161. Arrangement in Argument. In conversation, argument scarcely admits of any arrangement, and therefore only such arguments are adapted for conversation as can be stated very briefly. In imaginative literature also, few special rules are required for argument. When argument occurs in this style, it is generally put into the mouths of imaginary characters, and belongs therefore either to conversation or to oratory. Accordingly, it adopts the rules to which it is subject in those styles. There are poems, indeed, such as Pope's "Essay on Man," or Dryden's "Religio Laici," in which the poet reasons throughout in his own person; but these compositions belong essentially to didactic composition, and not to imaginative literature. They are exceptional cases in which metre, which is commonly confined to imaginative literature, is adopted in didactic composition.

Argument, therefore, may be said to belong almost exclusively to Oratory and Didactic Composition.

162. Argument in Oratory. It is the characteristic of oratory that it must be understood at once, and produce all its effect at once, since it attempts to influence a certain decision which is near at hand. The whole effort of the orator, therefore, is devoted to attaining (1) clearness, (2) force.

The whole argumentation of a speech consists of a number of separate arguments which the speaker has to combine, and each argument consists of facts alleged in evidence, and a conclusion drawn from the evidence.

To attain clearness, the speaker must make the connection between his facts and his conclusion perceived in each separate argument. To attain force, he must combine his arguments in such a way that they may be all apprehended and felt at once.

In other words, he has two problems to solve: first, to form facts into an argument; secondly, to compound arguments into an argumentation.

State the conclusion you are going to arrive at before producing your facts. In didactic composition you may conceal your conclusion, and, as it were, entice your reader into it gradually. But in oratory this is scarcely possible, and nothing is so unendurable as a long statement of facts from which some conclusion is afterwards to be drawn.

It is not enough to state the conclusion, and then produce the facts that prove it. The conclusion must be stated over and over again. It must be made, if possible, to penetrate the whole statement of evidence, so as to appear in every sentence of it. If this statement of evidence involves, as it often will, long quotations from documents, then there must be a recapitulation for the express purpose of bringing the facts into connection with the conclusion.

The combining of arguments into an argumentation is done by an introduction and a close, an exordium and a peroration. In the one a survey is given of what the audience is to expect, and in the other a recapitulation, in which the arguments are rapidly enumerated and so concentrated upon the hearer's mind.

But the speaker has not only to convey his arguments to an attentive audience, he has to make it attentive at the beginning, and prevent it from becoming inattentive during the progress of his speech. For this purpose all the wit and imagination he has will be serviceable. But also he must remember that the beginning is important, the beginning of the whole speech, the beginning of each division of it. It is necessary to seize the attention at first; when this has been done, the less interesting facts arguments of minor

importance, qualifications, concessions may be cautiously introduced.

The audience must be presumed not only inattentive, but forgetful, and even dull. The most important points of the argument, therefore, must be stated pointedly, with antithesis or striking metaphor, so that they may be easily remembered. The following is an admirable example of facts and arguments powerfully concentrated, so as to force a particular conclusion upon the mind:

"The noble lord, after owning that we had no foreign alliances, had triumphantly spoken of unanimity, and congratulated gentlemen on that side of the House upon having allied themselves with those who sat on the other. This was an assertion for which there was not the smallest foundation; and it was impossible for him to state, in any phrase that language would admit of, the shock he felt when the noble lord ventured to suggest what was exceedingly grating to his ears, and he doubted not to the ears of every gentleman who sat near him. What! enter into an alliance with those very Ministers who had betrayed their country, who had been prodigal of the public strength, who had been prodigal of the public wealth, who had been prodigal of what was still more valuable, the glory of the nation! The idea was too monstrous to be admitted for a moment. Gentlemen must have foregone their principles, and have given up their honor, before they could have approached the threshold of an alliance so abominable, so scandalous, and so disgraceful! Did the noble lord think it possible that he could ally himself with those Ministers who had lost America, ruined Ireland, thrown Scotland into tumult, and put the very existence of Great Britain to the hazard? —ally himself with those Ministers who had, as they now confessed, foreseen the Spanish war, the fatal mischief which goaded us to destruction, and yet had from time to time told Parliament that the Spanish war was not to be feared?—ally himself with those Ministers who, knowing of the prospect of a Spanish war, had taken no sort of pains to

prepare for it? —ally himself with those Ministers who had, when they knew of a Spanish war, declared in Parliament, no longer ago than last Tuesday, that it was right for Parliament to be prorogued, for that no Spanish war was to be dreaded, and yet had come down two days afterwards with the Spanish rescript? — ally himself with those Ministers who, knowing of a Spanish war, and knowing that they had not more than thirty sail of the line ready to send out with Sir Charles Hardy, had sent out Admiral Arbuthnot to America with seven sail of the line, and a large body of troops on board? ·ally himself with those Ministers who, knowing of a Spanish war, had suffered seven ships of the line lately to sail to the East Indies, though two or three ships were all that were wanted for that service, and the rest might have stayed at home to reinforce the great fleet of England? — ally himself with those Ministers who, knowing of a Spanish war, and knowing that the united fleets of the House of Bourbon consisted of at least forty, perhaps fifty, and possibly sixty sail of the line, had suffered Sir Charles Hardy to sail on Wednesday last, the day before the Spanish rescript was, as they knew, to be delivered, with not thirty sail of the line, although, if he had stayed a week longer, he might have been reinforced with five or six, or, as Ministers themselves said, seven or eight more capital ships? To ally himself with men capable of such conduct would be to ally himself to disgrace and ruin. He begged, therefore, for himself and his friends, to disclaim any such alliance; and he declared he was the rather inclined to disavow such a connection, because, from the past conduct of Ministers, he was warranted to declare and to maintain that such an alliance would be something worse than an alliance with France and Spain: it would be an alliance with those who pretended to be the friends of Great Britain, but who were in fact and in truth her worst enemies."-Fox.

It is further to be remembered that even an attentive audience finds a certain difficulty in following a close argument. It is therefore found necessary to adopt contrivances for making language clearer than it is as commonly used.

Of these the principal is a perpetual repetition in long sentences of some important or connecting words. This subject has been treated above. (See pages 122, 123.)

163. Argument in Didactic Composition. Such contrivances, though necessary in oratory, are not wanted in treatises intended to be read at leisure, and admitting of being read over again. And, in becoming unnecessary, they become positive faults and hinderances to persuasion. A rhetorical speech is one adapted to persuade, but a book is generally the less persuasive for being rhetorical.

In didactic composition, argument should approach the character of scientific demonstration, and should borrow in the main its arrangement. But

(1) It should suppose the reader capable indeed of following a scientific demonstration, but requiring some helps. It should answer objections, furnish illustrations, and in fact render such assistance as a tutor might render in explaining a scientific theorem to a pupil.

(2) It should affect moderation in language. The orator seeks forcible expression to produce an immediate effect, but the writer should always rather understate than overstate his case. Unmeasured praise or blame may carry away an audience, but a reader will suspect exaggeration.

own case.

(3) It should be careful to make all reasonable concessions to the opposite side. An orator has seldom space to do this. He must be content to bring out the merits of his But as there is always something to be said on the other side, a reader, when he sees a case made out too clearly, has time to suspect that the opposite case has been suppressed, and will not give full confidence to his author unless he finds the opposite case exhibited with scrupulous