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Matthew, Mark, and Luke, commonly called the Synoptic Gospels, refer chiefly to the external life and actions of the Saviour, and even the discourses have a practical character. The fourth Gospel is subjective. Here we observe chiefly the mind of Christ, and the whole narrative tends to enforce the loftiest and most spiritual teachings.

The same difference is to be observed between Xenophon and Plato in their accounts of the Socratic teaching. In the former it relates to practical life and every-day morality; in the latter the dialogue rises to the greatest heights in the discussion of abstract truth.

Other examples may be found in the poets who deal chiefly in narration, the objective being presented by Scott, Crabbe, Southey, Campbell; while the subjective is illustrated by Byron, Coleridge, Shelley, Wordsworth, Tennyson, the Brownings. The subjective has predominated until recently, when the advent of Swinburne, Morris, Rosetti, and others, has led to a reaction.

CHAPTER III.

EXPOSITION.

§ 496. EXPOSITION.

Exposition is that kind of composition which deals with its subject-matter by a process of reasoning, so as to reach a certain conclusion, through the discussion of facts or principles.

§ 497. OUTLINE OF HUMAN KNOWLEDGE.

Exposition refers to all the departments of human thought, knowledge, or inquiry. The following is a general outline of these:

I. Science. This is the investigation of positive knowledge. Under this class are included the following:

1. Mathematical science.

2. The physical sciences, as chemistry, geology, mineralogy, botany, zoology, etc.

3. The sciences which have to do with man in commu

nities-political, ethnical, social, historical, archæological, philological, etc.

4. The sciences which have to do with the nature of man as an individual being, as metaphysics, psychology, logic, æsthetics, ethics, etc.

II. Philosophy. This is the investigation of the unknown. It differs from science; as the latter deals with the known, the positive, the concrete; the former with the unknown, the immaterial, and the abstract. Philosophy treats of such subjects as existence, substance, essence, causation, the absolute, the conditioned and the unconditioned, space, eternity.

III. Theology. This stands apart by itself, with a wider field of survey than any other branch of human inquiry; for while one school seeks to reduce it to a science, another persists in elevating it to the loftiest heights of philosophy; and a third, going yet farther, calls in the aid of the supernatural.

IV. Literature. This includes the expression of all the thoughts of man-description, narration, exposition, oratory, dialogue, the drama, and poetry.

V. Art. This is the revelation of the ideal to the senses, and includes painting, sculpture, architecture, music, engraving, ceramics, etc.

VI. Technical and professional sciences, embracing all the occupations of man in daily life; as law, medicine, war, navigation, engineering, agriculture, etc.

VII. Manufactures and inventions.

VIII. Education. This is a department at first technical and professional, but which, by handling the difficult problem of the human mind, together with its disciplinary character, enters into the regions of science, literature, and art.

Of writings in the above departments many do not belong to general literature, but are characterized by the use of words unknown outside the limits of those branches of learning or science to which they refer. Every science, art, and philosophy has its own nomenclature, which is intelligible only to the few who have been trained to understand them; the books written upon them owe entirely to their vocabulary whether they shall

be purely technical, and therefore utterly obscure to the general reader, or literary, and open to all.

Even among scientific writers, however, many of the highest class are free from any considerable difficulties in this respect, and have taken a place in general literature. The great philosophers of Greece and Rome, as well as those of modern times, belong no less to literature than to philosophy; and at the present day there is an increasing number of those writers on science who address themselves, not to a circle of scientific readers, but to the world.

$498. CLASSIFICATION OF EXPOSITORY WRITINGS. Expository writings may be classified as follows:

1. The treatise. This means the full discussion of a subject. The most familiar examples of this are to be found in the works of the great philosophers of ancient and modern times—Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, Bacon, Locke, Hume, etc. The writings of these, and others like them, have taken a place as classics in general literature.

2. The essay. This is a shorter exposition of a subject, and is generally confined to one aspect of it. Cicero's De Senectute and De Amicitia are familiar examples. Of this character are the essays of Bacon, Addison, Steele, Johnson, Macaulay, De Quincey, and others. The essay often exhibits masterly exposition, joined with consummate ability and finished style.

3. The epistle. This was formerly a favorite mode of composition. The most famous are those of Cicero, Pliny, Madame de Sévigné, Lady Mary Wortley Montague, Pope, Cowper. At the present day this form of writing has lost its importance in a literary sense.

4. The editorial article. This is the production of an age of newspapers. The necessity of the case compels it to be of restricted length. At its best, it is a concise and vigorous treatment of some one aspect of a subject. It bears the same relation to an essay which is borne by an essay to a treatise.

5. The paragraph. This is a short exposition of some individual point on a subject of interest. It has been greatly enlarged in importance by the newspaper, and bears the same relation to the editorial which the latter bears to an essay.

6. Poetry. Poetry which deals in exposition is commonly called didactic, and sometimes philosophic.

Lucretius's De Rerum Natura is philosophic in its character. Horace's De Arte Poetica is concerned with rhetoric. In English poetry the chief examples are Pope's poetical essays and epistles; Young's Night Thoughts; Darwin's Botanic Garden; Thomson's Seasons; Cowper's Task; Wordsworth's Excursion; Browning's Christmas, Easter, and Bishop Blougram's Apology.

Exposition is seen in lyric poetry also, as in some of the sonnets of Milton, e. g., "When I consider how my life is spent ;" and in many hymns, as, for example, Cowper's "God moves in a mysterious way;" Montgomery's "Prayer is the soul's sincere desire."

CHAPTER IV.

ORATORY.

$499. ORATORY.

ACCORDING to Aristotle the divisions of oratory are threefold, and his classification may be taken as sufficiently complete : 1. Deliberative. 2. Judicial. 3. Demonstrative.

Deliberative oratory is sometimes styled political, as it prevails chiefly in parliamentary bodies. Judicial is also called forensic, and prevails in courts of law. Demonstrative is also styled moral, as it has to do with human motives and actions. Aristotle is very full in his treatment of these divisions of oratory. According to him the subjects of deliberative oratory are war, supplies, finance, etc., in view of which he shows the necessity of extensive knowledge on the part of the orator of such things as history, geography, the resources of nations, and of whatever else may conduce to an enlightened opinion on political matters. He shows that the principles from which proofs are to be drawn are the common opinions of what is good and evil, and that the aim of the orator is to persuade to the one and dissuade from the other.

The subject of judicial oratory he shows to be accusation and defence; the proof that an injury has been done, or its disproof. He gives an analysis of injury, motive, artificial and inartificial proofs.

The subject of demonstrative oratory he shows to be praise and blame; the arguments for which are to be drawn from the elements of the honorable or the dishonorable.

The examination of Aristotle extends into subjects which at the present day would not be touched upon in a treatise on rhetoric, but relegated to the moral philosopher, the historian, the political economist, or other specialists. According to his definition, rhetoric has to do with every subject; but it does not therefore follow that the rhetorician should discuss all subjects, for that would be to make a treatise on rhetoric an encyclopædic work on every possible branch of human knowledge.

The following is a summary of his statements as to the three divisions of oratory:

The business of each :

1. Deliberative; exhortation and dissuasion.

2. Judicial; accusation and defence.

3. Demonstrative; praise and blame.

The time proper to each :

1. Deliberative; the future, for in exhortation or dissuasion the speaker advises respecting things future.

2. Judicial; the past, for here the subject consists of actions already performed.

3. Demonstrative; the present, for here the subject is one which is actually before the audience for present discussion.

The objects of each:

1. Deliberative; the expedient or inexpedient.

2. Judicial; justice or injustice.

3. Demonstrative; right and wrong, true and false, in the subject-matter, which may be science, philosophy, religion, or any other branch of human knowledge. Oratory employs different kinds of composition, such as exposition, description, narration, dialogue, and approximates to the fervor and imaginative richness of poetry.

Of

Oratory also makes use of all the resources of rhetoric. all the embellishments of style or the forces of argument, of all

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