used, as they have always been, by ignorance or by imposture.

There seems indeed, in the history of every science, and its corresponding art, a period when objections are numerous and have great force.

Such a statement is illustrated by a consideration of Logic and the Mathematics, which suffered in the days of Bacon, and were even much decried at a later period, when they advanced the practical applications of what had long existed only in theory. This is due in part to an ignorance which always leads to absurd results, and in part to a quackery which would attribute false powers to science, and control men, by appealing to their hopes, their fears, and their superstition, when a practical judgment alone is required.

The voyage of Gulliver to Laputa was written by Swift, to ridicule the movements of exact science in his age, and its applications to discovery, invention, and the mechanic arts: that was the age of the South Sea bubble, of Law's Mississippi scheme, and such like enormous frauds, when figures, of which it has been said in common phrase that "they never lie," were used by lying speculators and stockjobbers, and made to seem false. So because of the misuse of Rhetoric, in certain historic periods, by which great evils have been produced, Rhetoric has been satirized, ridiculed, and abused, and oratory has been considered only a specious form of public

deception. That it is ever so is the fault of the orator and not the art.

To state then the objections which have been brought against the art, in all the forms which have been urged, it is called—

1st. A pedantic art, leading men out of the plain, matter of fact transmission of thought in wholesome language, filling them with a jargon of the schools, not used in common life.

2d. A frivolous art, for the same reasons that it is pedantic, and additionally because it usurps time and taste better devoted to other and more useful studies; and

3d. An injurious art, used to hoodwink the judgment by alluring the fancy to make "the worse appear the better reason."

These are the objections, it will be observed, brought principally by ignorance: but that there are so called rhetoricians, who knowingly use their art in a manner pedantic and frivolous, and for the purpose of attaining their own selfish ends, is not disputed. Reasoning, however, from such impostors to a general conclusion against the science, would be reasoning, ex abusu,—against the use of a good thing, from its abuse,-and what art can bear such a test?

Strength of body given to man for useful ends—to work, to protect, to defend—when used by a maniac or a brigand are destructive.

Strength of mind may prove, when misapplied, a great evil; and great geniuses, like great heroes, have often been most noted by the ruin they leave in their train. The arch fiend of Milton's fancy assumed the form of a spirit of light, and even among his peers in Pandemonium seemed only

Less than archangel ruined, and the excess

Of glory obscured;

and yet, due to his crimes, he saw "in the lowest depths a lower deep."

If we look through nature, or examine its atomic ingredients, we everywhere find, that to reason from the abuse of a good thing is the most unjust form which the fallacy of objections" can assume.

"

In closing this preliminary chapter, let us briefly recapitulate what has been said in our attempt, as originally stated, to arrive at the true and modern definition of the term Rhetoric :

We have seen that it originally meant fluent speech or oratory; that in its second intention it was applied to written matter; that in Greece and Rome, owing to the chaotic state of scientific classification, it was made to stand for and to comprehend many sciences, since happily separated from it, as they all have become better known and more clearly defined; that in the middle ages it was almost entirely uncultivated; and

that so perfectly has Rhetoric now assumed its own identity among the sciences, that it may be defined the science and art of constructing discourse; that in its practical uses it is essentially an art; and that its functions will vary according to the varying character and purpose of the discourse itself. We have also mentioned a few of the principal objections to Rhetoric as an art, and demonstrated their invalidity.

The next step in our investigation of the subject will be the rhetorical uses or designs of discourse.

4

CHAPTER II.

DISCOURSE.

(11.) Of the purpose of Rhetorical Discourse.

BEFORE stating the division of the subject which we shall employ in treating it, it is proper to consider first the uses of Rhetoric, as the art of discourse,—or the designs which we purpose to effect by discourse. Although if we should make a minute statement of such designs they would be found very numerous, moulded as they would be by a thousand circumstances, local and individual, they have been reduced to four ends or purposes: 1st, to enlighten the understanding; 2d, to please the imagination; 3d, to move the passions; and 4th, to influence the will.

(12.) Four ends of discourse.

1st. Thus, when a speaker undertakes to enlighten the understanding, he addresses himself to the pure instruction of his hearer, in explaining something before entirely unknown, or making plain something