Chapter I.

Preliminary Ideas--criterion of the Oratorical Art.



Let us note an incontestable fact. The science of the Art of Oratory has
not yet been taught. Hitherto genius alone, and not science, has made
great orators. Horace, Quintilian and Cicero among the ancients, and
numerous modern writers have treated of oratory as an art. We admire
their writings, but this is not science; here we seek in vain the
fundamental laws whence their teachings proceed. There is no science
without principles which give a reason for its facts. Hence to teach and
to learn the art of oratory, it is necessary:

1. To understand the general law which controls the movements of the
organs;

2. To apply this general law to the movements of each particular organ;

3. To understand the meaning of the form of each of these movements;

4. To adapt this meaning to each of the different states of the soul.

The fundamental law, whose stamp every one of these organs bears, must
be kept carefully in mind. Here is the formula: