Chapter 13.—The Hearer Must Be
Moved as Well as Instructed.
29. But for the sake of those who
are so fastidious that they do not care for truth unless it is put
in the form of a pleasing discourse, no small place has been
assigned in
eloquence to the art of
pleasing. And yet even this is not enough for those
stubborn-minded men who both understand and are pleased with the
teacher’s discourse, without deriving any profit from it. For
what does it profit a man that he both confesses the truth and
praises the eloquence, if he does not yield his consent, when it is
only for the sake of securing his consent that the speaker in
urging the truth gives careful attention to what he says? If the
truths taught are such that to believe or to know them is enough,
to give one’s assent implies nothing more than to confess that
they are true. When, however, the truth taught is one that must
be carried into practice, and that is taught for the very purpose
of being practiced, it is useless to be persuaded of the truth of
what is said, it is useless to be pleased with the manner in which
it is said, if it be not so learnt as to be practiced. The
eloquent divine, then, when he is urging a practical truth, must
not only teach so as to give instruction, and please so as to keep
up the attention, but he must also sway the mind so as to subdue
the will. For if a man be not moved by the force of truth, though
it is demonstrated to his own confession, and clothed in beauty of
style, nothing remains but to subdue him by the power of
eloquence.