chamber. Of this, he moves the lock, by soft and continued pressure, till it turns on its hinges without noise; and he enters, and beholds his victim before him. The room is uncommonly open to the admission of light. The face of the innocent sleeper is turned from the murderer, and the beams of the moon, resting on the gray locks of his aged temple, show him where to strike. The fatal blow is given! and the victim passes, without a struggle or a motion, from the repose of sleep to the repose of death! It is the assassin's purpose to make sure work; and he plies the dagger, though it is obvious that life has been destroyed by the blow of the bludgeon. He even raises the aged arm, that he may not fail in his aim at the heart, and replaces it again over the wounds of the poniard! To finish the picture, he explores the wrist for the pulse! He feels for it, and ascertains that it beats no longer! It is accomplished. The deed is done. He retreats, retraces his steps to the window, passes out through it as he came in, and escapes. He has done the murder. No eye has seen him, no ear has heard him. The secret is his own, and it is safe!" 1

The main cause of this difference between the products of an undisciplined and those of a cultivated mind. lies in the absence from the one and the presence in the other of a leading thought, a central idea, around which facts group themselves in accordance with their relative. value and pertinence. This leading thought gives Unity to that which would otherwise be a meaningless Variety. Without movement a narrative can have no life; without method its life will be to little purpose.

1 Webster: Works, vol. vi. p. 53.

BOOK II.

ARGUMENTATIVE COMPOSITION.

CHAPTER I.

PROPOSITION AND PROOF.

THE body of every composition in which reasoning plays an important part consists of the Proposition · that which is to be proved — and the Proof.

The proposition, in this sense, is also called the conclusion,1 that which is and must be shut in with certain other preceding things put in first " 2 (or, that which closes those preceding things together). The proof is also called the premises,3. that is, propositions (admitted or previously proved) which are put forward3 as the basis of the reasoning. "To infer a conclusion is to bring in,1 as it were, the direct statement of that which has been virtually stated already, has been shut in." 5

In a chain of reasoning, the first conclusion inferred, the first inference, serves as a premise for the second inference, and so on; that which was at first a proposition to be proved becomes an argument for a new proposition.

It may or may not be necessary to appeal to the passions or the feelings, to bespeak favorable attention by

1 Conclusus: from com-, with, and cludo, or claudo, close.

2 De Morgan: Formal Logic, chap. ii. p. 43.

3 Praemissa: from prae, before, and mitto, send or put. See p. 190.

4 From in, in, and fero, bring.

5 De Morgan: Logic, chap. ii. p. 43.

a skilful exordium, to make a favorable impression by a skilful peroration, or to pave the way for the argument by an elaborate narration, or statement of facts;1 but it is always necessary to have clearly in mind a proposition to prove, and at least one argument which goes to prove that proposition.

Not that it is always expedient to state the proposition distinctly at the outset. Reasons springing from the nature of the subject-matter or from the character of the persons addressed may (as will hereafter be shown2) render it advisable to lead up to the conclusion, either rapidly or by successive steps of reasoning. Between the extreme of holding the thing to be proved in plain view throughout the argument, and that of keeping it out of sight till the very end, there are many methods, any one of which may be justified by circumstances.

Importance

of having proposition

a distinct

in mind.

No circumstances, however, can free a writer or a speaker from the obligation to have the proposition he maintains distinctly fixed in his own mind before he undertakes to argue in its support. The process of investigation, by which a man arrives at certain conclusions, must be completed before the rhetorical process, by which he endeavors to convince others, can properly begin. Distinctness of conception does not, indeed, necessarily imply distinctness of expression; for knowledge is a very different thing from the ability to communicate knowledge: but no one can, except by accident, clearly state what he does not clearly understand. Rhetoric, accordingly, though it does not undertake to provide a writer with materials, does require that he should provide himself with them, to the extent, at least, that

1 See p. 182.

he should have a definite assertion about something to

maintain.

"I would go the length of recommending a preacher to place a distinct categorical proposition before him, such as he can write down in a form of words, and to guide and limit his preparation by it, and to aim in all he says to bring it out, and nothing else. ... Nor will a preacher's earnestness show itself in any thing more unequivocally than in his rejecting, whatever be the temptation to admit it, every remark however original, every period however eloquent, which does not in some way or other tend to bring out this one distinct proposition which he has chosen. Nothing is so fatal to the effect of a sermon as the habit of preaching on three or four subjects at once." 1

A term is

sition.

proposition.

A term that is, the name of a thing—is not a Honesty," for example, is in not a propo- no just sense a subject for composition (unless, indeed, a definition of the word is required); for, though many propositions about honesty can be framed, the word by itself suggests no one of them rather than another: but "honesty is the best policy" is a subject; for it makes an affirmation concerning honesty, an affirmation which can be reasoned about.

If, then, a person is asked to write upon "honesty,” he should begin by considering what he believes to be true about honesty, that is, by framing some proposition about it. By so doing, he will bring the subject within convenient limits, will secure a nucleus for his arguments, and thus take the first step toward Unity of composition. He may not choose the best road to his destination, but he is on some road at any rate, and he has a destination.

A good example of the practical effect of taking as one's subject a term instead of a proposition is given by Dr. J. II. Newman 3 in 1 J. H. Newman: Lectures on University Subjects, pp. 196, 197.

2 See pp. 158, 164, 183. 3 Lectures on University Subjects, p. 150.

the shape of a composition by young Mr. Brown, which is supposed to have been sent by his admiring father to a tutor at the University:

"FORTES FORTUNA ADJUVAT.'

"Of all the uncertain and capricious powers which rule our earthly destiny, Fortune is the chief. Who has not heard of the poor being raised up, and the rich being laid low? Alexander the Great said he envied Diogenes in his tub, because Diogenes could have nothing less. We need not go far for an instance of fortune. Who was so great as Nicholas, the Czar of all the Russians, a year ago, and now he is "fallen, fallen from his high estate, without a friend to grace his obsequies.' ̧”1 The Turks are the finest specimen of the human race, yet they too have experienced the vicissitudes of fortune. Horace says that we should wrap ourselves in our virtue when fortune changes. Napoleon, too, shows us how little we can rely on fortune; but his faults, great as they were, are being redeemed by his nephew, Louis Napoleon, who has shown himself very different from what we expected, though he has never explained how he came to swear to the Constitution, and then mounted the imperial throne.2

“From all this it appears that we should rely on fortune only while it remains, - recollecting the words of the thesis, "Fortes fortuna adjuvat;" and that, above all, we should ever cultivate those virtues which will never fail us, and which are a sure basis of respectability, and will profit us here and hereafter.'

“Not one word of this,' says Mr. Black, to whom the boy's father has submitted the composition for criticism, 'is upon the thesis. . . . "Fortes fortuna adjuvat " is a proposition; it states a certain general principle, and this is just what an ordinary boy would be sure to miss, and Robert does miss it. He goes off at once on the word "fortuna." "Fortuna" was not his subject; the thesis was intended to guide him, for his own good; he refuses to be put into leading-strings; he breaks loose, and runs off in his own fashion on the broad field and in wild chase of " fortune," instead of closing with the subject, which, as being definite, would have supported him. .

“It would have been very cruel to have told a boy to write on

1 "Mr. Brown prophesies here. He wrote in June, 1854.”