Book I _surveys by definition and division the opportunity of the public speaker_. (i) Rhetoric is the complement of logic (dialectic). It is the art of persuasion formulated by investigating the methods of successful address; and its object is to promote a habit of discerning what in any given case is essentially persuasive. Proof as contemplated by rhetoric proceeds by such means as may be used in public address. Instead of the syllogism, which is proper to abstract logic, rhetoric typically uses the enthymeme, that approximate syllogism which is proper and necessary to the actual concrete discussion of public questions. Thus rhetoric serves as a general public means (1) of maintaining truth and justice against falsehood and wrong, (2) of advancing public discussion where absolute proof is impossible, (3) of cultivating the habit of seeing both sides and of exposing sophistries and fallacies, and (4) of self-defense. (ii) The means of persuasion outside of rhetoric (πίστεις ἄτεχνοι) are witnesses, documents, and other evidence; the means within the art of rhetoric (ἔντεχνοι) are the moral force of the speaker, his adaptation to the disposition of the audience, and his arguments. (iii) The three fields of rhetoric are: (1) deliberative address to a popular assembly, discussing the expediency of a proposal for the future; (2) forensic address to a court, discussing the justice of a deed in the past; and (3) panegyric, commemorating the significance of a present occasion. The eleven remaining chapters of this book analyze each of these fields in its main aspects, or fundamental topics, _e.g._, wealth, happiness, government, crime, virtue, etc.[2] The bare digest will show that Aristotle’s _Rhetoric_ is hardly a manual. In fact, it is rather less a manual than is his _Poetic_. It is a philosophical survey. The scope of rhetoric is measured not by any scheme of education, but by the relations of knowledge to conduct and affairs. To be comprehended, this great work should be read consecutively, for it is not merely systematic; in spite of parts undeveloped, it is progressive, and its chief significance, perhaps, is from its total development. The following discussion presupposes a fresh and consecutive reading. About rhetoric Aristotle would first of all have right thinking, conceptions large enough to be suggestive and distinct enough to be true. So the definition in his first chapter is slowly inductive. First we are to distinguish rhetoric from logic.[3] As modes of thought the two are alike general, both applicable universally, neither having its own subject-matter. As modes of utterance they differ typically in that while logic is abstract, rhetoric is concrete; while the one is analytic, the other is synthetic; while the one is a method of study, the other is a method of communication.