RHETORIC, the art of using language in such a way as to produce a desired impression upon the hearer or reader.
Rhetoric as an art was taught in Greece by the Sophists (q.v.).
The power of eloquent speech is recognized in the earliest Greek writings, but the founder of rhetoric as an art was Corax of Syracuse. In 466 a democracy was established in Syracuse. One of the immediate consequences was a mass of litigation on claims to property, urged by democratic exiles who had been dispossessed by Thrasybulus, Hieron or Gelon. Such claims, going many years back, would often require that a complicated series of details should be stated and arranged. The claimants also, in many instances, would lack documentary support, and rely chiefly on inferential reasoning. Hence the need of professional advice. The facts known as to the "art" of Corax perfectly agree with these conditions. He gave rules for arrangement, dividing the speech into five parts,—proem, narrative, arguments (IyCoves), subsidiary remarks and peroration. Next he illustrated the topic of general probability WOO, showing its two-edged use : e.g., if a puny man is accused of assaulting a stronger, he can say, "Is it likely that I should have attacked him?" If vice versa, the strong man can argue, "Is it likely that I should have com mitted an assault where the presumption was sure to be against me?" This topic of fiK6s, in its manifold forms, was in fact the great weapon of the earliest Greek rhetoric and it was further developed by Tisias, the pupil of Corax, as we see from Plato's Phaedrus.
Its later developments were largely due to Gorgias and Lysias, and in a greater degree to Antiphon and Isocrates (see their separate biographies). But the detailed study of the art begins with Aristotle's Rhetoric (written 322-320 B.c.) Aristotle's "Rhetoric."—Aristotle sets out from the proposi tion that rhetoric is properly an art, because when a speaker per suades, it is possible to find out why he succeeds in doing so. It is, in fact, the popular branch of logic. Hitherto, Aristotle says, writers on rhetoric have concerned themselves mainly with the exciting of emotions. All this is very well, but "it has nothing to do with the matter in hand; it has regard to the judge." The true aim should be to prove your point, or seem to prove it.
Aristotle does not sufficiently regard the question : What, as a matter of experience, is most persuasive? Logic may be more persuasive with the more select hearers of rhetoric ; but rhetoric is for the many, and with the many appeals to passion will some times, perhaps usually, be more effective than syllogism. No
formulation of rhetoric can correspond with fact which does not leave it absolutely to the genius of the speaker whether reasoning (or its phantom) is to be what Aristotle calls it, the "body of proof" or whether the stress of persuading effort should not be rather addressed to the emotions of the hearers.
His statement, that the master of logic will be the master of rhetoric, is a truism if we concede the essential primacy of the logical element in rhetoric. Otherwise it is a paradox; and it is not in accord with experience, which teaches that speakers in capable of showing even the ghost of an argument have some times been the most completely successful in carrying great audi ences along with them. Aristotle never assumes that the hearers of his rhetorician are as of xaplEvres, the cultivated few; on the other hand, he is apt to assume tacitly—and here his individual bent comes out—that these hearers are not the great surging crowd, the 6xXos, but a body of persons with a decided, though imperfectly developed, preference for sound logic.
What is the use of an art of rhetoric? It is fourfold, Aristotle replies. Rhetoric is useful, first of all, because truth and justice are naturally stronger than their opposites. When awards are not duly given, truth and justice must have been worsted by their own fault. This is worth correcting. Rhetoric is then (I) correc tive. Next, it is (2) instructive, as a popular vehicle of persuasion for persons who could not be reached by the severer methods of strict logic. Then it is (3) suggestive. Logic and rhetoric are the two impartial arts; that is to say, it is a matter of indifference to them, as arts, whether the conclusion which they draw in any given case is affirmative or negative. Suppose that I am going to plead a cause, and have a sincere conviction that I am on the right side. The art of rhetoric will suggest to me what might be urged on the other side; and this will give me a stronger grasp of the whole situation. Lastly, rhetoric is (4) defensive. Mental effort is more distinctive of man than bodily effort; and "it would he absurd that, while incapacity for physical self-defence is a re proach," incapacity for mental defence should be no reproach. Rhetoric, then, is corrective, instructive, suggestive, defensive. But what if it be urged that this art may be abused? The objection, Aristotle answers, applies to all good things, except virtue, and especially to the most useful things. Men may abuse strength, health, wealth, generalship.