- 24. From explaining false appearances; - 25. From I. tive elomainly defavourable pends on a opinion of the speaker, and ju quence dicial elo quence on a favourable dispasition in the hear ers. THE HE topics to be employed to impel or to CHAP. restrain, to praise or to blame, to accuse or to defend, have now been enumerated and explained: Deliberathe objects ever to be kept in view, are utility, honour, and justice; on approved notions of which, respectively, all propositions must turn, calculated to persuade and prevail in the three kinds of oratory. But as every discourse is proposed to the judgment of the hearers, for, in matters of deliberation, the advice which we give is submitted to their consideration, and in judicial trials, we plead and argue with a view to obtain their favourable sentence; it is of mighty importance that we should exhibit ourselves to these hearers in an advantageous light, and appear to be actuated by great good-will towards them; and also that they, on their part, should be in a frame of mind and temper consonant to our views. The effect of political speeches, that is, of deliberative eloquence, depends mainly on the opinion conceived of the orator or statesman in pleadings before courts of justice, on the other hand, the principal point is the favourable disposition of the judges; for their decisions will vary according II. BOOK to their love or hatred, and accordingly as they are stirred to the asperities of anger, or soothed into the softness of pity. Through those different affections their opinions will be shaken, and sometimes totally changed. Thus, under the impression of good-will or compassion for a delinquent, his judges will often declare him innocent, and always regard him as far less culpable than hatred or bare indifference would represent him. To a man goaded by desires, and sanguine in hope, the prospect of imagined pleasures will appear to be easily realised, and to be fraught with the purest joy: the reverse of this will appear to men of despondent tempers, adverse to such pleasures, or barely indifferent to them. The three requisites credit to a To procure credit for our discourse through for gaining means of our own character, and independently discourse, of proofs or arguments, there are three requiindepend- sites: the hearers must repose confidence in our ently of argument. wisdom, and in our virtue, and in our good-will Transition to the doc towards themselves. If any of these three be wanting, the speaker may be safely disregarded; for either through ignorance, he will be incapable of discerning what is best, or careless of proposing it; and that, either through the general pravity of his nature, or through want of zeal in the cause. Beside these three, there can be no other source of deception; so that he who is exempt from them all, must be entitled to complete credit. How the speaker is to give this favourable trine of the impression of himself, has partly been explained I. of treat above, in treating of the virtues, for, with the CHAP. same propositions and inferences by which he has set off and emblazoned the merits of others, passions: he may exhibit, and do justice to his own: but necessity how he is to create the opinion of his good- ing it. will for his hearers, and their favourable disposition towards himself, we proceed now to explain, in the following disquisition on the passions. The judgments of men change with these agitations of the mind, and their accompanying pains or pleasures; I mean, with anger, pity, fear, and all such like emotions, and their contraries. In explaining each of them dis- In explaintinctly, three points must be attended to: in ing the anger, for example, we must first consider who each passion, three are the persons most susceptible of this passion; points secondly, who are they most likely to be its must be objects; thirdly, what are the causes and circumstances which most naturally produce or occasion it. The knowledge of one or two of these things will not suffice: they must be all known exactly in order, to manage any of the passions; to move or to appease them. We proceed, therefore, to investigate the topics relative to this subject, in our accustomed manner. nature of examined. fined II. - its "LET anger, then, be defined an emotion ac- CHAP. companied with pain; impelling us to inflict open punishment for any apparent contempt towards Anger deourselves or those belonging to us." If this be natural oban accurate description of anger, it follows, that jects. individuals only can be its objects. We cannot be angry with things taken in the abstract; for in BOOK stance, with man in general, but with a particular 11. Excited by man, as Cleon; who insults, or is prepared to insult ourselves, or those dear to us. It follows also, that all anger contains in it a mixture of pleasure, arising from the prospect of its gratification for it is pleasant to obtain the objects of our desires; but manifest impossibilities can never constitute such objects. The passion of anger is directed, therefore, to things possible and practicable; the expected attainment of which darts a spark of gladness into the bosom. Wherefore, Homer says, — But, oh! ye gracious powers above, Wrath and revenge from men and gods remove; But, further, that this, the angry emotion work- Contempt is the open expression of our opicontempt, nions and feelings concerning objects of no testified in three ways. value; things incapable of producing pain or pleasure, of doing good or harm; for whatever may cause much of the one or the other, will be treated, not with contempt, but, on the contrary, with very serious regard. Contempt may be testified in three ways; by disdain, by offence, 1. Disdain. and by insult. Things of no value are disdained 2. Offence. as below our notice. Offence is opposition to the views of another, merely for the sake of opposing them. It is that wanton vexation, which 1 Iliad xviii. v. 140. II. could never be exercised towards one supposed CHAP. O parent Goddess! since in early bloom Great Jove in justice should this span adorn: If yon proud monarch thus thy son defies, And again, Oh! soul of battles, and thy people's guide, Iliad, l. 460. 3 Iliad, ix. 757. Who most prone to offer insult, most' S |