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A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence - The Works Of Cornelius Tacitus, Volume 8 (of 8); With An Essay On - His Life And Genius, Notes, Supplements by Caius Cornelius Tacitus
page 46 of 259 (17%)
requires; who can find language to decorate his argument; who through
the passions can command the understanding; and, while he serves
mankind, knows how to delight the judgement and the imagination of his
audience.


XXXI. Such was, in ancient times, the idea of an orator. To form that
illustrious character, it was not thought necessary to declaim in the
schools of rhetoricians [a], or to make a vain parade in fictitious
controversies, which were not only void of all reality, but even of a
shadow of probability. Our ancestors pursued a different plan: they
stored their minds with just ideas of moral good and evil; with the
rules of right and wrong, and the fair and foul in human transactions.
These, on every controverted point, are the orator's province. In
courts of law, just and unjust undergo his discussion; in political
debate, between what is expedient and honourable, it is his to draw
the line; and those questions are so blended in their nature, that
they enter into every cause. On such important topics, who can hope to
bring variety of matter, and to dignify that matter with style and
sentiment, if he has not, beforehand, enlarged his mind with the
knowledge of human nature? with the laws of moral obligation? the
deformity of vice, the beauty of virtue, and other points which do not
immediately belong to the theory of ethics?

The orator, who has enriched his mind with these materials, may be
truly said to have acquired the powers of persuasion. He who knows the
nature of indignation, will be able to kindle or allay that passion in
the breast of the judge; and the advocate who has considered the
effect of compassion, and from what secret springs it flows, will best
know how to soften the mind, and melt it into tenderness. It is by
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