reasoning we descend to the analogical, we may be said to come upon a common to which reason and fancy have an equal claim. "A comparison," says Quintilian,* *hath al most the effect of an example." But what are rhetorical comparisons, when brought to illustrate any point inculcated on the hearers (what are they, I say), but arguments from analogy? In proof of this, let us borrow an instance from the forementioned rhetorician: "Would you be convinced of the necessity of education for the mind, consider of what importance culture is to the ground: the field which, cultivated, produceth a plentiful crop of useful fruits, if neglected, will be overrun with briers, and brambles, and other useless or noxious weeds." It would be no better than trifling to point out the argument couched in this passage. Now if comparison, which is the chief, hath so great an influence upon conviction, it is no wonder that all those other oratorical tropes and figures addressed to the imagination, which are more or less nearly related to comparison, should derive hence both light and efficacy. Even antithesis implies comparison. Simile is a comparison in epitome,§ Metaphor is an allegory in miniature. Allegory and prosopeia are comparisons conveyed under a particular form.

SECTION III.

MEN CONSIDERED AS ENDOWED WITH MEMORY,

FARTHER, Vivid ideas are not only more powerful than languid ideas in commanding and preserving attention, they are not only more efficacious in producing conviction, but they are also more easily retained. Those several powers, understanding, imagination, memory, and passion, are mutually subservient. That it is necessary for the orator to engage the help of memory, will appear from many reasons, particularly from what was remarked above, on the fourth difference between moral reasoning and demonstrative. It was there observed, that in the former the credibility of the fact is the sum of the evidence of all the arguments, often independent of one another, brought to support it. And though it was shown that demonstration itself, without the assistance of this faculty, could never produce conviction, yet here it

* Instit., lib. v., cap, xi. "Proximas exempli vires habet similitudo." + Instit., lib. v., cap. xi. "Ut si animum dicas excolendum, similitudine utaris terræ, quæ neglecta sentes atque dumos, exculta fructus creat."

"Præterea, nescio quomodo etiam credit faciliùs, quæ audienti jucunda sunt, et voluptate ad fidem ducitur."-Quint., l. iv., c. ii.

Simile and nparison are in common language frequently confounded. The difference is is: Simile is no more than a comparison suggested in a word or two; as, He fought like a lion; His face shone as the sun. Comparison is a simile circumstantiated and included in one or more separate sentences. | Chap. v., sect. ii., pt. 1.

I

must be owned that the natural connexion of the several links in the chain renders the remembrance easier. Now, as nothing can operate on the mind which is not in some respect present to it, care must be taken by the orator that, in introducing new topics, the vestiges left by the former on the minds of the hearers may not be effaced. It is the sense of this necessity which hath given rise to the rules of composition.

Some will perhaps consider it as irregular that I speak here of addressing the memory, of which no mention at all was made in the first chapter, wherein I considered the different forms of eloquence, classing them by the different faculties of the mind addressed. But this apparent irregularity will vanish when it is observed that, with regard to the faculties there mentioned, each of them may not only be the direct, but even the ultimate object of what is spoken. The whole scope may be at one time to inform or convince the understanding, at another to delight the imagination, at a third to agitate the passions, and at a fourth to determine the will. But it is never the ultimate end of speaking to be remembered when what is spoken tends neither to instruct, to please, to move, nor to persuade. This, therefore, is of necessity no more on any occasion than a subordinate end, or, which is precisely the same thing, the means to some farther end; and as such, it is more or less necessary on every occasion. The speaker's attention to this subserviency of memory is always so much the more requisite, the greater the difficulty of remembrance is, and the more important the being remembered is to the attainment of the ultimate end. On both accounts, it is of more consequence in those discourses whose aim is either instruction or persuasion, than in those whose design is solely to please the fancy or to move the passions. And if there are any which answer none of those ends, it were better to learn to forget them than to teach the method of making them be retained.

The author of the treatise above quoted hath divided the principles of association in ideas into resemblance, contiguity, and causation. I do not here inquire into all the defects of this enumeration, but only observe, that even on his own system, order both in space and time ought to have been included. It appears at least to have an equal title with causation, which, according to him, is but a particular modification and combination of the other two. Causation, considered as an associating principle, is, in his theory, no more than the contiguous succession of two ideas, which is more deeply imprinted on the mind by its experience of a similar contiguity and succession of the impressions from which they are copied. This, therefore, is the result of resemblance and vicinity united. Order in place is likewise a mode of vicinity

where this last tie is strengthened by the regularity and simplicity of figure, which qualities arise solely from the resem blance of the corresponding parts of the figure, or the parts similarly situated. Regular figures, besides the advantages which they derive from simplicity and uniformity, have this also, that they are more familiar to the mind than irregular figures, and are therefore more easily conceived. Hence the influence which order in place hath upon the memory. It any person question this influence, let him but reflect how much easier it is to remember a considerable number of persons whom one hath seen ranged on benches or chairs round a hall, than the same number seen standing promiscuously in a crowd; and how natural it is for assisting the memory in recollecting the persons, to recur to the order wherein they were placed.

As to order in time, which in composition is properly styled Method, it consisteth principally in connecting the parts in such a manner as to give vicinity to things in the discourse which have an affinity; that is, resemblance, causality, or other relation in nature; and thus making their customary association and resemblance, as in the former case, co-operate with their contiguity in duration, or immediate succession in the delivery. The utility of method for aiding the memory all the world knows. But besides this, there are some parts of the discourse, as well as figures of speech, peculiarly adapted to this end. Such are the division of the subject, the rhetorical repetitions of every kind, the different modes of transition and recapitulation.

SECTION IV.

MEN CONSIDERED AS ENDOWED WITH PASSIONS.

To conclude: when persuasion is the end, passion also must be engaged. If it is fancy which bestows brilliancy on our ideas, if it is memory which gives them stability, passion doth more: it animates them. Hence they derive spirit and energy. To say that it is possible to persuade without speaking to the passions, is but, at best, a kind of specious nonsense. The coolest reasoner always, in persuading, addresseth himself to the passions some way or other. This he cannot avoid doing if he speak to the purpose. To make me believe, it is enough to show me that things are so; to make me act, it is necessary to show me that the action will answer some end. That can never be an end to me which gratifies no passion or affection in my nature. You assure me, "It is for my honour." Now you solicit my pride, without which I had never been able to understand the word.

You say, "It is for my interest." Now you bespeak my self-love. "It is for the public good." Now you rense my

patriotism. "It will relieve the miserable." Now you touch my pity. So far, therefore, is it from being an unfair method of persuasion to move the passions, that there is no persuasion without moving them.

But if so much depend on passion, where is the scope for argument? Before I answer this question, let it be observed, that, in order to persuade, there are two things which must be carefully studied by the orator. The first is, to excite some desire or passion in the hearers; the second is, to satisfy their judgment that there is a connexion between the action to which he would persuade them, and the gratification of the desire or passion which he excites. This is the analysis of persuasion. The former is effected by communicating lively and glowing ideas of the object; the latter, unless so evident of itself as to supersede the necessity, by presenting the best and most forcible arguments which the nature of the subject admits. In the one lies the pathetic, in the other the argumentative. These, incorporated together (as was observed in the first chapter), constitute that vehemence of contention to which the greatest exploits of eloquence ought doubtless to be ascribed. Here, then, is the principal scope for argument, but not the only scope, as will appear in the sequel. When the first end alone is attained, the pathetic without the rational, the passions are indeed roused from a disagreeable langour by the help of the imagination, and the mind is thrown into a state which, though accompanied with some painful emotions, rarely fails, upon the whole, to affect it with pleasure. But if the hearers are judicious, no practical effect is produced. They cannot, by such declamation, be influenced to a particular action, because not convinced that that action will conduce to the gratifying of the passion raised. Your cloquence hath fired my ambition, and makes me burn with public zeal. The consequence is, there is nothing which at present I would not attempt for the sake of fame, and the interest of my country. You advise me to such a conduct, but you have not shown me how that can contribute to gratify either passion. Satisfy me in this, and I am instantly at your command. Indeed, when the hearers are rude and ignorant, nothing more is necessary in the speak er than to inflame their passions. They will not require that the connexion between the conduct he urges and the end pro posed be evinced to them. His word will satisfy. And there fore bold affirmations are made to supply the place of reasons. Hence it is that the rabble are ever the prey of quacks and impudent pretenders of every denomination.

On the contrary, when the other end alone is attained, the rational without the pathetic, the speaker is as far from his purpose as before. You have proved beyond contradiction hat acting thus is the sure way to procure such an object

I perceive that your reasoning is conclusive, but I am not af fected by it. Why? I have no passion for the object. I am indifferent whether I procure it or not. You have demonstrated that such a step will mortify my enemy. I believe it; but I have no resentment, and will not trouble myself to give pain to another. Your arguments evince that it would gratify my vanity. But I prefer my ease. Thus passion is the mover to action, reason is the guide. Good is the object of the will, truth is the object of the understanding.*

* Several causes have contributed to involve this subject in confusion. One is the ambiguity and imperfection of language. Motives are often called arguments, and both motives and arguments are promiscuously styled reasons. Another is, the idle disputes that have arisen among philosophers concerning the nature of good, both physical and moral. "Truth and good are one," says the author of the Pleasures of Imagination, an author whose poetical merit will not be questioned by persons of taste. The expression might have been passed in the poet, whose right to the use of catachresis, one of the many privileges comprehended under the name poetic license, prescription hath fully established. But by philosophizing on this passage in his notes, he warrants us to canvass his reasoning, for no such privilege hath as yet been conceded to philosophers. Indeed, in attempting to illustrate, he has, I think, confuted it, or, to speak more properly, shown it to have no meaning. He mentions two opinions concerning the connexion of truth and beauty, which is one species of good. "Some philosophers," says he, "assert an independent and invariable law in Nature, in consequence of which all rational beings must alike perceive beauty in some certain proportions, and deformity in the contrary." Now, though I do not conceive what is meant either by independent law or by contrary proportions, this, if it proves anything, proves as clearly that deformity and truth are one, as that beauty and truth are one; for those contrary proportions are surely as much proportions, or, if you will, as true proportions, as some certain proportions are. Accordingly, if, in the conclusion deduced, you put the word deformity instead of beauty, and the word beauty instead of deformity, the sense will be equally complete. "Others," he adds, "there are, who believe beauty to be merely a relative and arbitrary thing; and that it is not impossible, in a physical sense, that two beings of equal capacities for truth should perceive, one of them beauty, and the other deformity, in the same relations. And upon this supposition, by that truth which is al ways connected with beauty, nothing more can be meant than the conform. ity of any object to those proportions, upon which, after careful examina tion, the beauty of that species is found to depend." This opinion, if I am able to comprehend it, differs only in one point from the preceding. It sup poses the standard or law of beauty not invariable and universal. It is liable to the same objection, and that rather more glaringly; for if the same relations must be always equally true relations, deformity is as really one with truth as beauty is, since the very same relations can exhibit both appearances. In short, no hypothesis hitherto invented hath shown that by means of the discursive faculty, without the aid of any other mental power, we could ever obtain a notion of either the beautiful or the good; and till this be shown, nothing is shown to the purpose. The author aforesaid, far from attempting this, proceeds on the supposition that we first perceive beauty, he says not how, and then, having by a careful examination discovered the proportions which gave rise to the perception, denominate them true; so that all those elaborate disquisitions with which we are amused amount only to a few insignificant identical propositions very improperly expressed. For out of a vast profusion of learned phrases, this is all the information we can pick, that "Beauty is-truly beautv," and that "Good