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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