NEW TERMS, AN EVIL.

211

superiority of

verted order :—"The productiveness of labor is very much increased by the division of labor, or by each man's devoting himself to a separate avocation. Now this involves the possibility of exchanging the productions of labor; but there can be no exchange without the right of property." Paley's own language might be adapted thus:—" Much of the civilized life depends upon the division of labor. When a man is his own tailor, tent-maker, carpenter, cook, huntsman, and fisherman, it is not probable that he will be expert in any one of these callings; among savages the habitations, furniture, clothing, and implements are of the rudest kind, and the construction of them is very tedious. Now this division of labor cannot take place unless one man can exchange the productions of his own art for what he wants from others; and exchange implies property." See also Extract XV.

75. One cause of the difficulty of understanding science is the novelty of many of the terms employed.

Apart from the abstruseness of the notions, the mind is oppressed by the introduction of unfamiliar terms, sometimes in great numbers and in close succession. This should, as far as possible, be considered in the exposition; a certain time being allowed for one strange word to become familiar before bringing forward others.

It is scarcely necessary to remark that new language is in itself an evil.

76. In scientific exposition, it is imperative to observe the general maxim of proceeding from the known to the

unknown.

In describing an object of Natural History, or in expounding a great principle, reference should be made, in the first instance, to the existing knowledge of those addressed; all which should be rendered available in bodying forth the new matter.

No one has more assiduously endeavored to avoid unnecessary technicalities of language, and to turn to account the previous knowledge of the general reader, than Dr. Arnott in his Elements of Physics.

CHAPTER IV.

PERSUASION.

77. Peesuasion, or Oratory, is the influencing of men's conduct and belief by spoken or by written address.

Men are variously moved. Outward compulsion may determine their conduct. As free beings, they follow their natural activity, their sense of good and evil, their passionate excitement, and the lead of others by imitation or sympathy. Oratorical persuasion endeavors to obtain the co-operation of those free impulses for some proposed line of conduct, by so presenting it in language as to make it coincide with them. A leader of banditti knows that his followers are moved by a desire for plunder and considerations of personal safety; and it is his business to show that a certain wealthy house or a travelling party can be attacked with success. The engrossing patriotism of the old Romans required only the appearance of danger to their country to immerse them in the cost and perils of war. A Christian assembly will be prepared to further any cause that is clearly identified with the spread of Christianity.

It is supposed that the persons addressed do not, at the outset, see a subject as the speaker sees it; otherwise they would not need persuasion. Either they are intellectually blind to the connection between the case supposed and their own principles of action, or they are under the pressure of some opposing forces.

78. We must consider first the Ends of Oratory. These might be classified in various ways.

If we were to advert to the forces brought into conflict, we should find that, in one department, the aim is to set up a man's dimly represented future against the impetuous demands of the present, which is what we designate Prudence; in another class,

the selfish impulses are to be opposed by the disinterested regards, which is to fortify Social Virtue.

Practical convenience is served by a reference to the different occasions of Oratory; each giving rise to a distinct method and constituting a separate professional study.

79. I. The Oratory of the Law Courts.

The pleader in criminal causes has to persuade a judge and jury to find an accused person guilty or innocent. In civil causes, the design is to show that one of two litigants in a disputed matter has the law on his side. In both these endeavors, what is termed Argumentative Oratory must bear a chief part, while (in the first more especially) there is also scope for working on the feelings.

80. II. Political Oratory.

This wide department may be defined as the art of persuading some society, or body of people, or a nation at large, to adopt, for the general good, some one line of policy, rather than another. Such is the Oratory of Congress, Parliament, and all deliberative assemblies, whether great or small, national or local, whether consulting for the general welfare or for narrow and special objects.

The end now described assumes a twofold aspect, constituting two different kinds of Persuasion. These are well stated in the following passage from Whately :—

"In order that the Will may be influenced, two things are requisite; viz. 1. that the proposed Object should appear desirable; and 2. that the means suggested should be proved to be conducive to the attainment of that object; and this last evidently must depend on a process of Reasoning. In order, e. g., to induce the Greeks to unite their efforts against the Persian invader, it was necessary both to prove that co-operation could alone render their resistance effectual, and also to awaken such feelings of patriotism and abhorrence of a foreign yoke, as might prompt them to make these combined efforts. For it is evident that, however ardent their love of liberty, they would make no exertions if they apprehended no danger; or if they thought themselves able, separately, to defend themselves, they would be backward to join the confederacy and on the other hand, that if they were willing to submit to the Persian yoke, or valued their independence less than their

66

present ease, the fullest conviction that the Means recommended would secure their independence, would have had no practical effect. "Persuasion, therefore, depends on, first, Argument (to prove the expediency of the Means proposed), and secondly, what is usually called Exhortation, i. e., the excitement of men to adopt those Means, by representing the End as sufficiently desirable. It will happen, indeed, not unfrequently, that the one or the other of these objects will have been already, either wholly or in part, accomplished; so that the other shall be the only one that it is requisite to insist on; viz., sometimes the hearers will be sufficiently intent on the pursuit of the End, and will be in doubt only as to the Means of attaining it; and sometimes, again, they will have no doubt on that point, but will be indifferent, or not sufficiently ardent, with respect to the proposed End, and will need to be stimulated by Exhortations. Not sufficiently ardent, I have said, because it will not so often happen that the object in question will be one to which they are totally indifferent, as that they will, practically at least, not reckon it, or not feel it, to be worth the requisite pains. No one is absolutely indifferent about the attainment of a happy immortality; and yet a great part of the Preacher's business consists in Exhortation, i. e., endeavoring to induce men to use those exertions which they themselves know to be necessary for the attainment of it."

When people are indifferent to the end, we have to work upon their feelings. As regards the choice of means, we address the reason or understanding, which alone can judge of the fitness of means to ends.

It is impossible, by any mode of address, to overcome a radical difference of view as to the supreme social or ethical ends. If one man believes in the paternal theory of government, and another in individual liberty as the highest end, there is scarcely any possible way of bringing the one over to the opinion of the other. As in argument, so in oratory generally, there must be some common ground to work upon. In the discussion of truth and falsehood, the common ground is certain first principles admitted by both parties; in moving to action, the common ground is an admitted end.

Political oratory comprises the speeches in Congress, Parliament, and in all meetings for discussing public affairs; articles in the newspaper and periodical press relating to the policy of governing bodies; separate publications bearing on the same subject; and diplomatic correspondence.

ENDS OF ORATOEY.

81. III. Pulpit Oratory.

215

A leading aim of the oratory of the pulpit must always be to cultivate and strengthen a class of feelings, or emotions, those of religious devotion and of moral duty. The Apostles, and the missionaries that converted the nations to Christianity, aimed at an immediate object, and worked a sudden change in the minds of men. The same is true of the Reformers. But after a religious creed is established in a community, the preacher educates gradually far oftener than he converts suddenly.

The pulpit orator sometimes urges men to immediate action; as a well-known instance, we may refer to the preaching of the Crusades.

The religious feelings are cultivated by acts of worship and by the addresses of the preacher.

82. IV. Moral Suasion.

Exhortation to good conduct, while it falls within the province of pulpit oratory, also appears in other departments of composition. In addresses directed more especially to the young, whose characters are unformed, the endeavor is to impress them with the maxims of prudence, and the obligations they are under to society. Much of the literature of popular interest is shaped so as to convey these lessons indirectly, and therefore more effectually such are History, Biography, Poetry, and Romance. King Alfred endeavored, says Hume, to convey moral lessons by apologues, parables, stories, and apothegms, couched in poetry.

Prudential exhortation must proceed by vividly depicting the good or evil consequences of actions to the agent's own self, The deepening of the social regards in men's minds involves a wider range of appeal.

83. The next matter for consideration in Oratory is Knowledge Of The Peesons Addeessed.

If all men were constituted exactly alike, and were always in the same mood, a speaker would need only to judge from himself how to move others. But such is the disparity of