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PHRENOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF ELOQUENCE.*

Principal Campbell, in his work on the Philosophy of Rhetoric, which has long been and still is a standard guide, defines eloquence in its greatest latitude, " that art or talent by which discourse is adapted to its end ;" and quotes Quintilian," dicere secundum virtutem orationis ;-scientia bene dicendi." Dr Campbell admits that his definition is much more comprehensive than the common acceptation of the term eloquence, but, nevertheless, adopts it for two reasons: 1st, It is best adapted to the subject of his essays (scarcely a test of the absolute correctness of a definition); and, 2dly, It corresponds with Cicero's notion of a perfect orator, "qui dicendo, animos audientium et docet, et delectat, et permovet." It is plain that Cicero does not warrant Dr Campbell's very extensive definition; for many a discourse is perfectly adapted to its end which neither instructs, nor delights, nor strongly moves. Cicero, however, calls that an eloquent discourse which, at one and the same time, does all the three; and, as will appear in the sequel, the Roman is more phrenological in his definition than the Scottish rhetorician.

Dr Blair adopts substantially Campbell's extensive definition. "To be eloquent is to speak to the purpose;" and "eloquence is the art of speaking in such a manner as to attain the end for which we speak." This elegant writer, however, soon limits his definition, which, he says, comprehends all the different kinds of eloquence, whether calculated to instruct, to persuade, or to please. But as the most important subject of discourse is action, the power of eloquence chiefly appears when it is employed to influence conduct and persuade to action. As it is principally with reference to this end that it becomes the object of art, eloquence may, under this view of it, be defined the art of persuasion."

Eloquence, etymologically interpreted, is speaking out; in other words, raising the voice to harangue a multitude: and this its original characteristic has, by the figure of speech senecdochè, continued to give it a name, whatever degree of "image, sentiment, and thought," beyond what

* By James Simpson. Vol. v. No. 18, p. 165.

belongs to common discourse, from the howling appeal of the savage, through all the stages of reasoning and rhetoric, up to the impassioned yet clear and logical speech of the orator of civilization, is therein comprehended. But the name eloquence has been extended yet farther; it has been borrowed to distinguish a mode of composition and expression where there is neither haranguing nor speaking out; namely, that effusion of imagery and sentiment with which the poet exalts and enriches even his prose, and to which no orator ever reaches who is not a poet. "Song," says one of the masters, "is but the eloquence of truth;" truth to nature, in the widest, the most eloquent sense of that high term.

But the question recurs, What is eloquence in itself—it matters not whether written or spoken, said or sung,—as distinguished from all other kinds of discourse, each kind presumed fitted to its own end? The grand advantage possessed by a phrenological over every other test of the soundness of a theory on any point of anthropology, consists in its instant appeal to the primitive faculties of the human mind, to which faculties the whole of nature bears a definite and easily-observed relation. It is for want of such a guide that the theories, even of the most venerated leaders of the old school, vanish in vague generalities. When Campbell says that eloquence is either "instructive, imaginative, pathetic, or vehement ;" tending "to enlighten the understanding, please the imagination, move the passions, or influence the will;" when Blair writes, that eloquence "either instructs, pleases, or persuades," which is a translation of Cicero's "docet et delectat et permovet," but with the disjunction instead of the conjunction; the reader who thinks phrenologically is left quite unsatisfied. He derives no definite idea from Campbell's enumeration; and on the strength of the phrenological fact, that every faculty of the mind is pleased in its own exercise, he is forced to reject Blair's distinction between teaching and pleasing as necessarily different things; for they are often most closely connected. Cicero avoids this error by using the conjunction; but even Cicero's view is indefinite. The phrenologist inquires, What is it to be instructed, to be pleased, or to be persuaded? It is to have certain of our primitive faculties in a certain way affected or excited; and a great step will

be gained when, dismissing such generalities as instruction, pleasure, and persuasion, we can say definitely, that eloquence is speech which is ultimately addressed to and excites certain of our primitive faculties in a certain way.

The faculties being all comprehended in the two classes of the intellect and the feelings, eloquence must be addressed to faculties in both or either of these classes. There seems no difficulty in now seeing our way. No one who has listened to true eloquence, or seen its effect on others, can for a moment doubt that it rouses feeling; and that speech which falls short of this effect is not eloquence, whatever may be its distinctive character and merits. But speech which does fall short of exciting any of the feelings must, nevertheless, of necessity put into greater or less activity the intellect of the hearer; in other words, furnish him with ideas, or add to his knowledge, and there stop. A prelection on the facts and phenomena of an inductive science, however it may delight the knowing faculties, is both delivered and heard with all the tranquillity of the intellect, and rouses nothing that can be called feeling. The same

is true of logical deduction and mathematical reasoning addressed to yet higher intellectual faculties, the reflecting; these also are listened to without the least admixture of feeling. What, then, it may be asked, is the use to the orator of the intellectual faculties of his hearers? I would answer, Of such use, that he would speak in vain if his hearers had no intellectual faculties; but so he would if they had no sense of hearing: without the ears and without the intellect as the channels, the speaker could not reach the feelings. He must furnish ideas to rouse the feelings; but as the feelings do not form ideas, but merely and blindly feel, the speaker must approach them through the channel of the intellect. Now this is a distinction which phrenology alone clearly points out, and which removes the difficulty under which the rhetoricians of the old school labour. They make no distinction between addressing the intellect ultimately, and addressing the intellect as a medium of excitement of the feelings. When they speak of addressing what they vaguely call the passions, there is nothing in their words, nor in those of the metaphysicians on whose theories they found, to indicate that they even suspected that the passions must be addressed through the

It is therefore they

medium of the intellectual faculties. hold, and hold erroneously, that one species of eloquence does no more than instruct. They mistake the address to the intellect as a channel to the feelings, for an address to the intellect as the ultimate object of the address, and conclude that there is an eloquence which instructs the intellect, and goes no farther. Whenever it does so, we may rely upon it, it possesses not one quality of eloquence. I by no means deny, that a discourse ultimately addressed to the intellect may have its own peculiar beauties of the highest order; I only contend, that these are something different from eloquence. It has been well said of Euclid's demonstrations, that in more, or fewer, or other words, or words otherwise disposed, they could not have been so well expressed. Such composition pleases; but it pleases intellectually, and moves no feeling. It has likewise been said of Playfair's mathematical expositions, that there is in them an exquisite adaptation to their purpose, which has induced some to call them eloquent. They give intellectual pleasure, but they stir not a single feeling; and therefore it is to misapply a term meant for another thing, to call them eloquent.**

If it be essential to eloquence to move the feelings of the hearer, it is no less essential that the same feelings should be active in the speaker, and be manifested by every means of manifestation. "Si vis me flere, dolendum est primum

ipsi tibi."

If we have now arrived at a distinctive idea of that thing called Eloquence, its definition follows naturally; namely, speech, prompted by one or more of the affective faculties or feelings in vivid activity in the speaker, calculated to excite to vivid activity the same feelings in the hearers. Cicero with much propriety uses the word permovere. Assuming, then, that the affective faculties are both the sources and the objects of eloquence, it obviously follows, that eloquence must exhibit varieties of character corresponding not only to the number of these faculties, but to their greatly

*An ingenious friend has suggested, that such admirably adapted discourses delight Ideality, which feels the exquisite and perfect. If they owe their beauty to this feeling, then on the present theory, they are so far eloquent. I am rather inclined, however, to think, that the intellectually exquisite pleases the intellectual faculties only, and that it is rather to extend the function of Ideality to admit its interference.

more numerous combinations. It were in vain to follow out the inquiry so minutely; and it is needless; inasmuch as a twofold division of eloquence, corresponding to the twofold division of the feelings into the propensities and the sentiments, will suit our present purpose. One license only I shall use, and include in the class of the propensities the lower and selfish sentiments of Self-esteem and Love of Approbation; a liberty this rather with phrenological classification than with experience; for these sentiments are, de facto, very close companions of the propensities, and never fail to characterize the lower species of eloquence. The propensities chiefly addressed by eloquence are Amativeness, Philoprogenitiveness, Adhesiveness, Combativeness, Destructiveness, Acquisitiveness, and Secretiveness. The eloquence of the sentiments comes from and is directed to Benevolence, Justice, Hope, Veneration, Ideality, and Wonder. Cautiousness and Firmness have a bicratic character, and may be found acting along with the propensities or with the sentiments, according to circumstances.

As Phrenology has established an ascending scale of dignity from the lowest propensities to the highest sentiments, we are at once furnished with a coincident meter to estimate the rank of the eloquence which springs from and is addressed to particular feelings. We are presented with a critical gauge by which we can determine, a priori, the kinds of eloquence which would respectively move savages, barbarians, civilized men of antiquity, and civilized men of modern times; for it is established phrenological doctrine, that these respective grades of advance. ment of human society, are terms convertible into others that express the corresponding degree of prevalence, in a given community, of the propensities or the sentiments. The propensities preponderating, we have barbarism; the sentiments, civilization. A speaker cannot manifest feelings which he himself very weakly or scarcely at all experiences; while it is equally plain that an audience cannot be moved unless feelings are addressed which they possess ; and this is true not only with regard to different nations and different ages, but with regard to different classes of the same people. Witness the different character of speeches uttered on the same day in St Stephen's Chapel and in Palace-Yard. It is accordingly true, that we do