Book I
Book I surveys by definition and division the opportunity of the public speaker. (i) Rhetoric is the complement of logic (dialectic). It is the art of persuasion formulated by investigating the methods of successful address; and its object is to promote a habit of discerning what in any given case is essentially persuasive. Proof as contemplated by rhetoric proceeds by such means as may be used in public address. Instead of the syllogism, which is proper to abstract logic, rhetoric typically uses the enthymeme, that approximate syllogism which is proper and necessary to the actual concrete discussion of public questions. Thus rhetoric serves as a general public means (1) of maintaining truth and justice against falsehood and wrong, (2) of advancing public discussion where absolute proof is impossible, (3) of cultivating the habit of seeing both sides and of exposing sophistries and fallacies, and (4) of self-defense. (ii) The means of persuasion outside of rhetoric (πίστεις ἄτεχνοι) are witnesses, documents, and other evidence; the means within the art of rhetoric (ἔντεχνοι) are the moral force of the speaker, his adaptation to the disposition of the audience, and his arguments. (iii) The three fields of rhetoric are: (1) deliberative address to a popular assembly, discussing the expediency of a proposal for the future; (2) forensic address to a court, discussing the justice of a deed in the past; and (3) panegyric, commemorating the significance of a present occasion. The eleven remaining chapters of this book analyze each of these fields in its main aspects, or fundamental topics, e.g., wealth, happiness, government, crime, virtue, etc.2
The bare digest will show that Aristotle’s Rhetoric is hardly a manual. In fact, it is rather less a manual than is his Poetic. It is a philosophical survey. The scope of rhetoric is measured not by any scheme of education, but by the relations of knowledge to conduct and affairs. To be comprehended, this great work should be read consecutively, for it is not merely systematic; in spite of parts undeveloped, it is progressive, and its chief significance, perhaps, is from its total development. The following discussion presupposes a fresh and consecutive reading.
About rhetoric Aristotle would first of all have right thinking, conceptions large enough to be suggestive and distinct enough to be true. So the definition in his first chapter is slowly inductive. First we are to distinguish rhetoric from logic.3 As modes of thought the two are alike general, both applicable universally, neither having its own subject-matter. As modes of utterance they differ typically in that while logic is abstract, rhetoric is concrete; while the one is analytic, the other is synthetic; while the one is a method of study, the other is a method of communication.
Rhetoric, no less than logic, has subject-matter in every given case. Only its perverters teach it as merely an art of dealing with persons, of reaching an audience. No less than logic, it is a means of bringing out truth, of making people see what is true and fitting. But rhetoric contemplates having truth embraced. It is the application of proof to people. Its distinction from logic is here, in the typical mode of proof. The type in logic is the syllogism; the type in rhetoric Aristotle calls the enthymeme.4 By this he means concrete proof, proof applicable to human affairs, such argument as is actually available in current discussion. The enthymeme is not inferior to the syllogism; it is merely different. Actually, public address on current public questions cannot be carried on by syllogisms or by final inductions. That by which it can be carried on, the strongest proof possible to actual discussion, Aristotle calls enthymeme.
From this typical mode of rhetoric Aristotle gathers its fourfold function: first and foremost, to make truth prevail by presenting it effectively in the conditions of actual communication, to move; second, to advance inquiry by such methods as are open to men generally, to teach; third, to cultivate the habit of seeing both sides and of analyzing sophistries and fallacies, to debate; and finally to defend oneself and one’s cause. That truth does not always prevail shows the need of effective presentation. The first function, then, of rhetoric is to make truth prevail among men as they are. Truth cannot be learned by the mass of men through scientific investigation; for that demands special training. A second direction, then, of rhetoric is to make the results of investigation generally available, to teach truth in general human terms. Debate, Aristotle’s third item, which is one whole field of rhetoric, may indeed be mere logical fence, using terms and propositions as mere counters; but real skill in debate, the habit of seeing both sides and of analyzing sophistries and fallacies, tends to make truth emerge from current discussion. The fourth use of rhetoric, for self-defense, seems added merely for completeness and to rebut the common objection that rhetoric is abused. That, says Aristotle, is no argument against it.5
The definition implied and sketched in Chapter I and formulated in Chapter II, may be summed up in the word persuasion, if we are careful to speak of persuasion not as achievement, but as method. Just as we ask of medicine, not that it shall infallibly heal—a degree of achievement impossible in human affairs—but that it shall discern and use all the means of healing available in the given case, so the true end of rhetoric is to induce such habitual skill as shall discern in any given case the available means of persuasion.6
As means of persuasion we must include both those that are extrinsic and those that are intrinsic,7 those that lie outside the art of rhetoric in the domains of subject-matter and those that lie within, the facts of the case and the technic of making them tell. For rhetoric has to include subject-matter, the forces of knowledge. Though this is extrinsic in the sense of lying outside the art of rhetoric, it is essential. Rhetoric is an art, as Aristotle is careful to show; but it differs from other arts in the degree of importance it must always attach to its subject-matter. The division here into extrinsic means and intrinsic means as both necessary to persuasion is not merely the obvious one into matter and manner, substance and style; it is a division of the springs of composition, the sources of effectiveness, into those that lie outside and those that lie inside of utterance, or presentation. It frankly accepts rhetoric as more than artistic, as never self-sufficient and absolute, as always relating presentation to investigation.
Equally philosophical is the following division8 of the intrinsic means of persuasion into: (1) those inherent in the character or moral potentiality (ἦθος) of the speaker, (2) those inherent in his actual moving of the audience, and (3) those inherent in the form and phrase of the speech itself. That the three are not mutually exclusive is evident and must have been deliberate. Aristotle is telling us that rhetoric as an art is to be approached from these three directions and in this order. The division is comprehensive not only as being satisfying psychologically, but as constituting an outline for the whole work, the headings of the development in three books: first, the speaker himself; secondly, the audience; and finally, in the light of these two, and as the bringing of the one to bear on the other, the speech. Book I deals with the speaker as himself the prime means of persuasion. Rhetoric, Aristotle implies, is necessarily ethical in that everything consecutively imparted or communicated, as distinct from the abstractions of geometry or logic, is subjective. Moreover, in making the speaker the point of departure Aristotle admits that other trend of classical pedagogy which made rhetoric a cultivation of personality. Book II, proceeding to the second item of the division above, deals with the audience, with knowledge of human nature, especially of typical habits of mind; for rhetoric in this aspect too is ethical. It deals with the interaction of moral forces in speaker and audience, and also with the direct arousing of emotion. The speech itself, the final utterance, which is the subject of Book III, has thus been approached as the art of adjusting the subject-matter of a given case through the intelligence and emotion of the speaker to the intelligence and emotion of the audience. This is the only book of very specific technic; and it comes last psychologically.
Aristotle’s division and its order are the division and the order not merely of analysis, but of much the same synthesis as underlies the actual processes of composition. I begin with myself; for the subject-matter else is dead, remaining abstract. It begins to live, to become persuasive, when it becomes my message. Then only have I really a subject for presentation. A subject, for purposes of address as distinct from purposes of investigation, must include the speaker. It is mine if it arouses me. I consider next the audience, not for concession or compromise, but for adaptation. What is mine must become theirs. Therefore I must know them, their ἦθος and their πάθος. My address becomes concrete through my effort to bring it home. The truth must prevail—through what? Against what? Not only through or against reasoning, but through or against complexes of general moral habit and the emotions of the occasion. I must establish sympathy, win openness of mind, instruct in such wise as to please and awaken, rouse to action. My speech is for these people now. Only thus am I ready to consider composition; for only thus can I know what arguments are available, or what order will be effective, or what style will tell.
This is the philosophy of presentation. What is its practise? Rhetoric ranges for subject-matter most often in the fields of social ethics and politics, tempting its professors, Aristotle adds acutely, to assume the mask of politics.9 It deals with “the ordinary and recognized subjects of deliberation,”10 with matters still in dispute and doubt. Thus dealing with social and political conduct, it can neither proceed, as logic does, by absolute propositions nor arrive at logical demonstration. Its premises are not universals, but generally accepted probabilities. That is, to resume his previous distinction, the mode of rhetoric is not the syllogism or induction proper to logical formulation, but the enthymeme or instances proper to actual presentation. The mode of scientific induction emerges to-day in the “gas laws” or the formula of the velocity of light; the mode of rhetoric emerges in Huxley’s “Piece of Chalk.” Abstract deduction is summed up in the syllogism;11 concrete deduction, in the enthymeme. By enthymeme, as Aristotle has now made fully clear, is meant a “rhetorical syllogism” in the sense of a deduction available concretely for presentation, as distinct from a deduction formulated abstractly for analysis. His enthymeme is deductive method used constructively. It is not mere popular reasoning, logic modified for popular consumption, but public reasoning, such reasoning as is available with the public for building up public opinion and policy.
Therefore the headings, or “topics,” of rhetoric are not peculiar to a particular field of investigation, but general or “common topics” such as justice or expediency, which express common human relations. To deviate from these into the method peculiar to a given subject-matter, physics for example, is to pass12 from rhetorical method for presentation over to scientific method for analysis; and this, of course, the speaker must do to the extent of mastering his subject-matter before he presents it. Though he must not forget that his ultimate task is to present to an audience and therefore concretely, neither can he forget that what is to be presented must be acquired. In so far as he investigates he will follow scientific method, the analysis proper to the field, the “special topics.” Thus for his education he needs some study of the “special topics” of those sciences that furnish most of his subject-matter, the “special topics” of ethics and politics. Of these he must have, as part of his equipment, a practical or working knowledge, the orator’s equipment for considering each case within its own field as well as in its general relations to human nature. Aristotle’s distinction here between general and special “topics” coincides with his earlier division (page 10) of the means of persuasion into intrinsic and extrinsic. The extrinsic means are knowledge, to be got by the methods of getting; the intrinsic means are utterance, to be given by the methods of giving.
At this point, the opening of Chapter iii,13 Aristotle makes his scientific division of rhetoric by its fields. The three fields of rhetoric are: (1) the deliberative, persuasion in public assemblies as to matters of current discussion, looking to the future, urging expediency: (2) the forensic, accusation and defense in courts, looking to the past, urging justice; and (3) the occasional,14 praise or blame, looking to the present, urging honor. The underlying, general, or “final topics” of rhetoric, as distinct from the special topics that it uses from other studies, are thus seen to be expediency (including practicability), justice, honor, and their opposites; and the special topics drawn by rhetoric from philosophy, ethics, and politics may be grouped in a speaker’s compend of these studies according as they apply to the deliberative, the forensic, or the occasional field.
In deliberative oratory15 the speaker deals with good and bad, not in the abstract as the philosopher contemplates virtue or happiness, but in concrete matters of doubt and dispute. So his topic of possibility is not abstract, as in mathematics, but concrete, in relation to human will. So in general Aristotle disclaims for his classification of the ordinary subjects of deliberative oratory any attempt at scientific division or scientific method of investigation. Those he follows in his other works; here the analysis that he provides is avowedly practical. Since in politics,16 for example, the public speaker needs to know something of finance, war, commerce, legislation, Aristotle gives him a suggestive summary of what he should learn. In our modern educational systems such a summary has far less importance; but the correlation remains vital. Pedagogically as well as philosophically, deliberative oratory must be correlated with its natural subject-matter. So to-day college courses in rhetoric demand correlation with college courses in history, sociology, economics, and politics. The professors of these subjects train for investigation, teaching the scientific method proper to each; the professor of rhetoric trains for presentation, teaching general methods, Aristotle’s general or “final topics,” for handling all such material. But unless each method of training can make use of the other, both will suffer. Rhetoric must lean upon such real knowledge of a given subject-matter as is furnished by the studies dealing with that subject-matter scientifically, i.e., by its “special topics.” Meantime Aristotle’s summary is intended not to explore these special topics, but to show what they are.
Similarly the student of deliberative oratory needs such a survey of philosophy17 as will acquaint him with current ideas concerning happiness, whether of rank, offspring, wealth, honor, health, beauty, or strength, and concerning a good old age, friendship, fortune, and virtue. Therefore Aristotle, summarizing these conceptions, supplies18 a cursory examination of good in general and of goods, or good things, in particular, proceeding19 both by definition and by comparison, and not limiting his discussion to the deliberative field. To the latter, and to politics, he reverts in the concluding chapter[20] of this section by enumerating briefly the common forms of polity: democracy, oligarchy, aristocracy, and monarchy.
Since occasional oratory21 demands an equipment primarily ethical, Aristotle provides a summary of moral nobility22 by definition and comparison. This is applied more specifically than the preceding section to rhetorical method, in this case to the method of enhancing or heightening and to the method of comparison.
For forensic oratory23 Aristotle provides as a speaker’s compend of philosophy a survey of the objects and conditions of crime. He makes no specific mention of what we now call criminal tendencies; and his division of “extrinsic proofs,” i.e., of legal evidence (laws, witnesses, contracts, tortures, the oath) is for the modern lawyer neither scientific nor significant.