The Philosophy of Rhetoric

Chapter I: Eloquence

THE PHILOSOPHY OF RHETORIC. BOOK 1. THE NATURE AND FOUNDATIONS OF ELOQUENCE. CHAPTER I. Eloquence in tlte largest acceptation defined, its more general forms exhibited, with their different objects, ends, and characters. IN speaking there is always some end proposed, or some effect which the speaker intends to produce on the hearer. The word eloquence in its greatest latitude denotes, "That art or talent by which the discourse is adapted to its end1." All the ends of speaking are reducible to four; every speech being intended to enli~hten the understanding, to please the imagination, to move the passions, or to influence the will. Anyone discourse admits only one of these ends as the principal. Nevertheless, in discoursing on a subject, many things may be introduced, which are more immediately and apparently directed to some of the other ends of speaking, and not to that which is the chief intent of the whole. But then these other and immediate ends are in effect but means, and must be rendered conducive to that which is the primary intention . Accordingly, the propriety or the impropriety of the introduction of such secondary ends, will always be inferred from their subserviency or want of subserviency to that end, which is, in respect of them, the ultimate. For example, a discourse addressed to the understanding, and calculated to illustrate or evince some point purely speculative, may borrow aid from the imagination, and admit metaphor and comparison, but not the bolder and more striking figures, as that called 1" Dicere secundumvirtutemorationis. Scientiabene dicendi." Quintilian The word eloquence, in common conversation, is seldom used in such a comprehensive sense. I have, however, made choice of this definition on a double account: 1st. It exactly corresponds to Tully'S ideaof a perfect orator; " Optimus est orator qui dicendo animos audientium et docet, et deleetat, et permovet." 2dly. It is best adapted to the subject of these papers. See the note on page 4. 2 TIlE PHILOSOPHY [BOOK I. vision or fiction', prosopopreia, and the like, which are not so much intended to elucidate a subject, as to excite admiration. Still less will it admit an address to the passions, which, as it never fails to disturb the operation of the intellectual faculty, must be regarded by every intelligent hearer as foreign at least, if not insidious. It is obvious, that either of these, far from being subservient to the main design, would distract the attention from it. There is indeed one kind of address to the understanding, and only one, which, it may not be improper to observe, disdains all assistance whatever from the fancy. The address I mean is mathematical demonstration. As this does not, like moral reasoning, admit degrees of evidence, its perfection, in point of eloquence, if so uncommon an application of the term may be allowed, consists in perspicuity. Perspicuity here results entirely from propriety and simplicity of diction, and from accuracy of method, where the mind is regularly, step by step, conducted forwards in the same track, the attention no way diverted, nothing left to be supplied, no one unnecessary word or idea introduced3. On the contrary, an harangue framed for affecting the hearts or influencing the resolves of an assembly, needs greatly the assistance both ofintellect and ofimagination. In general it may be asserted, that each preceding species, in the order above exhibited, is preparatory to the subsequent; that each subsequent species is founded on the preceding; and that thus they ascend in a regular progression. Knowledge, the object of the intellect, furnisheth materials for the fancy; the fancy culis, compounds, and, by her mimic art, disposes these materials so as to affect the passions; the passions are the natural spurs to volition or action, and so need only to be right directed. This connexion and dependency will better appear from the following observations. When a speaker addresseth himselfto the understanding, he proposes the instruction of his hearers, and that, either by explaining some doctrine unknown, or not distinctly comprehended by them, or by proving some position disbelieved or doubted by them.-In other words, he proposes either to dispel ignorance or to vanquish error. In the one, his aim is their information; in the other, their conviction. Accordingly the predominant quality of the former is perspicuity; of the , By vision or fiction is understood, that rhetorical figure of which Q.uintiIia .n says, "Quas t"'T""''', Grreci vocant, nos sane visiones appellamus, per quas imagines rerum absentium ita reprresentantur animo, ut...