Introduction to a New System of Rhetoric. By Rev. J. H. McIlvaine, D. D. [pp. 483-515]

TITE
PRINCETON REVIEW.
OCTOBER, 1871.
No. IV.
ART. I.-Introdttction to a New Systen qf -Rhetorie.
I. RHETORIC is the Art of Discourse.
The definitions which hlave been given of rlietorit are almost
as numerous as the books written on the subject. Quintilian, after having enumerated a great many of them, adds, " There
are a thousand other definitions.... since a bfoolish desire, as I
think, has prevailed among the writers of treatises on rhetoric,
to define nothing in the same terms that another had already
used-a vainglorious practice which shall be far from me."
The marrow of them is, that rhetoric or oratory is the science,
or the art, or the faculty, or the power, of persuasion. Yet
Quintilian criticises them all, and gives as his own, " Rhetoric
is the art of speaking well." Among the moderns Archbishop
Whately limits the art to argumentative discourse in prose.
It is hoped that the definition here adopted from the work on
rhetoric by Professor Henry N. Day, of New IIaven, will be
justified by what follows.
II. There is both a science and an art of rhetoric.
The distinction here indicated is exhibited in the following
particulars:
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