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human characters, that no small time is expended in gaining a thorough knowledge of any considerable number of men.

The case that most dispenses with express study of character, is presented by a fraternity whose members are strongly of one mind on the most important questions. In such a body, each one, by speaking as he feels, carries the rest with him. Cromwell could put forth a commanding oratory when he addressed his fellow Puritans.

Every speaker has necessarily much in common with his hearers. It is, however, a natural weakness for us to suppose other persons actuated in all things like ourselves.

The young do not comprehend the feelings of the old; the one sex is often at fault in judging of the other. The rich and the poor, the noble and the plebeian, the educated and the uneducated, the professional worker and the manual worker, the members of distinct professions, have each peculiarities not readily understood by the rest. Natural temperaments differ greatly; the man of energy and pushing enterprise is at a loss. to adapt himself to the views of the cautious and circumspect man; the abundance of feeling in some characters is incomprehensible to those of a different mould. Moreover, different temperaments may pervade different masses; an American and an English, a French and a German audience, are not influenced in the same way.

An important department remains: namely, the intellectual condition of the persons addressed, comprising the nature and extent of their acquired knowledge, and their practical maxims in the conduct of affairs. A man's acquired knowledge, coupled with his ability of comprehension, must regulate the manner of addressing him for all purposes-for informing, persuading, or pleasing. As regards persuasion more especially, the acquired knowledge and experience of a hearer, besides being a check upon the averments of the speaker, constitute the foundation circumstance of the plausible in address.

For oratorical ends, knowledge of character must descend into minute details and flow from personal experience. An acquaintance with human nature in general, as obtained by men

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tal science or the maxims laid down in books, is good so far; but we cannot operate with effect on individual men or masses, without the further knowledge acquired by actual intercourse with these men or with others like them.

It is well to have in the view a systematic scheme of man's nature, of the mind's activities, feelings, and thinking powers, —as described in a system of the human mind or character; such a systematic view instructs us what to look for, and how to arrange the facts coming under our observation. We are thereby taught the leading motives common to all men, although differing in degree, and the manner of their operation,—the influence of love, of hatred, of fear, wonder, the sentiment of power, curiosity, the Fine Art emotions, the moral and religious sentiments. We are practised in tracing cause and effect in the region where persuasion has to work.

But this amount of knowledge comes short of the orator's requirements. He must see to what extent the forces and feelings common to human beings are developed in the particular class that he has to deal with; whether they are disposed principally for action or emotion, for love or hatred, for veneration or self-esteem, for Fine Art or duty, for studious acquirements or recreative sports.

Nor is it enough to observe how far a class of persons are actuated by some powerful feeling,-love, religion, fear, hatred, -and to know generally what causes excite love, and what fear. We must further learn what are the specific loves and venerations, fears and hatreds, of those we have to persuade. It is not all lovely things that the most loving person loves, nor all hateful things that are hated by the best hater. The exact direction given by education and circumstances to the various feelings of our nature must be studied before appealing to these. We have to find out a man's friendships and his enmities, his party ties and his objects of respect and deference, with a view to gaining him through his feelings of love and hatred.

The practical maxims acquired by men in the course of their education and experience, are their principles of action, or rules of procedure trusted to for gaining their ends, individual or

social; these are the data of the orator, his media of persuasion, the major premises of his reasonings. Each man has certain maxims or opinions as to the management of his own private affairs, the care of himself and his family; any views propounded in conformity with these will command his assent. So in politics and the affairs of societies. We find in every free community, allowing for party differences, certain prevailing opinions relative to the mode of conducting public affairs, and the orator, assuming these, turns them to his own ends. are the English opinions and sentiments regarding constitutional monarchy, official responsibility, local self-government, publicity of judicial and deliberative bodies, the liberty of the subject, civil equality, national ascendency, attachment to old ways and dislike of abstract theories, consideration of general consequences.

Such

In Political Economy, we have free trade, and the duodecimal coinage.

In Law, besides the professional views of lawyers, there are generally received maxims as to a fair trial, and punishment combined with reformation.

There are likewise peculiar views of Morality current in each community, which to oppose is defeat, to bend to, victory. A certain ideal of chivalrous self-devotion has numerous followers; the maxim, "Be just before you are generous," has also adherents. "Man must live for something higher than himself,"

is a recognized ethical doctrine.

"Talk of the law of nations," exclaimed Chatham; “Nature is the best writer—she will teach us to be men, and not to truckle to power." That a something called Nature possesses numerous virtues, is a favorite maxim that an orator may usually appeal to. "Success is the test of merit," is a prevailing view always difficult to oppose. "It is seldom given to man to do unmixed good." "When once you begin to deviate from a rule, you will never know where to stop."

The special opinions of Sects, political or religious, are also to be adverted to.

To logical minds, a speaker must address logical arguments;

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with persons of cultivated taste, attention must be given to the arts of refined composition. We must not appeal to the fears of men of courage and spirit, or to the devotedness of thorough self-seekers. On some occasions, as in the memorable election of Daniel O'Connell for Clare, success is gained by the unmeasured vituperation of an opponent. In another atmosphere, it is possible "to damn with faint praise;" and the circumstances are not unfrequent where a triumph may be gained by sincerity and candor.

In addressing a judge, there is required a professional acquaintance with the law, which he is merely an instrument in carrying out. In official applications to Government, we succeed according as we understand, and are able to conform to, the rules of office. And as all regular deliberative bodies are bound by certain rules of procedure, and by laws and decisions passed by their predecessors or by themselves, a speaker unable, from ignorance or want of skill, to adapt himself to these, can hope for no success.

84. An orator has frequently to overbear the special maxims and views of an audience, by showing these to be at variance with the final ends of action, namely, the attainment of good and the avoidance of evil; in which is implied the preference of a greater good to a less, and of a less evil to a greater.

An example is furnished in Bentham's Book of Fallacies, where he examines a number of topics appealed to by the opponents of change; as, the wisdom of our ancestors, the preservation of the glorious Constitution, &c. See Sydney Smith's summary in his famous "Noodle's Oration."

85. The kind of knowledge wanted is the same, as regards both an individual and a class or assemblage of individuals; only, in this last case, we have to ascertain what principles of action, of an effective kind, are common to all, or to a preponderating number.

As we cannot make a personal study of every man in a large

deliberative assembly, we learn the temper of the whole, by our knowledge of individuals here and there, especially such as take a lead among others, and by the collective determinations of the body. The final criterion is, on actual trial, to have succeeded or failed.

86. Inattention to the character of the persons addressed will render nugatory the oratorical efforts of the highest genius.

Milton's defence of the Liberty of the Press (Areopagitica) is in his most gorgeous style; yet it had no effect. The motives appealed to are not those of ordinary Englishmen, and are in some instances mere poetic fancies. Take the following example:

"I deny not but that it is of the greatest concernment in the church and commonwealth, to have a vigilant eye how books bemean themselves as well as men; and thereafter to confine, imprison, and do sharpest justice on them as malefactors; for books are not absolutely dead things, but do contain a progeny of life in them, to be as active as that soul was whose progeny they are; nay, they do preserve, as in a phial, the purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect that bred them. I know they are as lively, and as vigorously productive, as those fabulous dragon's teeth; and being sown up and down, may chance to spring up armed men. And yet, on the other hand, unless wariness be used, as good almost kill a man as kill a good book. Who kills a man kills a reasonable creature, God's image; but he who destroys a good book, kills reason itself, kills the image of God, as it were, in the eye. Many a man lives a burden to the earth; but a good book is the precious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life. It is true no age can restore a life, whereof perhaps there is no great loss; and revolutions of ages do not oft recover the loss of a rejected truth, for the want of which whole nations fare the worse. We should be wary, therefore, what persecution we raise against the living labors of public men, how we spill that seasoned life of man, preserved and stored up in books; since we see a kind of homicide may be thus committed, sometimes a kind of martyrdom; and if it extend to the whole impression, a kind of massacre, whereof the execution ends not in the slaying of an elemental life, but strikes at the ethereal and soft essence, the breath of reason itself; slays an immortality rather than a life."

"That noble discourse," says Macaulay, "had been neglected by the generation to which it was addressed, had sunk into

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