the way of exaggeration, whether to place arguments or facts in a strong
light, or in the disposition of actions, or of passions--for
amplification takes a hundred different shapes--in all cases the orator
must be cautioned that none of these methods is complete without the aid
of sublimity,--unless, indeed, it be our object to excite pity, or to
depreciate an opponent’s argument. In all other uses of amplification,
if you subtract the element of sublimity you will take as it were the
soul from the body. No sooner is the support of sublimity removed than
the whole becomes lifeless, nerveless, and dull.

3
There is a difference, however, between the rules I am now giving and
those just mentioned. Then I was speaking of the delineation and
co-ordination of the principal circumstances. My next task, therefore,
must be briefly to define this difference, and with it the general
distinction between amplification and sublimity. Our whole discourse
will thus gain in clearness.


XII

I must first remark that I am not satisfied with the definition of
amplification generally given by authorities on rhetoric. They explain
it to be a form of language which invests the subject with a certain
grandeur. Yes, but this definition may be applied indifferently to
sublimity, pathos, and the use of figurative language, since all these
invest the discourse with some sort of grandeur. The difference seems to
me to lie in this, that sublimity gives elevation to a subject, while
amplification gives extension as well. Thus the sublime is often
conveyed in a single thought,[1] but amplification can only subsist with