The next question is on the utility of rhetoric, and from this point of
view some direct the bitterest invectives against it, and what is very
unbecoming, exert the force of eloquence against eloquence, saying that
by it the wicked are freed from punishment, and the innocent opprest by
its artifices; that it perverts good counsel, and enforces bad; that it
foments troubles and seditions in States; that it arms nations against
each other, and makes them irreconcilable enemies; and that its power is
never more manifest than when error and lies triumph over truth.
Comic poets reproach Socrates with teaching how to make a bad cause
good, and Plato represents Lysias and Gorgias boasting the same thing.
To these may be added several examples of Greeks and Romans, and a long
list of orators whose eloquence was not only the ruin of private
persons, but even destructive to whole cities and republics; and for
this reason it was that eloquence was banished from Sparta and so
restricted at Athens that the orator was not allowed to make appeal to
the passions.
Granting all this as sound argument, we must draw this necessary
inference, that neither generals of armies, nor magistrates, nor
medicine, nor philosophy, will be of any use. Flaminius, an imprudent
general, lost one of our armies. The Gracchi Saturninus, and Glaucia, to
raise themselves to dignity, put Rome into an uproar. Physicians often
administer poisons, and among philosophers some have been found guilty
of the most enormous crimes. Let us not eat of the meats with which our
tables are spread, for meats frequently have caused disease. Let us
never go into houses; they may fall and crush us to death. Let not our
soldiers be armed with swords; a robber may use the same weapon against
us. In short, who does not know that the most necessary things in life,
as air, fire, water, nay, even the celestial bodies, are sometimes very
injurious to our well-being?
But how many examples can be quoted in our favor? Did not Appius the
Blind, by the force of his eloquence dissuade the Senate from making a
shameful peace with Pyrrhus? Did not Cicero's divine eloquence appear
more popular than the Agrarian law he attacked? Did it not disconcert
the audacious measures of Cataline? And did not he, even in his civil
capacity, obtain by it honors that are conferred on only the most
illustrious conquerors? Is it not the orator who strengthens the
soldier's drooping courage, who animates him amidst the greatest
dangers, and inspires him to choose a glorious death rather than a life
of infamy?
The example of the Romans, among whom eloquence always has been held in
the greatest veneration, shall have a higher place in my regard than
that of the Spartans and Athenians. It is not to be supposed that the
founders of cities could have made a united people of a vagabond
multitude without the charms of persuasive words, nor that law-givers,
without extraordinary talent for speaking, could have forced men to bend
their necks to the yoke of the laws. Even the precepts of moral life,
tho engraved on our hearts by the finger of nature, are more efficacious
to inspire our hearts with love for them when their beauty is displayed
by the ornaments of eloquent speech. Tho the arms of eloquence may harm
and benefit equally, we must not, therefore, look on that as bad which
may be put to a good use. Doubts of this kind may well be entertained by
such as make "the force persuasion the end of eloquence," but we who
constitute it "The science of speaking well," resolved to acknowledge
none but the good man an orator, must naturally judge that its advantage
is very considerable.
Certainly, the gracious Author of all beings and Maker of the world, has
distinguished us from the animals in no respect more than by the gift of
speech. They surpass us in bulk, in strength, in the supporting of
toil, in speed, and stand less in need of outside help. Guided by nature
only, they learn sooner to walk, to seek for their food, and to swim
over rivers. They have on their bodies sufficient covering to guard them
against cold; all of them have their natural weapons of defense; their
food lies, in a manner, on all sides of them; and we, indigent beings!
to what anxieties are we put in securing these things? But God, a
beneficent parent, gave us reason for our portion, a gift which makes us
partakers of a life of immortality. But this reason would be of little
use to us, and we would be greatly perplexed to make it known, unless we
could express by words our thoughts. This is what animals lack, more
than thought and understanding, of which it can not be said they are
entirely destitute. For to make themselves secure and commodious
lodges, to interweave their nests with such art, to rear their young
with such care, to teach them to shift for themselves when grown up, to
hoard provisions for the winter, to produce such inimitable works as wax
and honey, are instances perhaps of a glimmering of reason; but because
destitute of speech, all the extraordinary things they do can not
distinguish them from the brute part of creation. Let us consider dumb
persons: how does the heavenly soul, which takes form in their bodies,
operate in them? We perceive, indeed, that its help is but weak, and its
action but languid.