V.

THE DEPARTMENTS OF RHETORIC.

23. The rules of Rhetoric fall naturally into two DEPARTMENTS, long known by the Latin names INVENTION1 and STYLE.' Invention states the rules that direct and control the discovery of matter for the composition; Style exhibits the laws of its form.

24. As already stated,3 the writing of a composition involves (1) the finding of something to say, (2) the expression of this something in a suitable form, (3) the adapting of the whole work and its every part to its purpose. But the composition can be adapted to its purpose only by means of modifications in either its matter or its form; and hence there are but two departments of Rhetoric, not three.

25. For a similar reason, the ancient view that Disposition, or Arrangement, constitutes a separate department of the art, must be set aside. So far as the arrangement of the matter of a composition is concerned, the rules that control it belong to Invention; so far as arrangement is a question of form, it belongs under Style. Besides, since every rational process implies decency and order, Arrangement can not be a department of Rhetoric, but must be assumed throughout.

26. Many writers deny the possibility of such a department of Rhetoric as Invention. They aver that men can not be taught how to find something to say; since, if they could, Rhetoric would be the encyclopædic art dreamed of by Quintilian,—an art under obligations to give lessons in all the known branches of learning. On the contrary, they say, it is only the art of communication, originating nothing, and prescribing merely the forms of expression, not the matter that is to wear these forms.

27. But this mode of reasoning is simply an evasion of the point at issue. The question is not, Can Rhetoric teach men what to say on every conceivable subject? but, Can Rhetoric

1 Inventio, a finding.

2 Stilus, an instrument used for writing on wax. Often, but improperly, spelled stylus, as if from Greek σrûdos, a pillar. [Skeat, Etymological Dictionary, s. v. The Greek word for style was λéĝis.]

32 17, above.

teach men how to find something to say on any subject? In other words, can it teach men the methods by which they must proceed in their search after the matter of a composition? No one pretends to-day that Rhetoric ought to make a man a Johannes Factotum (Greene's phrase for a Jack of all Trades), any more than that Rhetoric ought to furnish the words, constructions, and other instruments of speech needed by a writer. The assertion is only that, just as, in Style, Rhetoric teaches rules that determine the Form of a composition, so, in Invention, it teaches rules that determine its Content. In each department, of course, it leaves the writer to apply the rules to the special cases that arise in the course of his work; the art being no more under obligations to supply the matter of discourse than to supply the needed forms of expression. It is quite a different thing, however, to say that Rhetoric has for the thought to be expressed rules quite analogous to those which it has for the expression of the thought.

28. That Rhetoric can determine such rules, and that it has, therefore, a department of Invention, is best shown by the fact that such rules exist. The very books which declare most positively that Rhetoric teaches only Style, contain rules that are certainly not laws of Style, and which must therefore belong to a second department of the art, by whatever name it may be known. Further, while Rhetoric is, indeed, the art of communication, and goes to its nomothetical sciences for underlying principles, yet its laws are its own, and would never have been determined by the sciences. The truths of Logic, etc., are as true in one mind as in two; but there can be no communication, unless there are a speaker and a hearer. Thus, Logic classifies arguments, but Rhetoric lays down laws that direct the writer in his choice of both the class of arguments and the particular arguments of their class that will best work conviction under certain varying circumstances. Yet these laws are not laws of Form: they are laws by which Persuasion may be the more easily accomplished.

29. The question raised here is not merely one of name. The point is not, Shall Rhetoric have one department or two? but, shall the office of Rhetoric be limited to the giving of form to thought already discovered? The rules of Rhetoric may, indeed, be all included under one head; but, in that case, either the definition of Style must be materially modified, or both names, Style and Invention, must be abandoned.

By

either plan a valuable distinction will be lost, and nothing be gained but an apparent simplification, which, however, is, in fact, a complication of things that are better kept distinct.

30. The term invention, even in its rhetorical sense of finding, may, perhaps, imply too much, and, therefore, be an unfortunate name for the department; but then it were surely the part of wisdom to choose a better name, not to ignore the department. The history of the controversy makes it highly probable (to say no more) that a rather stupid misunderstanding of the word has given undue plausibility to the arguments against such a department of Rhetoric.

31. Further, the very method of studying Rhetoric is affected by the decision of this question. A complete Rhetoric rests on all the sciences nomothetical to the art.1 But a Rhetoric that restricts itself to questions of Style, can not consistently do this: it must confine its attention to questions of Form, and tend, accordingly, to mere showiness in composition-to a shallowness of thought that only makes a beautiful style the more hideous--like a grinning skull, which can not laugh because its brains are out. Since Whately, indeed, Blair's emphasizing of Esthetics has been the less dangerous; but even Whately does not give a complete view of the department of Invention, and Blair's influence is by no means spent. Besides, man seems as totally depraved in intellect as (in the view of some theologians) he is in his moral nature; and he needs, therefore, to fight as earnestly against the temptation to play the fool as against that to do wrong. Rhetoric can ill afford, then, to teach him respecting the communication of thought a doctrine that even seems unduly to exalt the merely external consideration of form.

32. The two Departments of Rhetoric, then, are I Invention, II. Style. This order, too, is that, not only of their development, but also of their importance; since it is always better to have something to say, however rudely one says it, than merely to bring together elegant expressions that mean nothing. A correct form, it is true, renders worthy thought the more attractive; but mere excellence of form can never recommend a composition to an intelligent reader. When you have noth

1 Appendix, p. 334.

ing to say," runs the epigram, "say it." At the same time, the laws of Form are simpler than those of thought; and, for this reason, they may properly be presented first. Part I. of this volume will therefore treat of Style, Part II. of Invention. A preparatory topic, the Kinds of Discourse, will occupy a concluding chapter of this Introduction.

33. The full analysis and classification of the kinds of compositions belongs, perhaps, to Literature rather than to Rhetoric; but the instructor in Rhetoric can not assume that his students are conversant with it: he may rather assume that they know nothing about it; and, hence, since some knowledge of it is essential for them, he must supply at least an outline. Nor can there be any serious impropriety in his doing So. At several points in the exhibition of his subject, brief summaries or classifications that properly belong to other branches of knowledge must be inserted for the information of his readers. Of course, such summaries should be given only when they are plainly necessary, and should be kept within narrow bounds; but they can not be wholly excluded. Indeed, many works of Rhetoric contain nearly complete systems of Grammar, Logic, etc.; while other works make these systems nearly the whole of Rhetoric, carrying them to an illogical extreme.

The methods of study in each case must, therefore, be different, and a distinction between the two departments be inevitable. Not to concede this is only to create confusion and to place obstacles in the way of the student. Of course, rhetorical rules may be studied simply as rules, and not in the light of their underlying principles, just as the principles may be studied as such, and not with a view to formulating rules that are to be based upon them; but, in either case,—and neither is usual or likely to occur,-the study is still Theoretical Rhetoric, and is opposed in the sense stated to the practice of Composition, or Practical Rhetoric. This is true, too, whether the practical work proceeds only by “rules of thumb,” (that is, by unexplained rules, rules without their underlying scientific truthstheir rationale,) or whether this rationale is in every case carefully given with the rule.

14. But the distinction must not be carried too far. Rhetoric and Composition are not wholly separable. Each implies the other; each contributes to the other's improvement. Of course, either can be conceived of separately; either can at any time command the chief attention; but the two studies are in fact only one,-a single object approached from different sides.

15. To speak more technically, Theory and Practice are correlatives, implying each other, and having their common ground of relation in the nature of Art as art. Practice unfailingly tends to develop theory; theoretical discussion as inevitably makes practice more perfect. Certain art-practice, it is true, seems to be wholly unguided by either rule or principle; but, in fact, it is not so. Every one who practices an art, though in ever so unintelligent a way, acquires by his experience both rules and principles; and these, though he never formulates them, really control and direct his work.1

1 Appendix, p. 335.