LECTURE XVI.

Of OBJECTIONS, SUPPRESSION of what might be faid, and Marks of CANDOUR.

W

E more eafily give our affent to any propofition when the person who contends for it appears, by his manner of delivering himself, to have a perfect knowledge of the fubject of it, fo as to be apprized beforehand of every thing that can be objected to it, and especially if he seem to be master of more arguments than he chufes to produce. For we naturally prefume that a person thus furnished hath ftudied the question in debate, that he cannot but have weighed the arguments that appear to be fo familiar to him; and therefore that he hath determined justly concerning it. These forms of addrefs, as well as those which are natural to a perfon who is greatly in earnest, have been obferved, and the advantage attending them may be had by those perfons who adopt, or imitate them, with judgment.

Thus an able orator will fometimes difarm his antagonists, and gain his hearers, by anticipating all they can alledge for themfelves, and by obviating their cavils before they have had any opportunity to start them; by which means his argument proceeds without interruption.

The

The chief art of an orator in answering objections confifts in introducing them at a proper time, juft-when it may be fupposed they may have occurred to his hearers; before they could have had time to influence their minds, and leffen the weight of his arguments. By this means an orator feems to read the very thoughts of his audience; and a proof of fuch a perfect acquaintance with his fubject, and even with the fentiments of his hearers, and of his adverfaries, about it, cannot fail to operate powerfully in his favour.

In an oration ascribed to Junius Brutus, exhorting the Romans. to throw off the yoke of the Tarquins, we have an example of an objection anticipated in a very happy, masterly, and spirited manner. After demonstrating to the people the power they were poffeffed of to redress their grievances, the urgent neceffity, and peculiarly-favourable opportunity for exerting it; he makes a fudden pause, as if he had just perceived fome figns of diffidence in the countenances of his audience, and had difcerned the very thoughts which occafioned them; and fays, "Some of you are,

perhaps, intimidated by the army which Tarquin now com"mands. The foldiers, you imagine, will take the part of "their general. Banish fo groundless a fear. The love of li"berty is natural to all men. Your fellow-citizens in the camp "feel the weight of oppreffion with as quick a fenfe as you "that are in Rome. They will as eafily feize the occafion of "throwing off the yoke. But let us grant there may be fome among them who, through baseness of spirit, or a bad educa❝tion, will be difpofed to favour the tyrant. The number of "these can be but small, and we have means fufficient in our

"hands to reduce them to reason.

more dear to them than life.

They have left us hoftages.
Their wives, their children,

"their fathers, their mothers, are here in the city. Courage, "Romans, the gods are for us," &c.

An example of the fame nature we have in St. Paul, difcourfing about the refurrection. "But fome will fay, How are the "dead raised? and with what body do they come? Thou fool, "that which thou foweft is not quickened except it die," &c. I Cor. xv. 35, 36.

If it be not convenient to speak at large to an objection just at the time when it may most probably be supposed to occur to the audience, when yet it might be attended with fome inconvenience, and it would not be prudent, wholly to overlook it; it may, in fome measure, take off the force of it, if, at that time, the orator only hint his being aware of it, and promise to discuss it more particularly afterwards. In this cafe the hearer is engaged to drop his attention to it, and to defer the confideration of it till the speaker himself take notice of it.

Sometimes there may be an appearance of impropriety in the very circumstances of the oration, which must be taken notice of before any argument can be entered upon. As when Demofthenes rofe up to speak first in the affembly, when he was not of a fufficient age to affume that privilege, and when Cicero engaged in the accufation of Verres, when he had never appeared at the bar before, but in the defence of his clients. In both these cafes those accomplished orators endeavoured to fatisfy their audiences with refpect to these unexpected circumstances, before they entered upon any article of the subject in debate.

It is a capital ftroke of eloquence, when an orator is able to retort, the objection of his adversary upon himself; and, allowing the truth of what is objected against him, to fhow that, in reality, it is fo far from making against him, that it makes greatly for

him, and, in fact, helps to confute his opponent. Thus St. Paul frankly acknowledges the herefy with which his adverfaries charged him; but at the fame time intimates that his was fuch a herefy as was perfectly confiftent with, and even required by the law which they were then, endeavouring to prove he had violated, infulted, and apoftatized from. "But this I confefs unto "thee, that after the way which they call heresy, so worship I the "God of my fathers, believing all things which are written in the "law, and the prophets; and have hope towards God, which

they themselves alfo allow, that there shall be a resurrection of "the dead, both of the juft and unjuft." Acts xxiv. 14, 15. Cicero, though not with the ftricteft regard to truth, endea vours to give a favourable turn of this kind to the objection which. was made to his conduct in leaving Rome, during the prevalence of the Clodian faction.. My departure," he says, " is object"ed to me; which charge I cannot anfwer without commending "myself. For what muft I fay? That I fled from a confciouf"ness of guilt? But what is charged upon me as a crime was fo "far from being a fault, that it is the most glorious action fince "the memory of man. That I feared to be called to account by "the people? That was never talked of; and if it had been done, "I fhould have come off with double honour. That I wanted. "the fupport of good and honeft men? That is falfe. That I "was afraid of death?. That is a calumny. I must therefore fay, what I would not unless compelled to it, that. I withdrew to preserve the city."

In fuch cases as thefe, the pleasing furprize of the audience, from seeing a thing in a light fo different from what they expected, and in which it had been represented, and the conviction of the extreme weakness of the adversary, in laying

hold.

hold of arguments which really made against him, operate greatly in the orator's favour.

Any thing in an oration which is introduced in this form of objection and anfwer, or any thing fimilar to it, falls properly under the confideration of artificial addrefs; fince nothing of that kind is abfolutely neceffary in argumentation. In ftrict fynthetical demonstration there is no part of the whole process which bears that name, or any thing equivalent to it. Every demonftration is built upon felf-evident truths. If a perfon thoroughly understand the process as he goes along, no objection will ever occur. If any do occur, it shows that he hath not fufficiently attended to fomething or other that went before, and he hath nothing to do but revise the steps he hath gone over, for his complete fatisfaction.

Facts and circumftances, on which the orator doth not intend to lay the chief stress of his argument, are often employed to good advantage, when they are mentioned only in a flight and incidental manner. By this artifice an orator infinuates, that it was in his power to have said a great deal more upon a subject than he hath done; and while he feems, out of a redundancy of proof, to felect only a few of the most important arguments, the imagination of the hearer is apt to give more than their just weight to those which he affects to pafs over in filence. Befides, it often happens that there is one point of light in which a fact, or a circumstance, may for a moment be fhewn to advantage; whereas, if the fpeaker dwelt longer upon it, a closer attention would exhibit views of it unfavourable to his purpose.

By this art, circumftances which would have made no figure in a detail, and have even given an idea of the poorness of a cause