suasion attach to any subject,” he traces out these “elements of persuasion” to their root in the principles human nature.
The “sources of persuasion” Aristotle reduces to three heads: first, the personal character which the orator is able to exhibit or assume; second, the mood into which he is able to bring his hearers; third, the arguments or apparent arguments which he can adduce. That this is a correct division, we can see in a moment by applying it to any great piece of oratory in ancient or modern times. For instance, take the speech of Antony over the body of Julius Cæsar, as imagined by Shakespeare,—here the orator’s first object evidently is to inspire belief in himself as “a plain, blunt man,” with no ulterior purposes, merely devoted to his friend, bewildered by the death of that friend, unable to understand how confessedly “honourable” men should have brought it about. Accordingly, in the first pause of the speech the citizens say to each other:—
“2d Cit. Poor soul! his eyes are red as fire with weeping.
3d Cit. There’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.”
The second object is to produce in the hearers a frame of mind favourable to the designs of the orator, who accordingly awakens in them the passions of gratitude and love towards the memory of Cæsar by the recital of his good deeds, then leads them on to pity and indignation at the thought of the injustice done to him, and finally rouses them to horror and rage by the actual sight of his wounded corpse. Besides this assumption of a particular character, and these appeals to the pas-
