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Chapter V: Of the different Sources of Evidence and the different Subjects to which they are respectively adapted
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CHAP. Y.] OF RHETORIC. 35 Now, the grammatical art hath its completion in syntax; the oratorical, as far as the body or expression is concerned, in style. Syntax regards only the composition of many words into one sentence; style, at the same time that it attends to this, regards further the composition of many sentences into one discourse. .Nor is this the only difference; the grammarian , with respect to what the two arts have in common, the structure of sentences, requires only purity; that is, that the words employed belong to the language, and that they be construed in the manner, and used in the signification, which custom hath rendered necessary for conveying the sense. The orator requires also beauty and strength. The highest aim of the former is the lowest aim ofthe latter; where grammar ends eloquence begins. Thus the grammarian's department bears much thesame relation to the orator's which the art of the mason bears to that of the architect. There is, however, one difference that well deserves our notice. As in architecture it is not necessary that he who designs should executc his own plans, he may be an excellent artist in this way who would handle very awkwardly the hammer and the trowel. But it is alike incumbent on the orator to design and to execute. He must, therefore, be master of the language he speaks or writes, and must be capable of adding to grammatic purity those higher qualities of elocution which will render his discourse graceful and energetic. So much for the connexion that subsists between rhetoric and these parent arts, logic and grammar. CHAPTER V. Of the different sources of Evidence, and the different Subjects to wAich they are respectively adapted. LOGICAL truth consisteth in the conformity of our conceptions to their archetypes in the nature of things. This conformity is perceived by the mind, either immediately on a bare attention to the ideas under review, or mediately by a comparison of these with other related ideas. Evidence of the former kind is called intuitive; of the latter, deductive. SECTION 1.- Of Intuitive Evidence. PART I.-Mathematical Axioms. Of intuitive evidence there are different sorts. One is that which results purely from inteZlection.1 Of this kind is the evidence of these propositions: "One and four make five1 I have here adopted the term intellection rather than perception, because, though not so usual, it is both more apposite and less equivocal. Perception 36 THE rIlILOSOPIIY [nOOK 1. l'hings equal to the same thing are equal to one another-The whole is greater than a part;" and, in brief, all axioms in arithmetic and geometry. These are, in effect, but so many different expositions of our own general notions, taken in different views. Some ofthem are no other than definitions, or equivalent to definitions. To say, " One and four make five," is precisely the same as to say, " We give the name of five to one added to four." In fact, they are all, in some respect, reducible to this axiom, " Whatever is, is." I do not say they are deduced from it, for they have in like manner that original and intrinsic evidence, which makes them,assoon as the terms are understood, to be perceived intuitively. And if they are not thus perceived, no deduction of reason will ever confer on them any additional evidence. Nay, in point oftime, the discovery of the less general truths has the priority, not from their superior evidence, but Bolely from this consideration, that the less general are sooner objects of perception to us, the natural progress of the mind, in the acquisition of its ideas, being from particular things to universal notions, and not inversely. But I affirm that, though not deduced from that axiom, they may be considered as particular exemplifications of it, and coincident with it, inasmuch as they are all implied in this, that the properties of our clear and adequate ideas can be no other than what the mind clearly perceives them to be. But, in order to prevent mistakes, it will be necessary further to illustrate this subject. It might be thought that if axioms were propositions perfectly identical, it would be impossible to advance a step, by their means, beyond the simple ideas first perceived by the mind. And it must be owned, ifthe predicate of the proposition were nothing but a repetition of the subject, under the same aspect, and in the same or synonymous terms...