RHETORIC AND BELLES-LETTRES. 



of mind But for the purposes of oratory, as prac- 

 tised in our day, this source of knowledge need 

 not at present be discussed. It is evident, on the 

 whole, that a clear consciousness, sympathy, and 

 observation of the impulses and active dispositions 

 of men, confirmed by repeated experimenting upon 

 those very dispositions, are indispensable to per- 

 suasive address. These are the sources of ora- 

 torical tact. 



It is a necessary consequence of this knowledge 

 that it should enable a person rapidly to discern a 

 character from its appearances, so as to perceive 

 the dispositions of strangers in a very short time, 

 and to trace instantaneously the effects produced 

 on an audience in the exercise of the oratorical 

 art. 



3. Next to a distinct end, and a thorough per- 

 ception of the moving forces of the assemblage to 

 be wrought upon, comes the great constructive 

 process of the art, which is so to shape the state- 

 ment of the end, that it may connect itself with 

 the most powerful impulses and convictions of 

 the party addressed. The capacity for this must 

 spring from a rich and accomplished mind, able 

 to discern all the connections and aspects of a 

 subject that are likely to touch the motives or 

 coincide with the dispositions of an audience. 

 Thus, if we examine Milton's Apology for Un- 

 licensed Printing, we shall find that the vast range 

 and compass of his knowledge and conceptions 

 enabled him to lay out with unparalleled fertility 

 the whole subject of the connection of a free press 

 with the welfare and the elevation of the human 

 kind. We may find men more at home in adapt- 

 ing a subject to the exact standard of the ordinary 

 class of minds, so as to be capable of securing a 

 great extent of practical conviction ; but nowhere 

 has any one addressed with more varied and 

 powerful persuasives all that is high, generous, 

 and noble in humanity, than Milton in this in- 

 stance. A practical, business orator would not 

 have struck so high a key ; his object being to 

 gain an end solely, he would have confined his 

 arguments and address to that side of his audi- 

 ence that they could be drawn by. The success- 

 ful pleaders at the bar furnish the best examples 

 of this last species of oratory. 



It being assumed that fertility of intellectual 

 views, with a capability of expressing them in lan- 

 guage, are at the basis of persuasive power, it is 

 possible, nevertheless, to assign the precise pecu- 

 liarities of art which affect a speaker's success. 



i. The persuasive mode of composition must 

 frequently be based on some of the preceding 

 modes of simple communication namely, narra- 

 tion, description, and exposition but in such a 

 case, these will be so shaped as to influence the 

 minds of the persons addressed towards some 

 particular end. Thus the narration of the facts 

 in an ordinary law-pleading is usually conducted 

 so as to produce a bias in favour of one side ; the 

 circumstances that have this tendency being put 

 prominently forward, while the others are kept in 

 the shade. In like manner the exposition of doc- 

 trines or principles is involved in a great number 

 of the attempts at persuasion. A beautiful ex- 

 ample of an exposition, conducted with high 

 oratorical effect, is furnished in the following ex- 

 tract from one of the speeches of Demosthenes. 

 It rofesses to be a definition of Law : 



whole life of men, whether the state they 



live in be great or small, is governed either by- 

 Nature or by Law. Nature is irregular and capri- 

 cious ; Law is definite, and the same to all When 

 the natural disposition is evil, it frequently urges 

 to crimes ; but the laws aim at the just, the good, 

 and the fit: these they search out, and when 

 determined, they publish as the regulations to be 

 followed by every one alike. To these obedience 

 must be rendered on many grounds ; but most of 

 all on this that law is the invention and gift of 

 the gods, the resolution of prudent men, tlu cor- 

 rector of voluntary or involuntary wrong-doers, 

 and the determination of the state at large, which 

 is necessarily binding on all its citizens! 



Here the high function and claims of law are 

 stated and enforced by being allied with the most 

 commanding and august sanctions that the world 

 can furnish. 



The following is a modern instance of the same 

 mode of address, where an exposition is the basis 

 of an appeal to the convictions and active prin- 

 ciples of men. It is on the subject of slavery ; 

 and the author (Robert Hall) intends to produce 

 in his readers a strong feeling of hostility to the 

 slave system by a mere exposition of its essential 

 character : 



' That slavery is the most deplorable condition 

 to which human nature can be reduced, is too 

 evident to require the labour of proof. By sub- 

 jecting one human being to the absolute control 

 of another, it annihilates the most essential prerog- 

 ative of a reasonable being, which consists in the 

 power of determining his own actions in every 

 instance in which they are not injurious to others. 

 The right improvement of this prerogative is the 

 source of all the virtue and happiness of which 

 the human race is susceptible. Slavery introduces 

 the most horrible confusion, since it degrades 

 human beings from the denomination of persons 

 to that of things ; and by merging the interests 

 of the slave in those of the master, he becomes a 

 mere appendage to the existence of another, in- 

 stead of preserving the dignity which belongs to 

 a reasonable and accountable nature. Knowledge 

 and virtues are foreign to his state : ignorance the 

 most gross, and dispositions the most depraved, 

 are requisite to reduce him to a level with his 

 condition.' 



2. Argument, or proof, which is the medium of 

 bringing the conviction of truths home to men's 

 minds, must be a frequent means of persuasion. 

 If the persons addressed were always of a strictly 

 logical turn of intellect, then the soundest reasons 

 would be the most persuasive ; and the rhetorical 

 method would strictly coincide with the logical 

 But as this is not the case, there are various re- 

 sources used in the statement of arguments that do 

 not belong to rigorous demonstration. Indeed, 

 there are certain devices, known by the name of 

 arguments, that do not in any degree imply proof 

 as the argumentum ad hominem, and the arg- 

 mentum ad verecundiam, or appeal to authority, 

 neither of which concern the absolute truth of the 

 question at stake. It is very common also to 

 appeal to the inconsistency of some practice, or 

 to shew the impossibility of carrying out the prin- 

 ciple in all cases. This ought to have more 

 weight than it usually has with the mass of men, 

 who care for immediate objects more than for 

 rigorous thorough-going consistency. 



In conducting a chain of arguments, it is usual 



