I. Persuasion considered as based on some of the modes of simple communication.

II. Persuasion by Argument.

III. Persuasion through the Feelings.

90. I. Persuasion may be based on some of the modes of simple communication,—Description, Narrative, and Exposition.

Description is employed to picture scenes that are to rouse the passions. Such are the descriptions introduced by Burke into his speeches on Warren Hastings; the descriptions in Hall's sermon on the French invasion; and the account by Macaulay of the devastation of the Palatinate in the end of the seventeenth century. These pictures, it is true, are not exercises of the pure descriptive art, as we have recognized it above; they involve narration also, but they are popularly designated by the name of Description. The features selected are such as to inspire strong feelings in a certain direction.

The happiness accruing from good conduct, and the miseries of vice, are subjects of oratorical description. All things that can impart a charm or fascination are accumulated under the one, and revulsive horrors are spread over the other.

Narrative also enters frequently into oratory. The "case in a law-pleading often consists of a chain of events, and these must be narrated. The narration is conducted with the view of making prominent all that favors the side of the speaker. It is possible, besides, in the recital of facts to introduce persuasive touches.

In the celebrated contention between Demosthenes and Æschines, a great part of the speeches on both sides is made up of the narration of actions and events.

Exposition is still more intimately allied with persuasion. In many instances, oratorical address is an exposition of certain great principles, which it is desired to commend to people's acceptance. Especially is this the case with preaching. The eloquence of Chalmers was almost always expository. In discussing Exposition, we might have quoted his sermons as modelled,

THE FORM OF EXPOSITION.

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to a nearly unparalleled degree, upon Iteration and Illustration. Robert Hall frequently pursues the same method. The educational function of pulpit oratory is fulfilled by the elucidation of doctrines; but these must be chosen, shaped, and illustrated, to rouse the feelings. Where action is to be brought about at once, as in legal and political oratory, the method is less applicable. Burke expounded principles to excess, so far as his immediate object was concerned.

To give a few examples. Definition may be made highly effective in oratorical stimulation. In the following passage from Demosthenes, we find Law defined with such circumstances and coloring as to produce in the hearers an active sentiment of veneration and deference:—

"The 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 capricious; Law is definite, and the same to all. When the natural disposition is evil, it frequently urges to crime; but the law aims 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, the corrector of voluntary or involuntary wrong-doers, and the determination of the state at large, which is necessarily binding on all its citizens."

Here the function of law is elevated by its alliance with all that is commanding and august in political society.

In the Speech on the Crown, Demosthenes introduces an elaborate antithetical definition of two species of characters, the straightforward adviser (6 oúμßovXog), and the truckler (6 ovKopdvτns), in order to point out the contrast between himself and his adversary Æschines. The defining of an ideal type of character, pointing to the instance actually in view, is a suitable medium of praise or censure.

Pitt's reply to Horace Walpole contains an effective use of definition. "I have been accused of acting a theatrical part. A theatrical part may imply either some peculiarities of gesture, or a dissimulation of my real sentiments, and the adoption of the opinions and language of another man."

In exemplification of the expository method as applied to Moral Suasion, we may refer to Extract XVI.

91. Persuasion is aided by all the arts that can strengthen or loosen the bonds which fasten ideas in the mind.

This appears to open a large subject, but, in point of fact, it only refers us to the figures and devices of style already considered. Similes, metaphors, antitheses, epigrams, balanced constructions, have all the effect of strengthening the hold of certain things upon the mind, and thereby increasing their force when used in persuasion. Bacon's epigram, "By indignities men come to dignities," tends to dissolve the usual associations with indignity, and replace them with others of a contrary nature. The metaphor that "Calumny is the shadow of greatness," has a similar efficacy in modifying our views of calumny. The apothegm, "Youth in toil, age in ease," by its form, deepens a moral impression.

Canning's famous retort to the Irish repealers, is an argument intensified by the form of the language:—"Repeal the Union, restore the Heptarchy."

92. II. Persuasion takes on, to a large extent, the form of Argument, Reasoning, or Proof.

There are still supposed certain fundamental dispositions, convictions, or opinions on the part of the hearers, accompanied with ability and readiness to follow trains of reasoning or deductions from these, and to balance considerations on opposite sides.

Argumentative Persuasion is closely allied with Logical Proof (See Exposition by Proof). To a mind perfectly rational, scientific or logical evidence is conviction; Logic and Rhetoric are the same. But the ordinary arts of persuasive reasoning take in modes of proceeding irrelevant to genuine proof, and adapted to minds imperfectly rational.

All Proof and all Disproof are resolvable into allegations of Similarity or Dissimilarity. To comply with the demands

of logic, the alleged similarities must be complete and relevant; and so with the dissimilarities: but for persuasion, it is enough that they appear so to the persons addressed.

Before commencing to argue a question, the speaker is recommended to set clearly before his own mind the point to be argued. The arts of exposition contain all the artificial means of furthering this object. In an argument intended to satisfy minds of fair intelligence, the leading terms should be defined, and the principles expressed in clear language, with the aid of counter-statement and example.

93. An Argument is a fact, principle, or set of facts or of principles, adduced as evidence of some other fact or principle.

It is alleged as a fact, or a law of nature, that the stars gravitate towards each other; and the argument, or fact in proof, is that the sun and planets gravitate. We argue that the weather is about to change, by quoting the fact that the barometer is falling, or the fact that the wind is shifting, or the general law that at the particular season such changes happen.

94. Two things are requisite in Argument. First: The facts or principles adduced must be admitted, and sufficiently believed in, by the hearers.

Belief may be genuine, but too feeble to overcome resistance.

95. Secondly: A certain similarity must be admitted to hold between the facts or principles adduced and the point to be established.

One fact cannot prove another unless the two are so far of a kind, that, on the ground of nature's uniformity, we may expect the second to happen exactly as the first has happened. The gravitation of the sun and planets is an argument for the gravitation of the stars, because we believe that the stars are constituted with a sufficient amount of likeness to entail the gravitating property, nature being uniform.

Of the two requisites just mentioned, the first corresponds

to the major premise of the Logical Syllogism, the second to the minor. The major (in a regular syllogism of the first Figure) lays down a principle, the minor asserts the relevance or identity of this with the thing to be proved. "Matter gravitates (major)—a meteoric stone is matter (minor)—a meteoric stone gravitates." Mr. J. S. Mill has shown that the major need not be a general principle; it may be a fact or series of facts stated individually; "this, that, and the other material thing gravitates (major): a certain thing—a meteor—resembles these in their common property of being inert matter; and so (nature being uniform) resembles them in the superadded property of gravitating."

96. Arguments, or Proofs, are of the following classes :—(1.) Deductive, Necessary, or Implicated; that is, such as imply the thing to be proved.

An assertion given to accredit its obverse, is an argument of implication or necessity. It is merely viewing the same fact from the other side, and is little more than a change of language. "Such a race cannot be savages; for they have many civilized institutions." "Virtue favors happiness; vice causes misery."

The logical converse of an assertion (made by transposing the subject and predicate with certain cautions) is the exact equivalent of the original, and is therefore a case of mere implication. "No just man would make his children a burden to others; no one that does this is just,"'—are different forms of the same assertion, and not different assertions; and to make the one prove the other is to put forward an argument of implication.

When a general statement is advanced as evidence of a particular included in it, the argument is deductive or implicated: "We shall die, for all men are mortal." The syllogism, as already remarked, is of this character; the major premise covers the conclusion, provided we have assurance of the relevancy, as affirmed in the minor. It has only to be ascertained that we are men (the minor); and the argument to prove that we shall