"I hope that your professors of rhetoric will teach you to cultivate that golden art the steadfast use of a language in which truth can be told; a speech that is strong by natural force, and not merely effective by declamation; an utterance without trick, without affectation, without mannerisms, and without any of that excessive ambition which overleaps itself as much in prose writing as it does in other things.". John Morley. INTRODUCTORY. Definition of Rhetoric. - Rhetoric is the art of adapting discourse, in harmony with its subject and occasion, to the requirements of a reader or hearer. The word discourse, as it will be used throughout this treatise, is a general term denoting any coherent literary production, whether spoken or written. I. Rhetoric as Adaptation. - Literary discourse, properly considered, does not exist for itself alone; it is not soliloquy, but a determinate address to readers or hearers, seeking to impart to them some information or thought, with accompaniment, as occasion requires, of emotion or impulse. Hence, whatever is thus imparted must strive after such order and expression as is best fitted to have its proper power on men; consulting their capacities and susceptibilities, it must determine its work by the requirements thus necessitated. The various problems involved in such adaptation constitute the field of the art of rhetoric. This idea of adaptation is the best modern representative of the original aim of the art. Having at first to deal only with hearers, rhetoric began as the art of oratory, that is, of convincing and persuading by speech; now, however, when the art of printing has greatly broadened its field of action, it must fit itself to readers as well, must therefore include more literary forms and more comprehensive objects; while still the initial character of the art survives, in the general aim of so presenting thought that it shall have power on men, which aim is most satisfactorily expressed in the term adaptation. Distinguished by this Characteristic from the Sciences on which it is founded. Rhetoric is mainly founded on two sciences, logic and grammar. "Now it is by the sense," says Dr. Campbell, “that rhetoric holds of logic, and by the expression that she holds of grammar.” Grammar investigates the uses of words, and the structure of phrases and sentences, with a view to ascertaining what are the facts of the language; and when these are presented so as to show what is correct in expression, its end is accomplished. Rhetoric, also, employs the facts of the language to secure grammatical correctness; but this only because discourse cannot be effectual without it. Nor does rhetoric stop with mere correctness of expression. Having an end to accomplish beyond simple utterance, it must seek also clearness, or beauty, or force of style, according as these qualities may best serve to give thought its fitting power. Further, while the sphere of grammar extends only as far as the sentence, rhetoric discusses also the structure of paragraphs and larger sections, and so on through the various details of an entire discourse. Logic investigates the laws of thought, with a view to determining its exact and consistent sequences; and, like grammar, it is content with discovering and presenting the facts of its province. Rhetoric, also, must observe the laws of thought, because the ends of discourse fail if these are transgressed; but this it does only as its hidden beginning. What it has found by logical processes to be true and consistent, it seeks further to make lucid, or attractive, or cogent, or persuasive, in order to gain men's attention and influence them. Thus thought on the one side and expression on the other, taking the distinctive qualities that adaptation imposes on them, combine to make up what Dr. Campbell calls the soul and the body of discourse. In what Ways Discourse may be adapted. As dictated by its thought and occasion, three general adaptations of discourse are to be noted, corresponding to the three divisions of man's spiritual powers, and giving rise, as either of these is predominantly consulted, to three broad types of literature. First and most fundamentally, discourse of whatever kind must adapt itself to the reader's understanding; that is, it addresses and compels his power of thought, whether by imparting information or by convincing of truth. Common ideas require, for the most part, merely such simple presentation as this; and the predominance of this appeal to the intellect gives rise to the great body of every-day literature — history, biography, fiction, essays, treatises, criticism — included under the general name of Didactic Prose. Secondly, some kinds of ideas come to the writer intensified by emotion or glowing with imagination; and hence, in their presentation, while they must still consult primarily the reader's understanding, they address themselves most directly to his sensibilities, to make him feel the thought as well as think it. Of such adaptation to the emotional nature, the purest outcome is Poetry. A third class of ideas comprises such as, from their importance, or from the occasion of their presentation, require a definite decision in the hearer's conduct, and hence, employing persuasion as a means, culminate as an appeal to the will. This kind of discourse, as it has the highest object, must seek to enlist all the spiritual powers, imparting alike thought, emotion, and impulse; and results in the most complex literary type, Oratory. Such are the three comprehensive types of discourse, evolved from the effort to adapt thought, in various ways, to human powers. Of their occasion and principle it is essential to take account, though it is not to be supposed that they must necessarily remain unmixed. A great part of the life and interest of any literary work may arise from the fact that, while one type predominates, such elements of others may be introduced as shall make the thought influence and satisfy the whole man. Rhetoric as an Art. times defined as a science. II. Rhetoric, here called an art, is some- |