The three sources of persuasion. Broadly speaking, the means by which a speaker aims to produce action is by winning sympathy for himself or his subject, - usually both. Need to establish and maintain such a sympathetic relationship between speaker and audience may come from any one or all of three sources the nature of the subject; the relation of the audience to it and the relation of the speaker to subject or audience. Beginners in argumentation are too ready to put all their persuasive trust in emotional appeals. As will be seen, this is but one of many means to persuasion, and by no means the surest or safest. Moreover, beginners -- and too many others fail to distinguish between fair and unfair creation and use of prejudice in their favor. When briefs were discussed, students were warned against introductions which state as true something really disputable. Sometimes in developing work from the brief into the speech or article, a student lets this unfairly prejudicial matter slip in something not easy to forgive. In what was said of introducing conviction by means of persuasion it was not at all implied that a student should make assertions in regard to matters in need of evidential support, but that he should find in undebatable matters suggested by the question what will prejudice an audience in his favor or against his opponent.

Persuasion vs. unfair prejudice. The whole effect of the following introduction to a forensic is unfairly prejudicial against the Jesuits, for he who passes without challenge the phrases "by clever strategy," " many of whom returned to paganism later," "such charges, not satisfactorily explained," is well on his way to grant the writer's conclusion that Clement XIV was justified in suppressing the Jesuit order. Such a method, if not detected, really begs the question, and if detected defeats its own ends, for it creates suspicion of the speaker's fairness.

Was Clement XIV justified in Suppressing the Jesuits in 1773?

In order that we may have clearly in mind the subject in hand, let us consider in outline the history of the Jesuits from their organization by Ignatius Loyola in 1540 to their suppression by Pope Clement XIV. in 1773. From almost the day of their organization they increased in numbers and influence with astonishing rapidity. In 1549 they were ten in number, while in 1762 they numbered twenty-two thousand; and their gain in influence is even more remarkable. By clever strategy they gained control of the educational system of continental Europe, filled most of the offices in the Inquisition, became the confessors and confidential advisers of kings, and were the most eloquent and influential pulpit orators. Very large numbers of Jesuits went as missionaries to India, China, North and South America, and the islands of the sea, and their labors were rewarded with immense numbers of converts (many of whom, however, returned to paganism later). In Europe the Jesuits were most prominently identified with the political events of their times. Hundreds of charges have been brought against them. They are accused of complicity in the various attempts on Elizabeth's life, the Gunpowder Plot, the murder of William of Orange, and the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's Day, and of causing the Thirty Years' War and the French Revolution. As the natural result of such charges, not satisfactorily explained away, they came into extreme unpopularity and disfavor, which led to their expulsion from Portugal in 1753, from France in 1764, and their suppression by Clement XIV. in 1773.

I. PERSUASION ARISING FROM THE NATURE OF THE SUBJECT

Unpopular subjects. Subjects may be unpopular because there is strong prejudice against them or because they look so technical as to necessitate dullness of treatment. The secondary school teacher who wishes to maintain that the Kindergarten has been a failure or the scientist with a new and revolutionary theory may face prejudice so strong that it must be at least lessened before either can present his case. The introduction to the first of Professor Huxley's Three Lectures on Evolution1 illustrates the value of persuasion when a speaker feels that he has a subject that may be dull because of the detail and technicality necessary in treating it. Professor Huxley first pointed out the significance for every man of the problems to be considered, and made each of his hearers recognize that he had at times considered the very problem to be discussed. Thereafter the lecture could hardly be dull, for each hearer felt that the details gradually developed were significant, not in a purely scientific problem, but in a question which, if not settled, would in the nature of things recur to trouble him.

Popular subjects. On the other hand, the very nature of some subjects wins sympathy at the start. This may happen for either of two reasons or both: because the audience, wholly unprejudiced toward a topic, is eager to know anything about it, or because the topic offers a presumption in its favor. The interest for the public of lectures on Manchuria, on Arctic exploration, on Shakespeare, illustrates the first condition. When a speaker treats such a subject, everybody is ready to aid him with interest and applause. When, too, a long-accepted theory, such as the Monroe Doctrine, is attacked, he who defends it has a presumption in his favor from the fact that the theory has so long prevailed. The audience, sharing from the start the speaker's belief, will be thoroughly in sympathy with his effort to overthrow those attacking the theory. The position of those who have, at different times, defended long-accepted beliefs against so-called heretics in religion or science, illustrates the persuasive value of a subject which at the outset offers a presumption in its favor. A speaker's approach to his case must, then, be largely determined by the attitude of his audience to his subject.

II. PERSUASION ARISING FROM THE RELATION OF THE SPEAKER TO HIS AUDIENCE OR SUBJECT

In Persuasion a man should feel his subject so intensely that the desire to share his ideas and feelings about it with his audience should dominate everything else. He should regard himself as merely an instrument for transmitting the important message, yet as a thinking instrument which takes advantage of everything in its favor, skillfully does away with what is not, and changes its methods as the needs of the moment require. Such absorption in a subject is possible only for a speaker who sincerely believes what he is saying.

Sincerity. Avoid anything which suggests self-seeking, self-consciousness, or intellectual pose. For a time the demagogue working for his own ends, the reformer who seeks his own advancement, the preacher who is really ambitious and self-seeking, may palm themselves off on their audiences for better men than they are, but sooner or later their insincerity becomes known. Never afterwards will the old-time power over audiences be theirs. Nothing in phrase, voice, gesture, or bearing should suggest to an audience that the speaker is thinking more of himself or of his presentation of his subject than of the message he has to convey. Rough-and-ready men, listening to a speech on some subject which cries for redress, will feel that he who evidently pauses to select and to polish his phrases cannot recognize as he should the full significance of his subject. What they want is a few sincere words, rough and ill-selected perhaps, but straight from the heart of a speaker stirred through and through with the importance of his message. He who calls hesitatingly on his hearers will never take them with him. The man, too, who tries to assume an air of belief in his appeal when he has it not is likely to be detected, as an experience of Lord Erskine's shows. In his defense of Lord George Gordon he quoted his client's words to the king: "The multitude pretend to be perpetrating these acts under the authority of the Protestant petition; I assure your majesty they are not the Protestant Association, and I shall be glad to be of any service in suppressing them," and then, carried out of himself by the strength of his feelings, he cried: “I say, by God, that man is a ruffian who shall after this presume to build upon such honest, artless conduct, as an evidence of guilt." It is said that "the effect produced on the jury and spectators by this sudden burst of feeling, is represented by eye-witnesses to have been such as to baffle all powers of description. It was wholly unpremeditated,