No principle of invention is more fundamental or pract cally important than this. Unity in aim is the very life of invention. Unless the object of speaking be distinctly perceived and that object be strictly one, the inventive faculty has no foothold at all, or, at least, no sure standing; and all its operations must be unsteady and feeble. The first work in producing discourse is to obtain a clear view of the single subject which is to be discussed, and then of the one object which is to be attained by the discussion.

It is here, more than any where else, that young writers fail. They give themselves to writing with no definite apprehension of the single object for which they write, except perhaps, it be to fill a sheet with words-brilliant if it may be, at all events with words. Having no object in view, the mind has no spring or impulse in the labor, and the task is the most repulsive drudgery. What can be more so than to accumulate dead words-dead because entertaining no living thought that with its one life animates them, and to cement them together by the lifeless rules of grammar? It is its object or aim which gives discourse its life; and as no one thing can have two lives in itself, there can be but one aim or object in one discourse. It is not in the nature of man to labor without an aim. Certainly the work of invention, the highest and most proper work of man as a rational being, cannot proceed happily without an aim distinctly apprehended.

This then is the first thing to be done in the construction of discourse, after the selection of the theme at least, to determine definitely what is the particular object of the discourse: is the object to explain a subject; to convince of its truth; to excite the feelings in relation to it; or to move to action upon it? This principle cannot be too earnestly inculcated, or too faithfully observed.

As these several acts of explanation, conviction, excitation, and persuasion may proceed each by several distinct specific processes, it will of course facilitate invention to determine, previously to the construction of a discourse, the particular process which the case may require.

§ 59. Inasmuch as the development of the general theme is determined by the particular object of the discourse, the four processes, by one or other of which this object must be accomplished, viz: those of explanation, confirmation, excitation, and persuasion, constitute the distinct departments of Rhetorical Invention.

CHAPTER III.

OF THE PARTS OF A DISCOURSE.

§ 60. The development of a theme of discourse for the purpose of explanation, conviction, excitation, and persuasion, necessarily proceeds by stages, which, in reference to the particular object at the time, may be distinguished from each other. A discourse may

thus be conveniently regarded as consisting of parts; some of which are essential to all discourse and others subsidiary or essential only in particular cases.

§61. The essential parts of discourse are the FROPOSITION and the DISCUSSION.

§ 62. THE PROPOSITION is the particular subject as modified and determined by the object of the dis

course.

The term "proposition," it should be observed, is here used in a sense different from that of the term "theme." The proposition is the theme as determined by the object or end of the discourse. For example, the theme, "the immutability of truth"" may be variously discussed in reference to various specific objects. The design of the discussion may be to explain what is meant by the phrase; or, it may be to prove the statement that "truth is immutable," or to awaken confidence in all truth as being in its nature immutable; or to move to zealous effort to acquire truth because immutable. A rhetorical proposition includes thus the theme and the particular design for which it is discussed.

One formal mode of stating the proposition in actual discourse would be as follows: "The object of this discourse is to prove the immutability of truth."

A rhetorical proposition is carefully to be distinguished from a logical proposition. The latter may be defined to be "the verbal statement of a judgment." A logical proposition, accordingly, may constitute the theme of a rhetorical proposition. If this theme be stated together with the use to be made of it in discourse, it will then become a rhetorical proposition.

§ 63. THE DISCUSSION is that part of a discourse in which the subject is unfolded and directly presented to the mind addressed for one of the purposes that have been named.

The discussion is accordingly the main thing in all discourse, and constitutes its body. The proposition sets forth the design of the speaker; and the other parts are merely preparatory and subsidiary to this main design which i directly pursued in the discussion.

§ 64. The general forms of the discussion are de

termined by the object of the discourse, and are four in number corresponding to the four main objects that may be aimed at in discourse, § 54.

§ 65. The more specific forms of the discussion are determined by the particular processes in which explanation, conviction, excitation, and persuasion are respectively carried on.

§ 66. The subsidiary parts of discourse are either preparatory, or applicatory; and may in general terms be denominated THE INTRODUCTION and THE PERORATION.

§ 67. The design and use of THE INTRODUCTION is to prepare the way in the mind addressed for the more ready and free reception of the proposition and the discussion.

§ 68. As it is obvious that the mind addressed may be favorably or unfavorably disposed for the reception of the proposition and the discussion, either in respect to the degree or kind of information it possesses, or its state of opinion, of feeling or of purpose, the introduction must, in different cases, be prepared in reference to these diverse states of mind.

The two more generic kinds of introduction will be, accordingly, the Explanatory and the Conciliatory introduction.

In the former, the object of the introduction will be effected by informing more fully the minds of the hearers; in the latter, by removing prejudice or by enlisting directly a favorable interest.

It is obvious, moreover, that these states of mind mar

respectively regard different objects, as the speaker or the Hence will be determined the still more spe

subject itself.

cific forms of the introduction.

The consideration of the particular kinds of introduction and the laws of its use has, for obvious reasons, its appropriate place under the several general heads of Invention.

§ 69. As the Introduction is only a subsidiary and a preparatory part of a discourse, the topics which it must embrace and the form in which it should appear cannot be fully known until the nature and form of the proposition and of the discussion are well ascertained by the speaker. Hence, the proper time for the invention and the composition of the Introduction is after the subject has been thoroughly studied out, and the general form of the discussion well settled in the mind.

It would obviously be as absurd in a writer to construct an Introduction before the plan of the discourse is determined upon, as it would be in an architect to put up a portico before he had determined what kind of a house to attach to it. That this absurdity is frequently committed in writing and in architecture, only shows the necessity of calling particular attention to it. There is no one feature of the Introduction which may not receive its determinate character from the proposition and the discussion. The length, the matter, including both the thought and the feeling, and the style cannot be known till the plan of the discussion is fully determined upon.

By this it is not meant that the discussion should be written out or reduced to forms of language; but merely that the whole plan of the discussion be distinctly conceived in the mind, before the Introduction is composed.