The ethics of rhetoric

by Richard M. Weaver

Let us look next at a specimen from the Areopagitica embodying not only the full syllogism but also a preparatory exposition.

When a man writes to the world, he summons up all his reason and deliberation to assist him; he searches, meditates, is industrious, and likely consults and confers with his judicious friends; after all which done, he takes himself to be informed in what he writes, as well as any that writ before him; if in this most consummate act of his fidelity and ripeness, no years, no industry, no former proof of his abilities can bring him to that state of maturity, as not to be still mistrusted and suspected, unless he carry all his considerate diligence, all his midnight watchings, and expense of Palladian oil, to the hasty view of an unleisured licenser, perhaps much his younger, perhaps far his inferior in judgment, perhaps one who never knew the labor of bookwriting; and if he be not repulsed, or slighted, must appear in print like a puny with his guardian, and his censor’s hand on the back of his title to be his bail and surety, that he is no idiot or seducer; it cannot be but a dishonor and derogation the author, to the book, to the privilege and dignity of learning.[132]

In this utterance of 197 words, every detail pertains to the one concept of the responsibility and dignity of learning; yet closer inspection reveals that a two-part structure is accommodated. First there is the “narration,” a regular part of the classical oration, here setting forth the industry and conscientiousness of authors. This is followed by a hypothetical argument saying, in effect, that if all these guarantees of sober and honest performance are not enough to entitle authors to liberty, there can be no respect for learning or learned men in the commonwealth. Thus the sentence is prolonged, one might say, until the speech is made, and the speech is not a series of loosely related assertions but a structure defined by standard principles of logic and rhetoric.

Apart from mere length, which as Whatley and other writers on style observe, imposes a burden upon the memory too great to be expected of everyone, there is in the longer Miltonic sentence the additional tax of complexity. Of course Milton was somewhat influenced by Latin grammar, but here we are less interested in measuring literary influences than in analyzing the reading problem which he presents in our day. That problem is created largely by his intricate elaboration within the long period. For an especially apt illustration of this I should like to return to Of Reformation in England and follow the sentence which introduces that work.

Amidst those deep and retired thoughts, which, with every man Christianly instructed, ought to be most frequent, of God and of his miraculous ways and works among men, and of our religion and works, to be performed to him; after the story of our Saviour Christ, suffering to the lowest bent of weakness in the flesh, and presently triumphing to the highest pitch of glory in the spirit, which drew up his body also; till we in both be united to him in the revelation of his kingdom, I do not know of anything more worthy to take up the whole passion of pity on the one side, and joy on the other, than to consider first the foul and sudden corruption, and then, after many a tedious age, the long deferred, but much more wonderful and happy reformation of the church in these latter days.[133]

It will be agreed, I feel, that the following features require a more than ordinary effort of attention and memory: (1) The rhetorical interruptions, whereby which is separated from its verb ought to be, and thoughts is separated from its prepositional modifier of God and of his miraculous works and ways among men.—(2) The progressive particularization of our Saviour Christ, wherein the substantive is modified by two participial constructions, suffering to the lowest bent of weakness in the flesh and triumphing to the highest pitch of glory in the spirit; wherein again the substantive spirit takes a modifier in the clause which drew up his body also, and the verb drew up of the clause is qualified by the adverbial clause till we in both be united to him in the revelation of his kingdom. This is a type of elaboration in which, as the account unfolds, each detail seems to require a gloss, which is offered in a construction of some weight or length.—(3) The extensive parallelism of the last part, beginning with the whole passion of pity on the one side.—(4) The suspended structure which withholds the topic phrase of the tract, happy reformation of the church, until almost the end of the sentence.

All of these qualities of length, scope, and complexity made the Miltonic sentence a formidable construction, and we are curious to know why he was able to use it with public success. The first circumstance we must take into account is that he lived in a tough-minded period of Western culture. It was a time when the foundations of the state were being searched out; when the relationship between religion and political authority was being re-defined, to the disregard of old customs; and when sermons were powerful arguments, beginning with first principles and moving down through a long chain of deductions. It was a time in which every thinking man virtually had to be either a revolutionary or a counter-revolutionary; and there is something in such intellectual climate which scorns prettification and mincing measure. The public therefore met Milton’s impassioned interest with an equal passion. But by public we do not mean here the half-educated masses of today; Milton’s public was rather a sternly educated minority, which had been taught to recognize an argument when it saw one, and even to analyze its source.

Further evidence of the absorbing interest in the argumentative burden of prose expression may be seen in the way he employs the extended metaphor. Milton grew up in the age of the metaphysical conceit. We now understand that for Elizabethans and Jacobeans a metaphor went far beyond mere ornamentation to enter into the very heart of a predication. Rosemund Tuve in particular has shown that for the poets of the period an image was an argument, so understood and so used.[134] We would hardly expect it to be any less so in prose. When Milton brings in a metaphor, he makes full use of its probative value, and this involved, along with confidence in the architectonic power of the image, a belief that it affirmed something about the case in point. Thus the metaphor was not idle or decorative merely, and it dominated the passage to the eclipse of sentence units. This will explain why, when Milton begins a metaphor, he will scarcely abandon it until the last appropriate application has been made and the similitude established beyond reasonable question.

The Areopagitica teems with brilliant extended figures, of which two will be cited. Here is an image of truth, carried through three sentences.