(71.) Experience.

Another form of argument, which may be stated under the general topic of Example, is the argument from experience. It is, perhaps, the most satisfactory of all to most minds. It has been justly said, that it is only the past which we can know certainly by experience, and yet we judge of the future by the past.

Thus, in the operations of the commonest laws of nature around us, we judge by experience. It is because, in all our past lives, we have known the sun to rise and set daily, that we feel sure it will rise and set to-morrow. This, it will be observed, is one form of induction, since from past examples, or individual cases, we venture to establish a general law, which will include the future.

This form of argument is very frequently used in discourse. Speakers appeal for proof of what they say, to the experience of their hearers; and if they can attain this, they are sure of success.

Patrick Henry enunciated the very law in his famous appeal to the Legislature of Virginia, when he said: "I have no lamp by which my feet are guided, but the lamp of experience. I know no way to judge of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry, for the

last ten years, to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House."

pre

A sailor will tell you that he knows, by experience, the best season to make a certain voyage, or the cautions necessary to be taken in certain latitudes. And thus experience, furnishes us with the strongest and most satisfactory arguments in common life.

(72.) Real and Invented Examples.

As has been before remarked, in considering another kind of argument, it is not necessary that the examples which are used in proof of a question, be real facts; they may be entirely unreal, and made to suit a supposed case: but they must bear a strong analogy to the case in point. Socrates, who designed to condemn the practice of choosing public officers by lot, brought forward, as an invented example, the story of certain sailors who chose their steersman by lot; intending thereby, in both cases, to inveigh against a custom which would frequently lead to the choice of an unskilful person to control the lives and fortunes of others; to stand at the helm of ship or

state.

In every case, such invented examples must have an air of fitness and probability, or they will be entirely without weight.

Invented examples, like the one just mentioned, are of frequent use as illustrations; but, besides these, Fables may be also classed among examples of this sort; they offer examples of analogy, and the proof which they thus convey in the story which forms the premisses, gives us, as a conclusion, the moral of the fable.

(73.) The Topics of Arguments.

In closing this general outline of arguments, as they are employed in Rhetoric, it may be well to state that the general subject of proof in discourse, has been, by the older rhetoricians, all included under the general head of the Topics.

This word, called by Aristotle Toxo, and by the Latin professors loci, means, literally, the division of arguments into their different classes or places, where they rightly belong.

We have designed to simplify the division by classing them all as rhetorical arguments, and by narrowing the subordinate classes; particularly because, in the progress of the art of Rhetoric, the nature and titles of the Topics have changed very much since the days of Aristotle.

Thus, Quintilian enumerated among his Topics: prejudications, which may correspond with the argument from experience; common fame, which has

something in common with à priori reasoning; and, under what we would call Signs, he enumerates as topics, written documents, witnesses, oaths, &c.

An adequate nomenclature is, indeed, the just demand of any science; but such quaint, unnecessary, and historically-changing words, are only mentioned here to give a reason why they are not used by us, and how we may dispense with them, and be better off without them. They are only needed in a History of Rhetoric.

CHAPTER IX.

(74.) Of the Modes in which Arguments are used in Discourse.

IT now becomes important to consider some of the modes in which rhetorical arguments are advanced in discourse; as, for example, whether in proof of some proposition asserted by ourselves, or in disproof of some objection started by our adversary; whether in any discourse it becomes us to prove what we assert, or simply to deny what our opponent has asserted, and let the burden or necessity of proof fall upon him.

All such questions must be settled by the nature of our special design in the discourse; we may be called upon to instruct and satisfy an honest mind seeking for truth, and anxious to receive and use it when found; or it may be to combat the prejudices, and compel the belief of our opponents, who at the same time are doing all in their power to resist the truth and maintain error. It is very evident that the nature of the arguments used in these several cases would be very different; and that what would be a