The following are short examples of the general and par

ticular divisions in classification :

Cicero's second oration against Catiline.
Exordium.

First general division: Cicero's defence.
Particular divisions:

1. Defence against the charge of too great leniency in
allowing Catiline to leave the city.

2. Defence against the charge of too great severity in
driving Catiline into exile.

Second general division: The forces of Catiline.
Third general division: The forces of the republic.
Peroration.

Sermon by the Rev. F. W. Robertson:

TEXT: "And you that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled."

Two general classes are suggested-those who are alienated and those who are reconciled. Under these the subordinate divisions are gathered, and the classification assumes the following form:

First general division: Alienation.

Particular divisions :

1. God from man.

2. Man from God.

Second general division: Reconciliation.

Particular divisions:

1. Man to God.

2. Man to man.

3. Man to himself.

4. Man to his duty.

Burke was accustomed to pay extraordinary attention to method, and nowhere can the study of classification be more profitably applied than to some of his great speeches.

The following extract from his speech on the East India Bill of Fox will exhibit his manner :

"My second condition necessary to justify me in touching the charter isWhether the Company's abuse of their trust in regard to this great object be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg your permission to consider their

conduct in two lights: first, the political, and then the commercial. Their political conduct, for distinctness, I divide again into two heads-the external, in which I mean to comprehend their conduct in their federal capacity as it relates to powers and states independent; the other internal, namely, their conduct to the countries either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who, under the apparent government of native sovereigns, are in a state much lower and more miserable than common subjection.

"The attention, sir, which I wish to preserve to method, will not be considered as unnecessary or affected. Nothing else can help me to selection out of the infinite mass of materials which have passed under my eye, or can keep my mind steady to the great leading points I have in

view."

The subject of classification is well presented in the following outline, which deserves careful study.

OUTLINE OF BURKE'S SPEECH ON CONCILIATION WITH AMERICA. Exordium.

Preliminary remarks.

Announcement of status.

Announcement of main divisions.

I. Main division: Whether concessions should be made.

1. General division:

State and circumstances of the American colonies.
Particular divisions :

A. Population.

B. Commerce.
C. Agriculture.

D. Fisheries.

2. General division:

Force ought not to be used in such a case.

Particular divisions:

A. Its use is temporary.

B. Its use is uncertain.

C. The object contended for is impaired.

D. There is no experience in favor of the effect of force as instrumental in the rule of British colonies.

3. General division:

The temper and character of the American colonists.

Particular divisions:

A. Origin.

B. Government.

C. Religion.

D. Domestic institutions.

E. Education.

F. Remoteness.

4. General division:

Only three modes are possible in dealing with the spirit of the colonies; the first mode being to change it by removing the causes of their firmness and intractability.

Particular divisions:

A. By stopping land grants.

B. By impoverishing them.

C. By breaking up their republican institutions.
D. By the emancipation of their slaves.

E. By the barrier of remoteness.

5. General division :

The second mode-to prosecute this spirit as criminal.
Particular divisions :

A. The difficulty of treating states like individuals. B. Difference between an empire and a kingdom. C. A perilous thing to be judge in one's own cause. 6. General division :

The third mode-to comply with the American spirit. Out of this is evolved the second main division. II. Main division. What the concessions should be. 1. General division :

Taxation.

Particular divisions:

A. The speaker declines to discuss the abstract right.
B. Admission of Americans to the rights of English-

men.

C. Taxation should be given up.

D. Inconsistency of those who insist upon taxation. E. The public and avowed origin of the quarrel was taxation.

F. Answer to the objection that the colonies will make greater demands if this is conceded.

G. The history of the British Constitution a safe guide.

Special divisions:

a. Ireland.

b. Wales.

c. Chester.

d. Durham.

2. General division:

America not to be represented in Parliament, but to aid the mother country by grants from provincial assemblies.

3. General division :

Explanation of the orator's own measures.

Particular divisions:

A. Purport of the resolutions.

Special:

a. The colonies have not been represented in Parliament.

b. They have been liable to taxation without representation.

c. No method has been devised for procuring their representation.

d. Each of the colonies has a Parliament of its

own.

e. These provincial assemblies have frequently granted aid for military service, and their right to do so has been acknowledged by Parliament.

f. This way of granting supplies has been
more beneficial than the direct levy of
taxes by Parliament.

B. Establishment of a fair and unbiassed judicature.
C. Courts of Admiralty.

D. Objections refuted.

E. Lord North's scheme examined.

F. Comparison between Lord North's scheme and the present one.

G. No direct revenue can be expected from America. Peroration.

CHAPTER VI.

THE ORDER OF THOUGHT.

$340. THE ORDER OF THOUGHT.

AFTER the classification of arguments, the most important thing is their disposition in an effective order. Excellence in the one is usually associated with excellence in the other, though by no means always; for the writer who is good at analysis and synthesis may not understand how to arrange his divisions so as to give them their utmost force. Of the two, an effective order is the better. The orations of Fox do not exhibit much method, nor are his classifications carefully or accurately made, but his principal propositions are always so disposed as to accomplish the greatest result. The speeches of the Earl of Chatham exhibit even less attention to classification, but the general order of thought is in the highest degree effective. Without this, even the best classification may be of little value. The writer has been likened to a general with well-drilled troops and excellent material, which, however, lose all their force unless well marshalled as a whole, and properly set in battle array.

Failure often arises from want of care in this respect. Even after the subject-matter has been accumulated and duly classified, there may be an utter want of order in the general arrangement. One paragraph or section will treat of one thing; the next will take up something that should be relegated to another part of the work; the effect of one argument is spoiled by that which follows; elegant description is succeeded by dry statistics, and the discussion of lofty principles by tedious commonplace; the force of an unanswerable argument is frittered away by presenting it in a wrong place, or by diverting the reader from this to a crowd of feeble ones. In this way the attention is distracted, the interest is lost, and the general effect is at best but confused.