What Rhetoric is.

LESSON 1.

INTRODUCTORY.

We talk and we write to make known our thoughts, and we do it in sentences, the sentence being the universal and necessary form of oral and of written communication. In every sentence there are the words arranged in a certain order and addressed to the ear or to the eye; and there is that which these words express and impart, itself unheard and unseen, but reaching the mind of the hearer or reader through the words which he hears or sees. That which these words express we call a thought; hence

A sentence is a group of words expressing a thought.

Rhetoric deals with the thought of the sentence and with the words which express it, and so its function is twofold. It teaches us how to find the thought, and how best to express it in words. In this, its twofold function, rhetoric works near neighbor to grammar and to logic. Grammar, as well as rhetoric, deals with the words of a sentence; and logic, as well as rhetoric, deals with thought; but the fields of the three, though lying side by side, are distinct.

The better to see the field which rhetoric tills, it is needful, without attempting complete definitions, to say that

grammar teaches us the offices of single words in the sentence, and of those groups of words called phrases and clauses, and shows us what forms the inflected words must have in their various relations. It teaches, also, how to construct correct sentences containing the parts of speech in their several relations. Syntactical correctness is its chief aim. Logic deals with thought, but not with the thought in single and detached sentences. It does not decide whether this thought and that thought are true, but what conclusion follows from them if we assume them to be true. Without pointing out its full function, we may say that logic teaches us to reason correctly, to make right inferences, to draw just conclusions.

In what rhetoric has to do with words, it begins its work where that of grammar ends. It teaches us how in the choice and arrangement of words to express the thought clearly or forcibly or gracefully-in a word, how to express it most happily for the special purpose in hand. And helping us to find the thought with which we reason, its work with the thought ends where that of logic begins. Rhetoric, then, lies in between grammar and logic. The word side of its field touches the field of grammar, the thought side of it touches the field of logic; hence

Rhetoric is the study that teaches us how to invent thought, and how to express it most appropriately in words.

What the Word Rhetoric means. You have seen what the thing is; look now at its name. The word rhetoric comes originally from a Greek verb which means to flow or to speak. Were we to name the study now, it is possible that we should take some word which means to write. But rhetoric was studied before writing became general, and

ages and ages before printing was invented. Men spoke long before they wrote, because speaking was easy. The air, the lungs, and the organs of the throat and mouth were ready and waiting to be used.

Writing was at first impossible, and for a long while difficult after it became possible. There were needed (1) an alphabet, and (2) something upon which to write. Letters, characters which would represent to the eye the sounds which the voice addressed to the ear, had to be invented. And that this was not an easy task is shown by the fact that even to-day we have not in English a perfect alphabet; some of the twenty-six letters standing each for many sounds, some having no sounds belonging exclusively to them, and some combinations of letters being used to represent single sounds. That it was hard to find a suitable substance on which to write, a few words attest. From parchment we learn that the cleansed and dried skins of sheep, hares, goats, and calves were used, and from palimpsest, that removing the writing so that the skin could be used again became a business; from paper, that the thin, cohesive layers of the stem of the papyrus, an Egyptian plant, served as a material; from ostracism and petalism, that in voting at Athens to banish a citizen, a clay tile or a shell was used, and at Syracuse an olive-leaf; from style, that surfaces smeared with wax were prepared; from liber and library, that the bark of trees, and from book, that beechen tablets, were resorted to.

Publication, then, among the Greeks and Romans was by the voice De Quincey says the voice of the actor, and that of the speaker on the bema, or platform. This must largely have determined (1) what kind of literature should be cultivated, and (2) the style in which this should be composed. In the main that was written which could be recited or spoken, and it was written so that it could

be appreciated by the listener. To this noteworthy fact modern literature is signally indebted. Its lawgivers in Europe and America have been those whose style was purified and perfected by the study of the great models which Athens and Rome furnished, or by the study of writers familiar with these models. It is much for us that these models were themselves shaped by the necessities of oral communication. They were to be addressed to the ear and not to the eye; their meaning and merit caught by the hearer as the speaker hurried on from sentence to sentence. Such discourse must have had, and did have, the great and essential qualities of style, — simplicity, clearness, directness, vigor. The writer who is accustomed to speaking, and who brings his sentences to this test, is the one likely to learn the secret of expression, the art of "putting things." And this leads us to speak of

Usage as Authority in Rhetoric. - There is no reason, in the nature of things, why an English noun in the nominative plural should always have its verb in the plural — the Greek noun in the neuter did not; or why English words should be spelled and accented and pronounced as they now are -they have not always been. The reason why these things are as they are is, that the people who use the language have agreed that they should be so and not otherwise. The grammar and the dictionary of to-day are full of truths which have not always been truths, and will not always be; in other words, their truths are not, like those of mathematics, unchangeable. They are conventional, depend upon consent; are true as long as that consent is given; cease to be true when that consent is withdrawn.

So in rhetoric. While rhetoric is based upon principles as changeless as the mind which thinks and imparts thought, in that department of its work which is concerned with ex

pression it has only usage as authority for what it teaches the usage of the best writers and speakers. And this is variable, changing from generation to generation. While, for example, it must always be true that a thought should be expressed clearly, it is not true that an expression of it, clear to one generation, will necessarily be clear to the next. Many words narrow in meaning, many widen, others completely change, and some words drop out of the vocabulary. Then, too, an arrangement of words customary at one time is not at another. A use of imagery suited to the taste of one age surfeits the next; indeed, what was imagery once is accounted plain language now. Conceits and turns of expression current in Sidney's day grate harshly upon our ears; and who would not, in the matter of style, appeal from Shakespeare in "Love's Labor Lost" to Shakespeare in "As You Like It"?

Style, then, is fluid and shifting. Its highest standard in any era is the prevailing usage of that era. What this usage is cannot always be easily determined; but, as soon as it is ascertained for our period, we must bow to it as the supreme authority.

Value of Rhetoric.-1. Dealing with invention, the finding of the thought, or subject-matter, rhetoric compels us to think; and thinking is the highest act of which the intellect is capable.

2. Dealing with expression, about which, as we have seen, there may be question, and large freedom of choice, rhetoric stimulates inquiry, provokes the student to silent and to open disputation, compels to a balancing of reasons, and develops an independent judgment. This discipline is eminently wholesome, and prepares one for the affairs of life.

3. Rhetoric gives a command of the vocabulary. Next to having something to say is the ability to impart it in