not only applicable but convincing. Take into account the nature of the matter to be proved, whether one of fact or of theory. If you aim to persuade, consider the condition of those addressed, whether they are cultivated or ignorant, candid or prejudiced. Comparisons and examples, though less accurate, are more efficacious than formal deductions, because they quicken rather than tax thought. Remember that a stronger effect is produced by the thorough treatment of a few arguments than by their multiplication. To extend them too far serves rather to render a cause suspected than to give it weight. 'Every speaker should place himself in the situation of a hearer, and think how he would be affected by those reasons which he purposes to employ for persuading others. For he must not expect to impose on mankind by mere arts of speech. They are not so easily imposed on as public speakers are sometimes apt to think. Shrewdness and sagacity are found among all ranks; and the speaker may be praised for his fine discourse, while yet the hearers are not persuaded of the truth of any one thing he has uttered.'1

As to arrangement, while the writer or speaker should himself have a clear conception of the thing to be proved before undertaking to argue in its support, its distinct statement at the outset may or may not be advisable. In the natural and logical order, the proposition is announced, or the question is stated and the answer is given, then the arguments follow, proceeding from the less to the greater. But when the topic is unpalatable or liable to be misunderstood, it is well to begin with such premises as will gain a ready assent, and thus lead up, by gradual approach, to the conclusion. Arguments obtained from the thesis by the exposition of its essential notions, should come first, since they establish the possibility or probability of

1 Dr. Blair.

what is asserted. The anticipation of its truth, awakened by this method, may then be confirmed by the attendant circumstances, by testimony, by analogy, and example. The stress is to be put upon those considerations which first invite and then Occupy the mind. In general, a strong argument should be used first, the very strongest perhaps last, and the weaker ones be introduced in the middle.

In refutation, the reverse order is often adopted the opponent's main argument is first replied to, 'lest,' as Quintilian says, 'if this is in the mind of the hearers they may think it unanswerable until it is answered'; after which the minor ones are disposed of with greater ease and with a growth of impression. It will be of advantage to set forth explicitly, at the commencement, all that he has admitted, with any valuable inferences fairly deducible therefrom. If he has mixed and blended his arguments, they should be disentangled and answered separately.

It may not be amiss to add that he who seeks the truth will treat an adversary with candor and fairness, not with irritable acrimony or assumed contempt.

The conclusion may aptly be a brief summing up of the main points; an emphasis of some head, or of the status itself; or an exhortation. "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.' You remember, finally, that in discussing the methods of composition it was urged that you be heartily occupied with your thought and sincere in your expression; that

1 Dr. Bascom.

91

your manner should be confluent with the matter, varying its pitch and tone according to the subject treated; that, whatever be the subject, its bearings must be fixed and always visible; that words, sentences, and paragraphs should be linked closely, symmetrically, attractively together in progressive movement toward a clearly apprehended goal. It was observed that Rhetoric considers also the audience readers and hearers; that the essential qualities of style-perspicuity, energy, elegance - will stand in different relations to each other and exist in different degrees, according to the general and the special character of the occasion and the effect to be produced to enlighten or convince the understanding, to please the imagination or to influence the will: that is, to elucidate what is not known or not distinctly perceived; to induce a new belief or judgment or to modify one already existing; to gratify the sense of the beautiful, the sublime, the marvellous, the ridiculous; or to incline the will to such or such an act. These several ends, which embrace in varying prominence the several expressional forms of which this chapter treats, are, though separable in theory, usually conjoined in practice, each retaining, however, its characteristic feature in the same discourse. One of them, it is true, must in every case be principal, the others being introduced only in subserviency to the main design. Without some gratification the attention must inevitably flag. Without sentiments or ideas no writer or speaker can be permanently impressive. Without the assistance of reason and imagination, conduct cannot be soundly determined.

The argumentative and the emotional everywhere sustain each other. In political controversy, as everybody knows, the effort to convince or persuade is potently associated with entertainment in the shape of ridicule and caricature; but even here the most effective orators are

not those who make the people laugh. The humorist must be serious. The scientist must be attractive - must occupy himself with form. The preacher, who hopes to produce a certain disposition of soul, must be teacher as well as exhorter.

EXERCISES.

1. In a controversy touching the Divine origin of Christianity, on which side does the burden of proof rest?

2. What is the descriptive method of Anatomy?

3. Characterize the following passage:

A point that show'd the valley, stretched
At length before us; and, not distant far,
Upon a rising ground a gray church-tower,
Whose battlements were screened by tufted trees.
And towards a crystal mere, that lay beyond
Among steep hills and woods embosomed, flowed
A copious stream with boldly-winding course;
Here traceable, there hidden-there again
To sight restored, and glittering in the sun.
On the stream's bank, and everywhere, appeared
Fair dwellings, single, or in social knots;
Some scattered o'er the level, others perched

On the hill sides, a cheerful quiet scene,

Now in its morning purity arrayed.— Wordsworth. 4. And this:

Having now, Mr. Speaker, gone through the various depositions that have been made before you-having from the evidence shown that the alleged grounds of the high-bailiff's motives were the direct reverse of those he declares to this House to have been his motives having shown that he was in habits of clandestine intercourse with my opponents having shown that he was in the constant course of receiving ex parte information in an illicit and shameful secrecy. having shown that he positively and solemnly denied the series of iniquitous proceedings in the vestry which he boldly avows at your bar- having shown that the poll was as much a scrutiny as any poll can possibly be - having explained my views in the event of any demand of a scrutiny - having described the species of intimidation used to this man, and confirmed that, so far from exculpating, it

tends greatly to criminate him- having shown this, sir, and shown it by the evidence which you have heard at your bar, I shall conclude this part of my evidence with submitting to every man of honor and candor who hears me, whether he really thinks that the high-bailiff of Westminster exercised a sound and honest discretion in granting a scrutiny, supposing for argument's sake that he actually possessed the power to grant it.—Fox.

5. Are the following descriptive, narrative, expository or argumentative?

(1) I deny not but that it is of the greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books bemean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them, to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a phial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragons' teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good alinost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious lifeblood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a kind of martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal and soft essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life.-Milton.

(2) There is no thing produced, no event happening, in the known universe which is not connected by a uniformity or inevitable sequence with some one or more of the phenomena which preceded it. These antecedent phenomena, again, were connected in a