PROEM. THE highest truths of transcendental metaphysics will one day reach the populace. Not only the standard of intellect, but that of morality, will be raised. The race of the Papinians, the Cromwells, and Marvels, will be multiplied. It was once said all could not learn to read, write, and account. Now they do learn these and other things. They will one day learn all things. Intellect will conquer all obstacles, and teach the human race to realise untold perfection. But it will be accomplished piecemeal. Progression is a series of stages. Individuals first, then groups, then classes, then nations, are raised. You can no more introduce, at once, the multitude to the highest results of philosophy, than you can take a man to the summit of a monument without ascending the steps, or reach a distant land without travelling the journey. This book is a stage. As the preceding ones in this series, it is designed for the class of young thinkers to whom knowledge has given some intellectual aspiration, and fate denied the means of its scholastic gratification. It is therefore neither elementary nor ultimate, but a medium between the two. It addresses itself to a want. It deals in results. It dictates doing, Spontaneous life is the life of the people. Their knowledge is confined to phenomena. Their practical philosophy is the reality of Hobbism. Disguise it as we may, their sensation is suffering, their reflection, revenge-their sole business, the betterance of their condition. All you can do is to guide their rudé interpretation of nature, men, and manners-to give plain method to their classification, coherence to their inferences, justice to their invectives. They want no new philosophy. There are more old ones which are go than they can study. There is more wisdom extant than they can master, more precepts than they can apply. Weapons innumerable surround them, of which they have to be taught the use. Their watchword is work. The scaling-ladders of the wise, which they, having mounted the citadel of wisdom, have kicked down, are yet of service to those who are below. I have picked a few of these ladders up, and reared them in these pages for the use of those who have yet to rise. Fastidious punctilios of scholarship would be out of place in such a book as this. He who addresses the artisan class, must, like the Spartans, write to be read, and speak to be understood. Mechanics and Literary Institutions cannot cultivate their frequenters, and those greatly mistake the requirements of learning and the state of the people who think they can. They can stimulate improvement, and this is their province. Nations never become civilised and learned till subsistence is secure and leisure abundant. So of individuals. The populace are still engaged in the lowest battle of animal wants-and even the middle classes are in the warfare of intellectual wants. In the ancient state of society war was the only trade, force the only teacher, and the battle-axe the only argument. A transition has indeed taken place the time, and means, and ends are changed-but not the relative position of men. No more do we struggle for the victory of conquest, but we struggle for wages and more intelligence. Knowledge has reached the mass so as to make them sensible of their ignorance without diminishing their privations, and they are now engaged in a double battle against Want and Error. The struggle, therefore, is resolute. The training wanted is practical-the weapons serviceable and ready for Provided the literary sword will cut, few will quarrel about the polish. If the blade has good temper, he who needs it will put up with a plain hilt. use. When I contemplate the appliances which learning and science present to the scholar, and see how multiplied are his means of knowing the truth upon all subjects, I cannot conceive that he can be struggling like the untaught thinker between right and wrong. To the scholar, truth and falsehood must be apparent; and since the learned do not penetrate to the intellect of the populace, and establish intelligence among them, it must be that the learned want courage or condescension, or that common sense among them is petrified in formulas. We want either a hammer or a fire to break the spell or dissolve the ice. Those words of Guizot which I have placed on the title-page, indicate the broad obviousness of precept aimed at in this work. Hudibras tells us that All the logician's rules Teach nothing but to name their tools. I have attempted to recast this order. In the "Logic of Facts" I have dealt with the materials of reasoning. This is such "Application" of them as I should make. In this matter I have striven to speak without affecting superiority or infallibility. Writer and reader stand on the same level-and from a common ground thus established, mutual inquiry starts. The information attempted is essentially practical. It is not the heavy inexorable theory of the last age applied to the bustle and elasticity of this; but upon the learning of the schools is endeavoured to be engrafted the learning of life, the literature of the streets and of trade, the logic of the newspaper and the platform, and the rhetoric of daily conversation-that the reader may acquire a public as well as a scholastic spirit: the aim being to elicit origi nality, to realise a distinct individual, who shall go forth into the arena of the world with determinate and disciplined powers capable of usefully influencing its affairs. In the division of the Parts and the succession of the Chapters there is no pretension to scientific classification. The distinction drawn between the Parts, though not recognised, will, I believe, be found practically suggestive. The order of the Chapters is that which seemed to me to be natural, at least to throw light, one upon the subject of the other. In "Hints" a greater licence is allowed, and strict sequence is not so much looked for as suggestiveness. The FIRST PART treats of the Rudiments of Rhetoric, the elements which the student derives from the instruction of others. After the "Proem" has informed the reader of the design of the book, "Rhetoric" defines and explains the subject;"Delivery" commences with the laws of tone, founded on the study of feeling. "The Theory of Persuasion" accumulates materials from the study of manifestation -"Method" teaches how to use these materials with power-" Discipline" teaches how this power is confirmed-"Tact" teaches its special application. The SECOND PART includes those topics, a knowledge of which is not so much, or, rather, not so well, derived from the instruction of others, as acquired by the personal observations of the student. Doubtless the teacher can impart them, but only in a qualified sense. The student will never excel, unless he trust to himself and to his independent exertions. The practical relation between the subjects in this Part, seem to be this,-"Originality" is a source of independent power-" Heroism" its manifestation-" Proportion" prunes "Heroism" of Exaggeration and Declaration-" Style" indicates individuality of expression-"Similes" offer themselves as weapons of expression-" Pleasantry" its relief-"Energy" is a species of lemma to Eloquence-" Eloquence" marshals the powers to effect conviction on a given point -"Premeditation" teaches how effect is to be provided for-" Reality" infuses confidence-Effectiveness" sums up the condition of complete impression-"Mastery" denotes the signs of rhetorical perfection. The THIRD PART, again, relates in its distinction rather to the student than to the subject intrinsically considered. This Part treats of topics in which the student finds the application of previous acquisitions. "Criticism," applies preceding topics to the development of beauties and correction of faults-"Debate" is tact applied to conversion-" Questioning," or Socratic Disputation, is the auxiliary of Debate"Personalities" treat of the conduct of Controversy-" Repetition" is the philosophy of Reformation-" Poetry" is the highest result of Rhetoric. Whosever well-expressed thought I have found which illustrated my subject, I have taken, and, what is somewhat more unusual, I have acknowledged it: because the author of a useful idea ought to be remembered as one who leaves a legacy. Through this punctiliousness the critics will say that I have not composed, but that I have compiled a book. Though I see books published around me, in which there is more that belongs to others than in this book-but the obligations being concealed the ostensible authors get the credit of being original. We are all of us indebted to those who have thought before us, and we have to say with Montaigne"I have gathered a nosegay of flowers in which there is nothing of my own but the string which ties them." But in this case the string which ties them is my own. The architect (to pass from nature to art) has the credit of his conception and erection of an edifice. Yet he does not create the materials. The materials he finds, but he gives them proportion, place, and design. The idea is his; and if good, we credit him with distinct merit. Why, therefore, should not the author of a book, even if made up of other men's materials, be credited also with distinct merit, if his work has an idea which subordinates the materials he employs and shapes them to a new utility? G. J. H. |