CHAPTER III.

OF THE SEVERAL KINDS OF ORATIONS: AND OF THE PRINCIPLES OF RHETORIC.

In all orations, the hearer does either hear only, or judge also.

If he hear only, that is one kind of oration, and is called demonstrative.

If he judge, he must judge either of that which is to come, or of that which is past.

If of that which is to come, there is another kind of oration, and is called deliberative.

If of that which is past, then it is a third kind of oration, judicial.

So there are three kinds of orations; demonstrative, judicial, and deliberative.

To which belong their proper times. To the demonstrative, the present; to the judicial, the past; and to the deliberative, the time to come.

And their proper offices. To the deliberative, exhortation and dehortation. To the judicial, accusation and defence. And to the demonstrative, praising and dispraising.

And their proper ends. To the deliberative, to prove a thing profitable or unprofitable. To the judicial, just or unjust. To the demonstrative, honourable or dishonourable.

The principles of rhetoric out of which enthymemes are to be drawn, are the common opinions that men have concerning profitable and unprofitable; just and unjust; honourable and dishonourable; which are the points in the several kinds of orations questionable. For as in logic, where certain and infallible knowledge is the scope of our proof, the principles must be all infallible truths: so in rhetoric the principles must be common opinions, such as the judge is already possessed with. Because the end of rhetoric is victory; which consists in having gotten belief.

And because nothing is profitable, unprofitable, just, unjust, honourable or dishonourable, but what has been done, or is to be done; and nothing is to be done, that is not possible; and because there be degrees of profitable, unprofitable, just, unjust, honourable and dishonourable; an orator must be ready in other principles, namely, of what is done and not done, possible and not possible, to come and not to come, and what is greater and what is lesser, both in general, and particularly applied to the thing in question; as what is more and less, generally; and what is more profitable and less profitable, &c. particularly.

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