Judges, audience, or perfons he would perfuade : that the thing perfuaded may also appear honorable, just, and serviceable, &c. Q. What is the bufinefs of arguments from the Affections? A. To move the paffions, or to pleafe. Q What is meant by arguments from the affections or paffions? A. That he, who would gain his point in perfuafion, must endeavour thoroughly to understand the frame of human nature, and thereby work upon the affections, which God has placed in human minds as fecret fprings to all our actions. For as Tully obferves, plura enim multo homines judicant odio, aut amore, aut cupiditate, aut iracundiâ, aut spe, aut timore, aut errore, aut aliquá permotione mentis, quàm veritate. .Cic. de Orat 2. 42. Q. How do you define the affections or paffions? A. They are certain emotions of the foul,accompa nied either with pleasure or pain. The four chief paffions are, joy, refulting from fome present good; hope, arifing from fome future good; grief, occafioned by fome present evil; and fear, caused by some future evil. To thefe may be added, anger, lenity, madefty, impudence, love, hatred, matice, envy, compaffion, emulation, &c. Q. What is difpofition? A. Difpofition is the proper ranging of the arguments or parts of an oration. Q. How many parts are there in an oration, and in what order fhould they stand? A. The parts of an oration or declamation are ufually reckoned fix, and generally stand in this order exordium, narration, propofition, confirmation, refutation, and peroratian. Q. What do you understand by the exordium of an oration? A. The exordium, or beginning of an oration, is that part, in which we are to give our audience fome intimation of our subject, and from the nature of it to prepare their minds to benevolence and attention. In which part the speaker ought to be clear, modeft, and concise. Q. What is the narration? A. The narration is a brief recital of the whole cafe from beginning to end: which ought to be plain, that it may be understood; likely, that it may be credited; pleafing, that it may be listened to; and short, that it may not tire. Q. What do you understand by the propofition? A. The propofition is an explanation of the purport, or fum of the whole difcourfe, or thing in difpute. If it divides the oration into parts, (which ought never to exceed three or four at most) it is called partition. Q. What is the confirmation in the oration? A. The confirmation is that part, which contains the proofs or arguments we use to strengthen and enforce our fubject. In this part of a discourse rhetoricians advife, that our strongest arguments be fet in the front, the weakest in the middle, and that some few of the best be kept as a referve. Vid. Cic. de Orat. 2. 27. Q. What is the refutation? A. The refutation, or confutation, is an answer to all our adverfary's arguments; and takes off all his objections, by fhowing them to be abfurd, false, or inconfiftent. QWhat is the peroration? A. The peroration, or conclufion, is a recapitulation of the strongest arguments, brought into one view, as the rays of the fun are drawn into a focus; efpecially fuch as are most likely to move the paffions, and affect the heart, convince the judgment, or enlighten the understanding. EXAMPLES, BY WAY OF Illuftration of the foregoing RULES. SATAN's Speech to his Rebel Hoft. (a) MYRIADS of immortal Spi'rits, O powers Of knowledge paft or prefent, could have fear'd, Sat on his throne, upheld by old repute, Put forth at full, but ftill his ftrength conceal'd, New war, provok'd-(c)—Our better part remains rife There went a fame in Heav'n that He ere-long MILTON, Parad. Loft, Book 1. 622. (c) Propofition. (e) Refutation. (f) Peroration. |