One can show this through an instructive contrast with modern journalism, particularly that of the _Time_ magazine variety. A considerable part of its material, and nearly all of its captions, are made up of what we have defined as “impertinences.” What our forensic artist of a century ago would have regarded as lacking significance is in these media presented as the pertinent because it is very near the physical manifestation of the event. And the reversal has been complete, because what for this artist would have been pertinent is there treated as impertinent since it involves matter which the average man does not care to reflect upon, especially under the conditions of newspaper reading. Thus even the epistemology which made the old oratory possible is being relegated. We must take notice in this connection that the lavish use of detail is sometimes defended on the ground that it is illustration. The argument runs that illustration is a visual aid to education, and therefore an increased use of illustration contributes to that informing of the public which journals acknowledge as their duty. But a little reflection about the nature of illustration will show where this idea is treacherous. Illustration, as already indicated, implies that something is being illustrated, so that in the true illustration we will have a conjunction of mind and pictorial manifestation. But now, with brilliant technological means, the tendency is for manifestation to outrun the idea, so that the illustrations are vivid rather than meaningful or communicative. Thus, whereas today the illustration is looking for an idea to express, formerly the idea was the original; and it was looking, often rather fastidiously, for some palpable means of representation. The idea condescended, one might say, from an empyrean, to suffer illustrative embodiment. To make this difference more real, let us study an example of the older method of illustration. The passage below examined is from an address by Rufus Choate on “The Position and Function of the American Bar as an Element of Conservatism in the State,” delivered before the Law School in Cambridge, July 3, 1845.