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objects to individual men. The forms of government also modify the prevailing estimate of good and evil. The end of civil government, under a democracy, is liberty; under an obligarchy, property; under an aristocracy, law; and under a monarchy, security. These are all positive blessings for all mankind. But their relative importance is greatly enhanced where they constitute the basis of the social compact. The deliberative orator, whose appeal must always be to the sentiments of good and evil rooted in the minds of his auditory, must always adapt his discourse to that standard measure of the land.

DECLAMATION, COMPOSITION, AND DELIVERY

HE ancient practice of declamation was an ingenious and useful exercise, for improving in the art of deliberative oratory. A character and a situation, generally known in history, were assumed; and the task of the declaimed was to compose and deliver a discourse suitable to them. The Greek and Roman historians introduce speeches of this kind in the midst of their narratives; and among them are so many examples of the most admirable eloquence, that we regret the cold accuracy of modern history which has discarded this practice, without providing any adequate substitute in its stead.

As amplification has been said to be the favorite resort of demonstrative oratory, the allegation of examples is the most effectual support of deliberative discourses. There is nothing new under the sun. The future is little more than a copy of the past. What hath been shall be again. And to exhibit an image of the past is often to present the clearest prospect of the future. The examples, which are adduced successfully by the deliberative speaker, are of two kinds: first, fictitious inventions of his own; second, real events borrowed from historical fact. The first of these are called by Aristotle fables, and the second parables. The fable, which may be invented at the pleasure of the speaker, is more easily applied to his purpose; but the parable, always derived from matter of fact, makes a deeper impression upon the minds of the audience. In the rude ages or society, and among the uncultivated class of mankind, the power of fable, and still more of parable, to influence the will is scarcely conceivable upon mere speculative investigation. But it is demonstrated by the uniform tenor of all human experience. The fable of Menenius Agrippa stands conspicuous in the Roman annals. It pacified one of the most dangerous insurrections which ever agitated that turbulent but magnanimous people. The Scriptures of the Old Testament bespeak the efficacy of these instruments in a manner no less energetic. But their unrivaled triumph is in the propagation of the Christian Gospel, whose exalted founder, we are told," needed not that any should testify of man; for he knew what was in man," and who delivered his incomparable system of moralityaltogether through the medium of fables and parables, both of which, in the writings of the Evangelists, are included in the latter term. "And with many parables spake he the word unto them, as they were able to hear it; but without a parable spake he not unto them. »

The principal feature in the style of deliberative oratory should be simplicity. Not that it disdains, but that it has seldom occasion for decoration. The speaker should be much more solicitous for the thought than for the expression. This constitutes the great difference between the diction proper for this, and that which best suits the two other kinds of oratory. Demonstrative eloquence, intended for show, delights in ostentatious ornament. The speaker is expected to have made previous

preparation. His discourse is professedly studied, and all the artifices of speech are summoned to the gratification of the audience. The heart is cool for the reception, the mind is at leisure for the contemplation of polished periods, oratorical numbers, coruscations of metaphor, profound reflection, and subtle ingenuity. But deliberative discussions require little more than prudence and integrity. Even judicial oratory supposes a previous painful investigation of his subject by the speaker, and exacts an elaborate, methodical conduct of the discourse. But deliberative subjects often arise on a sudden, and allow of no premeditation. Hearers are disinclined to advice which they perceive the speaker has been dressing up in his closet. Ambitious ornament should, then, be excluded rather than sought. Plain sense, clear logic, and above all, ardent sensibility,- these are the qualities needed by those who give, and those who take, counsel. A profusion of brilliancy betrays a speaker more full of himself than of his cause; more anxious to be admired than believed. The stars and ribands of princely favor may glitter on the breast of the veteran hero at a birthday ball; but, exposed to the rage of battle, they only direct the bullet to his heart. A deliberative orator should bury himself in his subject. Like a superintending providence, he should be visible only in his mighty works. Hence that universal prejudice, both of ancient and modern times, against written, deliberative discourses; a prejudice which bade defiance to all the thunders of Demosthenes. In the midst of their most enthusiastic admiration of his eloquence, his countrymen nevertheless remarked, that his orations "smelt too much of the lamp." Let it, however, be observed, that upon great and important occasions the deliberative orator may be allowed a more liberal indulgence of preparation. When the cause of ages and the fate of nations hangs upon the thread of a debate, the orator may fairly consider himself as addressing not only his immediate hearers, but the world at large, and all future times. Then it is, that, looking beyond the moment in which he speaks, and the immediate issue of the deliberation, he makes the question of an hour a question for every age and every region; takes the vote of unborn millions upon the debate of a little senate, and incorporates himself and his discourse with the general history of mankind. On such occasions and at such times, the oration naturally and properly assumes a solemnity of manner and a dignity of language commensurate with the grandeur of the cause. Then it is that deliberative eloquence lays aside the plain attire of her daily occupation, and assumes the port and purple of the queen of the world. Yet even then she remembers that majestic grandeur best comports with simplicity. Her crown and sceptre may blaze with the brightness of the diamond, but she must not, like the kings of the gorgeous East, be buried under a shower of barbaric pearls and gold.

RICHARD WHATELY

(1787-1863)

ICHARD WHATELY was born in London, February 1st, 1787, and educated for the church at Oriel College, Oxford. In 1814, six years after his graduation, he published his "Historic Doubts Relative to Napoleon Bonaparte," which soon became celebrated. For many years he was a professor at Oxford, but in 1831 he became Archbishop of Dublin, and died in that city October 8th, 1863. His works on theology, metaphysics, and political economy are numerous, but the treatise on "The Elements of Rhetoric," published in 1828, has probably exceeded the total circulation of all the rest.

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THE ART OF PERSUASION

IN ORDER that the will may be influenced, two things are requisite; viz. (1) that the proposed object should appear desirable, and (2) that the means suggested should be proved to be conducive to the attainment of that object; and this last evidently must depend on a process of reasoning. In order, for example, to induce the Greeks to unite their efforts against the Persian invader, it was necessary both to prove that co-operation could alone render their resistance effectual, and also to awaken such feelings of patriotism and abhorrence of a foreign yoke as might prompt them to make these combined efforts. For it is evident, that however ardent their love of liberty, they would make no exertions if they apprehended no danger; or if they thought themselves able, separately, to defend themselves, they would be backward to join the confederacy; and, on the other hand, that if they were willing to submit to the Persian yoke, or valued their independence less than their present ease, the fullest conviction that the means recommended would secure their independence would have had no practical effect.

Persuasion, therefore, depends on, first, argument (to prove the expediency of the means proposed), and, secondly, what is usually called exhortation, that is, the excitement of men to adopt those means, by representing the end as sufficiently desirable. It will happen, indeed, not unfrequently, that the one or the other of these objects will have been already, either wholly or in part, accomplished; so that the other shall be the only one that it is requisite to insist on; viz., sometimes the hearers will be sufficiently intent on the pursuit of the end, and will be in doubt only as to the means of attaining it; and sometimes, again, they will have no doubt on that point, but will be indifferent, or not sufficiently ardent, with respect to the proposed end, and will need to be stimulated by exhortations. Not sufficiently ardent, I have said, because it will not so often happen that the object in question will be one to which they are totally indifferent, as that they will, practically at least, not reckon it, or not feel it to be worth the requisite pains. No one is abso

lutely indifferent about the attainment of a happy immortality; and yet a great part of the preacher's business consists in exhortation, that is, endeavoring to induce men to use those exertions which they themselves know to be necessary for the attainment of it.

Aristotle and many other writers have spoken of appeals to the passions as an unfair mode of influencing the hearers, in answer to which Dr. Campbell has remarked that there can be no persuasion without an address to the passions; and it is evident, from what has been just said, that he is right, if under the term passion be included every active principle of our nature. This, however, is a greater latitude of meaning than belongs even to the Greek Пán, though the signification of that is wider than, according to ordinary use, that of our term "passions." But Aristotle by no means overlooked the necessity with a view to persuasion, properly so termed, of calling into action some motive that may influence the will; it is plain that whenever he speaks with reprobation of an appeal to the passions, his meaning is, the excitement of such feelings as ought not to influence the decision of the question in hand. A desire to do justice may be called, in Dr. Campbell's wide acceptation of the term, a passion; this is what ought to influence a judge; and no one would ever censure a pleader for striving to excite and heighten this desire; but if the decision be influenced by an appeal to anger, pity, etc., the feelings thus excited being such as ought not to have operated, the judge must be allowed to have been unduly biased; and that this is Aristotle's meaning is evident from his characterizing the introduction of such topics as "foreign to the matter in hand." And it is evident that as the motives which ought to operate will be different in different cases, the same may be objectionable and not fairly admissible in one case, which in another would be perfectly allowable. An instance occurs in Thucydides, in which this is very judiciously and neatly pointed out; in the debate respecting the Mityleneans, who had beer. subdued after a revolt, Cleon is introduced contending for the justice of inflicting on them capital punishment, to which Diodotus is made to reply that the Athenians are not sitting in judgment on the offenders, but in deliberation as to their own interest, and ought, therefore, to consider not the right they may have to put the revolters to death, but the expediency or inexpediency of such a procedure.

In judicial cases, on the contrary, any appeal to the personal interests of the judge, or even to public expediency, would be irrelevant. In framing laws, indeed, and (which comes to the same thing) giving those decisions which are to operate as precedents, the public good is the object to be pursued; but in the mere administering of the established laws it is inadmissible. There are many feelings, again, which it is evident should in no case be allowed to operate; as envy, thirst for revenge, etc., the excitement of which by the orator is to be reprobated as an unfair artifice; but it is not the less necessary to be well acquainted with their nature, in order to allay them when previously existing in the hearers, or to counteract the efforts of an adversary in producing or directing them. It is evident, indeed, that all the weaknesses, as well as the powers of the human mind, and all the arts by which the sophist takes advantage of these weaknesses, must be familiarly known by a perfect orator; who, though he may be of such a character as to disdain employing such arts, must not want the ability to do so, or he would not be prepared to counteract them. An acquaintance with the nature of poisons is necessary to him who would administer antidotes.

THE POWER OF SUGGESTION

T IS not always advisable to enter into a direct detail of circumstances, which would often have the effect of wearying the hearer beforehand with the expectation of a long description of something in which he probably does not as yet feel much interest; and would also be likely to prepare him too much, and forewarn him, as it were, of the object proposed,-the design laid against his feelings. It will often, therefore, have a better effect to describe obliquely (if I may so speak), by introducing circumstances connected with the main object or event, and affected by it, but not absolutely forming a part of it. And circumstances of this kind may not unfrequently be selected so as to produce a more striking impression of anything that is in itself great and remarkable, than could be produced by a minute and direct description; because in this way the general and collective result of a whole, and the effects produced by it on other objects, may be vividly impressed on the hearer's mind; the circumstantial detail of collateral matters not drawing off the mind from the contemplation of the principal matter as one and, complete. Thus, the woman's application to the King of Samaria, to compel her neighbor to fulfil the agreement of sharing with her the infant's flesh, gives a more frightful impression of the horrors of the famine than any more direct description could have done; since it presents to us the picture of that hardening of the heart to every kind of horror, and that destruction of the ordinary state of human sentiment, which is the result of long continued and extreme misery. Nor could any detail of the particular vexations suffered by the exiled Jews for their disobedience convey so lively an idea of them as that description of their result contained in the denunciation of Moses: "In the evening thou shalt say, Would God it were morning! and in the morning thou shalt say, Would God it were evening!"

In the poem of "Rokeby," a striking exemplification occurs of what has been said. Bertram, in describing the prowess he had displayed as a buccaneer, does not particularize any of his exploits, but alludes to the terrible impression they had left:

"Panama's maids shall long look pale,

When Risingham inspires the tale;
Chili's dark matrons long shall tame

The froward child with Bertram's name."

The first of dramatists, who might have been perhaps the first of orators, has offered some excellent exemplifications of this rule; especially in the speech of Antony over Cæsar's body.

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THE NECESSITY OF BEING UNDERSTOOD

T IS sufficiently evident (though the maxim is often practically disregarded) that the first requisite of style not only in rhetorical, but in all compositions, is perspicuity; since, as Aristotle observes, language which is not intelligible, or not clearly and readily intelligible, fails, in the same proportion, of the purpose for which language is employed. And it is equally self-evident, though this truth is still more frequently overlooked, that perspicuity is a relative quality, and consequently cannot properly be predicated of any work, without a tacit reference to the class of readers or hearers for whom it is designed. Nor is it enough that the style be such as they are capable of under

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