THREE:On earth there is nothing great but man,On turning to Aristotles Rhetoric we find that, from a practical point of view, his failure here is, if possible, still more complete. This treatise contains, as we have already observed, an immense mass of more or less valuable information on the subject of psychology, ethics, and dialectic, but gives exceedingly little advice about the very essence of rhetoric as an art, which is to say whatever you have to say in the most telling manner, by the arrangement of topics and arguments, by the use of illustrations, and by the choice of language; and that little is to be found in the third book, the genuineness of which is open to very grave suspicion. It may be doubted whether any orator or critic of oratory was ever benefited in the slightest degree by the study of Aristotles rules. His collections of scientific data add nothing to our knowledge, but only throw common experience into abstract formulas; and even as a body of memoranda they would be useless, for no memory could contain them, or if any man could remember them he would have intellect enough not to require them.184 The professional teachers whom300 Aristotle so heartily despised seem to have followed a much more effectual method than his; they gave their pupils ready-made speeches to analyse and learn by heart, rightly trusting to the imitative instinct to do the rest. He compares them to a master who should teach his apprentices how to make shoes by supplying them with a great variety of ready-made pairs. But this would be a much better plan than to give them an elaborate lecture on the anatomy of the foot, with a full enumeration of its bones, muscles, tendons, nerves, and blood-vessels, which is the most appropriate parallel to his system of instruction.
Neque porro quisquam est, qui dolorem ipsum quia dolor sit amet, consectetur, adipisci velit
