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. . . A politician must often talk and act before he has thought and read. He may be very ill informed respecting a question; all his notions about it may be vague and inaccurate; but speak he must; and if he is a man of talents, of tact, and of intrepidity, he soon finds that, even under such circumstances, it is possible to speak successfully. He finds that there is a great difference between the effect of written words, which are perused and reperused in the stillness of the closet, and the effect of spoken words which, set off by the graces of utterance and gesture, vibrate for a single moment on the ear. He finds that he may blunder without much chance of being detected, that he may reason sophistically, and escape unrefuted. He finds that, even on knotty questions of trade and legislation, he can, without reading ten pages, or thinking ten minutes, draw forth loud plaudits, and sit down with the credit of having made an excellent speech. Lysias, says Plutarch, wrote a defence for a man who was to be tried before one of the Athenian tribunals. Long before the defendant had learned the speech by heart, he became so much dissatisfied with it that he went in great distress to the author. 'I was delighted with your speech the first time I read it; but I liked it less the second time, and still less the third time; and now it seems to me to be no defence at all.' My good friend,' said Lysias, you quite forget that the judges are to hear it only once.' The case is the same in the English parliament. It would be as idle in an orator to waste deep meditation and long research on his speeches, as it would be in the manager of a theatre to adorn all the crowd of courtiers and ladies who cross over the stage in a procession with real pearls and diamonds. It is not by accuracy or profundity that men become the masters of great assemblies. And why be at the charge of pro

viding logic of the best quality, when a very inferior article will be equally acceptable? Why go as deep into a question as Burke, only in order to be, like Burke, coughed down, or left speaking to green benches and red boxes? This has long appeared to us to be the most serious of the evils which are to be set off against the many blessings of popular government. It is a fine and true saying of Bacon, that reading makes a full man, talking a ready man, and writing an exact man. The tendency of institutions like those of England is to encourage readiness in public men, at the expense both of fulness and of exactness. The keenest and most vigorous minds of every generation, minds often admirably fitted for the investigation of truth, are habitually employed in producing arguments such as no man of sense would ever put into a treatise intended for publication, arguments which are just good enough to be used once, when aided by fluent delivery and pointed language. The habit of discussing questions in this way necessarily reacts on the intellects of our ablest men; particularly of those who are introduced into parliament at a very early age, before their minds have expanded to full maturity. The talent for debate is developed in such men to a degree which, to the multitude, seems as marvellous as the performances of an Italian improvvisatore. But they are fortunate indeed if they retain unimpaired the faculties which are required for close reasoning or for enlarged speculation. Indeed we should sooner expect a great original work on political science, such a work, for example, as the 'Wealth of Nations,' from an apothecary in a country town, or from a minister in the Hebrides, than from a statesman who, ever since he was one-and-twenty, had been a distinguished debater in the House of Commons."

veracity and fairness, are not unlikely to be silenced by the consideration that after all it is no real battle, but a tournament; there being no real and important measure to be actually decided on, but only a debate carried on for practice' sake.

But unreal as is the occasion, and insignificant as may be the particular point, a habit may be formed which will not easily be unlearned afterwards, of disregarding right reason, and truth, and fair argument. And such a habit is not merely debasing to the moral character, but also, in a rhetorical point of view, if I may so speak, often proves hurtful. It has often weakened the effect, to a far greater degree than most persons suppose, of what has been written and said by men of great ability; by depriving it of that air of simple truthfulness which has so winning a force, and which it is so impossible completely to feign.

5*

PART I.

OF THE INVENTION, ARRANGEMENT, AND INTRODUCTION, OF PROPOSITIONS AND ARGUMENTS.

Inquiry after Truth and after Arguments distinguished.

CHAP. I. Of Propositions.

§ 1.

It was remarked in the Treatise on LOGIC, that in the process of Investigation properly so called, viz. that by which we endeavor to discover Truth, it must of course be uncertain to him who is entering on that process, what the conclusion will be to which his researches will lead ; but that in the process of conveying truth to others by reasoning, (i. e. in what may be termed, according to the view I have at present taken, the Rhetorical process,) the conclusion or conclusions which are to be established must be present to the mind of him who is conducting the Argument, and whose business is to find Proofs of a given proposition.

It is evident, therefore, that the first step to be taken by him, is to lay down distinctly in his own mind the proposition or propositions to be proved. It might indeed at first sight appear superfluous even to mention so obvious a rule; but experience shows that it is by no means uncommon for a young or ill-instructed writer to content himself with such a

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vague and indistinct view of the point he is to aim at, that the whole train of his reasoning is in consequence affected with a corresponding perplexity, obscurity, and looseness. It may be worth while therefore to give some hints for the conduct of this preliminary process, the choice of propositions. Not, of course, that I am supposing the author to be in doubt what opinion he shall adopt: the process of Investigation* (which does not fall within the province of Rhetoric) being supposed to be concluded; but still there will often be room for deliberation as to the form in which an opinion shall be stated, and, when several propositions are to be maintained, in what order they shall be placed.

Conviction and Instruction.

On this head therefore I shall proceed to propose some rules; after having premised (in order to anticipate some objections or doubts which might arise) one remark relative to the object to be effected. This is, of course, what may be called, in the widest sense of the word, Conviction; but under that term are comprehended, first, what is strictly called Instruction; and, secondly, Conviction in the narrower sense; i. e. the Conviction of those who are either of a contrary opinion to the one maintained, or who are in doubt whether to admit or deny it. By instruction, on the other hand, is commonly meant the conviction of those who have neither formed an opinion on the subject, nor are deliberating whether to adopt or reject the proposition in question, but are merely desirous of ascertaining what is the truth in respect of the case before them. The former are supposed to have before their minds the terms of the proposition maintained, and are called upon to consider whether that particular proposition be true or

* Logic, Book IV. Chap. III. § 2.