But these things are only for shew and amusement: whereas it is our business to take the field in earnest, and prepare for action. As there are three particulars, then, to be attended to by an Orator,--viz. _what_ he is to say, in _what order_, and _how_; we shall consider what is most excellent in each; but after a different manner from what is followed in delivering a system of the Art. For we are not to furnish a set of precepts (this not being the province we have undertaken) but to exhibit a portrait of Eloquence in her full perfection: neither is it our business to explain the methods by which we may acquire it, but only to shew what opinion we ought to form of it. The two first articles are to be lightly touched over; for they have not so much a remarkable as a necessary share in forming the character of a compleat Orator, and are likewise common to _his_ with many other professions;--and though, to invent, and judge with accuracy, what is proper to be said, are important accomplishments, and the same as the soul is to the body, yet they rather belong to _prudence_ than to Eloquence. In what cause, however, can _prudence_ be idle? Our Orator, therefore, who is to be all perfection, should be thoroughly acquainted with the sources of argument and proof. For as every thing which can become the subject of debate, must rest upon one or another of these particulars, viz.--whether a fact has been really committed, or what name it ought to bear in law, or whether it is agreeable or contrary to justice; and as the reality of a fact must be determined by force of evidence, the true name of it by it's definition, and the quality of it by the received notions of right and wrong;--an Orator (not an ordinary one, but the finished Speaker we are describing) will always turn off the controversy, as much as possible, from particular persons and times, (for we may argue more at liberty concerning general topics than about circumstances) in such a manner that what is proved to be true _universally_, may necessarily appear to be so in all _subordinate_ cases. The point in debate being thus abstracted from particular persons and times, and brought to rest upon general principles, is called a _thesis_. In _this_ the famous Aristotle carefully practised his scholars;--not to argue with the formal precision of Philosophers, but to canvass a point handsomely and readily on both sides, and with all the copiousness so much admired in the Rhetoricians: and for this purpose he delivered a set of _common places_ (for so he calls them) which were to serve as so many marks or characters for the discovery of arguments, and from which a discourse might be aptly framed on either side of a question.