repetition. When students, on first acquiring some skill in analysis, become impressed with the importance of method, their faith is all too evident. They present their outlines too often in bald form, and, for want of other material, weaken their rebuttal speeches with repeated outlines until the audience wonders whether there is any real substance upon which to employ the admirable method. A college debating team, opposing the passage of a bill for shipping subsidies, phrased the central theme of their argument well when they declared, "Subsidies take money from the pockets of all the people in order to fill the pockets of the few.' But excessive repetition left the assertion at the end of the last rebuttal speech all empty and forspent, precisely at that point where the argument needed greatest vigor.

Among the overworked methods of emphasis is the rhetorical question. This implies an answer favorable to the case of the speaker. It depends for its effect on the certainty that the auditors will answer the question according to the speaker's wishes. At the close of a speech a debater said, "Let me ask why foreign ship companies are now lobbying against the subsidy bill?" The speaker left his audience asking the same question, and the further question whether the implied fact was true, for he had yielded to the temptation of using the rhetorical question in place of evidence. Such a question is not proof; it may be used only to emphasize proof.

The following quotation illustrates the use of the rhetorical question in the persuasive appeal, following the proof:

The senator from Massachusetts tells us that the tariff is not an eastern measure, and treats it as if the East had no

interest in it. The senator from Missouri insists it is not a western measure, and that it has done no good to the West. The South comes in, and in the most earnest manner represents to you that this measure, which we are told "is of no value to the East or the West," is "utterly destructive of our interests." We represent to you that it has spread ruin and devastation through the land and prostrated our hopes in the dust. We solemnly declare that we believe the system to be wholly unconstitutional and a violation of the compact between the states and the Union; and our brethren turn a deaf ear to our complaints, and refuse to relieve us from a system "which not enriches them, but makes us poor indeed." Good God! Mr. President, has it come to this? Do gentlemen hold the feelings and wishes of their brethren at so cheap a rate that they refuse to gratify them at so small a price? Do gentlemen value so lightly the peace and harmony of the country that they will not yield a measure of this description to the affectionate entreaties and earnest remonstrances of their friends? Do gentlemen estimate the value of the Union at so low a price that they will not even make one effort to bind the states together with the cords of affection? And has it come to this? Is this the spirit in which this government is to be administered? If so, let me tell gentlemen the seeds of dissolution are already sown, and our children will reap the bitter fruit.1

As the man in the gallery throws the calcium light on that part of the stage to which he would direct attention, so the writer must employ all the illuminating devices of rhetoric to brighten the most important parts of his argument. He should first consider what points must be emphasized at any cost; he should then contrive to place these in the high lights. Meantime the less important details fall into the relatively obscure background. The high lights of a discourse are the beginning and the end. The beginning must get a

1 From a speech of Hayne, delivered in the United States Senate, January 21, 1830.

fair start for the argument by enlisting the interest in the right direction; the middle part must drive the argument home; the end must clinch the point. Other means of emphasis are apt metaphors and similes, sudden turns of phrase, epigrams, climax, concrete terms, and terse sentences. But the first law of emphasis concerns position; the ideas which deserve distinction must fall in the most emphatic places.

III. COHERENCE

An argument without coherence is like a forest without a trail; a writer's duty is to blaze the trail. Nay, he should do more. He should take the reader by the hand, smooth the way, warn him when the path divides, point out each step. Language is at best but “a poor bull's-eye lantern wherewith to show off the vast cathedral of the universe." Imperative, then, that one who uses this poor lantern to illuminate thought should throw what light he has along the path ahead. Otherwise the reader, if led at all, will but stumble along, this way and that, over strange and uneven ground to an unknown end, like a blindfolded neophyte led to initiation.

No man is likely to secure coherence by chance or inspiration it demands care-painstaking and unremitting. In a good brief the causal connection between each statement and that which it is adduced to prove is clearly indicated by means of special indentation and arbitrary symbols. In a written forensic these devices must give way to rhetorical aids. The logical sequence of thought must be made clear by means of connective words and transitional sentences.

The most common fault in the presentation of evidence is the failure to show precisely what part it plays

in the whole argument. This failure is sometimes due to the fact that secondary matters are not properly subordinated to the main issues. Yet evidence can be of value only through causal connection with these main issues. If this connection is obscure, the evidence counts for nothing but confusion. If the bearing of the evidence is not felt at the time when it is presented, usually the bearing is not felt at all. The evidence then cumbers the argument as so much dead matter. In every art the merit of each detail is its subserviency to the whole design. If a piece of evidence is put forward as if for its own sake, with no definitely expressed relation to other parts, it breaks the chain of thought. The whole argument then lacks sequence, and proportion, and coordination. Again and again the writer of an argument. must be a severe critic of his own work, lest he fail to make clear to others what may be perfectly clear to himself, the exact work which a given piece of evidence is intended to perform in a given place.

Illuminating in this connection is a study of Burke's method. There are no arguments overlapped, no parts left hanging in the air, no gaps to jump, and no halt in the forward movement. Turn to the Speech on Conciliation. Observe the opening sentences announcing what may be expected in paragraphs 15, 32, 33, 34, 35, 50, 79, 80, indeed in almost every paragraph. Note the transitional opening sentences of paragraphs 25, 26, 29, 57, 58, 59, 75. Consider, in paragraphs 44, 48, 67, 72, the clearly defined connection of the opening sentences with what precedes. Consider as well the summarizing sentences in paragraphs 36, 41, 44, 59, 62, and the single word connectives in paragraphs 44, 48, 67, 72. Any person who aspires to an argumentative style which shall cover the strength of a coherent brief

with transparent rhetorical beauty will do well to study the method of Edmund Burke.

THE QUALITIES OF STYLE

Observance of these principles of Unity, Emphasis, and Coherence tends to secure the qualities of Clearness, Ease, and Force. Since, however, the rhetorical problem of argumentation is that of so presenting one's material as to win favor and affect conduct, the only one of these qualities of style which is of any importance for its own sake is Force. And Force is nothing more or less than effective conviction and persuasion. All other qualities of style and all principles of style are of value in argumentation only so far as they aid in securing this paramount quality of Force. For this purpose Clearness and Ease are invaluable; and to them we should add the rhetorical aids of Brevity, Concreteness, and Illustration.

IV. CLEARNESS

On a really debatable question, clearness is never by itself sufficient for the purpose of conviction and persuasion. What profits it a lawyer for the defense to make the jury understand exactly why he believes the prisoner at the bar should be acquitted, if at the end they retain the contrary belief and render a verdict of guilty? Clearness is, nevertheless, a fundamental necessity. Without clearness, all other rhetorical aids to effectiveness are futile.

Simplicity of diction - an essential of clearness — is not only desirable, but is possible even in dealing with complex subjects. One of George Eliot's characters, Mr. Cleves, in the Sad Fortunes of the Rev. Amos Barton, "has the wonderful art of preaching sermons