merely regard the subject in two different aspects. Science is systematized knowledge; if then the laws and principles of discourse are exhibited in an ordered system, they appear in the character of a science. Art is knowledge made efficient by skill; if then rhetorical laws and principles are applied in the actual construction of discourse, they become the working rules of an art.

According to its predominant character as an art or as a science, rhetoric may be regarded as of two kinds: constructive rhetoric, which is concerned with the production of discourse; and critical rhetoric, which traces the laws of discourse through the study of works of literature. The present manual, having principally in view the practical ends of constructive rhetoric, starts from the definition which views rhetoric as an art.

Art and Aptitude. - Art in expression is exactly analogous to art in painting, or music, or handicraft. No one becomes really eminent in these pursuits without first possessing some natural aptitude for them; and just so, true genius for expression must to some extent be born in a man. Some persons cannot hope, even by training, to attain eminence as writers. There is in the highest literary work a grace and freedom that cannot be imparted by rules. But though all cannot become great writers, all can at least learn to express their thought directly and without ambiguity; nor is there any excuse on the score of nature for crudeness and inaccuracy in speech.

Further, just as in these other arts one does not think of stopping with mere inborn aptitude, but develops and disciplines all his powers by precept and training; so in the art of expression one needs by faithful study and practice to get beyond the point where he only happens to write well, and attain that conscious power over language and thought which gives him precision and grace in adapting means to ends, and fine discrimination in choosing among his resources. This is rhetorical art, and this assured power its

value.

Sources of Failure. -"All fatal faults," says Ruskin, “in art that might have been otherwise good, arise from one or other of

these three things: either from the pretence to feel what we do not; the indolence in exercises necessary to obtain the power of expressing the truth; or the presumptuous insistence upon, and indulgence in, our own powers and delights, and with no care or wish that they should be useful to other people, so only they be admired by them."

This, written primarily with reference to painting, applies with equal fitness to the literary art; and the order in which the faults are named corresponds to the frequency of their occurrence.

First and commonest, insincerity. By this is not meant that writers intentionally make pretence of feeling what they do not. None the less truly, however, they may fall into insincerity and unreality, by unconsidered use of conventionalisms, stock expressions, outworn figures, and the like. Young writers especially are liable to employ such ready-made and stereotyped resources, without stopping to think how much or how little they mean; and thus they commit themselves to what does not represent their genuine thought. Secondly, "indolence in exercises necessary to obtain the power of expressing the truth." This fault is the special temptation of those to whom composition comes easy; they think their cleverness will obviate the necessity of discipline. Thus the very innate aptitude which is so full of promise may become a snare to them, through being undervalued. It is to be remembered that this art, like every other, has its technicalities, which require and repay all the diligence and minuteness of care that can be expended upon them.- Lastly, rhetorical vanity. This comes from being so taken with literary devices and artifices as to rate form before thought; and it manifests itself in mannerisms, affectations, tricks of style, and the like. It must always be borne in mind that rhetoric does not exist for itself, but only as the handmaid of the truth which it seeks to make living in the minds and hearts of men.

Initial Difficulties of the Art of Rhetoric. - These are just such as occur in the beginning of every art: the difficulty, to wit, of making skilled achievement take the place of crude, undisciplined

effort. To submit one's work in composition to rules is to regulate the free creative impulse by critical processes; and this, until the writer gets used to it, is apt to check and chill the flow of thought. Beginning thus, literary work is too self-conscious, and the art of the discourse too apparent. But such a self-conscious stage in the writer's experience cannot well be avoided; it is merely a sign that the art is not fully mastered. Sooner or later rhetorical rules must be learned, either from precept or from experience; for they are not arbitrarily invented, as something that a writer may treat as he will, but discovered and deduced from confessedly good usage, as principles that must be observed. The question therefore is, whether the writer will learn without rules, by blundering experience, or take what the approved procedure of others has found to be best. Nor can the answer be doubtful. The true way is to submit to rhetorical laws and methods; and though these may in the beginning be obtrusive and tyrannical, by diligent practice they will become second nature.

The crowning excellence of skilled expression, as all acknowledge, is naturalness. But such an achievement, wherein everything seems in its right place and degree, we call also artistic. Art at its highest and nature at its truest are one. The result appears ideally free from pains and effort; this, however, not because art is not present, but because the art is so perfect as to have concealed its processes.

III.

Province and Distribution of Rhetoric. The art of rhetoric, in its endeavor to adapt discourse to the requirements of the reader or hearer, must naturally take for its province all the plans and procedures included in the construction of a literary work. In so doing, however, it cannot undertake to legislate for individual cases. Its business is merely to point out the resources at the writer's command, with the mental habits necessary to the mastery of them; and to give cautions against whatever is unskilled and unadapted. Beyond this, in all the actual work of authorship, it

must leave him to his own powers and judgments. Rhetoric cannot make a writer; it can neither enhance the value of his thought nor impart real character to his expression; it can only bring him to the point where, if he has ability, that ability may rightly prove itself. In a word, its province is to supply such directions for selfculture that the author, having submitted to its guidance, may be able to utter his conceptions confidently and with self-reliance.

In the construction of a work of literature we discern two different lines of mental activity, which, starting from widely separated points, converge to a common result in the completed product. The one is the line of thought, or matter; the other the line of expression, or manner. Of course a question of expression must often involve the question of thought also, and vice versa; so the two lines of study must continually touch and interact; but on the whole they are distinct enough to furnish what is perhaps the simplest working basis for the distribution of the art. The principles of rhetoric therefore group themselves naturally around two main topics: style, which deals with the expression of discourse, and invention, which deals with the thought.

Style. Under this heading are discussed the various rhetorical principles that are developed from grammar: how to use words and figures, and how to build them together so as to impart to the whole a desired power and quality. The sphere of the work of style is the construction of sentences and paragraphs. Herein are comprised, it will be observed, the more mechanical features of the art, features too often shunned on account of their dryness, but, like the prosaic technicalities of every art, elements that can least be spared, principles that must accompany the writer at every step, whatever the form of his undertaking. Nor is the dryness so much real as fancied. Details of expression are repulsive only to the lazy or the listless; let the writer once feel the greatness and importance of his subject, and every word that goes to increase its effectiveness is full of interest.

Invention. Under this heading are comprised, roughly speaking, the various features of discourse that are developed from logic:

how to work out a line of thought from its central theme through its outline to its final amplified form; and how to select, arrange, and modify it for the requirements of the various literary types. Observe, the sphere of invention, so far as invention can be taught by a treatise, is only partly indicated in the derivation of the word; nor can it be concerned so much with the question what material to find as with the question how to find it. All the work of origination must be left to the writer himself; the rhetorical text-book can merely treat of those mental habits and powers which give firmness and system to his suggestive faculty, and the principles and procedures involved in the determination of any literary form.