CHAPTER VIII. ON THE POWER OF COMMUNICATING IDEAS AND EMOTIONSCONVERSATION PUBLIC ADDRESSES AND COMPOSITION. Mental Powers embrace intellect and will-one originates ideas; the other, emotions. Medium of communication between minds-conversation: Examples of excellence. Common type of conversation an indication of the mind. Necessary pre-requisites for agreeable and useful conversation. Highly intellectual persons sometimes inferior conversationalists: Examples. Other persons of distinguished intellectual powers also excellent conversationalists Instances. Great conversational power often allied with energetic action Instances. This power not to be lightly treated-as a means of instruction-of pleasure. Its improvement by the acquisition of knowledge Frequent reflection: Communication with persons of information and talent: Conversational and Debating Societies. Similarity in demeanour and usages partly requisite for genial intercourse: Similarity in mind and modes of thinking: General society: Common ground: Professional and sectarian subjects should be avoided: Each person should contribute a share to conversation: Detraction or adulation should not be indulged Repetitions to be avoided: Bear seeming impertinences: Observe the character and position of persons in the party conversing: Humour or wit not to be affected: Facetiousness-its nature and dangers : Sarcasm-Elijah: Pedantry to be avoided, purity maintained, envy repressed, swearing vicious. Religious conversation: Suitable circumstances and times: Real religion allied to genuine courteousness: Mere courtesy may leave the depraved heart unrectified: Change of heart essential for the life to come. Public Addresses: Art of persuasion: Examples. Persuasion includes matter and manner: Matter includes introduction, proposition, argument, instruction, appeal to the affections. Character influential in a speaker: Moral worth: Sound understanding. Sources of argument: Casual relation: Example-induction, experience, analogy, illustration, disposition of arguments. Manner refers to delivery: Illustrious models of oratory both in matter and manner-Paul, Demosthenes : other ancient and modern examples. Composition: Elements of a good style Clearness: Obsolete words objectionable: Constructions at variance with the idiom of the language: Inaccuracies in Grammar frequent : Examples. Scotticisms: Synonymes: Structure of sentences: Parenthesis: Verbosity: Diffusiveness: Examples. Conciseness: Copiousness and force Quotations from Cicero and Burke. Forms of speech, illustrated by quotations. How to form a good style: Clear Ideas necessary: Outline of topics useful: Frequent composition and careful review: Pascal: Boilleau: Thorough acquaintance with the most approved works: Authors. : 328 INTELLECT AND WILL. The constituent powers of the human spirit are intellect and will. These lie not in absolute inaction, but operate spontaneously. The action of the one power originates ideas, that of the other, emotions. The intellect may not at its formation have ideas deposited in it, as so much treasure to be kept with care, and used only when the exigence of man's condition demands. The stock of innate ideas, with which it has been alleged the human mind is privileged and intrusted, as it comes from the Supreme Intelligence, may be a fiction; but man receives a power which, by itself, or when acting in connection with external influences, gives rise to ideas. These ideas are the result of impressions produced upon it by various stimulating causes. These impressions may be originated by external objects, through the external senses, or by the excitation of the affections or by the operation of reflection and association. The ideas which arise from these impressions are the evolutions of the Intellect's operations in any of those specified conditions, and have a relation to extension and time. They are thoughts and suggestions which grow out of the connection which one existing idea may have with another existing idea, or out of the working of the mind in its relation to the external world. How idea arises, or in what its true nature and character consist, may present a province of investigation in which the speculative may find ample scope, but which promises little useful instruction. The action of the will gives rise to emotions. These are the affections of the will under excitation. The operative causes of excitation may proceed from external influences acting on the will, and quickening and eliciting into effort its motive power; or from reflection, and the mutual or antagonistic action which obtains among these causes,-rousing their individual energy, and imparting vigour and ardour to them. The emotions are thus the unfoldings of love and hatred, joy and sorrow, hope and fear, and the various modifications, from difference in measure, or in the existing objects, which these undergo. The human mind is not in complete isolation. It may, indeed, have inner resources of self-support and self-satisfaction COMMUNICATION OF IDEAS. 329 which may not readily fail. Its creative energy may be inexhaustive, and the emotions emanating from its exertions, and from its innumerous and endlessly varied creations, may be indefinitely diversified and unceasing. But it dwells not in solitary independence in the organic structure which its Author has prepared for its temporal residence. It seeks association and communion with beings of kindred nature, kindred powers, aspirations, and pleasures. Man has a social constitution, and is linked with his fellow by intimate and mysterious ties. There is a well-adapted medium of communication established between man and man. Each is a ray united with other rays. Each is a link in an extended chain. Each mind has its sensibilities which knit it to kindred minds. While simple and silent animation may tend to generate thought and feeling, and thus produce mutual and beneficial action in the development of the latent powers of mind and heart; yet the ideas and emotions, which may in this way be elicited, do not come into common stock and contribute sensibly to the common happiness, till actual interchange of thought and feeling takes place by vocal utterances, or by means of set compositions. Though we are not absolutely dependent on such set communications for social happiness, yet they help it forward. The organic structure in which the human spirit resides and acts is fitted for the manifestation of mind, and the communication of ideas and emotions. The organs of speech-the powers of expression in aspect, and attitude, and voice, and the art of composition, embrace the general means by which mind communicates with mind. Thus the store of general knowledge is augmented, the development of the mental and motive powers is advanced, and their amount, according to the states of the intellect and will, and the measure of truth or error, of purity or pravity, of desirable enjoyment or afflictive privation, is multiplied. In social communication, in regard to the events in the human spirit, the primal matter is the possession of ideas and emotions. As these are the offspring of the mind, the progeny will indicate the force and character of the parentage. Social communication may arise from exigence of condition, or the demands of relationship and intercourse, or the impulse of the conception that material is in our possession, which is, or is supposed to be, valuable, and would, if put into circulation, aid, in some measure, in the advancement of the empire, or a sectional portion of the empire of human kind. The kind and quality of the material, the order in which it is arranged, the adornment in which it is to appear, the end it is fitted to subserve, and many other accidents of subordinate moment, should claim calm and deliberate examination. It is the precious metal only that is available at the mint. What instructs or captivates, or does both-what is useful and improving, is the material which is fit to be made known. It is not the tinsel, but the genuine gold, it is not the counterfeit, but the legal coin that will avail. If the material be in character indifferent, much better not to present it for acceptance; but let it remain unexposed and allow it to pass into oblivion. The channel of communication between mind and mind should not be opened till there be important thoughts and feelings, instruction and incentive, argument and motive to transmit. What, then, does this mental and emotional communication embrace ? CONVERSATION. It has been alleged that the present age is marked by its colloquial inferiority, and various reasons have been assigned for this. The action of the press is one. Newspapers, novels, magazines, and reviews gather up the intellectual elements of life into themselves. Everything is recorded and discussed in public, and subjects have lost their freshness long before friends have assembled for the evening. Disraeli tells us, that men of letters hoard their best thoughts for their publishers. The more general cultivation of music is another reason assigned for the scantiness of colloquial ability. Late and large entertainments— the playful recreations of the dance, and expedients of a similar kind, are so many devices to fill up a painful vacuity. Whatever may be the characteristics of the present age in this respect, the CONVERSATION OF EMINENT MEN. 331 literature of conversation, brief and meagre though its history is, shows that the ancients were at least much distinguished by their conversational power. They were social. The absence of printing became the occasion of imparting to their conversation very great importance. The ancient philosopher carried his wisdom and his speculations about with him, and promulgated them in the market-place-in shops, and at convivial entertainments. It was from the lips of Socrates himself in the saddler's shop that Euthydemus learned that, in order to be qualified to manage the affairs of a state with intelligence, discretion, equity, and for the general benefit, such a thorough moral tuition was necessary, as most democrats little imagined. In the "Memorabilia" of Socrates, by Xenophon, we find his philosophy in daily, continued exemplification. In the gymnasia, in the studio, in the shop, at the festive board, we observe him in his homely reality and costume-the very incarnation of much good sense. From the sayings of Cicero, as presented in Plutarch, Quintilian, and others, he appears to have been a prompt, dexterous, and brilliant conversationalist. Nor was Cæsar less so, as may be gathered from the comments of Bacon on his "Dicta." The "Table Talk" of Luther is the first work of the kind in modern times, both as to the period of its appearance and its value and importance. Various and very miscellaneous were the ana, as they were called, that followed; as the "Scaligerana," lively and interesting; the "Menageana," literary and curious; the "Table Talk" of Selden, substantial and instructive; Boswell's "Life of Johnson," philosophical and learned; "Walpoliana," flippant and satirical; "Conversations of Lord Byron," shrewd and witty; Eckerman's "Conversations with Goethe," profound and copious; "Table Talk" of Coleridge, rich in thought and lucid in expression; and "Table Talk" of Rogers, extending over a long period, and embracing notices of very many of the most celebrated men of his times, in every department of science, art, and literature, and in the various professions, civil and sacred. Conversation is the medium by which ideas and emotions are communicated between two or more persons. This intercom |