other two? Yet no-where elfe will he find fo ftrong a resemblance. Indeed, to the faculty of imagination this refemblance appears, rather under the notion of identity; although it be the foundation of the ftrongest reafoning from experience. Again, the fimilarity of one fpecies to another of the fame genus, as of the lion to the tiger, of the alder to the oak, though this too be a confiderable fund of argumentation, hardly ftrikes the fancy more than the preceding, inafmuch as the generical properties, whereof every fpecies participates, are alfo obvious. But if from the experimental reasoning we descend to the analogical, we may be faid to come upon a Common to which reafon and fancy have an equal claim. "A comparison," fays Quintilian*, "hath almoft the effect of an example." But what are rhetorical comparisons, when brought to illustrate any point inculcated on the hearers, (what are they, I fay) but arguments from analogy? In proof of this let us borrow an inftance from the forementioned rhetorician, "Would 66 you be convinced of the neceffity of educa"tion for the mind, confider of what import"tance culture is to the ground: the field

Inftit. lib. v. cap. 11. Proximas exempli vires habet Gimilitudo.

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" which,

"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 paffage. Now if comparifon, which is the chief, hath fo great an influence upon conviction, it is no wonder that all those other oratorical tropes and figures addreffed to the imagination, which are more or less nearly related to comparifon, fhould derive hence both light and efficacy. Even antithefis implies comparison. Similé is a comparifon in epitomé. Metaphor is an allegory in miniature. Allegory and profopopeia are comparifons conveyed under a particular form.

+ Ibid. Ut fi animum dicas excolendum, fimilitudine utaris terræ, quæ neglecta fentes atque dumos, exculta fructus creat.

* Præterea, nefcio quomodo etiam credit faciliùs, quæ audienti jucunda funt, et voluptate ad fidem ducitur. Quint. L. iv. c. 2.

Similé and comparifon are in common language frequently confounded. The difference is this: Similé is no more than a comparison fuggefted in a word or two; as, He fought like a lion His face fhone as the fun. Comparison is a fimilé circumftantiated and included in one or more feparate fentences.

SEC

SECTION III.

Men confidered as endowed with Memory.

FURTHER, vivid ideas are not only more powerful than languid ideas in commanding and preferving attention, they are not only more efficacious in producing conviction, but they are alfo more eafily retained. Thofe feveral powers, understanding, imagination, memory, and paffion, are mutually fubfervient to one another. That it is neceffary 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 demonftrative*. It was there observed, that in the former the credibility of the fact is the fum of the evidence of all the arguments, often independent of one another, brought to fupport it. And though it was fhewn that demonftration itself, without the affiftance of this faculty, could never produce conviction; yet here it must be owned, that the natural connexion of the feveral links in the chain renders the remembrance eafier. Now as nothing can operate on the mind, which is not in fome respect prefent to it, care must be taken by the Chap. V. Se&t. ii. P. 1.

1

orator, that, in introducing new topics, the veftiges left by the former on the minds of the hearers, may not be effaced. It is the fenfe of this neceffity which hath given rife to the rules of compofition.

SOME will perhaps confider it as irregular, that I fpeak here of addreffing the memory, of which no mention at all was made in the firft chapter, wherein I confidered the different forms of eloquence, claffing them by the different faculties of the mind addreffed. But this apparent irregularity will vanish, when it is obferved, 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 fpoken. 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 paffions, 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 inftruct, to please, to move, nor to perfuade. This therefore is of neceffity no more on any occafion than a fubordinate end; or, which is precifely the fame thing, the means to fome further end; and as fuch, it is more or lefs neceffary

on

on every occafion. The speaker's attention to this fubferviency of memory is always fo much the more requifite, 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 confequence in thofe difcourfes whofe aim is either inftruction or perfuafion, than in those whose defign is folely to please the fancy, or to move the paffions. And if there are any which anfwer none of thofe 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 divided the principles of affociation in ideas into refemblance, contiguity, and caufation. I do not here inquire into all the defects of this enumeration, but only observe, that even on his own fyftem, order both in fpace and time ought to have been included. It appears at least to have an equal title with caufation, which, according to him, is but a particular modification and combination of the other two. Caufation confidered as an affociating principle, is, in his theory, no more than the contiguous fucceffion of two ideas, which is more deeply imprinted on the mind

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