumstances of the occasion, the imagery and language employed, associated inci- dents, may furnish means by which to arouse and har- monize the feelings. Quick insight, delicate apprecia- tion, and ready resources must belong to the orator, that he may at once apprehend the exigencies of the case. He must first measure, and then meet, the moral state in and on which he is to work: and the most triflino- expedients, when prompted by the sagacity of a quick sympathy, may prepare the way for success. All speak- ing, all personal influence, is a strife between different and adverse states of mind which shall overcome and EMOTIONS. 103 displace the other. The apathy of the audience may- overpower the speaker, or the animation of the speaker may arouse the audience : the first result is dulness ; the second, eloquence. To establish at any related point a oneness of interest and thought, is a preparation for success. The harmony of mental action, of which we have spoken, is not less necessary for the pleasurable and powerful movement of the mind of the speaker than for the right reception of what is said. While the orator is the source of influence, he is also the recipient of influ- ence. The audience speedily begin to react upon him, and the processes of thought commenced, the emotion aroused, can only be sustained and completed when he, in full sympathy with those addressed, feels the im- pulse of concurrent sentiment, the strength of growing emotion and deepening conviction. Nothing is more destructive of mental eflbrt than the inattention and indifference of those for whom it is instituted. The inspiration of thought is its effectiveness. Sympathy does not so much imply the absolute acquiescence of all in the views advanced as the attention and interest of all — a simultaneous movement of all minds under the direction (;f one toward a single object. When we remember that the oration is not simply an argument, a logical process, but a product filled with 104 PHILOSOPHY OF EHETORIC. vitality, through the vitality of the speaker, a weighing out in overwhelming counterpoise the enthusiasm and convictions of his soul against the indifference and unbe- lief of others, we see at once how great and exhausting is the effort, how the whole man is taxed in the struggle, and the more taxed as the audience becomes larger and the oratory complete. . Sympathy with the mental movements of the orator, by which he is made the medium through which the subject is viewed and- felt, we have shown to be the condition of all emotion. The feelings to be aroused, and the methods by which this is done, demand further attention. The emotions have sometimes been divided by their relation to action into three classes : those which excite effort, those which restrain it, and those indifferent to it. This is not a permanent division, since the same emotion, under different circumstances, may belong to each of the classes. Fear, ordinarily used to restrain action, may almost as readily call it forth, or simply leave the mind apprehensive without any explicit determination. There is, however, this difference in the emotions aroused by oratory compared with those elicited by poetry, that the former, as at the time employed, have connection with some definite action, either tending to secure or restrain it ; while the latter either occupy the mind without directing it, or exert a general influence not determined EMOTIONS. 105 toward any single effort. This determination of feeling toward a definite action is oratorical. The emotions constitutionally strongest in man are the affections which arise in connection with his moral nature. Through these, he is most deeply and justly influenced, and to know how to move them becomes the secret of benign and permanent persuasion. Closely allied with the moral sympathies as motives of action are the tastes. A second more constantly and immediately operative class of feelings are those of self-interest. As they are not in themselves wrong, and only become so through that perverted or excessive action by which they lapse into passion, they also afford a constant means of per- suasion. Neither at this nor at any other legitimate point does influence trench on the liberty of man. The whole career of a rational being is one of giving and receiving influence. Almost every movement of man among his fellows is one of persuasion, of inducements offered or taken, of example set for others or received from them, of custom current by common enforcement, of words spoken or heard. Liberty is. nt)t liberty from influence, but the liberty to be influenced by the most numerous and various considerations. A third class of feelings through which conduct is, unfortunately too often, affected, are those arising from a 5* 106 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. direct appeal to appetite and passion. To persuasion accomplished by these forces we cannot accord the title of eloquence, at least so far as it violates the law of just influence, and binds the man by base means to a base purpose. Oratory has nothing to do with this class of motives save to reprobate them, as resulting in that debasement of mind which must ultimately sweep away all higher inducements and forms of action. The sources of influence are, then, the affections, the tastes, and interests of men. If we are correct in affirming, that, constitutionally, right is the supreme law enthroned in every man, the moral affections become the soundest, safest means of persuasion. When the effective motive really relied on is self-interest, it does not follow that more noble considerations may be safely overlooked. When convinced that action is right, men will push farther and more boldly in it, though this fact be with them only an ostensible motive covering a more selfish impulse. It is the duty and advantage of the orator to furnish the best motives, though they may not be found solely the efficacious ones. If the greater may not exclude the less, certainly the less may not lead to an oversight of the greater. The oftener and bolder the appeal to that which is highest in man, the firmer and more legitimate is the influence established. When the question is one of interest, with no obvious EMOTIONS. 107 moral relation, wLile tlie discussion should conform to the fact, oratory is greatly restricted by it. The canon, that the good man alone is the orator, has been so often recognized by rhetoricians because of the supe- rior hold which virtue gives to those motives and emo- tions by which, under a divine ordinance in man's nature, truth and right are carried from mind to mind. He who has no hold on the conscience must work uncer- tainly toward transient and superficial ends. While not in form accepting the assertion that eloquence is virtue, we would say, that it thence derives its life. The purpose and circumstances of the oration must define the emotions called for, and the question then becomes important. How shall these be secured? Feel- ing springs up in view of certain objects or truths fitted to call it forth, and it is, therefore, a first labor to pre- sent and establish these. This is the province of argu- ment, already spoken of, and the soundness of this is the occasion and justification of the emotions excited. The mind is most deeply moved by truth. Fiction acts, indeed, strongly on the feelings, yet, in part, because the absorption of the mind in the narrative leads it to overlook its unreality, and to accept its creations as real personages. Yv^hen we wish to quiet the emotion ex- cited, it is done by reverting to the fact of the fictitious character of the events. Plausibility, naturalness, and 108 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. adhesion to the truth of character and relations — ^ the most weighty of all truths — justly give the novel a hold on the heart. This, in the rightly-governed mind, is its only hold. The feeling aroused by fiction is not that of oratory, and chiefly because the subject matter lacks that entire truth which belongs to the latter. The novel usually gives no definite direction to the emotion it excites, and thereby enervates the voluntary and active powers. Oratory, resting on naked truth, calls the whole nature into use, and thus invigorates it. Suitable facts and principles, those which involve the action proposed, are the first and indispensable steps toward complete and permanent conversion to our purpose. Among the many opinions received and doctrines conceded, comparatively few are constantly operative on conduct. To secure this obedience, there must be a clearness of apprehension and depth of conviction which belong only to a few familiar and govertiing principles. It is chiefly for this reason that persuasion becomes requisite. Truths are to be restated and reestablished, their consequences traced, their relation to present action seen, and the fearful force with which they shape events impressed on the mind. It is thus that the chasm be- tween knowing and doing is filled. Facts and prin- ciples are first proved, and then enforced by a survey EMOTIONS. 109 of their relation to ourselves, to the events and persons about us, to the future in its more immediate and remote events. The action proposed is shown to spring from the case in hand, and to be of importance. Exhortation to feeling, which does not supply these its conditions, harasses and wearies the mind, and leaves it more dead than ever. The vividness of ideas is largely dependent on the imagination. Of this we shall speak at a later point. Much oratorical effort has for its aim to attach the ideas under consideration to those most familiar and operative in the minds of the audi- ence, and thus arouse concerning them that feeling which secures action. Here we see the gradual growth in pathos as the speaker proceeds. The* earlier steps are more coldly logical, — a truth is presented or established. As the thoughts begin to be occupied with it, it arouses interest, and works conviction. The importance of its relations is then unfolded ; it is made in familiar imagery to stand out as a governing principle in conduct, affecting daily and dear interests. Its immediate claims on con- duct are urged, and, according to the homely and emphatic expression, the truth is brought home to the heart ; and this is oratory. That which was not in the mind, or lay on its very margin, is brought into its immediate presence, and made, like the work of the 110 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. painter, to fill the canvas, to stand distinctly and warmly out, in glowing colors. A law of progress is thus established. The per- suasive force steadily increases, till, in the conclusion, it is all gathered up, and applied to the purpose in hand. The movement of feeling is not precipitate or fitful, but well ordered and efficient, sustained by truth, and itself giving vitality to the truth. The growth of emotion, with and out of argument, gives it the needed validity and power, and renders it in full force at the moment when it is to be employed, when the mind passes from contemplation into action. When a weighty impression has been produced, as by an advocate, it may become the inquiry. How shall this be so far removed that the minds of the jury may return to a candid rejudgment of the topic? Unfavor- able feeling may be displaced directly or indirectly. It is directly displaced by overthrowing the foundations of proof on which it rests ; or, assenting to the general truth of the statements, by pointing out the untrue or extravagant consequences which have been deduced from them, and that conclusions quite the reverse logically follow ; or by showing that the subject is unimportant, meriting no immediate attention. Feeling is thus allayed by reversing the steps by which it has been aroused. It may sometimes, however, be so intense as EMOTIONS. Ill not to suffer this immediate and direct method. Time must be given for it somewhat to abate. The mind must be diverted to matter relatively indifferent, till, reverting to its ordinary state, it may again be occu- pied with a fair discussion of the theme. ' The mind is occasionally more readily vacated by considerations not wholly pertinent, than by those which call forth its opposition. There are two processes of mind which are especially liable to interfere with securing and directing emotion. These are the logical and imaginative. The first, becoming too severe and pervasive, makes a sound, but often a very dull and ineffective speaker. The product is not sufficiently vital. The method is too coolly ana- lytic, too cruelly anatomical, and, while those who choose to attend are instructed, attention and action are not necessitated. The heart needs to be more deeply moved — claims a larger part in the presentation. The imagination may also escape control, and cease to serve the ends of the orator. In this case, attention is usually gained, but no practical bent given to the thoughts. Interest is secured, but not action. This is liable to be the error of an orator too eager for success, and not sufficiently occupied with the subject. Much popular speaking is faulty in this direction, and relatively valueless for moral and social ends. A strong 112 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. desire to reach fully the given end is the great protec- tion of the orator. This necessity makes the advocate explicit and plain in what he says. When the speaker must succeed or the failure become palpable and great, he has that which keeps him steadily in the one line of effort : he neither leaves the feelings dormant, nor arouses them to waste them* IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 113 CHAPTER lY. IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. Among the instrumental faculties there are two which the orator has constant occasion skilfully to employ — imagination and memory. For carrying on the pro- cesses of thought, these faculties are fundamental. That the mind should have power to retain and present to itself its conceptions is essential to all movement and clearness of thought. While, therefore, the imagina- tion and memory are not active for their own sakes, their action is requisite for all the ulterior ends of think- ing and feeling. Imagination is more frequently employed to denote the power by which, through memory, we restore sen- sible phenomena, more especially those of vision, to the mind; or by which we construct images under kindred forms, subject to desire. That use of the term in which it designates the presentation by the mind tof itself of all its conceptions, the most abstract, is less general and less immediately appKcable to oratory. 114 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. The vividness and force of composition must depend largely on the skilful use of imagination. Sensible objects are most immediate and strong in their hold on the mind. Our senses are a first, con- stant, and undoubted source of knowledge. Value and pleasure early and chiefly attach themselves to sensible objects : around these the associations of life cluster. Hence no form of knowledge is so full and determinate, so immediate in its hold on the mind, as that received through the senses. There is an effort constantly made to present all the difficult matter of science through diagrams, models, experiments, and specimens ; since anything offered to the eye is thought of more avail than the most comprehensive description. That an orrery should become a medium of apprehending the solar system is a striking fact, showing with how short and weak a staff the mind sustains its steps. A direct appeal to the senses is seldom open to the orator. He may sometimes recall the pictures of mem- ory, and stir the mind powerfully through the image of vanished events ; but even this opportunity is^ of rare occurrence. His chief resources in removing the truth from its abstract relations, in bringing it near to the mind, are illustration and resemblance — instances of the action of the principle in hand, a kindred relation of things in other departments. In these the orator IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 115 aims chiefly at the clearness and vivacity which it im- parts, and needs therefore to draw his imagery with apt and close agreement from departments most interesting to the audience. The comparison seeks to avail itself of familiar facts to flash light on those less known or heeded. The torch is taken from the very hand of the spectator, and its blaze cast upon the object. The images of the imagination, therefore, must not merely be in themselves striking and illustrative, but must be drawn from facts which have already hold on the mind of the listener. Intimate knowledge of the habits of feeling belonging to the classes addressed is requisite to give the imagination high power. It is the vividness of the ideas presented which arouse emotion, and thus carry over conviction into persuasion. Hence it is that the imagination plays so important a part iji oratory; Truth comes forth from its systematic and logical connections, shows itself operative m the events about us, and establishes its claim on action Ky its harmony with facts, and by the many instances in which it has already proved eflfective. The mind sees it and presents it, not chiefly as a principle, but as a law controlling the phenomena of the world. Enforcing this view, and transferring the mind from speculations to facts, many instances crowd themselves upon the imagi- nation. The nearer these are to the daily experience of 116 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. men, the more necessarily and successfully is the topic urged on their attention. » It is emotion in the speaker which arouses the imagi- nation and fills the mind with imagery : thought can thus no longer proceed in naked statements, but at once seeks enforcement by a retinue of illustrative events. The imagination may not only be cultivated, but prac- tically directed to oratorical ends by cherishing the ten- dency to observe the resemblances between moral and physical things. The world is an inexhaustible store- house of images, and the mind that directs its attention to them will be more and more able to discover them. Since it is not sufficient, however, that the image in itself be perfect, but it must also be open to those addressed, a sympathy with men, with those to be immediately influenced, is indispensable to give to truth and its illustrations that pertinence and precision which impart to them their power. The ministry are more open to failure here than other classes of speakers, since, by their pursuits, they are liable to be more removed from men, and since their failures are disguised from them by the often remote and intangible character of the results expected. A definite end, pressing the mind and heart, is a great security to oratory. If aU that is empty and worthless instantly shows itself to be so, the rebuke secures the remedy. IMAGINATION AND MEMORY. 117 While the vividness of the impression made by the orator depends largely on the imagination, its perma- nence is due to its hold on the memory. A vivid impression does of itself tend, indeed, to permanence ; yet there are other distinct considerations. An oration that pays no heed to the memory, that seeks neither to make perfect nor easy the performance of its duty, may be .forcible for the moment, may have striking points, which may linger in the mind, but cannot unite to secure a single and permanent effect. The mind does not readily recall it, and thus cannot contemplate it as a single effort, strengthened by all its parts, and resting upon them all. The joint power, which should be the chief power, of the oration is largely lost without the free action of the memory. The memory recalls objects by a variety of relations, but always proceeds on some definite connection. We may restore in memory the persons at any time present in an assembly by the order in which they were seated, by the time of their entrance, or by the part which they took in the proceedings. The connections of place, time, resemblance, cause and effect, dependence, are among the leading ones employed by memory. The more perfect and complete the relation, the more readily does memory, by means of it, bind the parts together. A close logical connection of members in a whole, of 118 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. reasons and conclusions, gives this faculty the greatest ease of . movement. Any relation, however, which makes of the treatment a chain of linked ideas, will impart ease and certainty to the mind in traversing it, and compactness and power to the impression. This accumulative power of memory, closely allied to logi- cal force, must be secured in all thorough and diffi- cult work. WIT, HUMOR, AND RIDICULE. 119 CHAPTEE Y. WIT, HUMOR, AND RIDICULE. Composition finds among its occasional means, wit, humor, and ridicule. The best definitions of wit and humor are those furnished by Sydney Smith. Wit is eliciting surprise by an unexpected association of ideas ; humor is eliciting surprise by an unexpected association of things. Surprise and ideas are the im- portant words in the first ; surprise and things in the second definition. If any stronger feeling than surprise is aroused, the wit or the humor disappears. If the witticism is profane, to the religious mind it loses its force. Thus a truly noble object cannot be made the subject of degrading wit, while pretentious greatness at once becomes its butt. The dandy slipping into the ditch is a humorous object, but fracturing his limb, he becomes an object of pity. Wit is distmguished from humor by pertaining to ideas rather than to persons or tilings. Wit thus is more transient, spends itself in sudden sallies, while humor is more continuous, follows the narrative in its 120 PHILOSOPHY OP RHETORIC. events, and mates up tlie comedy of life. Wit is more cutting and brilliant, humor more mild and pleasing; wit more admirable, humor more laughable ; wit more to be feared, humor more to be loved. Campbell has said, with but partial truth, that char- acter alone is the appropriate subject of humor, and that it always occasions contempt. Man, having more char- acter than the objects around him, caa present more striking incongruities. Yet Rosinante was scarcely less an object of humor than his master. That contempt is not always inspired by humor is shown in the fact, that we so often strive to give this turn to the narrative of our own adventures. Yet humor, like good nature, seems to be thought a little incompatible with the highest dignity. The resemblance of ideas in wdt differs from that in comparison in extent. In the last case, the more com- plete and perfect the agreement the better ; in the for- mer, similarity at one point should be attended with striking diversity at all others. It is this unexpected union and quick recoil of ideas that please the mind. A pun is an agreement in sound with different mean- ings. The mind is instantly foiled in the natural com- pletion of its work. The justice of the above definitions is seen in the fact that wit so soon becomes stale. Surprise quickly 121 disappears, and then the connection no longer pleases as. So, too, retort has always the advantage over attack, since the latter suffers premeditation, the former does not. The suddenness and aptness of the junction enhance the surprise, and a vdtticism of equal intrinsic merit given in reply secures the victory. These defini- tions also explain our admiration of wit. 'It seems to indicate great quickness and breadth of thought, that slight connections in so diverse ^and remote objects should at once be seen. The habit of mind, however, which wit cherishes, is obviously not desirable. Wit turns on secondary and trifling relations, not on fundamental agreements. The more philosophical our habits of observation, the more carefully and constantly we note important resem- blances, the less shall we mark or treasure the trivial connections of wit. The movement of mind from which wit springs is opposed both to thorough and serious reflection, and ought not, therefore, to become habitual. Nor is wit desirable as a constant accompaniment of composition or of conversation. The train of thought is too much diverted and interrupted by it. Take, for instance, the habit of punning. The pun demands a separate consideration of mere verbal relations. The thread of discourse is for the instant broken, and the 6 122 PHILOSOPHY OP REETOEIC. mind requires time to rally and reunite it. Let diver- sion of this sort recur several times, and the interest and attention due to the cardinal point are lost, and the main topic is abandoned amid the percussion of small wit. Undoubtedly, even the most serious discourse can, in the hands of a master, suiier occasional humor without detriment ; but more frequently laughter is secured at the cost of conviction. Another undesirajble result of wit, v»^hen constantly employed, is the insatiable demand to which it gives rise. Men love to laugh better than to think ; and the moment they find one who can indulge them in this respect, they require a constant exhibition of his power, and transform him, as far as possible, into a public buffoon. Great earnestness and strength of purpose are required to resist this tendency. The power is rare and exceed- ingly attractive, and flattering in the immediate popu- larity it confers. One who possesses* it is strongly tempted on all occasions to indulge it, more and more to rely upon it, and thus ultimately becomes a cracker of jokes. Notwithstanding these their dangers, wit and humor may subserve an important purpose. One can, indeed, succeed perfectly without them, but can do it a little more readily with them. To arouse interest, quicken the flagging attention, reheve prot -acted debate, aid an WITj HUMOR, AND RIDICULE. 123 unpopular theme, parry assault, carry home to the ob- tusest mind an argument, and afford a decent retreat or brilliant exit, wit is most efficient. Ridicule is wit and humor used to influence opinion. This they can only do against the person who is their object. Placed in an unfavorable and humorous light, feehngs of contempt or aversion are aroused toward him. Eidicule is a legitimate weapon when employed against absurdities and follies. The first cannot be exposed by argument, being already opposed to it. Tl:>ey can only be met by pointing out the ridiculous figure they make when viewed in the light of reason. The second are mere idiosyncrasies, arising by accident, half unconsciously. They are treated, therefore, by ex- posure rather than by reproof. A counterpoise to the force of habit is found in the ridicule to which they subject us. Errors and faults, on the other hand, deserve and require in the outset more grave treatment, to be cor- rected by argument and reproof. Truth and right afford for these the just correction. When thi& remedy, however, has proved in whole or in part unavailing, they also may be lashed with ridicule. Public contempt drives men from positions which they will not yield to argument. The form of composition set apart to ridicule is satire. 124 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. Tills alone is not very efficacious in reacliing its end. An age will laugh with its satirists, and yet burn its reformers. There is in ridicule alone too much of mere good-natured humor, or of personal pique and misan- thropy, greatly to disturb men. It requires settled benevolence, wisely, steadily, thoroughly pursuing a reformatory end, to arouse all their hate. Satire, as a secondary instrument, used with forbearance and love, or applied to the incorrigible enemies of truth, may serve a purpose. Irony is disguised ridicule, — an expression whose meaning is the reverse of what it seems. LAWS OF LANGUAGE. 125 _ CHAPTER YI. LAWS or LANGUAGE. We now come to speak of means somewhat more external, — somewhat less of the very essence and sub- stance of discourse. In composition, the material in which the product is wrought is language. The skilful and correct use of language, therefore, becomes indispensable to success in all forms of literary effort. We are not, however, to look on language as a means to be mechanically employed in expressing a thought already realized. The connection between thous^ht and lauOTas^e is much more intimate and vital than this would imply. Thought is not only lodged and retained in language, — its very existence and form are conditioned on language. All thinking proceeds by language, as all life pro- ceeds by physical organs. Thinking is not the manipu- lation, the combination and resolution, of arbitrary signs, nor yet is it the coalescence of unembodied, undefined ideas into judgments. It is the union in propositions of definite conceptions previously fixed in words. Every 126 PHILOSOPHY OF RHETOPJC. step in limitation and definition is a step in language. The separated idea is defined and retained in its limits by a word, and every movement of thought originates or employs a word. The word and idea measure each other. The word is not more nor less accurate than the idea, but is exactly what the idea has made it. Its very birth was in the idea which it measures and expresses. This is strictly true when the word is con- sidered as belons^inaj to the individual mind which uses it ; but when the same word is employed by many, it ^ then comes ta have a more or less well-defined meaninsr, which the individual thought finds and accepts, rather than establishes. Words are the fi^otprints of the mind ; and though in a given case measured in their signifi- cance by the person who emploj^s them, like footprints they are to mark the way for others, and assume a fixed position and outline in the progress of thought, which those travelling after more or less accurately hit. While, therefore, language is instrumental in the mind's action, it is an instrument which realizes and ^ measures the thought, and is the necessary organ of that force whose product it is. Language and thought coexist in mutual dependence — the form and substance of one thing. Language is also the storehouse of knowledge, and this not merely, or