Sect. II. Men considered as endowed with imagination. Yet ordinary objects. What gives the principal delight to the imagination, is the exhibition of a strong likeness, which escapes the notice of the generality of people. The similitude of man to man, eagle tọ eagle, sea to sea, or, in brief, of one individual of the same species, affects not the fancy in the least. What poet would ever think of comparing a combat between two of his heroes to a combat between other two? no-where else will he find so strong a resemblance. Indeed, to the faculty of imagination this resemblance appears rather under the notion of identity; although it be the foundation of the strongest reasoning from experience. Again, the similarity of one species to another of the same genus, as of the lion to the tiger, of the alder to the oak, though this too be a considerable fund of argumentation, hardly strikes the fancy more than the preceding, inasmuch as the generical properties, whereof every species participates, are also obvious. But if from the experimental reasoning we descend to the analogical, we may be said to come upon a common to which reason and fancy have an equal claim. "A comparison," says Quintilian *, "hath almost the effect of an example." But what are rhetorical comparisons, when brought to illustrate any point inculcated on the hearers, (what are they, I say) but arguments from analogy? In proof of this let us borrow an instance from the forementioned rhetorician, "Would you be convinced of the neces tu * Instit. lib. v. cap. II. Proximas exempli vires habet simili 66 66 66 Sect. III. Men considered as endowed with memory. sity of education for the mind, consider of what importance culture is to the ground: the field which, cultivated, produceth a plentiful crop of useful fruits; if neglected, will be over-run with briars and brambles, and other useless or noxious weeds *" It would be no better than trifling to point out the argument couched in this passage. Now, if comparison, which is the chief, hath so great an influence upon conviction, it is no wonder that all those other oratorical tropes and figures addressed to the imagination, which are more or less nearly related to comparison, should derive hence both light and efficacy †. Even antithesis implies comparison. Simile is a comparison in epitome. Metaphor is an allegory in miniature. Allegory and prosopopeia are comparisons conveyed under a particular form. SECT. III.....Men considered as endowed with Memory. FURTHER, vivid ideas are not only more powerful than languid ideas, in commanding and preserving at * Ibid. Ut si animum dicas excolendum, similitudine utaris terræ, quæ neglecta sentes atque dumos, exculta fructus creat. + Præterea, nescio quomodo etiam credit facilius, quæ audienti jucunda sunt, et voluptate ad fidem ducitur. QUINT. L. iv. c. 2. Similé and comparison are in common language frequently confounded. The difference is this: Similé is no more than a comparison suggested in a word or two; as, He fought like a lion; His face shone as the sun. Comparison is a simile circumstantiated, and included in one or more separate sentences. Sect. III. Men considered as endowed with memory. tention, they are not only more efficacious in producing conviction, but they are also more easily retained. Those several powers, understanding, imagination, memory, and passion, are mutually subservient to one another. That it is necessary for the orator to engage the help of memory, will appear from many reasons, particularly from what was remarked above, on the fourth difference between moral reasoning and demonstrative *. It was there observed, that in the former the credibility of the fact is the sum of the evidence of all the arguments, often independent of one another, brought to support it. And though it was shewn that demonstration itself, without the assistance of this faculty, could never produce conviction; yet here, it must be owned, that the natural connexion of the several links in the chain renders the remembrance easier. Now, as nothing can ope- . rate on the mind, which is not in some respect present to it, care must be taken by the orator, that, in introducing new topics, the vestiges left by the former on the minds of the hearers, may not be effaced. It is the sense of this necessity which hath given rise to the rules of composition. SOME will perhaps consider it as irregular, that I speak here of addressing the memory, of which no mention at all was made in the first chapter, wherein I considered the different forms of eloquence, classing them by the different faculties of the mind addressed. * Chap. V. Sect. ii. P. 1. Sect. III. Men considered as endowed with memory. But this apparent irregularity will vanish, when it is observed, that, with regard to the faculties there mentioned, each of them may not only be the direct, but even the ultimate object of what is spoken. The whole scope may be at one time to inform or convince the understanding, at another to delight the imagination, at a third to agitate the passions, and at a fourth to determine the will. But it is never the ultimate end of speaking to be remembered, when what is spoken tends neither to instruct, to please, to move, nor to persuade. This therefore is of necessity no more on any occasion than a subordinate end; or, which is precisely the same thing, the means to some further end; and, as such, it is more or less necessary on every occasion. The speaker's attention to this subserviency of memory is always so much the more requisite, the greater the difficulty of remembrance is, and the more important the being remembered is to the attainment of the ultimate end. On both accounts, it is of more conséquence in those discourses whose aim is either instruction or persuasion, than in those whose design is solely to please the fancy, or to move the passions. And if there are any which answer none of those ends, it were better to learn to forget them, than to teach the method of making them be retained. THE author of the treatise above quoted, hath di vided the principles of association in ideas into resem blance, contiguity, and causation. I do not here inquire into all the defects of this enumeration, but only Sect. III. Men considered as endowed with memory. observe, that even on his own system, order both in space and time ought to have been included. İt appears at least to have an equal title with causation, which, according to him, is but a particular modification and combination of the other two. Causation, considered as an associating principle, is, in his theory, no more than the contiguous succession of two ideas, which is more deeply imprinted on the mind by its experience of a similar contiguity and succession of the impressions from which they are copied. This therefore is the result of resemblance and vicinity united. Order in place is likewise a mode of vicinity, where this last tie is strengthened by the regularity and simplicity of figure; which qualities arise solely from the resemblance of the corresponding parts of the figure, or the parts similarly situated. Regular figures, besides the advantages which they derive from simplicity and uniformity, have this also, that they are more familiar to the mind than irregular figures, and are therefore more easily conceived. Hence the influence which order in place hath upon the memory. If any person questions this influence, let him but reflect, how much easier it is to remember a considerable number of persons, whom one hath seen ranged on benches or chairs, round a hall, than the same number seen standing promiscuously in a crowd; and how natural it is for assisting the memory in recollecting the persons, to recur to the order wherein they were placed. |