The Art Of Discourse A System Of Rhetoric Adapted For Use In Colleges And Academies Second Edition A Reconstruction Of The Authors Elements Of The Art Of Rhetoric PDF Download

From the PREFACE. The present work is a reconstruction of the author's "Elements of the Art of Rhetoric," first published in 1850. The distinctive peculiarities of that work were the elevation of Invention, or the supply of the thought, to the first and commanding rank in rhetorical instruction; the reduction of the principles of Rhetoric to more exact system and method, both in respect of its internal properties and also of its relations to kindred arts and sciences; and the stricter treatment of Rhetoric as an art rather than as a science. The work has been received with great favor in all parts of the country; but both in its outward dress and also in its contents it invited some attempts at improvement. The principal changes in the text will be found in the more definite indications of the relations of Rhetoric to Logic and �sthetics, and the fuller and clearer application of logical and �sthetic principles to the construction of discourse; the fuller and more definite development of the nature and processes of Explanation, or the unfolding of thought; and the more exact classification of the properties of Style. A leading aim in the reconstruction has been to exhibit the grounds of all the principles of the art in the nature of thought and of language, so as to enable the learner to discern the logical accuracy and completeness of its divisions, its processes, and its properties; as the design has been not merely to present a collection of doctrines and observations for acquisition as bare knowledge, but to make practical thinkers and writers -- to put students of discourse on a course of training which if faithfully pursued shall secure to them a perpetual growth in power as thinkers and also as speakers and writers. An indispensable condition of such continuous growth is an intelligent apprehension of the essential nature and laws of each of the diverse processes in which thought may be presented to other minds. A moment's reflection will satisfy any candid mind that the expectation of reaching any high degree of skill in the construction of discourse, whether written or extempore, without separate study and practice in each of these general processes, is just as preposterous as the expectation of attaining mathematical skill by general practice in computing, without specific study of the elemental principles of quantity, and practice in the fundamental rules of computation. As the only common-sense method of acquiring arithmetical skill is by the study of the ground-rules of arithmetic, one by one and successively, - addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, of reduction of fractions, evolution and involution, proportion, -- not by general exercises in computation involving any or all these processes in combination, so the only rational method of acquiring skill in writing and speaking is by the separate study of each process of presenting thought....