which is to be chosen as a chief, to be followed by a reference more or
less to the others. Our material is a long series of detached orations;
from these we must make a selection at starting, and such selection,
which may comprise ten or twenty or more, will have to be treated with
the intense single-minded devotion that we hitherto limited to a single
work. Repeated perusal, with a process of abstracting to be described
presently, must be bestowed upon the chosen examples, before embarking,
as will be necessary, upon the wide field of miscellaneous oratory.
No doubt, an oratorical education could be grounded in a general and
equal study of the orators at large, taking the ancients either first or
last, according to fancy. Probably the greater number of students have
fallen into this apparently obvious course. Our present contention is,
that it is better to make a thorough study of a proper selection of the
greatest speeches, together with the most persuasive unspoken
compositions. This, however, is not all. We are following the wisdom of
the ancients, in insisting on the farther expedient of proceeding to the
study of the great examples by the aid of an oratorical scheme. At a
very early stage of Oratory in Greece, its methods began to be studied,
and, in the education of the orator, these methods were made to
accompany the study of exemplary speeches.
The principles of Rhetoric at large, and of the Persuasive art in
particular, have been elaborated by successive stages, and are now in a
tolerable state of advancement. The learner will choose the scheme that
is judged best, and will endeavour to master it provisionally, before
entering on the oratorical models; holding it open to amendment from
time to time, as his education goes on. The scheme and the examples
mutually act and re-act: the better the scheme, the more rapidly will
the examples fructify; and the scheme will, in its turn, profit by the
mastery of the details.
[NECESSITY OF AN ORATORICAL ANALYSIS.]
One great use of an oratorical analysis, as supplied by the teachers of
Rhetoric, is to part off the different merits of a perfect oration; and
to show which are to be extracted from the various exemplary orators.
One man excels in forcible arguments, another in the lucid array of
facts; one is impressive and impassioned, another is quiet but
circumspect. Now, the benefit of studying on principle, instead of
working at random, is, that we concentrate attention on each one's
strong points, and disregard the rest. But it needs a preparatory
analysis, in order to make the discrimination. All that the uninstructed
reader or hearer of a great oration knows is, that the oration is great:
this may be enough for the persons to be moved; it is insufficient for
an oratorical disciple.
In the hazardous task of pursuing the illustration by naming the
examples of oratory most suitable to commence with, I shall pass over
living men, and choose from the past orators of our own country. Without
discussing minutely the respective merits of individuals, I am safe in
selecting, as in every way suitable for our purpose, Burke, Fox,
Erskine, Canning, Brougham, and Macaulay. Burke's Speeches on America;
Fox on the Westminster Scrutiny; Erskine on Stockdale, and on Hardy,
Tooke, &c.; Canning on the Slave Trade; Brougham, Lyndhurst, and Denman
in the Queen's Trial; Macaulay on the Reform Bill,--would comprise, in a
moderate compass, a considerable range of oratorical excellence. I doubt
if any member of the list would be more suitable for a beginning than
Macaulay's Reform Speeches. These are no mere displays of a brilliant
imagination: they are known to have influenced thousands of minds
otherwise averse to political change. The reader finds in them an
immense repository of historical facts as well as of doctrines; but
facts and doctrines, by themselves, do not make oratory. It is the use
made of these, that gives us the instruction we are now in quest of. In
a first or second reading, however, matter and form equally captivate
the mind. It would be impossible, at that early stage, to make an
abstract such as would separate the oratorical from the non-oratorical
merits. Only when, by help of our scheme, we have made a critical
distinction between the two kinds of excellence, are we able to arrive
at an approach to a pure oratorical lesson; and, for a long time, we
shall fail to make the desired isolation. We have to learn not to expect
too much from any one speech: to pass over in Macaulay, what is more
conspicuously shown, say in Fox, or in Erskine. If our political and
historical education has made some progress, the mere thoughts and facts
do not detain us; their employment for the end of persuasion is what we
have to take account of.
[COMPREHENSIVE PRINCIPLE OF ORATORY.]
It is impossible here to indicate, except in a very general way, the
successive steps of the operation. The one summary consideration in the
Rhetoric of Oratory, from which flows the entire array of details, is
the regard to the dispositions and state of mind of the audience; the
presenting of topics and considerations that chime in with these
dispositions, and the avoiding of everything that would conflict with
them. To grasp this comprehensive view, and to follow it out in some of
the chief circumstantials of persuasive address--the leading forms of
argument, and the appeals to the more prominent feelings,--would soon
provide a touchstone to a great oration, and lead us to distinguish the
materials of oratory from the use made of them.
Take the circumstance of _negative tact_; by which is meant the careful
avoidance of whatever might grate on the minds of those addressed.
Forensic oratory in general, and the oratory of Parliamentary leaders in
particular, will show this in perfection; and, for a first study of it,
there is probably nothing to surpass the Erskine Speeches above cited.
It could, however, be found in Macaulay; although in a different
proportion to the other merits.
The Macaulay Speeches have the abundance of matter, and the powers of
style, that minister to oratory, although not constituting its
distinctive feature. In these speeches, we may note how he guages the
minds of the men of rank and property, in and out of Parliament, who
constituted the opposition to Reform; how tenderly he deals with their
prejudices and class interests; how he shapes and adduces his arguments
so as to gain those very feelings to the side he advocates; how he
brings his accumulated store of historical illustrations to his aid,
under the guidance of both the positive and the negative tact of the
orator; saying everything to gain, and nothing to alienate the
dispositions that he has carefully measured.
After Erskine and Macaulay have yielded their first contribution to the
oratorical student, he could turn with profit to Burke, who has the
materials of oratory in the same high order as Macaulay, but who in the
employment of them so often miscarries--sometimes partially, at other
times wholly. It then becomes an exercise to distinguish his successes
from his failures; to resolve these into their elementary merits and
defects, according to the oratorical scheme. The close study of one or
two orations is still the preferable course; and the most profitable
transition from the Burke sample is to the selected speech or speeches
of some other orator as Canning or Brougham. All the time, the pupil
must be enlarging and improving his analytic scheme, which is the means
of keeping his mind to the point in hand, amid the distraction of the
orator's gorgeous material.
The subsequent stages of oratorical study are much plainer than the
commencement. A time comes when the pupil will roam freely over the
great field of oratory, modern and ancient, knowing more and more
exactly what to appropriate and what to neglect. He will be quite aware
of the necessity of rivalling the great masters in resources of
knowledge on the one hand, and of style on the other; but he will look
for these elsewhere, as well as in the professed orators.
[EXAMPLES OF PERSUASIVE ART.]
Moreover, as the persuasive art is exemplified in men that have never
been public speakers, the oratorical pupil will make a selection from
the most influential of this class. He will find, for example, in the
argumentative treatises of Johnson, in the Letters of Junius, in the
writings of Godwin, in Sydney Smith, in Bentham, in Cobbett, in Robert
Hall, in Fonblanque, in J.S. Mill, in Whately, and a host besides, the
exemplification of oratorical merits, together with materials that are
of value. It is understood, however, that the search for materials and
the acquisition of oratorical form, are not made to advantage on the
same lines, and, for this and other reasons, should not go together.
The extreme test of the principle of concentration as against equal
application, is the acquirement of Style, or the extending of our
resources of diction and expression in all its particulars. Being a
matter of endless minute details, we may feel ourselves at a loss to
compass it by the intensive study of a narrow and select example. Still,
with due allowance for the speciality of the case, the principle will
still be found applicable. We should, however, carry along with us, the
maxim exemplified under oratory, of separating in our study, as far as
may be, the style from the matter. We begin by choosing a treatise of
some great master. We may then operate either (1) by simple reading and
re-reading, or (2) by committing portions to memory _verbatim_, or (3),
best of all, by making some changes according to an already acquired
ideal of good composition. This too shows the great importance of
attaining as early as possible some regulating principles of goodness of
style: the action and reaction of these, on the most exemplary authors,
constitute our progress in the art, and, in the quickest way, store the
memory with the resources of good expression.
* * * * *
[ECONOMICS OF BOOK READING.]
III. The head just now finished includes really by far the greatest
portion of the economy of study. There are various other devices of
importance in their way, but much less liable to error in practice. Of
these, a leading place may be assigned to the best modes of Distributing
the Attention in reading. Such questions as the following present
themselves for consideration to the earnest student. How many distinct
studies can be carried on together? What interval should be allowed in
passing from one to another? How much time should be given to the art of
reading, and how much to subsequent meditating or ruminating on what has
been read? These points are all susceptible of being determined, within
moderate limits of error. As to the first, the remark was made by
Quintilian, that, in youth, we can most easily pass from one study to
another. The reason of this, however, is, that youth does not take very
seriously to any study. When a special study becomes engrossing, the
alternatives must rather be recreative than acquisitive; not much
progress being made in what is slighted, or left over to the exhaustion
caused by attention to the favourite topic. A more precise answer can be
made to the second and third queries, namely, as to an interval for
recall and meditation, after putting down a book, and before turning the
attention into other channels. There is a very clear principle of
economy here. We should save as far as possible the fatigue of the
reading process, or make a given amount of attention to the printed page
yield the greatest impression on the memory. This is done by the
exercise of recalling without the book; an advantage that we do not
possess in listening to a lecture, until the whole is finished, when we
have too much to recall. To hurry from book to book is to gain
stimulation at the cost of acquisition.
I have alluded to the case of an engrossing subject, which starves all
accompanying studies. There are but two ways of obviating the evil, if
it be an evil; which it indeed becomes, when the alternative demands
also are legitimate. The one is peremptorily to limit the time given to
it daily, so as to rescue some portion of the strength for other topics.
The other is to intermit it wholly for a certain period, and let other
subjects have their swing. In advancing life, and when our studious
leisure is only what is left from professional occupation, two different
studies can hardly go on together. The alternative of a single study
needs to be purely recreative.
One other point may be noted under this head. In the application to a
book of importance and difficulty, there are two ways of going to work:
to move on slowly, and master as we go; or to move on quickly to the
end, and begin again. There is most to be said for the first method,
although distinguished men have worked upon the other. The freshness of
the matter is taken off by a single reading; the re-reading is so much
flatter in point of interest. Moreover, there is a great satisfaction in
making our footing sure at each step, as well as in finishing the task
when the first perusal is completed. We cannot well dispense with
re-reading, but it need not extend to the whole; marked passages should
show where the comprehension and mastery are still lagging.
* * * * *
[DESULTORY READING.]
IV. Another topic is Desultory Reading. This is the whole of the reading
of the unstudious mass; it is but a part of the reading of the true
student. It may mean, for one thing, jumping from book to book, perhaps
reading no one through, except for pure amusement. It may also include
the reading of periodicals, where no one subject is treated at any
length. As a general rule, such reading does not give us new
foundations, or constitute the point of departure of a fresh department
of knowledge; yet the amount of labour and thought bestowed upon
articles in periodicals, may render them efficacious in adding to a
previous stock of materials, or in correcting imperfect views. The truth
is, that to the studious man, the desultory is not desultory. The only
difference with him is that he has two _attitudes_ that he may
assume--the severe and the easy-going; the one is most associated with
systematic works on leading subjects; the other with short essays,
periodicals, newspapers, and conversation. In this last attitude, which
is reserved for hours of relaxation, he skips matters of difficulty, and
absorbs scattered and interesting particulars without expressly aiming
at the solution of problems or the discussion of abstract principles.
There is no reason why an essay in a periodical, a pamphlet, or a speech
in Parliament, may not take a first place in anyone's education. All the
labour and resource that go to form a work of magnitude may be
concentrated in any one of these. Still, they are presented in the form
that we are accustomed to associate with our desultory work, and our
times of relaxation; and so, they seldom produce in the minds of readers
the effect that they are capable of producing. The thorough student will
not fail to extract materials from one and all of them, but even he will
scarcely choose from such sources the text for the commencement of a new
study.
The desultory is not a bad way of increasing our resources of
expression. Although there be a systematic and a best mode of acquiring
language, there is also an inferior, yet not ineffective mode; namely,
reading copiously whatever authors have at once a good style and a
sustaining interest. Hence, for this purpose, shifting from book to
book, taking up short and light compositions, may be of considerable
value; anything is better than not reading at all, or than reading
compositions inferior in point of style. The desultory man will not be
without a certain flow of language as well as a command of ideas;
notwithstanding which, he will never be confounded with the studious
man.
* * * * *
V. A fifth point is the proportion of book-reading to Observation of the
facts at first hand. From want of opportunity, or from disinclination,
many persons have all their information on certain subjects cast in the
bookish mould, and do not fully conceive the particular facts as these
strike the mind in their own character. A reader of History, with no
experience of affairs, is likely to have imperfect bookish notions; just
as a man of affairs, not a reader, is subject to narrowness of another
kind. It was remarked by Sir G. Cornewall Lewis, that the German
historians of the Athenian Democracy write like men that never had any
actual experience of popular assemblies. A lawyer must be equally versed
in principles and in cases as heard in court: this is a type of
knowledge generally. In the Natural History Sciences, observation and
reading go hand in hand from the first. In the science of the Human
Mind, there are general doctrines, contrived to embrace the world of
mental phenomena: the student may have to begin with these, and work
upon them exclusively for a time, but in the end, phenomena must be
independently viewed by him in their naked character, as exhibited
directly in his own mind, and inferentially in the minds of those that
fall under his observation. Book knowledge of Disease has to be coupled
with bed-side knowledge; neither will take the place of the other.
* * * * *
VI. I began by limiting the meaning of study to the reading of books,
and have reviewed the various points in the economy of this process. The
other means of attaining, enlarging, deepening our knowledge, namely,
Observation of facts, Conversation, Disputation, Composition, have each
an art of its own--especially Disputation, which has long been reduced
to rule. Observation also admits of specific directions, but, in stating
the necessity of combining observation with book theories and
descriptions, I have assumed the knowledge of how to observe.
[AIDS OF CONVERSATION AND COMPOSITION.]
Of all the adjuncts of study, none is so familiar, so available, and,
on the whole, so helpful, as Conversation. The authors of Guides to
Students, as Isaac Watts, give elaborate rules for carrying on
conversation, a good many of them being more moral than intellectual;
but an art of conversation would be very difficult to formulate; it
would take quite as long an essay as I have devoted to study, and even
then would not follow half of the windings of the subject. The only
notice of it that my plan requires, is such as I have already bestowed
upon Observation: namely, to point out the advantage of combining a
certain amount of reading with, conversation; a thing that almost
everybody does according to their opportunities. To rehearse what we
have read to some willing and sympathizing listener, is the best way
of impressing the memory and of clearing up difficulties to the
understanding. It brings in the social stimulus, which ranks so high
among human motives. It is a wholesome change of attitude; relieving the
fatigue of book-study, while adding to its fruitfulness. Even beginners
in study are mutually helpful, by exchanging the results of their
several book acquirements; while it is possible to raise conversation to
the rank of a high art, both for intellectual improvement and for mutual
delectation. I cannot say that the ideal is often realized; since two or
more must combine to conversation, and it is not often that the mutual
action and re-action is perfectly adjusted for the highest effect.
The last great adjunct of study is original Composition, which also
would need to be formulated distinct from the theory of book-study.
Viewed in the same way as we have viewed the other collateral exercises,
one can pronounce it too an invaluable adjunct to book-reading, as well
as an end in itself; it is a variation of effort that diverts the mental
strain, and re-acts powerfully upon the extraction of nutriment from
books. Besides the pride of achievement, it evokes the social stimulus
with the highest effect; our compositions being usually intended for
some listeners. But, when to begin the work of original composition, as
distinct from the written exercises upon books, in the way of abstracting,
amending, and the rest; what forms it should assume at the outset, and
by what steps it should gradually ascend to the culminating effects of
the art,--would all admit of expansion and discussion as an altogether
separate theme. Enough to remark here, that a course of book-reading
without attempts at original composition is as faulty an extreme, as to
begin and carry on writing upon a stinted basis of reading. The thorough
student, as concerned in my present essay, carrying on book-study in the
manner I have sketched, will almost infallibly end, at the proper time,
in a self-thinker, and a self-originator. An adequate familiarity with
the great writers of the past both checks presumptuous or hasty efforts
of reproduction, and encourages modest attempts of our own as we feel
ourselves becoming gradually invigorated through the combined influence
of all the various modes of well-directed study.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 16: Milton had charge of pupils in 1644, when Locke was
twelve.]
* * * * *
VIII.
RELIGIOUS TESTS AND SUBSCRIPTIONS.
Every man has an interest in arriving at truth for himself. However
useful it may be to mislead other people, however sweet to look down
from a height on the erring throng beneath, it is neither useful nor
sweet to be ourselves at sea without a compass. We may not care to walk
by the light we have, but we do not choose to exchange it for darkness.
This reflection is most obvious with reference to the order of Nature.
Our life depends on adapting means to ends; which supposes that we know
cause and effect in the world around us. A long story is cut short by
the adage, "Knowledge is power"; otherwise rendered, "Truth is bliss".
The bearing of truth is free from all doubt when the problem is, how to
gain certain ends--how to be fed, how to get from one place to another,
how to cure disease. A new case is presented by the choice of ends. The
tyrannical French minister, when appealed to by a starving peasantry in
the terms, "We must live," replied, "I do not see the necessity". There
was here no question of true and false, no problem for science to solve.
It was a question of ends, and could not be reargued. The only possible
retort was to ask, "What does your Excellency consider a necessity?" If
the reply were, "That I and my King may rule France and be happy," then
might the starving wretches find some aid from a political scientist who
could show that, in the order of nature, ruler and people must stand or
fall together. So, it is no question of true or false in the order of
nature, whether I shall adopt, as the end of life, my own gratification
purely, the good of others purely, or part of both. In like manner the
Benthamite, who propounds happiness as the general end of human society,
cannot prove this, as Newton could prove that gravity follows the
inverse square of the distance; nor can his position be impugned in the
way that Newton impugned the vortices of Descartes, by showing that they
were at variance with fact.
There is a third case. Assertions are made out of the sphere of the
sensible world, and beyond the reach of verification by the methods of
science. There is a region of the supersensible or supernatural, where
cause and effect may be affirmed and human interests involved, but where
we cannot supply the same evidence or the same confutation as in
sublunary knowledge. That all human beings shall have an existence after
death is matter of truth or falsehood, but the evidence is of a kind
that would not be adduced for proving that a caterpillar becomes a
butterfly or that a seed turns to a plant. The reasoning employed, no
doubt, makes references to facts of the order of nature; but it is
circuitous and analogical, and is admitted merely because better cannot
be had.
[THREE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF ASSERTIONS.]