#it is not intended to influence people's views nor to cause arguments

[midnight-mourning]

I won’t lie, saw your post about how things are scary rn in the U.S. and… idrk what’s going on. Been avoiding it like the plague bc i’m afraid of the information i’m currently ignorant to. As someone who dwells on “what ifs” it scares me to know what is going on but at the same time i wanna know what’s happening since i live in the U.S too. Just wanted to share this. I feel bad bc of the fact that i been ignoring it, so i do wanna know what’s going on. I just want someone to tell it to me in a way that doesn’t feel like i’m being attacked for avoiding it bc i’m too afraid to learn the information by myself. But there may be some people like me out there.

Hi there, that's absolutely valid, it's been a bit of a mess and some miscommunications have occurred already (as typical always every 4 years here) and wanting to avoid all of it isn't unreasonable. Acknowledging but avoiding a subject is completely different than denial, and that's totally okay, I don't judge. I'll do my best to explain in a way that makes sense and that's hopefully helpful

Before anything else, let me preface this by saying that I am NOT a political scientist, I am NOT an expert in anyway regarding politics in the slightest, anything that I share below is based on my personal experience and research so please keep that in mind, I highly encourage you to check out the sources below for any further information. Having said that, here's what we know:

According to The Associated Press, and other news outlets, the current president elect is Donald Trump with 292 of the electoral college votes, races have not been called in AZ, NV, ME and AK.

Harris is set to give a concession speech at 4 pm EST today.

Republicans have control of the senate with 52 seats, with democrats having lost 3 seats and currently have 43. 5 remaining races have yet to be called. Currently, they are projected to be filled by Democrats by Associated Press and 270 to Win.

The house is currently still a toss up, 270 to Win projects 209 (D) to 213 (R) for 20 of the remaining 33 uncalled races. Again, 13 races are still a toss-up at this point in time.

Sources for more information:

If you would like more information regarding live coverage, as well as general, unbiased reporting, Associated Press is (in my opinion) the most accurate and unbiased source of information.

If you would like to see current projections for the remaining races, Associated Press and 270 to win appear (emphasis on appear) to have the most accurate reporting.

If you want to see live coverage and discussion, or to see how things unfolded last night, CNN did have a broadcast going last night that was free to watch. It appears they've now taken it down. If I happen to find said broadcast I'll update the post with it as they do a good job of explaining things state by state, precint by precint. However, much like any other media outlet, they can be prone to bias (left-leaning) and potentially to fear mongering. Should you seek out CNN or any other news outlet besides those above please keep in mind that reporting may be influenced in certain ways because of this.

Having said all that, here's what I personally think this means and what can still happen, with facts mixed in for reference. Much of this is my opinion and should not be taken as fact unless it's cited. Again, not an expert, just someone with a very very basic understanding of politics and government.

With the win of the presidency and the senate, republicans are at the advantage. With senate control they will be able to assist with choosing the next presidental cabinet, and should there be a vacancy on the supreme court, assist with that.

However, if democrats can take control of the house, the win will be massive, and leave them able to have some say in the next 4 years, but nothing is for certain at this point in time

Democrats potentially have at least a little breathing room in the senate, they're not majority, but only 4 seats difference is better than nothing

We've gotten through a Trump presidency before, the situation then, as well as the feeling everyone has now is exactly the same. We made it through then, and we can make it through again

The senate is only guaranteed to be controlled by Republicans until the 2026 midterms, two years is a long time, but it's only two years

Having lived through the last Trump term in my teens and remember it well, yes he managed to do some pretty awful things, but he also undelivered in several ways, we can only hope the same thing happens this time around, this would be especially true should democrats take the House

He won't be back, if he makes it through the term he'll be too old and his health won't be great. Republicans didn't want him this time, they won't want him the next.

JD Vance and so many others will still be kicking long after he's gone though, and that needs to be in the back of people's heads when we get closer to 2028

Trump made a lot of empty promises he didn't keep before, and personally I don't think he beleves half the things he says, he just says it because he knows others do believe it. Giving up hope now for a better tomorrow won't make a better tomorrow, hoping despite it all will. Giving up also gives people like him exactly what they want, and I'm not about to do that, neither should you.

For now, be vigilant, stay safe, but try to relax. Doom-scrolling, wondering what might happen, and so on, is pointless because at this point, we don't know. Anything could happen, this election is a clear example of that.

Hope this was able to help, anon. We're all in this together, and as long as that remains true, we're going to be okay. Highly recommend after reading this to do what's best for you, be that choosing to find out more through the sources above or continue to avoid it. Personally, I'm getting together with some friends this evening to study, chat, and chill and decompress from it all, hopefully you can do something similar if you need to 💜

[expectiations]

Ohh I love headcanons. Okay, uhm...

River Song and number 2?

Level 2 Headcanon takes elements from canon and explores them in a transformative way, and views canon through a lens outside the intended way it was written. [it's from this post btw]

Because I am who I am, I'm gonna bring my favorite "River is Patience" headcanon into this and include time babies because I can.

River has a secret family with the Doctor hidden somewhere in the universe. These children have aspects of both Time Lord and Child of Time abilities and have their own adventures across time and space, subtly influencing major events in the Doctor's timeline without his (or early versions of River's) knowledge.

I have, unfortunately, forgotten my tags for my 'River is Patience' yappings 😭 glares at self but anyway...

The Doctor barely talks about their family on Gallifrey, of Susan, Susan's parents (her father is his firstborn child apparently according to TARDIS wiki), of his first wife.

So what I know is based on the TARDIS wiki, which apparently got things wrong with Patience? idk i have yet to listen to the audios where Patience appears. I did get into an argument because this one person insisted that Patience, the Doctor's wife, and Patience, who emptied the Sea of Life because she wanted a baby, are different people and just got mixed up.

Patience, the Doctor's first wife, and Patience, who broke Pythia's Curse, may be different people. Or not. (e.g., the Woman who Murdered the Doctor and the Woman who Married the Doctor ended up actually being the same person).

That's the thing with being a legend. People get things wrong and mix things up.

We know River herself is a legend, is part of countless legends, is the cause of legends. Putting that in mind, I don't find it far-fetched that she somehow turns out to be Patience. Also, what we know of Patience seems steeped in legends and myths (very River-coded, yes?). Even her name, Patience, was coined by Tegan Jovanka. So she quite likely is known by another name (again very River-coded).

The following excerpts from Patience's TARDIS wiki page has held my interest for so long:

Despite Pythia's Curse, Patience wanted to have a child. She sought out experts all around the Capitol, but none could help her except the Stranger on Mount Perdition, who handed her an empty sack to fill with water, instructing her to draw from the Sea of Life. According to the Eighth Doctor, she emptied all the Sea of Life in her attempt, though the sack bore a hole. When all of time had soaked up on the shore, she found a child there. She broke the Curse. (AUDIO: Patience)

Her husband, one of the first to explore the Time Vortex, married her upon his return to Gallifrey. Together they had thirteen children. Their eldest child together would become Susan Foreman's father.

Also this excerpt made my River-coded mental alarm bells go crazy.

Patience's body vanished; the Doctor believed her to have simply died, (PROSE: Cold Fusion) but in actuality, Omega had used his control of history to take her into his anti-matter universe and restore her ability to regenerate. (PROSE: The Infinity Doctors) Indeed, the Ferutu told the Doctor that "it's not the first time you've met her, nor will it be the last". (PROSE: Cold Fusion)

and oh yeah she was also married to Omega. who else do we know has had multiple spouses? I'll let you all ruminate on it.

"It's not the first time you've met her, nor will it be the last." Who else do we know has had multiple "first meetings" but no actual "last meetings"?

"Despite Pythia's Curse, Patience wanted to have a child." Who else do we know wanted a child?

Also keep in mind that this was "according to the Eight Doctor" who is notorious for his Swiss cheese memory, so errors are bound to happen.

"According to the Eighth Doctor, she emptied all the Sea of Life in her attempt, though the sack bore a hole. When all of time had soaked up on the shore, she found a child there. She broke the Curse." Who else do we know has broken something (time and space) because she wanted to accomplish something (tell the Doctor he is loved)?

I believe the Doctor has mentioned that their entire family died in the Time War(?) a long time ago. Since we're making River his first wife on Gallifrey, we're also insisting that his entire family is alive and well, thriving and multiplying like rabbits across the universe. They have got to be masked like River used to be when meeting younger Doctors.

One last thing before I end this yapping session (isn't there always?), I headcanon that the child Patience found after emptying the Sea of Life is actually pre-Library River's child.

This may be a reach but I don't care. I love River. I love twisty myths and legends and playing with time.

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: Existence and Oneness of God Almighty: One True God: Part 5

THE UNIVERSE AND GOD’S EXISTENCE 

The existence of God is too evident to need any arguments. Some saintly scholars even have stated that God is more manifest than any other being, but that those who lack insight cannot see Him. Others have said that He is concealed from direct perception because of the intensity of His Self-manifestation.

However, the great influence of positivist and materialist schools of thought on science and on all people of recent centuries makes it necessary to discuss this most manifest truth. As this now-prevalent “scientific” world-view reduces existence to what can be perceived directly, it blinds itself to those invisible dimensions of existence that are far vaster than the visible.

Let us reflect on one simple historical fact: Since the beginning of human life, the overwhelming majority of humanity has believed that God exists. This belief alone is enough to establish God’s Existence. Those who do not believe cannot claim to be smarter than those who do. Among past and present-day believers are innovative scientists, scholars, researchers and, most importantly, saints and Prophets, who are the experts in the field. In addition, people usually confuse the non-acceptance of something’s existence with the acceptance of its non-existence. While the former is only a negation or a rejection, the latter is a judgment that requires proof. No one has ever proven God’s non-existence, for to do so is impossible, whereas countless arguments prove His existence. This point may be clarified through the following comparison.

Suppose there is a large palace with 1,000 entrances, 999 of which are open and one which appears to be closed. No one could reasonably claim that the palace cannot be entered. Unbelievers are like those who, in order to assert that the palace cannot be entered, confine their (and others’) attention only to the door that is seemingly closed. The doors to God’s existence are open to everybody, provided that they sincerely intend to enter through them.

The most important factor leading many, especially those under the spell of materialistic science and its worldview, to fix their eyes on the apparently closed door is causality. Causality leads to the vicious chain of cause and effect, for each cause is also an effect. Moreover, the effect is totally different from the cause. All things and effects are usually so full of art and beneficial purposes that even if all causes gathered they would be unable to produce one single thing, let alone their simple immediate causes.

In order for a cause to produce an effect, it has to be able to produce the whole universe in which that effect takes place, for that effect cannot exist without the whole universe. Nor can they exist separately. Materialist scientists imagine powerless, dependent, and ignorant causes to be responsible for the existence of beings and things, and thus fancy them to possess absolute qualities. In this way, they are implying (tacitly believing) that each of those causes possesses qualities that only can be attributed to God.

[thorntonkrell-blog-blog]

Adam's Invisible Hand

In the bustling town of Kirkcaldy, Scotland, a man with a mind teeming with revolutionary ideas about commerce and society was penning what would become one of the most influential works in the history of economics.

Adam Smith, with his wig slightly askew and quivering quill in both hand and pocket, leaned over his desk, the flickering candle casting long shadows on the parchment. He had spent years observing, reflecting, and theorizing, and now he was ready to present his thoughts to the world in "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations."

Adam's treatise was not just a dry compilation of economic principles; it was a straight up observation of human behavior, market dynamics, and societal progress. Central to his argument was the concept of the "invisible hand," a metaphor that captured the self-regulating nature of the market. He wrote, "Every individual… neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it… he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention."

This invisible hand, Smith argued, guided individuals to contribute to the overall good of society through their pursuit of personal profit. The butcher, the baker, and the brewer, each seeking their own economic advantage, inadvertently provided goods and services that benefited their community. It was a radical departure from the prevailing mercantilist views, which emphasized state control and accumulation of wealth through trade surpluses.

Smitty's ideas were born in a time of significant change. The Industrial Revolution was on the horizon, promising unprecedented growth and transformation. Factories began to sprout like magic mushrooms after purple rain, and with them, the promise of mass production and labor divided efficiency. Yet, tnew mushrooms also brought some poison: the rise of monopolies, the exploitation of labor, and the ever-present tension between profit and ethics.

As Smith's book gained traction, its impact was felt far and wide. His vision of a self-regulating market became the bedrock of capitalist thought, influencing policymakers, economists, and entrepreneurs. But the story of capitalism, much like the invisible hand, was not linear. It wove through centuries of innovation, upheaval, and adaptation, continually reshaped by the forces of human ambition and societal needs.

From the smoky factories of 19th-century England to the gleaming skyscrapers of 21st-century New York, the principles and poisons Smith laid down would be tested, contested, and reinvented. The journey of capitalism, driven by the relentless pursuit of progress and profit, would be a tale of triumphs and tragedies, of visionary leaders and forgotten workers, of wealth amassed and lost.

Most of the muddle was occurring in the middle which expected a hand but instead got a trickle and the slaves just got another whippin' along the way while they did most of the work.

The trickle-down theory and the invisible hand both address the dynamics of how wealth and economic benefits circulate through a market economy, but they do so from different perspectives and with different assumptions.

Invisible Hand (Adam Smith):

Concept: The invisible hand is a metaphor introduced by Adam Smith to describe how individuals pursuing their own self-interest can unintentionally benefit society as a whole. According to Smith, when people act in their own economic self-interest, such as a baker striving to make a profit, they contribute to the overall welfare of society by providing goods and services that others need. Mechanism: The idea is that through competition and market forces, resources are allocated efficiently without the need for centralized planning. The self-regulating nature of the market ensures that supply meets demand and that prices adjust to reflect the true cost and value of goods and services. Trickle-Down Theory:

Concept: Trickle-down theory, often associated with supply-side economics, posits that benefits provided to the wealthy or businesses will eventually "trickle down" to the broader population. The theory suggests that when the rich or businesses receive tax cuts, subsidies, or other forms of economic advantage, they will invest in the economy, create jobs, and stimulate growth, ultimately benefiting everyone. Mechanism: The assumption is that economic benefits initially enjoyed by the wealthy will flow through the economy as increased investment, higher employment, and greater consumer spending, leading to improved living standards for all. This theory often underpins policies like tax cuts for high-income earners or deregulation. Application of Trickle-Down Theory to the Invisible Hand:

Shared Philosophy: Both concepts operate under the idea that individual actions driven by self-interest can lead to broader societal benefits. The invisible hand describes how personal pursuit of profit can benefit society, while trickle-down theory suggests that benefits to the wealthy or businesses will eventually benefit the general population.

Market Mechanism: The invisible hand relies on market mechanisms to ensure resources are allocated efficiently and benefits are distributed. Trickle-down theory, however, assumes that benefits given to the wealthy or businesses will naturally translate into broader economic gains through increased investment and spending.

Criticisms and Challenges: Critics argue that trickle-down theory often fails to deliver on its promises. They contend that benefits do not always flow down to the lower-income brackets as expected and that income inequality can widen as the wealthy accumulate more resources. In contrast, the invisible hand's effectiveness is based on the idea of competitive markets and the assumption that market forces will correct imbalances and allocate resources efficiently.

Practical Outcomes: While the invisible hand describes a mechanism of market self-regulation, trickle-down theory often serves as a justification for specific economic policies. The success of these policies in achieving their intended outcomes—i.e., economic growth benefiting all layers of society—depends on various factors, including how well they address market inefficiencies and the extent to which they foster genuine investment and job creation.

In summary, while both the invisible hand and trickle-down theory emphasize the positive outcomes of individual self-interest in a market economy, they operate from different premises. The invisible hand focuses on the natural efficiency of markets, while trickle-down theory emphasizes the benefits of concentrating economic advantages at the top. The effectiveness and real-world implications of these ideas continue to be subjects of significant debate and analysis.

the invisible hand transforms into a "hand job" for the wealthy…how did that happen? ChatGPT The transformation of the "invisible hand" into what some might metaphorically describe as a "hand job" for the wealthy reflects a critique of how economic policies and market dynamics often benefit the affluent disproportionately. Here’s a closer look at how this transformation might be understood:

Original Concept: The Invisible Hand Adam Smith's invisible hand was intended to illustrate how individual self-interest in a competitive market leads to beneficial outcomes for society as a whole. It was about natural market forces and self-regulation, with the belief that everyone, including the poor and wealthy, would benefit from the efficiency and balance created by the market.

Economic Policies and Wealth Concentration Over time, various economic policies and interpretations of market principles have altered the practical effects of the invisible hand:

Supply-Side Economics: The rise of supply-side economics in the late 20th century, which includes trickle-down theory, argued that benefits for businesses and wealthy individuals would lead to overall economic growth. This approach often resulted in significant tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation. The intended effect was that wealth and investment would "trickle down" to lower-income groups, but in practice, this often led to greater income inequality and a concentration of wealth among the richest.

Tax Cuts and Deregulation: Policies that favor the wealthy, such as substantial tax cuts for high-income earners or reductions in corporate taxes, are based on the assumption that these individuals will invest more in the economy. However, when these investments don't always translate into widespread benefits or increased wages for lower-income workers, it can result in the wealthy gaining disproportionately while others see little benefit.

Market Failures and Inequality: While the invisible hand was meant to ensure that markets function efficiently and equitably, real-world market failures can lead to outcomes where the wealthy gain the most. Factors such as monopolies, rent-seeking behavior, and unequal access to resources can distort the market, benefiting those who are already wealthy or powerful.

Critique and Perception: Critics argue that in modern economies, the mechanisms of the invisible hand sometimes fail to address issues of fairness and equity. When the benefits of economic policies primarily serve the interests of the wealthy, it can lead to a perception that the system is rigged in their favor. This critique reflects a view that the economic system may be skewed to favor the rich rather than delivering on the promise of widespread benefit.

Metaphorical Transformation The term "hand job" in this context is used metaphorically to suggest that the benefits of economic policies have been skewed to favor the wealthy. It implies a more cynical view of how economic systems can sometimes cater to the rich at the expense of broader societal benefits.

Reflection and Reform This transformation highlights ongoing debates about economic inequality, fairness, and the role of government in regulating markets. Discussions often center on how to recalibrate economic policies to ensure that they more effectively promote equitable growth and address the needs of all societal members, not just the wealthy.

[leroibobo]

a super abridged sequel about european jews (mostly ashkenazim)

to preface: the only reason i mention dna is because the origins of european jews is a /lot/ less straightforward and easy to explain than mena jewish history is. and also because z-onists mention it a lot. i think z-onists use dna as an argument that -srael isn't a settler-colonial project because:

they think dna is a valid "claim" to a piece of land, which misunderstands both the concept of indigeneity and that anyone can do/benefit from settler-colonialism despite their actual origins (see: latin american countries generally not having great relationship to indigenous communities, also see this article from decolonize palestine), and also that not everyone who's a victim of -sraeli settler-colonialism is "ethnically palestinian" (see: jerusalemite armenians)

influence from ethnic nationalism in europe which, despite what the most "enlightened europeans" will tell you, still heavily depends on how someone looks/ethnicity, and neither the grisly outcome of wwii nor anything any european countries did after ever really "solved" it (literally just ask any north caucasian their experience being a russian citizen. not to mention the treatment of romani)

there is a completely-unrelated-to-z-onism history of people denying that jewish people are the "real jews" (remember, judaism isn't a "universal religion" like christianity or islam) because the "real jews" would've converted to (insert relevant abrahamic religion here), which to z-onists ties back to their z-onism in that they see mentions of the very real settler-colonialism as this sort of thing (even if they don't tie it to religion), see point 1

most jews (overwhelmingly ashkenazi) nowadays who aren't in palestine live in america or other european settler-colonies that aren't occupied palestine where the general attitude was "judaism is a religion, not an ethnicity" because particularly ashkenazi jews in europe were very much seen as a different "race"/"ethnicity" and discriminated against for it. (europeans can tell different types of white people apart by the distance between their eyesockets.) it being seen as "just a religion" in the us was more or less a way to be safe. z-onists today don't like this because of reason 1, and to a more subconscious extent reason 3.

people who come from cultures based in "universal" religions/beliefs where anyone can convert and be a true believer (christianity and islam, for example) generally approach the topic of judaism from their own pov.

genetics can very easily slip into eugenics if you approach it from a political point of view. z-onists ultimately misuse facts for nationalist purposes, which causes people to be reactionary and use facts against them, and it becomes a whole mess of bullshit. both ashkenazi jewish and romani genetics have a history of being used, abused, and put under a microscope by europeans for a bunch of bullshit purposes (and z-onists continue this longstanding tradition today by doing it to palestinians) and i don't intend to do that here, only to clear things up.

so with that out of the way: the story in the torah of jewish origins is as much of an origin story as any other ethnic groups' at the end of the day, but that doesn't change that there is actual evidence that all "ethnic" european jews (ashkenazim, sephardim, italkim, and romaniote) descend from people who came from the middle east and converted/intermarried with locals in greek colonies/roman italy. the oldest jewish groups in europe are romaniotes (greek) and italkim (italian) - they largely stayed in the general area, though romaniotes also expanded to to the balkans and even up to what's today poland, ukraine, and western russia.

from there it gets murky. a ton of jews moved west into areas of former andalusia and the frankish empire. from there we get the "separation" between ashkenazi (german) jews and sephardic (spanish) jews. both of them eventually became "centers" of judaism on their own right and many jewish people moved back-and-forth between the middle east and europe, and between "ashkenaz" and "sepharad", and this movement between jewish populations would continue up to the 19th century. (for example: a lot of sephardim have the surname "ashkenazi" because their ancestors moved to andalusia from germany.) there were most likely other, much smaller jewish populations who moved to other parts of the continent not mentioned and eventually became ashkenazified or sephardicized (like the ones who might've spoken knaanic).

and yes, there were absolutely converts, even if eventually not that many later on (who would wanna willingly become a member of a persecuted group). according to dna testing, most of these converts were back in antiquity in italy, greece, and even north africa (see study i linked previously) with only a minimal amount were outside of that. jewish communities in both places were endogamous and - in the case of ashkenazis - eventually bottlenecked to a point where they became more or less not very genetically diverse. they sort of became their own ethnicity in a way. this phenomenon follows a common pattern of history - pretty much everyone in the world is "mixed", some more recently than others.

like every jewish diaspora, european jews assimilated to a good degree and spoke ethnolects (ladino, yevanic, etc) of the regions they stayed in, and their "ethnic" stuff was very much also tied to religion (considering how most of their european neighbors saw them, more on that later) with a "local" twist. yiddish kind of an exception to the ethnolects in a way - for one, it only developed around 1300 ce, it has a romance substrate, and it eventually gained a lot of eastern european influences as it went further east (ashkenazi culture is similarly mixed, remember, it's sort of a fusion between two jewish groups, like many mena jews becoming "sephardicized" those jews became "ashkenazified" eventually.) it was easier to keep one language and not continuously change it if you had to move from place to place.

eventually stuff like the expulsions from spain pushed sephardim out of the iberian peninsula and to other places, and the first crusades pushed ashkenazim further east. sephardim for the most part managed to stay comparatively stable in their new places of residence (not that discrimination didn't happen, or that it never happened that they had to leave for somewhere else bc of antisemitism. i detail this more in the op).

ashkenazim, on the other hand, followed a historical pattern of exiled from place > go to place that offered refuge > new antisemitic leader rose up > exiled from place. (sephardim were also in spain a lot longer than ashkenazim were in germany - large-scale jewish settlement on the rhine only began in about 800, from then to the crusades is a meager 200 years.) yes, there were times of prosperity, but there were also a lot of bad times - and ashkenazi jews had it a lot worse - probably the worst - for most of history. many of those countries didn't really see them as much citizens as the other residents, or didn't see them as citizens at all. (immigrants in europe are still a lot of the time not seen as "real" citizens even if they've been there for generations, for example turks in germany.) most were made to live separately, forced into certain jobs (jews were mostly relegated to jobs regarding money, which was seen as jobs not befitting christians, hence the merchant/greed/rich stereotype), severely restricted in movement, and forced to assimilate until and even after the jewish emancipation. (sound familiar?) antisemitism was still very much continuing after that though, at this point (since we're past the enlightenment and religion isn't as big of a thing as it once was) because of "race science".

(a good example of the forcible assimilation is ashkenazi last names - ashkenazim were some of the last europeans to get them, before which they largely used the "x, son/daughter of y" format. the germanic/slavic last names were for the most part given out by governments because a. austria-hungarian empire imposed german names bc they were german elitists and b. russian empire gave out german names just bc they were easier to give out, but also slavic bc of the assimilation, different areas generally had different attitudes about which last names they gave. this isn't unique to ashkenazim, some other jewish populations have similar last names without the ties - for example some "kurdish" jews have last names relating to kurdish tribes because they were literally from the town the tribe's name originated from, not because they were a part of the tribe.)

as a consequence, most ashkenazim did not have as much of a "tie" to their "home countries", because most not only deeply antisemitic ("semitic" to refer to jewish people originates with 18th century german "race scientists" btw), but didn't consider them citizens for a very long time. "ties" were by an large seen as a way to keep themselves safe, even if they were "genuine" ties. a good overview of this phenomenon can be seen in hannah arendt's (an antizionist in her own right) essay we refugees. this is why a vast majority also moved to the us (and other european colonies, like south africa) when they had the opportunity, and where the assimilation with whiteness/"just a religion" attitude came from. not that there wasn't antisemitism over there, but they had an opportunity to "start over" in a place where antisemitism wasn't systemic there like it more or less was/is in europe. (and, ofc, "white" ultimately ended up applying to them.)

this is also why z-onism is super duper ashkenazi. because of [ashkenazi] history, they saw any attempt at "assimilation" as futile because it'd just happen again, and being a "jew" and another "nationality" were mutually exclusive because they were always just jews at the end of the day according to european governments throughout history. the diaspora/diasporic cultures were also something they saw as inherently tied to oppression. (and not palestinian/sephardic/mizrahi ones, which combined with orientalism led to appropriation. nothing wrong with wanting to abandon elements of your culture, or maybe your culture altogether - i think we all do to different points - but the contradictions and power here are pretty obvious.) the initial z-onists likely saw colonialism as a way to "liberate" themselves, and thought the problem was having "left" in the first place, similar to what happened with liberia.

ofc though, like liberia, they'd been living in europe for 1,000 years and were approaching it from a very eurocentric/essentialist and eventually "terra nullis" pov. (and the contemporaneous, reactionary yiddishist movements were largely the same (except without the third one) and never (and still don't, sorry to any yiddishists reading this) addressed the real problem.) many european jews initially disagreed with z-onism (it was europe who was wrong after all, as arendt stated in we refugees) but eventually because of a bunch of historical circumstances, here we are today.

so, ironically, the very thing that managed to keep ashkenazim safe in european colonies (and white-er sephardim too, ftr, the first jews in the americas were sephardic and there was even a few in the confederate government) ended up oppressing palestinians. from a jewish (as in generally jewish, this spread to jews of all stripes nowadays) z-onist's pov, "indigenous people" were who considered their ancestors alien and exiled them over and over, so why should they care about another "indigenous people" saying the same? or, more recently (and in a huge bout of cognitive dissonance), they're also "indigenous" to palestine, and rulers of other places throughout history didn't think they were "indigenous" to whatever countries they ended up in, see the list of reasons i gave at the beginning of this post...

of course, this is combined with the whole colonizer-fear-of-retribution thing and can't be seen standing on its own. (not so much for people repeating this rhetoric from, like, the us but that's another thing.) but liberating palestine and fighting against antisemitism are not mutually exclusive. we can't go back to the social relations of the past at this point, which is why imo we need one democratic state.

some notes on specifically "middle eastern" (mashriqi + iran, caucuses, and turkey) jewish communities/history:

something to keep in mind: judaism isn't "universalist" like christianity or islam - it's easier to marry into it than to convert on your own. conversions historically happened, but not in the same way they did for european and caucasian christians/non-arab muslims.

that being said, a majority of middle eastern jews descend from jewish population who remained in palestine or immigrated/were forced (as is the case with "kurdish" jews) from palestine to other areas and mixed with locals/others who came later (which at some point stopped). pretty much everywhere in the middle east and north africa (me/na) has/had a jewish population like this.

with european jews (as in all of them), the "mixing" was almost entirely during roman times with romans/greeks, and much less later if they left modern-day greece/italy.

(none of this means jewish people are or aren't "indigenous" to palestine, because that's not what that word means.)

like with every other jewish diaspora, middle eastern jewish cultures were heavily influenced by wherever they ended up. on a surface level you can see this in things like food and music.

after the expulsion of jews from spain and portugal, sephardim moved to several places around the world; many across me/na, mostly to the latter. most of the ones who ended up in the former went to present-day egypt, palestine, lebanon, syria, and turkey. a minority ended up in iraq (such as the sassoons' ancestors). like with all formerly-ottoman territories, there was some degree of back and forth between countries and continents.

some sephardim intermarried with local communities, some didn't. some still spoke ladino, some didn't. there was sometimes a wealth gap between musta'arabim and sephardim, and/or they mostly didn't even live in the same places, like in palestine and tunisia. it really depends on the area you're looking at.

regardless, almost all the jewish populations in the area went through "sephardic blending" - a blending of local and sephardic customs - to varying degrees. it's sort of like the cultural blending that came with spanish/portugese colonization in central and south america (except without the colonization).

how they were treated also really depends where/when you're looking. some were consistently dealt a raw hand (like "kurdish" and yemenite jews) while some managed to do fairly well, all things considered (like baghdadi and georgian jews). most where somewhere in between. the big difference between me/na + some balkan and non-byzantine european treatment of jews is due to geography - attitudes in law regarding jews in those areas tended to fall into different patterns.

long story short: most european governments didn't consider anyone who wasn't "christian" a citizen (sometimes even if they'd converted, like roma; it was a cultural/ethnic thing as well), and persecuted them accordingly; justifying this using "race science" when religion became less important there after the enlightenment.

most me/na and the byzantine governments considered jews (and later, christians) citizens, but allowed them certain legal/social opportunities while limiting/banning/imposing others. the extent of both depend on where/when you're looking but it was never universally "equal".

in specifically turkey, egypt, palestine, and the caucuses, there were also ashkenazi communities, who came mainly because living as a jew in non-ottoman europe at the time sucked more than in those places. ottoman territories in the balkans were also a common destination for this sort of migration.

in the case of palestine, there were often religious motivations to go as well, as there were for some other jews who immigrated. several hasidic dynasites more or less came in their entirety, such as the lithuanian/polish/hungarian ones which precede today's neutrei karta.

ashkenazi migration didn't really happen until jewish emancipation in europe for obvious reasons. it also predates zionism - an initially secular movement based on contemporaneous european nationalist ideologies - by some centuries.

most ashkenazi jews today reside in the us, while most sephardic or "mizrahi" jews are in occupied palestine. there, the latter outnumber the former. you're more likely to find certain groups (like "kurds" and yemenites) in occupied palestine than others (like persians and algerians) - usually ones without a western power that backed them from reactionary antisemitic persecution and/or who came from poorer communities. (and no, this doesn't "justify" the occupation).

(not to say there were none who immigrated willingly/"wanted" to go, or that none/all are zionist/anti-zionist. (ben-gvir is of "kuridsh" descent, for example.) i'm not here to parse motivations.)

this, along with a history of racism/chauvinism from the largely-ashkenazi "left", are why many mizrahim vote farther "right".

(in some places, significant numbers of the jewish community stayed, like turkey, tunisia, and iran. in some others, there's evidence of double/single-digit and sometimes crypto-jewish communities.)

worldwide, the former outnumber the latter. this is thought to be because of either a medieval ashkenazi population boom due to decreased population density (not talking about the "khazar theory", which has been proven to be bullshit, btw) or a later, general european one in the 18th/19th centuries due to increased quality of life.

the term "mizrahi" ("oriental", though it doesn't have the same connotation as in english) in its current form comes from the zionist movement in the 1940s/50s to describe me/na jewish settlers/refugees.

(i personally don't find it useful outside of israeli jewish socio-politics and use it on my blog only because it's a term everyone's familiar with.)

about specifically palestinian jews:

the israeli term for palestinian jews is "old yishuv". yishuv means settlement. this is in contrast to the "new yishuv", or settlers from the initial zionist settlement period in 1881-1948. these terms are usually used in the sense of describing historical groups of people (similar to how you would describe "south yemenis" or "czechoslovaks").

palestinian jews were absorbed into the israeli jewish population and have "settler privilege" on account of their being jewish.

they usually got to keep their property unless it was in an "arab area". there's none living in gaza/the west bank right now unless they're settlers.

their individual views on zionism vary as much as any general population's views vary on anything.

(my "palestinian jews" series isn't intended to posit that they all think the same way i do, but to show a side of history not many people know about. any "bias" only comes from the fact that i have a "bias" too. this is a tumblr blog, not an encyclopedia.)

during the initial zionist settlement period, there were palestinian/"old yishuv" jews who were both for zionism and against it. the former have been a part of the occupation and its government for pretty much its entire history.

some immigrated abroad before 1948 and may refer to themselves as "syrian jews". ("syria" was the name given to syria/lebanon/palestine/some parts of iraq during ottoman times.)

ones who stayed or immigrated after for whatever reason mostly refer to themselves as "israeli".

in israeli jewish society, "palestinian" usually implies muslims and christians who are considered "arab" under israeli law. you may get differing degrees of revulsion/understanding of what exactly "palestine"/"palestinians" means but the apartheid means that palestinian =/= jewish.

because of this, usage of "palestinian" as a self-descriptor varies. your likelihood of finding someone descendent from/with ancestry from the "old yishuv" calling themselves a "palestinian jew" in the same way an israeli jew with ancestry in morocco would call themselves a "moroccan jew" is low.

(i use it on here because i'm assuming everyone knows what i mean.)

samaritans aren't 'jewish', they're their own thing, though they count as jewish under israeli law.

[reallifesultanas]

Portrait of Mehmed IV / IV. Mehmed portréja

Birth and childhood

Mehmed was born in January 1642 as the first child of Sultan Ibrahim I and his concubine, Turhan Hatice. His early years were not calm at all. The wetnurse of Prince Mehmed and her son were very much liked by the sultan, who constantly spent time with the nurse's son, Osman, considered him as his own son, while he pushed away Mehmed. Raising a slave’s son as his own caused a huge anomaly in the harem and triggered a lot of rumors. Turhan could not tolerate the humiliation of her son, the heir to the throne, so some said she directly questioned Ibrahim. Others say she sent the wetnurse out of her service, who in turn complained about Turhan’s behavior to the sultan. Either way, Sultan Ibrahim became angry and his anger was directed at Mehmed. He staged a huge scene, then tore Prince Mehmed out of his mother's arms and threw him into a cistern. The child suffered severe head injuries but survived the incident as the servants rushed to his rescue immediately. For the rest of his life, Mehmed had a scar on his forehead due to this event. Although Mehmed would have all the reasons to hate his father, it is not certain that he blamed his father for the incident. From his later manifestations, he seems to have intended his father more because of his mental state and how he ended.

The following years were about dread and humiliation, as Ibrahim became more and more insane, committed more and more inexplicable things, and married one of his young concubines, whom he raised above everyone else. Kösem Sultan and her followers at one point tried to dethrone the mad Sultan to replace him with his son, Mehmed, but to no avail. Lots of heads fell to dust after the rebellion, Kösem Sultan herself was exiled too. We don’t know how Turhan lived through this period, but given the events, she could probably have worried a lot about her son’s life. The relationship between Turhan and Mehmed was very close, perhaps one of the closest during the period of the Sultanate of women. This strong bond may have been formed in the period of common suffering from Ibrahim's madness.

The child sultan

In August 1648, Ibrahim was finally dethroned and locked up by the Janissaries and Kösem Sultan. Soon the statesmen flocked to the palace to take Prince Mehmed to the Janissary Mosque to be proclaimed Sultan there. Kösem Sultan did not allow this, did not hand over her grandson. She argued with the statesmen for hours, eventually agreeing that Prince Mehmed would be proclaimed sultan within the palace, as tradition requires. The statesmen did not ask Mehmed's young mother, but Kösem Sultan, to perform the duties of regent beside Mehmed IV. The statesmen expected Kösem to prepare Turhan and Mehmed for the task ahead of them and to work together with the divan, but Kösem thought otherwise. She wanted to lead the empire herself, as a monarch.

Mehmed was only eight years old when, on October 21, 1649, he and his two younger brothers, Suleiman (later Suleiman II) and Ahmed (later Ahmed II), were circumcised in a ceremony of great splendor. As a child, Mehmed tried to grow up to the tasks he was facing, attending divan meetings regularly with his grandmother. Over time, however, the relationship between the divan members and Kösem Sultan deteriorated and Mehmed was used several times as a tool in the arguments. This made Mehmed's mother more and more worried, so she finally allied with the pashas who were against Kösem.

Relief

There is a lot of legend and half-information about the year 1651. It is so certain that no one liked the monopoly of Kösem Sultan. Over time, all the statesmen turned against her and wanted to remove her from power. Kösem Sultan's only support was coming from some corps of Janissaries, who, whatever happened, supported her. Turhan took advantage on the fact that Kösem did not have any men in the divan. Turhan, with the help of Suleiman Agha, was able to contact the statesmen and immediately gained the support of some of them. The information came to light that Kösem Sultan wanted to dethrone Mehmed and replace him with Saliha Dilaşub's son, Suleiman. That would have meant Mehmed's confinement and death. After all, when Ibrahim I was executed, it was argued that if there was already a sultan (Mehmed), then the existence of the other sultan (Ibrahim) had become obsolete. Others say Kösem Sultan never wanted to do that, only the pashas made Turhan to believe it. Nor can we rule out that Turhan herself invented this excuse to legitimize the removal of Kösem Sultan.

Kösem Sultan was finally strangled during a coup in September 1651 and power passed to Turhan. With this, Mehmed was freed from his grandmother's tyranny and could finally feel safe. His half-brothers, Suleiman and Ahmed, were locked up so they could no longer pose a threat to Mehmed. His mother and chief eunuch Suleiman agha did everything they could to ensure that Mehmed was properly educated so one day he would become a good sultan of the empire. From then on, Mehmed was accompanied to the divan meetings by Turhan, who spoke openly many times. Mehmed relied heavily on his mother's words in the divan. Once, when the pashas informed Mehmed that Egypt had not been able to pay its annual tax, the young sultan turned to his mother and was shocked to ask her that what he was hearing was true. As Mehmed grew older and knew more and more, Turhan attended divan meetings less and less often. But this was not only due to Mehmed's age.

The rebellion

The execution of Kösem Sultan was smoothed by Turhan and her advisers, the Janissaries who were supporting Kösem were accused of her death, and they were executed. Later, however, Turhan and her allies were not so fortunate and in 1656 they had to face a real rebellion. The main reasons for this were the weak Grand Veziers, the resurgent Celali rebellion, and the war with the Venetians. Due to the war people of the capital did not get enough grain, the soldiers were not properly paid, but ordinary people were also increasingly dissatisfied, especially angered by the extreme wealth of those close to the Sultan. Eventually, under the leadership of the Janissaries and Spahis, the people revolted on the fourth of March 1656.

During the rebellion, several of those close to the sultan were brutally executed, the whole capital was ravaged. Eventually, after a few days, the barely 15-year-old sultan met with the leaders of the rebellion. Based on the descriptions, Mehmed trembled in fear, but eventually took strength and asked the rebels what they wanted from him. They handed over a list containing the names of 31 people and demanded their resignation and even execution. Mehmed first tried to evade this by publicly forgiving the 31 people for trying to influence him by taking advantage of his youth. For the soldiers, however, this was not enough, Mehmed was forced to succumb to blackmail.

The mob hung all 31 people on trees next to the Blue Mosque. Among them was Meleki Hatun, whom the sultan especially loved. The soldiers, by the way, did not blame Mehmed, in fact, praised him for finally being mature enough and take control of the empire from his mother and the eunuchs.

Although the capital has been shaken by riots in the past, such a rebellion has never happened before. Not only did the soldiers revolt, but the people also stood by the soldiers as one. Everyone closed their shops, a general strike took place during the rebellion.

After the events, it was clear that the empire needed a strong leader, so eventually, the Turhan Sultan made the very unpopular but violent Köprülü Mehmed Pasha of a Grand Vizier. Köprülü did indeed soon restore order to the empire. Mehmed was traumatized for a lifetime by the event, his next years were about trying to prove his suitability and trying to stay away from Istanbul. Certainly, due to his bad memories of the rebellion, Mehmed spent almost all of his time in Edirne or on a campaign or hunting on the Balkan.

The young sultan

Mehmed was not really interested in politics. This may have something to do with the fact that, on the advice of Mehmed’s teacher, he moved to Edirne with his mother and their entire court after the rebellions. Edirne was safer, had better supplies, and it was also politically advisable to remove the luxurious dynasty from the capital for a short time. Thus, however, the reign also faded into the background of Mehmed's life, as Köprülü arranged everything, discussed only the most necessary things with the sultan, but even those he mostly discussed with Mehmed's mother. The young sultan was then able to discover his own interests, such as hunting, travel, and arts. The young sultan spent a lot of money on artists, he loved all forms of the arts. For example, he employed a large number of non-Muslim musicians in his court.

As events began to calm down and as the empire began to stabilize, it was time to make Mehmed popular. To do this, Mehmed was forced to leave Edirne for a while. Moving to Edirne revived old traditions, as Edirne was also the imperial capital for a period. Therefore, in June 1659, Mehmed and his court traveled to the third imperial capital, Bursa, with great splendor to show themselves. The rather successful tour ended in September when the Sultan visited two forts built by the Turhan Sultan in Çanakkale. Turhan, of course, did not go with her son but remained in the city of Gelibolu, and the sultan was accompanied by Köprülü Mehmed Pasha and the chief black eunuch to the forts. After viewing and inaugurating the fort, Mehmed returned to his mother. Thanks to the tour, Mehmed became very popular, so he was able to leave behind the 1656 wave of hatred.

Then in 1660, another tragedy shook the capital. A huge fire devastated, more powerful than any of the fires ever. Eventually, in restoring the capital, Turhan Hatice worked a lot. She had a huge mosque complex built on the destroyed area and sought to help Muslims who lost everything in the fire. The Jews in the area were less fortunate.

The next break in Mehmed’s life and reign occurred in 1661 when Köprülü Mehmed Pasha died. The pasha was a great master of the ruling, successfully restoring the reputation of the dynasty. Mehmed IV was by his side while he was dying. He was warned by Köprülü, that he should not trust women and follow their advice in politics. Köprülü's anti-feminism is particularly interesting, as he himself could never have become a Grand Vizier without Turhan, but not even an esteemed pasha. Mehmed ultimately did not listen to the words of the dying pasha, as after his death his main support became his mother, Turhan, and his sweetheart, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş. Köprülü Mehmed was replaced by his eldest son, Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasa.

The father

As Mehmed grew older, his mother began to send him concubines. That's how Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş became his favorite, eventually became Haseki. Their first child - and presumably Mehmed’s first child - was born in 1660 and was named Hatice, presumably in honor of Turhan Hatice. Soon after, Mehmed moved his entire court to Edirne, making it practically the second most powerful city. It was perfect timing that his firstborn son, Mustafa, was born there in 1664. Mehmed was so pleased with the birth of his son that he gave the child’s mother, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş, amazing gifts and from then on the sultan never left the woman alone, taking her with him on his hunts and even on his campaigns. Together they had at least two more children, Ahmed (later Ahmed III) in 1673 and Fatma Emetullah in 1675. In addition to the four children mentioned above, Mehmed certainly had other children (Ayşe, Bayezid, Ümmügülsüm, Süleyman). The identity of their mother is unknown, it could have been Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş, but even other concubines.

Mehmed is one of the few sultans who has developed a fairly close relationship with his children, especially his eldest son, Mustafa. Most pashas and contemporaries have explicitly condemned and despised the Sultan for spending too much time with his son and not treating him with enough distance as one would expect from a dignity. Mehmed regularly took his sons, especially Mustafa, with him on hunts and campaigns, but he also kept them with him at ceremonies and personally taught them several things, such as riding. And the fact that the sultan ate, drank, and amused with his son was especially repulsive in the eyes of the pashas, as this was considered indecent behavior.

His extremely close relationship with his sons also had an impact on the issue of inheritance. Legend has it that Mehmed’s beloved, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş, tried to persuade him to execute his half-brothers and make their sons his heirs instead. However, knowing the infinitely close relationship between Mehmed and his sons, we cannot rule out that Mehmed himself wanted to change the inheritance. Whoever was the inventor, no one supported the idea, not the people, not the pashas and not even Mehmed’s mother, Turhan Sultan. Turhan, to protect Prince Suleiman and Ahmed from death and her own son, Mehmed from hate, she always kept her two foster sons with her. If Turhan traveled, she took them with her so that Mehmed would not execute them in her absence.

Again on the battlefield

The Sultans since Murad III (in fact, almost since Selim II) have not really taken part in the campaigns, which the soldiers have received with dissatisfaction. It was a huge refreshment from this disappointing situation when Murad IV waged glorious campaigns by himself. It was clear that they could increase Mehmed’s popularity if he also took part in campaigns. Unlike Mehmed's predecessors, he did not follow his soldiers to the battlefield, but stayed behind them, waiting for the news in a safe place. But at least he left the capital and was close to his army. He also regularly took his favorite concubine, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş, with him on these campaigns.

The first such campaign took place in 1672 when Mehmed took the whole harem, his mother, Hasheki, and his sisters with him to Polish territories. They spent a few months near the front and then returned to Edirne. However, the agreement was crossed by the Polish, so in 1673 Mehmed was forced to return to the front. Again he took his sweetheart with him. This is particularly noteworthy because the Sultans had not taken their wives to the battlefield for centuries, and Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş was already advanced with her pregnancy. She gave birth to her second son on the campaign. This was the only case ever when an Ottoman prince was born on the battlefield, away from the security of the capital or the provinces.

In the life of Mehmed, the war with the Polish was the most successful. With their victory, the Ottoman Empire reached the largest geographical extent ever. After the success of the Polish campaign, the Sultan retreated to Edirne, where in 1675 he organized a huge ceremony in which his two sons, Mustafa and Ahmed were circumcised and his eldest daughter, Hatice, was married off. The huge festival was worshiped by the people. From this event, there is a fairly accurate and authentic description of how the sultan looked like. According to the description of one aga, the sultan, who was in his early thirties at the time, was a man of medium stature, strong build, with a sparse beard and fair skin that turned sunburned due to constant outdoor activities.

Then, in 1676, Mehmed embarked on another campaign — again, of course, with his sweetheart by his side — this time against the Russians. The aim of the campaign was to rule over today's Ukrainian - then Polish - territories. Finally, in 1681, the campaign ended with an agreement.

Alone

In 1681 the health of Mehmed's mother, Turhan Sultan, gradually began to deteriorate. Ambassadors write of him as "her condition has greatly deteriorated and there is no hope of treatment." We don’t know exactly what Turhan’s illness was, but her son was certainly devastated. Mehmed, when he was not away from the courtyard, paid homage to his mother every day and discussed all political issues with her. Because of their close relationship, it is almost certain that Turhan's death in 1683 shook her son deeply. In addition to personal loss, Turhan's death also foreshadowed enormous political failures and this was unfortunately foreseeable as early as 1683. At the death of Turhan, the people and pashas all unanimously believed that with the death of the Valide Sultan, the empire had lost its last strong, fundamental pillar. Everyone thought Mehmed alone was unfit to rule.

After the Polish victory, Mehmed thought that he had to complete a mission that Suleiman I himself could not do. Mehmed's goal became Vienna. Vienna which could not be taken in hundred years before, with a much stronger army, and Vienna, which has strengthened a lot in the last hundred years or so. It is not surprising, then, that in 1683 the Ottomans failed miserably in their attempt to conquer Vienna. After the defeat, the sultan tried his best to blame the current Grand Vizier, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, who was the brother-in-law of the previous Grand-Vezier, Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasha who died soon before due to his alcoholism. This was Mehmed's first very serious political mistake after his mother's death.

The following years were about a series of tragedies. The enemies of the Ottoman Empire allied in turn and squeezed the Ottomans more and more out of European territories. This caused general dissatisfaction, and then over time, chaos, executions, financial problems spread throughout the empire, more and more rebellions set in, and even natural disasters plagued the tragic empire.

The beginning of the end

Mehmed's fate was practically sealed by the death of his mother as he became increasingly unpopular. He suffered his final blow in 1687. During the second battle of Mohács, the Ottoman corps practically disintegrated due to the unsuitable Grand Vezier. The Grand Vizier escaped the front immediately. After that, the various military corps left the battlefield without an order and retreated to Istanbul. Mehmed tried to save the situation by appointing a new Grand Vizier, Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasha. Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasha was the younger brother of Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasha and the youngest son of the great Köprülü Mehmed Pasha. The new Grand Vizier began negotiations with the leaders of the corps returning to Istanbul for the sake of the empire. Eventually, after lengthy negotiations, they agreed that the sultan should be replaced. Some say that Mehmed believed his son Mustafa would be put in his place, so he voluntarily stood aside. But the pashas and soldiers eventually seated Mehmed's younger brother, Suleiman, who was thus able to begin his reign as Süleyman II after his decades-long closed life.

Mehmed initially lived in Topkapi Palace in isolation, separated from his family, but over time, seeing that he posed no threat to the new ruler, he was allowed to stay in Edirne as well. Mehmed was the first sane sultan to be dethroned but not executed. Previously, only the mentally ill Mustafa I was spared after his dethronement. In addition, unlike Mehmed's predecessor, he did not have to live his remaining years in complete isolation, he enjoyed quite a lot of freedom. He was even able to retain this freedom after 1691 when it was revealed that some were cooperating against Suleiman to put Mehmed IV back on the throne. Mehmed finally died in 1693 in Edirne. His body was transported to Istanbul to be buried in his mother's complex, next to Turhan Hatice Sultan.

Used sources: A. D. Alderson - The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty; L. Peirce - The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire; N. Sakaoğlu - Bu Mülkün Kadın Sultanları; M. Ç. Uluçay - Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları; C. Finkel - Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire; G. Börekçi - Factions and favourites at the courts of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-17) and his immediate predecessors; S. Faroqhi - The Ottoman Empire and the World; C. Imber - The Ottoman Empire 1300-1650; G. Piterberg - An Ottoman Tragedy, History and Historiography at Play; F. Suraiya - The Cambridge History of Turkey, The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839; Howard - A History of the Ottoman Empire; Öztuna - Devletler ve Hanedanlar; F. Davis - The Palace of Topkapi in Istanbul; Y. Öztuna - Genç Osman ve IV. Murad; G. Junne - The black eunuchs of the Ottoman Empire; R. Dankoff - An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Çelebi; R. Murphey - ‘The Functioning of the Ottoman Army under Murad IV (1623–1639/1032–1049):Key to Understanding of the Relationship Between Center and Periphery; M. Özgüleş - The women who built the Ottoman Empire: Female Patronage and the Architectural Legacy of Gülnüş Sultan

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Születése és gyermekkora

Mehmed 1642 januárjában látta meg a napvilágot I. Ibrahim szultán és ágyasa, Turhan Hatice első gyermekeként. Korai évei egyáltalán nem voltak felhőtlenek, ugyanis Mehmed herceg szoptatósdajkája és annak fia nagyon megtetszettek a szultánnak, aki állandóan a dajka fiát, Oszmánt babusgatta. Saját fiát, Mehmedet csúnya kisbabának tartotta, eltaszította magától. Az, hogy egy rabszolga fiát sajátjaként neveli hatalmas anomáliát okozott a háremben és rengeteg pletykát indított útjára. Turhan nem tűrhette fia, a trónörökös megalázását ezért egyesek szerint kérdőrevonta Ibrahimot. Mások szerint a szoptatósdajkát küldte el szolgálatából, aki pedig elpanaszolta Turhan viselkedését a szultánnak. Akárhogyan is, Ibrahim szultán éktelen haragra gerjedt és dühét Mehmeden vezette le. Hatalmas jelenetet rendezett, majd kitépte Mehmed herceget édesanyja karjából és egy ciszternába hajította. A gyermek súlyos fejsérüléseket szenvedett, de szerencsére a körülöttük lévő szolgálók azonnal megmentésére siettek. Mehmed homlokán élete végéig ott volt az ekkor szerzett sebhely. Bár minden oka meg lett volna, nem biztos, hogy Mehmed hibáztatta apját az eset miatt. Későbbi megnyilvánulásaiból úgy tűnik, inkább szánta apját mentális állapota miatt és azért, amilyen véget ért.

A következő évek a rettegésről és megalázásról szóltak, hiszen Ibrahim egyre őrültebb lett, egyre többször követett el megmagyarázhatatlan dolgokat. Köszem szultána, Ibrahim anyja, követői segítségével egy ponton megpróbálták trónfosztani az őrült szultánt, hogy helyére fiát, Mehmedet ültessék, azonban nem jártak sikerrel. Rengeteg fej hullott porba, Köszemet magát is száműzték. Nem tudjuk, Mehmed mennyit értett az ekkori eseményekből és mennyire voltak hatással későbbi életére. Azonban a tény, hogy gyűlölte a fővárost utalhat arra, hogy Mehmednek nem volt ínyére ez a sok intrika, amely megrontotta a fővárost. Mehmed és édesanyja között nagyon szoros volt a kapcsolat, talán az egyik legszorosabb a Nők szultánátusának időszakából. Ez az erős kapocs is talán a közös szenvedésben és hányattatott időszakban formálódott.

A gyermek szultán

1648 augusztusában végül a janicsárok és Köszem szultána trónfosztották Ibrahimot és elzárták. Hamarosan az államférfiak a palotához sereglettek, hogy elvigyék Mehmed herceget a janicsár mecsetbe, hogy ott szultánjukká kiáltsák ki. Köszem szultána ezt nem engedte, nem adta át unokáját. Órákon át vitatkozott az államférfiakkal, mielőtt végül megegyeztek volna, hogy Mehmed herceget a palotán belül kiáltják ki szultánná, ahogy ezt a hagyományok is megkövetelik. Az államférfiak nem Mehmed fiatal anyját, hanem Köszem szultánát kérték fel, hogy ellássa a régensi feladatokat IV. Mehmed mellett. Az államférfiak azt várták Köszemtől, hogy felkészíti Turhant és Mehmedet a rájuk váró feladatra, Köszem azonban máshogy gondolta. Maga kívánta vezetni a birodalmat, egyeduralkodóként.

Mehmed mindössze nyolc éves volt, mikor  1649. október 21-én két öccsével, Szulejmánnal (későbbi II. Szulejmán) és Ahmeddel (későbbi II. Ahmed) együtt hatalmas pompa övezte szertartás során körülmetélték. Mehmed gyermekként igyekezett helyt állni a rá nehezedő feladatok elvégzésében, rendszeresen vett részt a divan üléseken nagyanyjával. Idővel azonban egyre jobban elmérgesedett a viszony a divan tagok és Köszem között és Mehmedet is többször eszközként használták ezen viták során. Ez egyre jobban aggasztotta Mehmed édesanyját is, így végül a pasákkal kezdett szövetkezni Köszem ellen.

Fellélgezés

Sok a legenda és félinformáció az 1651-es évről. Annyi bizonyos, hogy Köszem egyeduralma senkinek sem tetszett. Idővel az összes államférfi Köszem ellen fordult és el akarták őt távolítani a hatalom közeléből. Köszem egyetlen támasza a janicsárok néhány hadteste volt, akiknek bármi történt is, élvezhette a támogatását. Köszemnek nem lévén embere a divánban, Turhan előnybe került. Turhan ugyanis Szulejmán Aga, a főeunuch, segítségével kapcsolatba kerülhetett az államférfiakkal és néhányuk támogatását azonnal megszerezte. Olyan információk keltek szárnyra, melyek szerint Köszem szultána trónfosztani kívánta Mehmedet és helyére Szulejmán herceget akarta ültetni. Ez egyet jelentett volna Mehmed elzárásával és halálával. Hiszen Ibrahim kivégzésekor is arra hivatkoztak, hogy ha már van egy szultán (Mehmed), akkor a másik szultán (Ibrahim) léte okafogyottá vált. Mások szerint Köszem sosem akart ilyet tenni, csak a pasák hiteték el Turhannal. Azt sem zárhatjuk ki, hogy maga Turhan találta ki ezt, hogy legitimizálja Köszem eltávolítását.

Köszem szultánát végül egy puccs során 1651 szeptemberében megfojtották és a hatalom Turhan Haticére szállt. Ezzel Mehmed felszabadult nagyanyja zsarnoksága alól és végre biztonságban érezhette magát. Féltestvéreit, Szulejmánt és Ahmedet elzárták, így nem jelenthettek veszélyt többé Mehmedre. Édesanyja és a fő eunuch Szulejmán aga mindent megtettek, hogy Mehmed megfelelő oktatásban részesüljön és egy nap jó szultánja legyen a birodalomnak. Innentől kezdve Mehmedet Turhan kísérte a diván ülésekre, aki sokszor nyíltan felszólalt. Mehmed nagyban támaszkodott édesanyja szavaira a divánban. Egyszer, mikor a pasák arról tájékoztatták Mehmedet, hogy Egyiptom nem volt képes befizetni az éves adóját, a fiatal szultán anyjához fordult és döbbenten kérdezte anyját, hogy igaz e amit hall. Ahogy Mehmed idősödött és egyre többet tudott, Turhan mind ritkábban vett részt a divan ülésein. Ám ennek nem Mehmed kora volt az egyetlen oka.

A lázadás

Köszem szultána kivégzését Turhan és tanácsadói könnyedén elsimították, a Köszemet támogató janicsárokat tették felelőssé az események miatt, és őket végezték ki. Később viszont nem voltak ilyen szerencsések és 1656-ben valódi lázadással kellett szembenézniük. Ennek legnagyobb oka a gyenge nagyvezírek, az újjáéledő Celeli lázadás és a velenceiekkel vívott háború voltak. A körülmények miatt nem jutott elég gabona a fővárosba, a katonák nem kaptak rendesen fizetést, de az egyszerű emberek is egyre elégedetlenebbek voltak, különösen dühítette őket a szultánhoz közelállók extrém gazdagsága. Végül a janicsárok és szpáhik vezetésével a nép fellázadt 1656 március negyedikén.

A lázadás során a szultánhoz közelállók közül többeket brutálisan kivégeztek, az egész fővárost feldúlták. Végül néhány nap után a lázadó elérték, hogy az alig 15 éves szultán találkozzon velük. A leírások alapján Mehmed reszketett félelmében, de végül erőt vett magán és megkérdezte a lázadókat, hogy mit akarnak tőle. Erre azok átnyújtottak egy 31 ember nevét tartamazó listát, és lemondásukat, sőt kivégzésüket követelték. Mehmed először úgy próbált kibújni ez alól, hogy nyilvánosan megbocsátotta a 31 embernek, amiért ifjú korát kihasználva befolyásolni próbálták. A katonáknak viszont ez nem volt elég, Mehmed kénytelen volt engedni a zsarolásnak.

A csőcselék mind a 31 embert a Kék Mecset mellett felakasztotta egy egy fára. Köztük volt Meleki Hatun is, akit a szultán különösen szeretett. A katonák egyébként Mehmedet nem hibáztatták, sőt méltatták, amiért végre elég érett és átveheti a birodalom irányítását anyjától és az eunuchoktól.

Bár korábban is rázták meg lázadások a fővárost, ehhez fogható még sosem történt. Nem csak a katonák lázadtak fel, a nép is egy emberként állt ki a katonák mellett és állt be mögéjük. Mindenki bezárta boltjait, általános sztrájk lépett érvénybe a lázadás idejére.

Az események után egyértelmű volt, hogy egy erőskezű vezetőre van szüksége a birodalomnak, így végül Turhan szultána megtette az igen népszerűtlen, de erőskezű Köprülü Mehmed Pasát nagyvezírnek. Köprülü valóban hamarosan rendbeszedte a birodalmat. Mehmedet egy életre traumatizálta az esemény, következő évei arról szóltak, hogy igyekezett bizonyítani alkalmasságát és igyekezett távol maradni Isztambultól. Minden bizonnyal a lázadás okozta rossz emlékei miatt töltötte Mehmed szinte minden idejét Edirnében, hadjáraton vagy a Balkánon vadászatokkal.

A fiatal szultán

Mehmedet nem igazán érdekelte a politika. Ennek alighanem köze lehet ahhoz, hogy Mehmed tanítójának tanácsára a lázadások után Mehmed édesanyjával és egész udvartartásukkal együtt Edirnébe költözött. Edirne biztonságosabb volt, jobb volt az ellátás, és politikai szempontból is tanácsos volt kis időre eltávolítani a fényűző dinasztiát a fővárosból. Így viszont az uralkodás is háttérbeszorult Mehmed életében, hiszen Köprülü intézett mindent, csak a legszükségesebb dolgokat vitatta meg a szultánnal, de még ezeket is inkább annak anyjával tárgyalta. A fiatal szultán ekkor fedezhette fel saját érdeklődési területeit, így a vadászatot, utazást és művészeteket. Az ifjú szultán rengeteget költött művészekre, imádta a művészetek minden formáját. Nagy számban alkalmazott például udvarában nem muszlim zenészeket is.

Ahogy az események kezdtek nyugalmasabbá válni és ahogy a birodalom kezdett stabilizálódni, ideje volt Mehmedet megkedveltetni a néppel. Ehhez pedig Mehmed egy időre kénytelen volt elhagyni Edirnét. Az Edirnébe költözés felélesztette a régi hagyományokat, ugyanis Edirne is volt egy ideig a birodalmi főváros. Ezért 1659 júniusában a harmadik birodalmi fővárosba, Bursába is elutaztak hatalmas pompával, hogy megmutassák magukat. A meglehetősen sikeres körút szeptemberben zárult, amikor a Turhan szultána által Çanakkaleban építtetett két erődöt tekintette meg a szultán. Turhan természetesen nem tartott fiával, hanem Gelibolu városában maradt, a szultánt pedig kísérete mellett Köprülü Mehmed Pasa és a fő fekete eunuch kísérte az erődhöz. Az erőd megtekintése és felavatása után Mehmed visszatért anyjához. A körútnak köszönhetően Mehmed igen népszerű lett, így maga mögött hagyhatta az 1656-os gyűlölethullámot.

1660-ban aztán újabb tragédia rázta meg a fővárost. Hatalmas tűzvész pusztított, hatalmasabb, mint az addigi tüzek bármelyike. Végül sikerült helyreállítani a fővárost, Turhan Hatice hatalmas mecsetkomplexumot építtetett az elpusztult területen és igyekeztek megsegíteni a tűzvészben mindenüket elveszítő muszlimokat. A területen élő zsidók kevésbé voltak szerencsések.

Mehmed életében és uralkodásában a következő törés 1661-ben következett be, mikor meghalt Köprülü Mehmed Pasa. A pasa remekül irányította a birdalmat, sikerrel állította vissza a dinasztia hírnevét. Halálos ágyánál is mellette volt IV. Mehmed, akit Köüprülü figyelmeztetett, hogy nem szabad a nőkben bíznia és az ő tanácsaikat követni a politikában. Köprülü nőellenessége különösen érdekes, hiszen ő maga Turhan nélkül sohasem válhatott volna nagyvezírré, de még csak megbecsült pasává sem. Mehmed végül nem hallgatott a haldokló pasa szavaira, hiszen halála után fő támasza édesanyja, Turhan és kedvese, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş lettek. Köprülü Mehmed helyére pedig annak idősebb fiát, Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasát nevezte ki.

A családapa

Mehmed, ahogy egyre idősebb lett édesanyja elkezdett hozzá ágyasokat küldeni, így került hozzá Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş is, aki végül Mehmed Haszekije és kedvence lett. Első gyermekük - és feltehetőleg Mehmed első gyermeke is - 1660-ban jött világra és a Hatice nevet kapta, vélhetően Turhan Hatice tiszteletére. Mehmed nemsokkal később az egész udvartartását áthelyezte Edirnébe, ezzel gyakorlatilag mintegy második fővárossá tette meg az általa annyira kedvelt várost. Tökéletes időzítés volt, hogy elsőszülött fia, Musztafa itt látta meg a napvilágot 1664-ben. Mehmed annyira örült fia születésének, hogy elképesztő ajándékokkal halmozta el a gyermek anyját, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüşt és innentől kezdve a szultán sosem hagyta magára a nőt, magával vitte a vadászataira, sőt hadjárataira is. Együtt még legalább két gyermekük született, Ahmed (későbbi III. Ahmed) 1673-ban és Fatma Emetullah 1675-ben. Mehmednek a fent említett négy gyermeken kívül bizonyosan voltak más gyermekei (Ayşe, Bayezid, Ümmügülsüm, Süleyman). Az ő anyjuk kiléte ismeretlen, lehetett Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş is, de akár más ágyasok is.

Mehmed azon kevés szultánok közé tartozik, aki meglehetősen szoros kapcsolatot alakított ki gyermekeivel, különösen lgidősebb fiával, Musztafával. A legtöbb pasa és kortárs kifejezetten elítélte és lenézte a szultánt, amiért az túl sok időt tölt fiával és nem viselkedik vele elég távolságtartón, ahogy egy méltóságosságtól elvárható lenne. Mehmed rendszeresen vitte magával fiait - különösen Musztáfát - vadászataira, hadjárataira, de a ceremóniákon is maga mellett tartotta és több dologra személyesen ő tanította meg őket, így például lovagolni is. Az pedig, hogy a szultán együtt evett, ivott és mulatott fiával kifejezetten taszító volt a pasák szemében, hiszen ezt illetlen viselkedésnek tartották.

Extrém szoros viszonya fiaival a trónöröklés kérdésére is hatással volt. A legenda úgy tartja, hogy Mehmedet kedvese, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş szultána igyekezett meggyőzni arról, hogy végeztesse ki elzárva tartott féltestvéreit és helyettük fiaikat tegye meg örökösének. Ismerve azonban a Mehmed és fiai közt fennálló végtelenül szoros viszonyt, nem zárhatjuk ki, hogy maga Mehmed kívánta megváltoztatni az öröklést. Akárki is volt a kifundálója, senki sem támogatta az ötletet, sem a nép, sem a pasák és Mehmed anyja, Turhan szultána sem. Turhan, hogy megóvja Szulejmán és Ahmed hercegeket a haláltól, fiát pedig a bukástól, mindig maga mellett tartotta két nevelt fiát. Ha Turhan utazott, magával vitte őket, nehogy távollétében Mehmed kivégeztesse őket.

Újra a harctéren

A szultánok III. Murad óta (sőt igazából szinte II. Szelim óta) nem igazán vettek részt a hadjáratokon, amit a katonák elégedetlenül fogadtak. Hatalmas felüdülést jelentett ebből a kiábrándító helyzetből IV. Murad uralma, aki dicső hadjáratokat folytatott. Egyértelmű volt tehát, hogy növelni tudnák Mehmed népszerűségét, ha ő is részt vesz a hadjáratokon. Mehmed elődeivel ellentétben nem követte katonáit a harctérre, hanem tőlük hátramaradva, egy biztonságos helyen várta a híreket. Ezekre a hadjáratokra rendszeresen magával vitte kedvenc ágyasát, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüşt is.

Az első ilyen hadjáratra 1672-ben került sor, mikor Mehmed az egész háremét, anyját, Haszekijét, testvéreit is magával vitte a lengyel területekre. Néhány hónapot töltöttek a front közelében, majd visszatértek Edirnébe. A megkötött egyezséget azonban a lengyelek keresztülhúzták, így 1673-ban Mehmed kénytelen volt visszatérni a frontra és magával vitte kedvesét is. Ez azért különösen említésre méltó, mert azontúl, hogy a szultánok évszázadok óta nem vitték harctérre asszonyaikat, Emetullah Rabia Gülnüş már előrehaladott terhes volt második fiával, akit végül a hadjáraton szült meg. Ez a valaha volt egyetlen olyan eset, amikor egy oszmán herceg a hadszíntéren született meg, távol a főváros vagy a provinciák biztonságától.

Mehmed életében a lengyelekkel vívott háború volt a legsikeresebb, győzelmükkel az Oszmán Birodalom elérte valaha volt legnagyobb földrajzi kiterjedését. A lengyel hadjárat sikere után a szultán Edirnébe vonult vissza, ahol 1675-ben hatalmas ünnepséget szervezett, melyen két fiát Musztafát és Ahmedet körülmetélték, legidősebb lányát Haticét pedig kiházasította. A hatalmas fesztivált imádták az emberek és innen maradt ránk egy meglehetősen pontos és hiteles leírás arról, hogy maga a szultán hogyan nézett ki. Az egyik aga leírása alapján a szultán - aki ekkor harmincas éveinek elején járt - közepes termetű, erős testalkatú férfi volt, ritkás szakállal és világos bőrrel, mely az állandó szabadtéri tevékenységek miatt napbarnítottba fordult.

1676-ban aztán Mehmed újabb hadjáratra indult - természetesen ismét kedvesével az oldalán -, ezúttal az oroszokkal kívánt megmérkőzni. A hadjárat célja az mai ukrán - akkori lengyel - területek feletti uralom volt. Végül 1681-ben megállapodással zárult le a hadjárat.

Egyedül

Mehmed édesanyjának, Turhan szultánának egészsége 1681-ben fokozatosan romlásnak indult. Követek úgy írnak róla, hogy "állapota nagyon leromlott és nincs remény kezelésre". Nem tudjuk, hogy pontosan mi volt Turhan betegsége, de fiát minden bizonnyal megviselte a helyzet. Mehmed, amikor nem volt távol az udvartól, minden nap tiszteletét tette anyjánál és megvitatott vele minden politikai témát. Szoros viszonyuk miatt, szinte biztosra vehető, hogy Turhan 1683-as halála mélyen megrázta fiát. A személyes veszteségen túl hatalmas politikai kudarcokat is előrevetített Turhan halála és ez sajnos már 1683-ban előre látható volt. Turhan halálakor a nép és pasák mind egyöntetűen úgy gondolták, hogy a valide szultána halálával a birodalom elvesztette utolsó erős, alappillérét. Mindenki úgy gondolta, Mehmed egyedül alkalmatlan az uralkodásra.

Mehmed a lengyel győzelem után úgy gondolta, hogy be kell teljesíteni azt a küldetést, amit maga I. Szulejmán sem tudott megtenni. Mehmed célja Bécs lett. Az a Bécs, amit bő száz évvel korábban sem tudtak bevenni, jóval erősebb hadsereggel és az a Bécs, amely az elmúlt mintegy száz évben rengeteget erősödött. Nem meglepő hát, hogy 1683-ban az oszmánok csúfosan belebuktak a Bécs meghódítására tett kísérletükbe. A vereség után a szultán mindent igyekezett az aktuális nagyvezírre, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasára kenni, aki az alkoholizmusa miatt nem sokkal előbb meghalt Köprülüzade Fazıl Ahmed Pasa sógora volt. Ez volt Mehmed első igen súlyos politikai hibája anyja halála után.

A következő évek a sorozatos tragédiákról szóltak. Az Oszmán Birodalom ellenségei sorra fogtak össze egymással és szorították egyre kintebb az oszmánokat az európai területekről. Ez általános elégedetlenséget okozott, majd idővel káosz, kivégzések, anyagi problémák terjedtek el mindenhol a birodalomban, egyre több lázadás indult útjára és még természeti katasztrófák is sújtották a tragikus helyzetben lévő birodalmat.

A vég kezdete

Gyakorlatilag már anyja halálával megpecsételődött Mehmed sorsa, egyre népszerűtlenebb lett, a végső csapást pedig 1687-ben szenvedte el. A második mohácsi csata során gyakorlatilag szétesett az oszmán hadtest az alkalmatlan nagyevzír miatt, aki azonnal menekülőre fogta. Ezekután a különböző katonai hadtestek saját elhatározásukkal ott hagyták a csatateret és visszavonultak Isztambulba. Mehmed azzal próbálta menteni a helyzetet, hogy új nagyvezírt nevezett ki, Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasát. Köprülü Fazıl Mustafa Pasa, Köprülü Fazıl Ahmed Pasának volt az öccse és a nagy Köprülü Mehmed Pasa legkisebb fia. Az új nagyvezír a birodalom érdekében tárgyalása kezdett az Isztambulba visszaérkező hadtestek vezetőivel. Végül hosszas tárgyalások után arra jutottak, hogy a szultánt le kell váltani. Mehmed egyesek szerint úgy hitte, helyére fiát, Musztafát fogják ültetni, ezért önként félreállt. Ám a pasák és katonák végül Mehmed öccsét, Szulejmánt ültették trónra, aki így évtizedekig tartó elzárt élete után megkezdhette uralkodását II. Szulejmán néven.

Mehmed eleinte a Topkapi Palotában élt elzárva, családjától elválasztva, idővel azonban - látva, hogy nem jelent veszélyt az új uralkodóra - engedélyt kapott, hogy Edirnében is időzzön. Mehmed volt az első épelméjű szultán, akit trónjától megfosztottak ám nem végeztettek ki. Korábban csak a mentálisan beteg I. Musztafa életét kímélték meg trónfosztása után. Emellett Mehmed elődjével ellentétben nem kellett, hogy teljes elzárásban élje le hátralévő éveit, meglehetősen nagy szabadságot élvezett. Még úgy is megtarthatta ezt a szabadságot, hogy 1691-ben kiderült, hogy néhányan szövetkeztek II. Szulejmán ellen, hogy újra IV. Mehmedet ültessék trónra. Mehmed végül 1693-ban hunyt el, Edirnében. Testét onnan Isztambulba szállították, hogy édesanyja komplexumában temessék el, Turhan szultána mellé.

Felhasznált források: A. D. Alderson - The Structure of the Ottoman Dynasty; L. Peirce - The Imperial Harem: Women and Sovereignty in the Ottoman Empire; N. Sakaoğlu - Bu Mülkün Kadın Sultanları; M. Ç. Uluçay - Padişahların Kadınları ve Kızları; C. Finkel - Osman's Dream: The Story of the Ottoman Empire; G. Börekçi - Factions and favourites at the courts of Sultan Ahmed I (r. 1603-17) and his immediate predecessors; S. Faroqhi - The Ottoman Empire and the World; C. Imber - The Ottoman Empire 1300-1650; G. Piterberg - An Ottoman Tragedy, History and Historiography at Play; F. Suraiya - The Cambridge History of Turkey, The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839; Howard - A History of the Ottoman Empire; Öztuna - Devletler ve Hanedanlar; F. Davis - The Palace of Topkapi in Istanbul; Y. Öztuna - Genç Osman ve IV. Murad; G. Junne - The black eunuchs of the Ottoman Empire; R. Dankoff - An Ottoman Mentality: The World of Evliya Çelebi; R. Murphey - ‘The Functioning of the Ottoman Army under Murad IV (1623–1639/1032–1049):Key to Understanding of the Relationship Between Center and Periphery; M. Özgüleş - The women who built the Ottoman Empire: Female Patronage and the Architectural Legacy of Gülnüş Sultan

[sherrybaby14]

Winds Of Winter (1/2)

This is my entry for @youngmoneymilla​ 15k challenge (Congrats lady)

Prompt: The Winds of Winter – Ramin Djawadi (Game of Thrones)

Summary:  A stranger from a rival kingdom comes to your throne for a favor. (Fantasy AU)

Pairing:  Steve Rogers x Reader

Warnings:  None in this chapter.  Part two is gonna have some war/death and smut.  

A/N:  You don’t need to have seen Game of Thrones to follow this. It’s not GOT fanfic, just fantasy, but heavily inspired by the mythology.

Words: 3k

                 The stranger’s footsteps echoed across the throne room and you held your chin high as he approached.   Stranger wasn’t the right term, though you’d never set eyes on the man you knew who he was the second his presence was announced.  

                 When he arrived in front of you, his blue eyes scanned your face before he dropped to a knee, the coat and wardrobe he wore not nearly enough to survive the raging winter outside your castle’s door.  

                 “Your majesty,” Steve Rogers began speaking but you felt your jaw tighten at the formal title.

                 “What do you want?”  It wasn’t very regal of you to interrupt but being treated this way by someone whose people referred to you as Queen-of-nothing was almost disrespectful.  

                 “My name is Steven Rogers.”  He stood.

                 “I know who you are.”  You gave up trying to hold your tongue.  “I didn’t ask your name. I asked what you wanted.”  

                 “You know who I am?” He looked shocked.  

                 “I am well within my rights to have you beheaded for showing your face here.  Neither you, nor your people are allowed beyond my gates.”  You rolled your shoulders back.   “After all, it was your ancestors who banished mine here.”  

                 Steve bit his lip.  He was choosing his words wisely.  

                 “The banishment of your family, your people.” He shook his head.  “I took no part.  I wasn’t born, even a thought yet.”  

                 “Neither were any of the people who reside here.”  You rose from your throne.  “Yet, we honor the treaty.  We do not cross into your lands and you keep out of ours.”

                 It was a prison of ice.  The sentence passed on for your grandfather’s rebellion against the crown.  Everyone knew the story.  Everyone expected your family to wither and die in the harsh north, but instead you’d survived.  Your people tougher, stronger because of it.  

                  “I will ask you one more time before I summon an executioner.”  You took a step toward him.  “Why are you here?”

                  “I need your help.”  The look of defeat on his face made it clear you were his last choice. “The kingdom is at war, its chaos. My home is occupied by an enemy.”

                  “Yes, a lesser house than your own. Correct?  House Rumlow.  I heard they murdered your family in a revolt.”  You walked to the window. “And that the crown supports them.  Who sits on the throne in the South now?  House Romanov?  House Stark?  House Quill? Or is it House Parker now?  I can hardly keep up the way you fight each other.”

                  “I don’t care about the throne.”  Steve’s desperation started to show.  “I don’t care about any of that.  I care about my people, my lands, the ones I am warden too. Rumlow will see them tortured, murdered with glee.  He is dangerous.”  

                 “You say you care nothing about the throne, but who is your allegiance to?”  You spun to face him, your sky blue cloak sliding against the stone floor.  “Because it certainly is not to me.”  

                  “I understand ancient grudges.  But you seem well versed in the present times, more so than expected.  My home, the estate of Brooklyn, is the farthest North of the great houses.   You think he won’t want to expand his lands? Come for you?  Maybe not be as lenient about your spies passing through our towns?” Steve’s voice echoed across the walls.

                 “You expect this Rumlow to expand into my, what do you Southerners call it, wasteland?”  You folded your arms.  “What I think, is I should sit it out.  Watch all of you destroy each other.  Do my part to contribute by ending your life right here.”

                  “You won’t.”   Steve pushed out his chest.

                  “What has you so sure of that?”  You did not like him questioning your authority.

                 “Because there are rumors of you.  The Queen beyond the kingdoms.  Who has aided her people, grown them in numbers, united other banished here.  Stories of kindness, and love for her people.  A stunning beauty who would…”

                 “STOP!” You held your hand up, not wanting to hear any more flatteries or acknowledge the rush of adrenaline.  “I do love my people.  I love them so much I will not consider sending them to their deaths for a fight that is not theirs.”  

                 There was only five thousand living under your command, though all were trained fighters and stronger than ten southern. Even the youngest.  

                 “I am not asking for your people’s assistance.” Steve gulped and rang his hands in front of him.  

                 “Oh?”  You smirked. “Well I suppose you never answered my original inquiry.  What do you want?”  

                  “There’s other rumors.”  He glanced around the hall, your guards still at the door.  “I saw the red comet in the sky, I remember it vividly.  Four years ago.”  

                  “Celestial matters bare no influence on my decisions.” You walked back to your throne.  

                  “I know what that means.  Your bloodline, your family.  Stories, pictures of what once was.  They’ve returned.  To you.” Steve kept his eyes on you.  

                  A laugh left your mouth as you sat in the chair and shook your head.  

                 “Whatever you’re implying, you are mistaken.”  You leaned back.  

                 “I believe.  I believe enough I came here alone, unarmed, knowing fully well you could chop my head off.”  Steve took a step forward and your guards reacted.  

                 You held a palm up and shook your head.  This man was no threat.  

                  “Because I have faith.  I have faith that you are as kind and noble as the rumors say. That something unbelieve, magical is happening in your land, and that you are good and just and will not let any more innocent lives be lost.”  Steve dropped down to his knees.  “Please. Help me.  I have an army of two thousand, going to take on an army double that size.  I need you. I will welcome you and your people into my kingdom in return.”

                  “As a guest?”  You rolled your eyes.

                  “No.”  Steve brought his hands in front of him.  “As a Queen. I have dropped to my knee twice before you.  Once you help us win back Brooklyn, I will do so again.  In front of all my people, and recognize you as the one true leader. Then I will help you get what you really want.”

                  “And what is that?”  The promise made your blood pressure rise.  

                  “The throne.” He stood up again.  “You are correct in the waring houses.  The Kingdom needs unity.  The North will support your claim.”

                  “The North?”  You snapped as you stood up from the chair.  “You think you’re the North?  You know nothing about the dangers my people endure.  The harsh conditions.  Winter, snow, ice.”  

                 “Then accept my offer.”  Steve watched as you walked back toward the window.  “Take them to your ancestral home. Away from here.”  

                  “I intend to.”  You spun on your heels.  “Without your assistance.  My original plan still stands.  I’m going to let you kill each other. Once you’re all a sea of graveyards we will return home, without shedding a drop of blood.”

                 “Tomorrow.”  Steve’s eyes danced on your face, taking you in, making your skin crawl.  “The battle is set for dawn.”

                 “Tomorrow?”  You smiled. “What makes you think for a moment I could assist you in that amount of time.  Assembling my troops, readying the horses, making the travel.”

                 “I’m not asking for your troops.”  His eyes flashed.  “I believe you will help me.  Because you know it is right, and my offer is fair.”  

                 “Trusting your people’s offers is what landed my people here.”  Steve started to back away.  “I will not make the same mistakes as my ancestors.”  

                 “That is what I am counting on.”  He bowed.  “Dawn.”

                  “You will be severely disappointed.”  Part of you wanted to chase after the Southerner, enjoying your argument more than you had realized.  

                  “I have faith.”  He stood again.  “In you.”

                  The words made you unsettled.  So much so that you did not get another word out before he left the throne room.   Your guards escorting him out.  Maybe you should have decapitated him, it would have aided with the pain in the back of your neck he had caused.  

~~

               Steve left the stone building and looked behind him. That was their castle, it was barely a quarter the size of his own.  The rest of the buildings in the tiny town were made from wood.  They looked more like huts than houses.  

                  His eyes scanned the people.  They wore rich, heavy furs.  Of course, they were for protection from the elements, not fashion statement.  

                 Every one of them stopped what they were doing to gawk at him.  His way of dress made him stand out, but that wasn’t it.  Steve had always prided himself on being tough, strong like his father.   But these people, even the youngest were much stronger, faster, harder.  

                 He saw a little girl no more than ten stare at him, a look on her face angry enough he thought she might try to slit his throat.

                 None of these people had done anything wrong, none rebelled, none fought wars, but they lived here in the frozen lands because of choices their earlier generations had made.  The banishment was meant as an extinction, but somehow by some chance they’d survived.  

                 “Pity I was really hoping the Queen was going to chop your head off.”  One of the guards shoved his shoulder as they neared his boat.  

                  “Aye.”  The other shoved his back.  “This one has some meat on him, would’ve made for a fine stew.”  

                 “Stew?”  Steve looked over his shoulder.

                 Both men started laughing, their shoulders bouncing up and down with each chuckle.  

                 “That’s right pretty boy.”   The just got a foot in the boat when hard hands hit his back, his shin caught, and he fell forward into the wood.  “We eat each up out here.  Raw and bloodied.”  

                 The man flashed his teeth at Steve and made a crunching noise.  

                 “Tell your friends.”  The other brought his boot up on the boat and kicked him off into the water.  “You pretty Kingdom folk our are favorite dinner guests.”

                  Both men chuckled as they licked their lips. Steve knew they were joking, or at least hoped as much.  He picked up his oar and began to row across the sea.

                 Soon the village vanished from view.  Steve tried not to think about the icy waters below him, the danger in the small boat breaking, drowning into the cold abyss. He knew coming out here was a risk, but he had no other option.  

                 That was his first time seeing the ice-queen. He’d heard her described as exotic, plain, short, tall, feminine, manish, dark, light and every other possible descriptor.   Nobody south of here had ever really laid eyes on her.  The warring descriptions were an enigma.  She was an enigma.  

                 He saw the red comet, he knew what it had meant. Nobody believed him and insisted it was folk lore.  But Steve was always a believer.  

                 She may have rolled her eyes, chuckled a little, but she wasn’t on the floor in hysterics at his suggestion.  That comet meant something that night.  

                 By the time he reached the other side of the water, the rise in temperature was noticeable.   His horse remained untouched.  Steve didn’t bother dragging the boat, the weight would slow them down too much and it was still a several hour ride to his encampment.  

                 “I have faith.”  He rubbed his horse’s neck as he untied her from the tree.  “She will help us.”  

~~

                 “The pansy boy is gone.”  Bucky, your guard and second in command came back into the room.

                 “You’re not really considering giving him aid?” Sam, your guard and third was close behind him.  “The nerve of him, walking in here like the two of you are equals.”

                 “I’m no better than anyone else.”  You crossed your arms.  “His proposal was interesting.”  

                 “You look beautiful by the way.”  Sam looked you up and down.  “Like a true queen.”

                 “It was my mother’s.”  You smoothed down the thick light blue gown, the matching cloak over your shoulders.  “I should change.”  

                  Your scouts spotted the visitor long before his arrival.  You wanted to look the regal part but were much more used to dressing in the same manner as everyone else.  

                 “You should have killed him.”  Bucky was never one for pleasantries.  “I would’ve done it.  Taken his head back to his men myself.”

                 “We’re not barbarians.”  You smiled at your men.  “Besides, he let some rumors slip. If we are going to take back the kingdom we may need ally’s.”

                  “That’s not the plan.”  Bucky made a fist.  “We let them battle each other.  Swoop in and take out the tired victor.  It’s days away.  All the troops are ready.”  

                  “Did that man strike you as an oppressor?” You walked toward the door.  “One who wishes to keep us locked up here?”

                  “He struck me as desperate.”  Sam added.  “And a bit delusional.”  

                  When the winter winds hit you, you tightened the cloak.   Bucky and Sam walked behind as your greeted a few of your people on your walk.  

                 “You look stunning!”  A little girl yelled.  “A true queen!”  

                 “Delusional?”  You waved and shook some hands.  “What makes you say that?”  

                  You arrived at the ice cliff that protected your village from further elements, walking around the edge to the opening in the mountain side.  

                  “The promises he made.  Does he really think his people will bend the knee to you?  Recognize you as their leader?  It would never be that simple.”  Sam and Bucky followed you into the darkness of the cave.  

                  “Thor?  Loki? Hela?”  You walked further.  “It’s alright.  You can come out now.”

                 You stopped walking, deep enough it was pitch black.  

                 “No.  It wouldn’t.” You sighed.  “But he confirmed they know we’re plotting our return.”  

                 The dark began to fade as red filled the area, the crawling almost shaking the mountain.  

                 “I am so sorry you had to hide.”  You went toward the giant head, putting your hand on Thor’s nose when he came into view.  “It seems more people are aware of your existence than I imagined.  But that’s alright.  I think it’s time we introduced you three to the world.”  

                 There was a low screech from Hela as a shot of fire came out of her mouth.  You saw Bucky and Sam in the glow, getting better at hiding their terror, but not so much you couldn’t see it on their faces.  

                 “Just think.”  You walked around to Thor’s back, climbing on board as he dipped his wing. “You two look that scared and they’re on our side.  Just imagine what the enemy will face.”  

                  “Scared?”  Sam sounded shocked.

                 “Me?  Scared?” Bucky scoffed.  “Never.”  

                 “Right.”  You leaned down to Thor as he began to crawl forward.  

                 You were certain Steve Rogers was out of view. Thor raced through the cave until the daylight came and then moved to flight.  You held on as he took you up, up, up.   Loki and Hela right behind you.  

                 Your people were used to seeing the dragons and paid no attention to your little flight.  

 You’d always planned on taking your them south, but forever envisioned it as a hostile trip.  Never once anticipating an invitation, let alone the opportunity to be seen as a savior.

                 Thor dipped down into an ice cavern, flying along the frozen rivers.  Loki and Hela screeched at each other behind you.  

                 The dragons, your people, you, none knew what it felt like to feel warmth surround them.  Always living in the snow and ice.  You wanted more for them.  Maybe Steve Roger’s welcoming was the start.

                 Thor shot up in the air and you held on tighter, bracing yourself to his back as he flew up the side of a glacier.  

               Then again, maybe Bucky was right.  You were heading down either way. Who was Steve Rogers to deserve your trust?  

[palmerasenfuego]

An Open Letter to His Cop Father

My hope is to make clear, maybe for the first time, my perspective on a variety of points of contention between you and me, not so that we can reconcile them necessarily, but so that I won't feel the need to tiptoe around you any more. Addressing this problem I have with codependency and self-censorship has been my task ever since I left my ex, and I think you yourself would agree that in the last year and a half, I have become much more vibrant and present than I ever was as the kowtowed ghost who let his controlling girlfriend dictate the terms of his existence. In the following letter I strove to be unsparing, but only for the sake of clarity. I don't hold any resentment towards you. I want to take ownership of my own role in our dynamic so that we can move into the future, unencumbered.

A few months ago, you and I argued over my career with regard to the classes I plan on taking for my Masters in library science. After we'd each calmed down, you said that you were only suggesting I keep my options open, as we'd both noted that the future of public libraries, and indeed social services generally, is uncertain at best and possibly doomed. You merely meant to suggest that I look into classes that would prepare me for information career opportunities in the private sector, in the probable case that public libraries no longer exist in the future.

At the time I didn't want to argue any more, and I agreed that you had made good points. I would keep my options open. What you didn't understand, however, was that I only grew "defensive" about my plans after I thought I presented them as exactly what you claimed to be suggesting—that is, I would look into a variety of library and information science related fields while keeping my focus, somewhat idealistically, on public libraries. But then you interjected, as you so often do, with all the reasons why my plan might not be such a great idea. Had I considered the uncertain future of public libraries? (Of course I had.) Wouldn't a librarianship at a prestigious museum be a more stable and lucrative career? (Maybe, but nothing's a safe bet.) 

Because I stood my ground, because I intend to fight for what I believe in while I still can, you accused me of being 'defensive.' There's always an underlying tension between us, you said, which is something I don't deny. Why do I always seem resentful? you asked. You accused me of only viewing you as a resource to draw on without any care for you as my father, a totally unfair and manipulative thing to say of your son who followed you and your other son for a decade, watching you coach his brother’s baseball team, without him; your son who desperately wished his father understood his art and literature recommendations, but knows they'll usually go unheeded; your son who, despite knowing what his father did to his mother, and resenting that his father won't speak with his mother at all, still loves his father. 

You can't seem to recognize sometimes that your mistakes could have had any effect on the way you and I relate, and I think you think any antagonism between us is me blindly rebelling, an absurd image to have of me, the most docile black sheep any flock has ever had. To be clear, what causes the tension between us is a feeling in me that I won't even be heard if you've previously decided you're in the right. So rather than speak up, I generally keep my mouth shut, which is not healthy for me, nor is it productive of the kind of relationship I'd hope to have as an adult with my father. 

You would prefer that I not stake my future on public librarianship, because you would not do that. Therefore, I shouldn't do that. I don't care whether you disagree with me. Ultimately, none of this letter is about convincing you of anything. What I want to address is that I have never felt like my voice would be heard, by you or anyone, really, which is in part a result of having my perspective so often subjected to critical (over)analysis from you, as in our argument over public libraries. Or, it’s a result of having my enthusiasm mocked anytime you and my brother didn't appreciate something I did. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a masterpiece of American art, and you Philistines didn't watch more than 15 minutes of it, but to this day you make fun of me for wanting to watch it with you. 

When we had disagreements over any supposed transgression on my part, you quickly dropped the pretense towards being a concerned parent to assume your interrogation persona, with me the guilty-until-proven-innocent suspect. One of the oldest tricks to get someone to fess up is asking the same question several times, forcing the suspect to repeat their story. Any time you seemed suspicious I wasn't answering your questions straight, it would be "You sure? Positive? Nothing else?" The only thing missing was the aluminum chairs and the spotlight in my face. All disagreements were structured this way, with you above, already having the answers, and me below, forced to acquiesce to the judgement presumed. Attempts to defend myself when I felt I was unfairly accused were met with the reprimand to not "talk back," something I've internalized deeply, corrosively, finding myself drawn, in friendships and in love, to those who shout me down or laugh me out. As a result, my natural cowardice and timidity have festered for years.

You have long urged me, since childhood, to be more assertive, less passive, to stop "playing the victim," and these were not unfair or inaccurate criticisms. Like Kafka with his father, none of this is to say I blame you for the effect you've had on me and my inability to speak up. I was a timid child, easily influenced by social pressure and a need for approval, most especially from you. From my child's view I was enamored of what you seemed to represent, which I suppose is unremarkable, as sons and fathers go. Perhaps also unremarkable of fathers and sons is how elusive your approval seemed to be. There was never outright disapproval of me from you, and I always knew you "supported" me. But let's not pretend like we at times did not and do not appear alien to one another. Which is normal, healthy, so long as it's accepted, because we’re separate people, but the trouble fathers and sons get into is they each seek validation from the other—the father struggles to impose his own standards on the son and see his progeny flourish as so judged by the standards imposed, and the son seeks to establish himself as his own person, separate but unable to escape the looming shadow of his father, the son's primary model for what a person is.

One instance where I probably tried to voice an objection to your discipline, an instance where I knew the gravity of the issue you wanted to convey but disagreed that what I'd done deserved such a strong reprimand from you, was when I drew a Klansman in my notebook, being the bored and doodling 8th grade boy that I was, watching a documentary about the Klan in history class. I wasn't approving of the Klan by drawing a man in a pointed hood, but to your credit, you saw an opportunity to make clear the need to take seriously the violence and oppression that African-Americans have faced in this country, and to never trivialize symbols of that violence and hatred. (Fatefully, I was similarly firmly scolded by my mom when she saw a swastika in one of my notebooks, which is when I learned my Polish grandmother escaped the Nazis as a small child in the belly of a freight ship, traumatized by the sight of dead stowaways floating past her, and this after the death of her brother at the hands of fascist thugs.)

When the black community today raises the cry "Black Lives Matter," what they want is a reckoning from American society for the way that black life has historically been deemed disposable. Africans were ripped from their mother country, brutalized on a treacherous trans-Atlantic voyage, and sold off in a land where the climate and environment were entirely alien, their various languages as unintelligible to one another as to their masters. They were subjected to centuries of horrific slavery, whippings, rape, and familial rupture. Any who managed to escaped their bondage risked dogged, murderous pursuit by slave patrols. The de facto opponents of slavery won a civil war and slavery was abolished, and for another century black people were terrorized with lynchings by whites (who were never prosecuted), all while being denied economic opportunity and treated as less-than-second-class citizens in public spaces, not to mention suffering a complete lack of political representation. It wasn't until 1968 that the political rights of African-Americans were codified into federal law, but the mere granting of rights does nothing to address the long term devastation wrought on the black community, which built this country for free, this country that so long denied them not only equal rights and opportunity, but denied them their humanity. And to this day, black people go murdered, in broad daylight, in their cars, or while they sleep, both by the police and by others, without justice. "Black Lives Matter" needs to be said because American society does not seem to acknowledge that black life matters, despite America's lofty ideals for itself as a place of equal protection under the law. If black lives matter, then all lives matter, but not all lives matter until black lives matter. 

Saying "Blue Lives Matter" is to be presented with that history, turn it around and say "Yeah, well what about us cops?" No one chooses to be black; all cops choose to be cops. If you want the profession of policing to have the respect you demand people give it, then cops should be aware what they're signing up for: a thankless, demoralizing job that answers to the public, and not the other way around. To say "My job is hard so we matter too!" when, after centuries of oppression, the black community says, "Our lives matter!" is a gross exercise in bad faith. This is why "Blue Lives Matter" is offensive, utterly bankrupt beyond the expression of resentment towards an imagined enemy. American society has no doubts about the value of the lives of police officers. What easier way is there to bring the full force of the American justice system, with a swift investigation and aggressive prosecution, than to murder a cop? The justice system has time and again demonstrated the societal value of police officers' lives. The same can not be said of black lives, which is why "Blue Lives Matter" is far more trivializing of the racism still faced by black people in America than some 13-year-old kid's drawing of a Klansman.  

Part of me worries that writing this is futile, that you'll see this as another instance of me "talking back," i.e. saying what challenges your airtight prosecutor's argument. Another part of me thinks what I’m saying resonates with your bedrock American and Catholic values. After all, I had to get my principles from somewhere. But if this doesn't move you, I will rest well knowing that at the very least I'm not shutting myself up any more, and that I'll finally be coming to you as a man and not as your child, facing you squarely, head no longer bowed.

I love you.

[notesfromthefielddesk]

Episode 5 - Judith Butler

Episode link; https://open.spotify.com/episode/6yCPTlFz7uk7nhojByDwRI?si=5fc75b929803458e

John J: I bet you can guess where I am. I concluded that it was probably best for me to come back to London, tail between my legs so I can apologise. I’m up on the fourth floor of the social sciences building. When I came on the open day I saw all these old buildings in the centre of town. But of course the social science building is about twenty minutes walk away in what you might charitably call a “brutalist” building. Other people...might call it ugly. A reflection I am sure of anthropologies perceived value. Look we aren’t the law department you know lots of students and money and career paths and a separate library. But whatever I mean the quality of the education we get in this building is in my view better. I mean laws fine... if you’re into that kind of thing. 

Sorry, I got off track there. My sister studied law. Good for her I guess. Anyway, you’ve seen a hallway like this one before, every few steps there's a pushpin board with some notices for psychology experiments run by undergrads and events which happened two years ago. I’m opposite a display case with books written by people from the department. There is a draft from the window behind me which is one of those single pane deals with that adhesive plastic which I assume is to stop the glass shattering? But it’s peeling away at the corners. It was a nightmare getting up here, the lift on one side of the building only goes up to the third floor, so once I got there, I had to drag the desk to the lift on the other side of the building to get up here. Then Susans office is back on the other side. So I’m sweaty and umm quite nervous about facing Susan. Who I am pretty sure hates me. I should say there is someone else waiting here, What did you say your name was;

Julie K: I didn’t, it’s Julie.

JJ: Hi, umm thanks for being quiet while i did the intro…(awkward) So what’s your research about? 

JK: I’m not sure really, still at the planning phase but something about gender I think… maybe about cocoa farmers.. 

JJ: Like de Beauvoir? (Doesn’t leave room for an answer) But she’s not really an anthropologist? 

JK: So? 

JJ: So… she was a philosopher, an ethicist to be exact, that’s not really anthropology. Is it?

JK: I never even said I was using de Beauvoir. 

JJ: (Not listening) Although…(goes into a spiel about de Beauvoir which I need to research) de Beauvoir did argue that the views of individuals are socially and culturally produced. She said “one is not born a woman but becomes one.” She said women are taught through social interactions three facts; 1. That women need to fulfill the needs of men. 2. Their women’s self worth was built on external validation a.k.a being pretty and 3. They have less influence because they have less legal rights. De Beauvouir said that dolls given to young girls are an example of the way girls are taught to think. She said young girls identify with the doll and through it learn to see themselves as pretty objects without their own agency, which is just a fancy way of saying choice. None of this is innate to being a woman, they aren’t born objects but made into them by society which aims to suppress them. Which is kind of like Geertz and his webs of significance. Except Geertz said you spun your own webs where as De Beauvoir seems to think society spins the webs around women trapping them in certain norms. Women, De Beauvoir said, needed to see these constructs to escape them. Like how, if a fly is in a bottle, it needs to first see the bottle to get out. 

(Smug pause)

JK: Why did you just explain De Beauvoir to me?

(awkward Johnson noises)

JK: And yeah De Beauvoir is a start but like the waves of feminism built up on each other, so did the people who studied gender: so where De Beauvoir pointed out the distinction between sex and gender, Butler makes the line between them a bit fuzzy. Or.. she actually questions it. Sex, according to Butler, is not just the biological one, and gender the socially constructed one. Sex is socially constucted as well. Which people find a tricky idea right? Like, men have penises, women have vaginas, there are biological facts. But what Butler is pointing out is not about biology but about categories, and that we’re not born with sex just as we’re not born with gender. Man and woman are two really broad categories with a lot of variation within them.  Women with beards, men with boobs etc. All these biological features, are features that we have grouped into categories of sexes. Remember Caster Semenya? She was the South African runner who was so fast people complained that she must be a man. She was forced to undergo sexual verification procedures which determined her to be a woman. However, it was later decided that her testosterone was too high to compete as a woman. If the binary between men and women is as clear as we’re socialised to believe then surely that would have been determined the first time around. The truth is, what we call “woman” is a collection of traits which we as a society have agreed make someone a woman. It’s like that shower realisation that maybe what we’re all agreeing is red is being experienced differently by every person! And guess what the way we’re judging whether someone is a woman is not biological, or otherwise you wouldn’t say “hello miss” till you’d seen a DNA test. It’s based on a whole bunch of other assumptions about how a woman acts and looks, which are socially constructed! 

Butler said, influenced by Austin, that Gender and sex are a performance. We behave in certain ways which conform to certain categories but we don’t have a free choice in those behaviours because society has set the stage that forces us all to conform. It’s like that bit in fleabag when she says “Sometimes I worry, I wouldn’t be such a feminist if I had bigger tits.” Maybe she’s right you know like if you conform to society's ideas of femininity, like having big tits, then it’s harder to break out of the performance? So maybe you, explaining De Beauvouir to me, is you, performing your masculinity? The set dressing around you, you know your masters degree, the desk, the books, your tweed suit, Western societal expectations, inform you that you should not only be smart but demonstrate that fact by showing off that intelligence by explaining De Beauvouir. Whereas my set dressing tells me to be quiet and let you explain, despite me being the one who studies gender. Thinking about it this way, and realising the performance of it all, gives women more agency, you know, which means choice. In De Beauvoir women should not act in feminine ways because by not conforming you’re resisting patriarchy. But in Butler’s view if you’re a woman who likes make-up, more power to you, the problem is with the category that says make-up equals female. 

Then, bell hooks came along and recognized that a woman’s race, political history, social position, economic status among other factors influence the way her value is perceived. And that none of these factors can be left out.

She also rightfully pointed out how the feminist movement is dominated by white women fighting for white women’s, upper class, causes. She mentions how this actually kind of imitates the power structure of white patriarchy. So that’s not good.

(Pause this was all said very breathlessly) 

JK: So. I don’t really know how I’m going to approach this at first seemingly small subject of doing research about women who are cocoa farmers in a small town in Ghana, cause that’s what I think I want to do, but then I can’t just look at those women in that small town and their cocoa farms, you know? I feel like I have to think about the whole world and all the thoughts that go in that world before I can even begin to research something like that. Like, for example one part of it for me is that the domestic work these women do isn’t considered work. Which Crawford says is a function of capitalism, like before capitalism, all work which helped make sure everyone could survive, like cooking, was considered work but now work is only labour exchanged for money. She wrote that based on Marx and Engels. So do I need to read Marx now? Am I freaking out? I don’t even know anymore.

JK: I don’t know.. I think it’s important to look at feminism in an intersectional way you know..as if standing on a traffic intersection, with all kinds of different directions that influence a possible accident. The car could’ve come from just one direction, or maybe all of them! This term is coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, by the way. So you can not really study gender without studying capitalism, or race, or (post)colonial studies. Because they will intertwine and overlap and influence each other and you can’t look at one without the other. You know?!

JJ: uhh that’s a lot. Do you have, like an extract that sort of sums some of this up?

JK: Umm I mean I guess hold on (riffling paper) yeah this…

Starts to play the music 

JK: Did you just put on music to go under me reading?

JJ: uh yeah - do you mind? 

JK: Umm I mean, I guess not - 

Music plays (here we need an extract.)

Okay, so well.. In Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (1990) Butler said that “Although the unproblematic unity of “women” is often invoked to construct a solidarity of identity, a split is introduced in the feminist subject by the distinction between sex and gender. Originally intended to dispute the biology-is-destiny formulation the distinction between sex and gender served the argument that whatever biological intractability sex appears to have, gender is culturally constructed: hence, gender is neither causal result of sex nor as seemingly fixed as sex. (…) When the constructed status of gender is theorized as radically independent of sex, gender itself becomes a freefloating artifice, with the consequence that man and masculine might just as easily signify a female body as a male one, and woman and feminine a male body as easily a female one.” 

She then continues to show that sex is just as culturally and socially constructed as gender: “If the immutable character of sex is contested, perhaps this construct called ‘sex’ is as culturally constructed as gender: indeed, perhaps it was always already gender, with the consequence that the distinction between sex and gender turns out to be no distinction at all. It would make no sense then, to define gender as the cultural interpretation of sex, if sex itself is a gendered category (..) As a result, gender is not to culture as sex is to nature; gender is also the discursive/cultural means by which ‘sexed nature’ or ‘a natural sex’ is produced and established as ‘prediscursive’, prior to culture, a politically neutral surface on which culture acts. (p.7)

She goes on about the performance of sex and gender by writing that “(..) gender proves to be performative - that is, constituting the identity it is purported to be. In this sense, gender is always a doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to preexist the deed. (..) There is no gender identity behind the expressions of gender; that identity is performatively constituted by the very “expressions” that are said to be its results.’

And then bell hooks, with no capital letters by the way, or Gloria Jean Watkins, wrote in 1981, before Butler, that “It is obvious that many women have appropriated feminism to serve their own ends, especially those white women who have been at the forefront of the movement; but rather than resigning myself to this appropriation I choose to re-appropriate the term “feminism,” to focus on the fact that to be “feminist” in any authentic sense of the term is to want for all people, female and male, liberation from sexist role patterns, domination, and oppression.”

An important thing she then mentions is that “[Our] struggle for liberation has significance only if it takes place within a feminist movement that has as its fundamental goal the liberation of all people.”

This aligns with Crenshaw’s term ‘intersectionality’: “Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.”(https://www.law.columbia.edu/news/archive/kimberle-crenshaw-intersectionality-more-two-decades-later#:~:text=Crenshaw%3A%20Intersectionality%20is%20a%20lens,where%20it%20interlocks%20and%20intersects.) “Cultural patterns of oppression are not only interrelated but are bound together and influenced by the intersectional systems of society. Examples of this include race, gender, class, ability, and ethnicity.”

JK: Hey, there are a few of us doing our research in Ghana. We leave in like a month so if you want to do your research there, other people will be around.

JJ: Oh, okay, yeah i’ll umm think about it. 

(door opens) 

S: (in a happy voice) Oh hello Julie, (with displeasure) John. You can come in now John, Julie I’ll be with you shortly. 

JJ: Okay, Umm julie would you help me to move the desk in there? 

S: Leave the fucking desk.

JJ: Can I bring my microphone? 

S: Sure just, quickly yeah?

JJ: Susan

S: Johnathan 

JJ: it’s actually not short for Johnathan

S: What? What else could it possibly be short for?

JJ: Johnty 

S: With a h? 

JJ: Yeah with a H 

S: Okay...I’m going to stick with John. 

JJ: First of all I just wanted to say I did some soul searching in Bali -

S: you and everyone doing a gap year.

JJ: And i’m really sorry, I want to take it seriously now and - 

S: Yeah, I listened to episode 4. Do you think that does it? One episode where you say oops biffed it a bit, i’m a bad academic and maybe a misogynist then you’re done? How has your behaviour changed? Did you reply to my emails? Mark any assignments? Run a tutorial? 

JJ: Well in my defence I had the epiphany after about two weeks so I missed a couple but after that I flew straight back here! 

S: Look here is what is going to happen. I’ve reassigned your students and classes. I want to fire you but the department has made it clear to me that we need your fathers money.

JJ: Grandfather,

S: Shut up. So if you’re serious about taking this seriously here is what is going to happen. I want you to go away, get all this podcast shit out of your system and come back and do your job properly. To make it worth the department's time I want you to make it about Tsing. The students don’t really get what she is trying to say and i guess your podcast will be a good change of pace. And! I want a research proposal, a real one, not just (mocking voice) “desk go in field.” then come back and do your job properly okay? If you don’t you’re fired. You have a month to be back here, two podcast episodes and a proposal. Now get out. 

JJ: Look I get it and I can see you’re angry. But I need you to know that if you look out the window behind you - 

S: No.

JJ: But the guy he’s in the building opposite. 

S: I don’t care 

JJ: He has binoculars! If you’ll look you’ll know I wasn’t completely lying! 

S: Even if there is a man with binoculars over there what does that prove? 

JJ: He’s waving! 

S: Get out. 

JJ: Okay. Bye. 

Credits 

JJ: Okay, umm weird I just found this note in my pocket. It says “stop mentioning me on your podcast. Firstly, i’m not a bad guy just because of that Papua New Guinea stuff. Secondly, I'm meant to be undercover. And third the more you mention me the more you build anticipation for the reveal. You’re creating an untenable situation for yourself. 

Yours,

K” 

What the fuck! 

[onedayatatimeblog]

Episode 1: “This Is It”

One Day at a Time

Alejandra Guzman

Key Characters in the Episode

↠ Penelope (MC): US Army Nurse Corps Veteran; single mother of two ↠ Elena: Penelope’s daughter  ↠ Alex: Penelope’s son ↠ Lydia: Penelope’s mother and Elena and Alex’s grandmother ↠ Schneider: Landlord and good friend of the Alvarez family ↠ Dr. Berkowitz: Penelope’s boss at work  

Episode Overview:

Penelope and Lydia try to convince Elena to have a traditional quinceañera to celebrate her 15th birthday and honor her Cuban roots (Wolfe, 2017). This conversation brings about many disagreements and perspectives on what the celebration represents. As the episode unfolds, topics about Cuban culture, expected gender roles, mental health stigma, military service, and immigration emerge. Although the family faces a series of complexities in life, as they seek to understand each other and their connection to certain things, the family realizes despite divergent viewpoints, their love and support for each other is most important. After constant debates between Elena, Penelope, and Lydia, a meaningful conversation between Elena and Penelope takes place. In which they reconcile, and afterwards Elena agrees to the have the celebration.

Race, Ethnicity, and Culture:

The entirety of the show is based on a Cuban American family’s experiences with aspects of life in America, therefore, ethnicity and culture, are continuously present. In this episode, conversations about Cuban culture are a main focus, as the family tries to convince Elena to celebrate her quinceañera. Particularly Lydia is concerned that their Cuban roots will be forgotten, as American culture dominates. In an argument about the quinceañera, Lydia says “you are throwing away your Cuban heritage” (Wolfe, 2017). The concept of heritage is very important to Lydia because it is part of the family’s identity. The comment suggests minorities in the US often struggle with keeping their roots, as children start to move away from them. Author Nadine Naber (2010) brings attention to this through an Arab lens. She writes about how transgressing parent expectations causes cultural loss, and the struggle immigrant generations face trying to strengthen cultural continuity, while adapting to American life (p. 76-77). So although heritage seems personally important to just Lydia, many immigrant families feel the same way.

This show does a good job at representing the Latinx community and the majority of the cast itself is Latinx. However, some stereotypes emerge and reinforce unrealistic ideas about the diverse ethnic groups under the umbrella term Latinx. A reinforced stereotype is that Latinx folks are loud, especially women.  In this episode, the family is noisy and Penelope and Lydia do dominate conversations as they speak loudly and freely. This draws the false belief that Latinx folks are loud and always ready to celebrate. Although I do not see it as a negative stereotype, it still influences what we think about Latinx folks, so when a person does not fit this expectation, they are seen as outsiders of the culture.Furthermore, since quinceañeras are a Latinx tradition that celebrate the transition into womanhood, many assume Latinas want one. However, as in Elena’s case many girls do not see it as an important life event, nor want want one. Whitney Pow (2012) addressed how these stereotypes can be harmful. She stated that the few portrayals of certain cultures in the media are often full of stereotypes, which turn into what people expect of that specific culture, which creates a form of identity erasure (p. 84). 

In this episode, the inclusion of Schneider highlights the power and privileges that come with race and even gender. In many instances, Schneider pitched in his opinion, without thinking about his position in the Alvarez family and the privilege of his culture. His presence brings attention to the unconscious implications of race. In one scene, Schneider seeks to have a conversation with Elena to convince her to have her quinceañera. Despite not having an understanding of the culture or history, he pitched in his opinion. In another scene, when Alex questions the family’s income, Schneider tries to step up to explain the situation. I think this comes to imply how white folks have privilege that makes them feel entitled to speak on behalf of things they have no personal connection to. Along with Schneider’s race, his gender also gives him privilege. And although he might not intend to come off as rude in these instances, the way he instantly interfered before Penelope could speak, shows how he unconsciously places himself in a higher position to her.

Gender & Sexuality: 

In this episode, the implication is that the main characters are all cisgender. However, as the show progresses, representation of gender and sexuality diversifies. At the moment, there is a balance of male and female characters, which all seem to speak evenly. Although, the narrative is more focused on Penelope, as she is centered as the single mother dealing with the complexities of life, family, and culture. In this particular episode, many gender stereotypes emerge to reinforce ideas about gendered expectations, but also many are challenged, which demonstrates the awareness of the cast. 

In the beginning, a patient at Penelope’s work sees a picture of her in an army uniform, and assumes it was a Halloween costume. This largely implies that society has not fully accepted women in military services, as it is seen as a male dominated sphere. In a later scene, a particular stereotype that stood out is the one about boys growing up to be the man of the house, when a father is absent. Alex is only a middle schooler, yet he feels he needs to grow up to be the family provider. This norm exists in many cultures, but it is very prevalent in Latinx culture because it ties into the idea of machismo. It brings a sense of manliness and pride to be able to protect and provide for your family. A way that Penelope defies this stereotype is by demonstrating that women can be providers too. She is a single working mother, and provides most of the family’s income. Penelope also raises her kids against expected gender roles. In one instance she asks both Alex and Elena to help in the kitchen, instead of reinforcing the idea that cooking and cleaning are a woman's job.

Towards the end, Elena is surprised to find out her mother has feminist views, and Penelope’s response is “I can assemble a rifle in thirteen seconds. I’m a total badass” (Wolfe, 2017). This expresses how feminist are stereotyped to be loud, obnoxious, man haters, for the abolishment of patriarchy. Which is mainly born from liberal and social feminism, as these currently have more outward expressions (Kirk, 2020, p. 9). This erases the reality, that feminist fight to address various issues and in many ways. It also suggests that to be a feminist one is suppose to be a certain way. For instance, Elena’s feminism is never questioned because of her open expressions and appearance. In regards to sexuality, Latina women are often hyper-sexualized and exoticized in the media. This is problematic because it reinforces the idea that women of color do not fit Western beauty ideals, and only certain aspects of them are desired. Whitney Pow (2012) addresses this “exoticization” as causing harm because it presents certain communities as unable to assimilate, which is untrue (p. 84). In this show, Elena is portrayed as a nerdy feminist that dresses tomboyish, which breaks away from this hyper-sexualization of Latinas, allowing her to assimilate. However, it can still be harmful because it portrays the message that if a woman of color does not seem exotic, she is not desired.

Subtle Remarks With Larger Political Implications:

Within this episode, topics brought up seem as if only relevant to some characters due to context, however, many remarks have larger implications. For instance, Penelope is prescribed antidepressants to help with her depression and PTSD from being deployed in Afghanistan. However, she is hesitant to take them because “Cubans suffer in silence” and she does not want her mother to think she is a drug addict. Later on when Lydia sees Penelope about to take the antidepressants, she says “you don’t need drugs, you need your husband” (Wolfe, 2017). This scene implies the stigma around mental illness, particularly in the Latinx community. Speaking from a Latinx perspective, often times older generations have a hard time understanding mental health, and are quick to label people as weak for resorting to taking medications. Furthermore, saying that Penelope needs her husband also implies that women need men. Lydia goes on to justify that Penelope’s husband is doing the right thing, by leaving to earn money as the provider. Although a subtle remark, it reinforces the idea that women rely on men and basically a man is all they need, as he will provide.

In another scene, Elena pretends to be her grandmother to demonstrate Lydias view on the quinceañera. Elena proceeds to say “I worked so hard to give you an opportunity in this land of the free and home of the brave” (Wolfe). This subtle remark draws attention to immigration. Lydia herself immigrated from Cuba to the US, to have a better future.  The comment suggests how often individuals who face undesirable conditions in their home country, look to the US as a place of opportunities. During the end, Penelope also admits the main reason for wanting Elena to have a quinceañera was because she wanted people to say “look at the amazing single mom pulling it all together by herself” (Wolfe, 2017). Although specific to Penelope, this is an undertone of how a lot of women feel the need to prove themselves. Specifically, single mothers feel the need to go above and beyond, apart from doing a two-person job alone, just to receive some simple acceptance and validation for their efforts.

References:

Kirk, G., & Okazawa-Rey, M. (2020). Untangling the “F”-word. In Gendered Lives: Intersectional perspectives (7th ed., pp. 2-17). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Naber, N. (2010). Decolonizing Culture: Beyond Orientalist and Anti-Orientalist Feminisms.In Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives (7th ed., pp. 76-83). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Pow, W. (2012). That’s Not Who I Am: Calling Out and Challenging Stereotypes of Asian Americans. In Gendered Lives: Intersectional Perspectives (7th ed., pp. 84-88). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

Wolfe, D. (Staff Writer), & Hochman, S. (Co-Producer). (2017, January 6). This Is It (Season 1, Episode 1) [TV series episode]. In N. Lear & B. Miller (Executive Producers), One Day at a Time. Netflix.

[basicsofislam]

ISLAM 101: Muslim Beliefs: Existence and Oneness of God Almighty: THE UNIVERSE AND GOD’S EXISTENCE

The existence of God is too evident to need any arguments. Some saintly scholars even have stated that God is more manifest than any other being, but that those who lack insight cannot see Him. Others have said that He is concealed from direct perception because of the intensity of His Self-manifestation.

However, the great influence of positivist and materialist schools of thought on science and on all people of recent centuries makes it necessary to discuss this most manifest truth. As this now-prevalent “scientific” world-view reduces existence to what can be perceived directly, it blinds itself to those invisible dimensions of existence that are far vaster than the visible.

Let us reflect on one simple historical fact: Since the beginning of human life, the overwhelming majority of humanity has believed that God exists. This belief alone is enough to establish God’s Existence. Those who do not believe cannot claim to be smarter than those who do. Among past and present-day believers are innovative scientists, scholars, researchers and, most importantly, saints and Prophets, who are the experts in the field. In addition, people usually confuse the non-acceptance of something’s existence with the acceptance of its non-existence. While the former is only a negation or a rejection, the latter is a judgment that requires proof. No one has ever proven God’s non-existence, for to do so is impossible, whereas countless arguments prove His existence. This point may be clarified through the following comparison.

Suppose there is a large palace with 1,000 entrances, 999 of which are open and one which appears to be closed. No one could reasonably claim that the palace cannot be entered. Unbelievers are like those who, in order to assert that the palace cannot be entered, confine their (and others’) attention only to the door that is seemingly closed. The doors to God’s existence are open to everybody, provided that they sincerely intend to enter through them.

The most important factor leading many, especially those under the spell of materialistic science and its worldview, to fix their eyes on the apparently closed door is causality. Causality leads to the vicious chain of cause and effect, for each cause is also an effect. Moreover, the effect is totally different from the cause. All things and effects are usually so full of art and beneficial purposes that even if all causes gathered they would be unable to produce one single thing, let alone their simple immediate causes.

In order for a cause to produce an effect, it has to be able to produce the whole universe in which that effect takes place, for that effect cannot exist without the whole universe. Nor can they exist separately. Materialist scientists imagine powerless, dependent, and ignorant causes to be responsible for the existence of beings and things, and thus fancy them to possess absolute qualities. In this way they are implying (tacitly believing) that each of those causes possesses qualities that only can be attributed to God.

However, the latest discoveries of modern science, like the universe’s unity and its parts’ inseparability, exclude the possibility of all the explanations put forward by materialistic science. They demonstrate that all entities, whether in nature or in the laws and causes attributed to them, are devoid of power and knowledge. They are contingent, transient, and dependent beings. But the properties attributed to any of these entities need infinite qualities like absolute power and knowledge.

This shows that causality is by no means necessarily linked with “objective” study or “neutral” scientific investigation. It is no more than a personal opinion. Moreover, it is an opinion that is irrational and devoid of sense.

When we study the universe, we see that all beings utterly refute the false claims of materialist and atheistic reasoning through their order, mutual relationship, and duties. They affirm that they are nothing but the property and creatures of a Single Creator. Each rejects the false notions of chance and causality, ascribes all other beings to its own Creator, and proves that the Creator has no partners. Indeed, when the Creator’s Unity is known and understood correctly, it becomes clear that nothing requires that causes should possess any power. Thus they cannot be partners to the Creator, for it is impossible for them to be so.

The universe is a document for believers to use. The Qur’an informs us that believing in God is to assent with one’s heart to the Creator with all His Attributes supported by the universe’s testimony. The true affirmation of God’s Unity is a judgment, a confirmation, an assent, and an acceptance that can find its Owner present with all things. It sees in all things a path leading to its Owner, and regards nothing as an obstacle to His Presence. If this were not the case, it would be necessary to tear and cast aside the universe in order to find Him, which is impossible for us.

The universe has been made in the form of an intelligible book so as to make known its Author. The book, which addresses humanity, seeks to make humanity read the book and its parts, and respond with worship and thanks to its Author’s will. Humanity attains to that worship by uncovering the order in the Book of the Universe through scientific study and displaying the functioning of the universe’s beings and workings.

The universe is not passive or neutral. We cannot interpret it as we wish, for there is only one correct way of looking at the world, one universal world-view common to all humanity. This view is taught to us in the Qur’an as well as in the Book of the Universe by our Creator. This means that the Qur’anic world-view recognizes that the perception of the world differs relatively from one person to another. It allows for plurality within unity so that a universal dialogue is possible. This world-view contains no fragmentation or conflict, only harmony, assistance, peace, and compassion.

The materialist scientific world-view is based on radical fragmentation, for it views nature as a mechanism with no inherent value and meaning. It isolates an object by cutting off its connections with the rest of the world, and studies it within its immediate environment.

But our perception of ourselves tells us that we are meaningful and part of the whole universe, and that everything must have a meaning and be part of the universe. Materialist science has left the subject—humanity—out of the universe and, insofar as this science is taking over, people feel that they have no place in this world. Thus they are isolated and live lives without meaning, except in a very limited, egoistic sense. People are alienated from their environment and from themselves.

The universe is an inseparable whole. Indeed, the unity observed in its totality, including humanity, is so clear that no one can deny it. Thus the materialistic approach to the scientific method has to be reconsidered. This method is reductionist, for it reduces everything to fragments and then attributes each fragment to causes. But in reality, all things are interconnected and interdependent, for it is impossible to attribute anything, however small, to causes that are themselves transient and contingent. Since whatever is responsible for one thing must be responsible for everything, we cannot have one thing without the whole.

Why can we ascribe a thing to its antecedents in time but not to its neighbors in space? Why should a thing be able to produce another thing just because it happened before? All modern scientists know that space and time are fully equivalent and unified into a four-dimensional continuum in which both “here” and “there” and “before” and “after” are relative. In this four-dimensional space, the temporal sequence is converted into a simultaneous co-existence, the side-by-side existence of all things. Thus causality appears to be an idea limited to a prejudiced experience of the world.

Causality does have some meaning. Opposites are mingled in this world: truth with falsehood, light with darkness, good with evil, white with black, and so on. Since people have ingrained inclinations toward both good and evil, they are tested in this world to determine whether they will use their free will and other faculties in the way of truth and good or otherwise

Divine Wisdom requires that the veil of causes and laws be drawn before Divine Power’s operations. If God had willed, He could train the planets with His “Hands” in a way observable by us or let visible angels administer them. Then we would not be speaking of the laws of causes involved, such as gravitation. Or, in order to communicate His Commandments, God could speak to each person directly without sending any Prophets, or could write His Name with stars in the sky in order to compel us to believe in His Existence and Oneness. But in this case, humanity’s earthly existence would not be an arena of trial that pushes us to new developments and discoveries in science and technology, thereby enabling us to remove one veil more from the meaning of existence.

Like a mirror’s two sides, existence has two aspects or dimensions: one visible and material, known as the Realm of Opposites and (in most cases) Imperfections, and the transparent, pure, and perfect spiritual realm. The material dimension must—and does—contain events and phenomena that appear disagreeable to us. Those who cannot perceive the Divine Wisdom behind all things may even criticize the Almighty for those disagreeable events and phenomena. To prevent that, God uses natural laws and causes to veil His acts. For example, so that we do not criticize God or His Angel of Death for the loss of our beloved ones or our own death, God places diseases and natural disasters (among other “agents” or “causes”) between Himself and death.

On account of this world of testing and trial’s essential imperfection, we encounter and suffer from many deficiencies and shortcomings. In absolute terms, every event and phenomenon is good and beautiful in itself or in its consequences. Whatever God does or decrees is good, beautiful, and just. Injustice, ugliness, and evil are only apparent or superficial and arise from humanity’s errors and abuses. For example, although a court may pass an unjust sentence on you, you should know that Destiny permits that judgment because of a crime that you are hiding. Whatever befalls us is usually the result of self-wronging, an evil that we ourselves have done. However, those who lack the necessary sound reasoning and judgment to understand the Divine Wisdom behind events and phenomena may impute directly to God the apparent ugliness or evil, imperfections and shortcomings, experienced in worldly life, even though God is absolutely free of any defect or imperfection.

Therefore, so that people do not ascribe any ugliness or evil to God, His Glory and Grandeur require that natural causes and laws be a veil before His acts, while belief in His Unity demands that those causes and laws should not be ascribed to any kind of creative power.

If God Almighty acted in the world directly, and not through causes and laws, we would be unable to develop scientific knowledge or live even an instant of a happy life free of fear and anxiety. We can observe and study patterns in phenomena thanks to God’s acting from behind natural causes and laws. Otherwise, each event would be a miracle. The regularity within the flux and mutability of events and phenomena makes them comprehensible to us, and so awakens within us the desire to wonder and reflect, which is a principal factor in establishing science. For the same reason, we are able to plan and arrange our future affairs to some degree. Just consider how life would be if we did not know whether the sun would rise tomorrow!

Whoever owns such attributes as beauty and perfection desires to know them and make them known. God owns absolute beauty and perfection and is independent of all things. He also owns a holy, transcendent love and thus a sacred desire to display His Beauty and Perfection. If He showed His Names and Attributes directly, without the “medium” of causes and laws, we could not endure them. He manifests them as he does and by degrees within the confines of time and space so that we can connect with them, reflect on them, and perceive them. The gradual manifestation of Divine Names and Attributes is also a reason for our curiosity and wonder about them.

[comebeforegod]

Why Are There Over 2, 000 Christian Denominations? It’s Because …

By Li Meng

Hello brothers and sisters of Find the Shepherd!

All over the whole world, the believers in Jesus have been divided into many denominations. In mainland China alone, there is the Justification by Faith, the Charismatic Church, the Shouters, the Great Praise Church, the Three Grades of Servants Church, the True Jesus Church, and so on.

 I can’t understand it. Since we all believe in the Lord Jesus and read the same Bible, why do so many denominations appear? Can we gain the Lord’s approval by believing in the Lord this way?

Li Meng

Hello Sister Li Meng,

Your questions touch on very practical issues. Most brothers and sisters are also confused about this. With regard to this aspect of truth, we’d like to first fellowship how the various denominations come into being.

Different denominations arise because of people’s one-sided understanding of the Bible and their arrogant nature.

We believers in the Lord all know Christianity came into being as a result of the work of the Lord Jesus, and originally was personally led and shepherded by Him. At that time, the followers wouldn’t deviate from the right way and thus there were no divisions. But after the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven and His disciples and apostles passed away, different denominations gradually appeared. Why did these denominations form? Let’s look at what God’s words say and we’ll understand. God says: “People have studied the Bible for all these years, they have come up with so many explanations, and put in so much work; they also have many differences of opinion about the Bible, which they debate endlessly, such that over two thousand different denominations have been formed today.”

From God’s words we can see that the main reason for different denominations being formed is because the people who believe in the Lord have their own one-sided understanding of the Bible. We all know that the Lord Jesus left when He finished the work of crucifixion, and then the followers of the Lord Jesus began to spread His gospel. Because the followers of God don’t have a pure understanding of the teachings in the Bible, many of them take their one-sided understanding of the Bible as doctrines for establishing a church, and hold on tight to them. For example, some people took the words of Paul: “For with the heart man believes to righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made to salvation” (Rom 10:10), then they created the Justification by Faith; some people adhere to the words of the Lord Jesus: “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat: 4:17), and they think the “Repentance Denomination” is what is most in line with the Lord’s will. Every denomination has its own one-sided understanding of the Bible. Furthermore, people have the satanic dispositions of arrogance, conceit, self-rightness, self-importance etc. They think that they have gifts and erudition, that their understanding of the Bible is the purest, and that only they are right. Therefore, they strongly deny or judge others’ opinions, and show off by explaining the Bible’s teachings. They draw a group of people around themselves and set up a denomination for themselves. This is how denominations arise. For two thousand years, because of different doctrines Christians have debated endlessly and formed new denominations; they attack, despise, argue with and exclude each other, and can never be united as one. This is how one church developed into over two thousand denominations. From this we can see that the establishment of denominations comes from humans. It is not what the Lord Jesus requires, nor is it in accordance with God’s will at all.

People in organized religions who believe in God will be entrapped by people, will worship and follow people, and will never understand the truth or know God.

From the cause of the formation of the different denominations, we can see that religious leaders all rely on their own understanding of the Bible to do work and preach, rather than following the Lord’s teachings to serve God. Then what’s the substance of their work? What will be the consequences if we join such denominations to believe in God? God’s words say: “Pastors and leaders in the religious world, for example, rely on their gifts and positions to do their work. People who follow them for a long time will be infected by their gifts and be influenced by some of what they are. They focus on people’s gifts, abilities and knowledge, and they pay attention to some supernatural things and many profound unrealistic doctrines (of course, these profound doctrines are unattainable). They do not focus on changes to people’s disposition, but rather they focus on training people’s preaching and working abilities, improving people’s knowledge and rich religious doctrines. They do not focus on how much people’s disposition is changed or how much people understand the truth. They do not concern themselves with the substance of people, much less try to know people’s normal and abnormal states. They do not counter people’s notions or reveal their notions, much less mend their deficiencies or corruptions. Most of the people who follow them serve by their natural gifts, and what they express is knowledge and vague religious truth, which are out of touch with reality and are completely unable to confer people with life.”

From God’s words we know that religious leaders and pastors all rely on theological knowledge and doctrines to do work and preach. They don’t resolve the believers’ various improper views about belief in God or their corruptions. For example, in the midst of the attacks and arguments among different denominations, the pastors all insist that their opinions are right and others’ are wrong. They never reflect on their own deviations or errors, nor do they know that they are revealing their arrogant disposition. And they certainly don’t communicate God’s will to help believers know God. Instead, they always avoid practical issues and just talk about empty theories. Their fellowshiping has nothing to do with getting rid of the bondage of sin; they just want to display their talent and how blessed they are, and show off their theological knowledge and theories. Once the believers have listened to the pastors for a long while, they are inevitably affected and influenced by them. They adore the pastors’ talent and how blessed they are, admire them for being eloquent and good at talking, wish that they could also have rich biblical knowledge, and be good at talking, preaching and spreading the gospel like the pastors so that they can also win the envy and admiration of others. As a result, they no longer pay attention to putting God’s words into practice or trying to figure out God’s intentions, but just follow the ceremonies and regulations. As such, religious believers are just like the people who believed in God in the temple at the end of the Age of Law, unable to enjoy the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Thus, no matter how many years they have believed in God, they cannot understand the truth or know God, and their disposition doesn’t change. So, the substance of believing in God in a religious context is merely worshiping and following human leaders but not truly following God.

Leave religion, keep pace with God’s work, and return before God.

It is recorded in the Bible that: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it” (Isa 2:2).

God’s words say: “Bring … people throughout every religion and denomination, under the dominion of one God. Regardless of what religion you belong to, ultimately you will all submit under the dominion of God. Only God Himself can carry out this work; it cannot be done by any religious head. There are several major religions in the world, and each has its own head, or leader, and the followers are spread across different countries and regions all over the world; every country, be it large or small, has different religions within it. However, regardless of how many religions there are across the world, all people within the universe ultimately exist under the guidance of one God…. All things are in the hands of the Creator, and in the end they will all return to the hands of the Creator. Mankind was originally made by God, and regardless of the religion, every person will return under the dominion of God—this is inevitable.”

From God’s words we can see that in the late period of the last days, all religions will become one and all peoples will return to the house of God. In the last days, God needs to undertake a stage of work of saving mankind so that all those who truly yearn for the appearance of God can hear God’s voice, leave their denominations and return before God. This work cannot be done by anyone but God Himself. God can create us, lead us, and moreover, bring us to a glorious destination—this is the symbol of God’s authority, as well as the symbol of His unique disposition, which cannot be replaced by any religious figure or leader. There are over two thousand denominations in the world, but they were all established by humans. The sheep of God will finally walk away from the denominations and return under the dominion of the Creator, and it is thus that all denominations will become one. This is the work that God intends to accomplish in the last days. No matter how much status the pastors and elders have, they are all people corrupted by Satan. They can’t even save themselves, so how can they save others? Only the one true God who rules over all things can save us from the affliction of Satan and guide us to come before Him. Now is the time of the last days, and many people are testifying that the Lord Jesus has returned. We should let go of our notions, leave religion, and search for God’s work and words of the last days. This is the choice of a wise person.

[midgetmeredith]

hi~ i read your about page where you said you might write up your reasons for not liking some ft ships like the whole debate with fraxus/miraxus & chendy/rowen but i couldn't find anything on it on your blog so i wondered what were your thoughts on that? i know there's fandom arguments about homophobia and crackshipping there too. i’m a multishipper but i really like your anti posts for naruto so i thought if you had any ft ones then they might be as good! �

Thank you! I’m really glad youthat like my Naruto posts. They’re pretty controversial, so nice commentsare always appreciated! 😅 Dude, I haven’t updatedby ‘about’ page in months, so doing that write-up completely passedmy mind… Thanks for being interested though! I guess I’ll spill:

Right, this might be quitecontroversial, so remember that any opinions expressed are just personalpreferences/reasons, okay? ⚠️

Like I said on my page, “Ihave a ‘manga > anime’ complex thanks to Studio Pierrot, so I only readFT. I wanted to avoid filler brainwashing, bias and only know of canon withthis series, after the mess with Naruto…” Therefore, I only really ship thatwhich I believe is substantially depicted/suggested in canon, and kind of havea bit of a pet peeve for anything outside of that.[ #1 justificationdisclaimer! ]

( 1 ) Mir/axus [ &Fraxus ]

So I was genuinelysurprised that Mir/axus was even a thing when I started searching the fandom’s tag, onceI’d caught up. I don’t know if they’ve been implied in filler, but theywere non-existent as a romantic pair in the manga. Honestly, theyhardly had any on-panel interaction… Like, the only evidence that came tomind for “logical” reasoning behind them was chapter 380’s cover art.(Maybe 329’s, at a push.) I even tried to find somesupposed “moments” under their Wikia page, but that listed was merelyscarce interaction with no romantic subtext; each synopsis was pretty muchgrasping for straws.

Here’s the thing –you mentioned the fandom discourse of “homophobic” accusations,right? Now, I too hate when shippers (in any fandom) cry that simplybecause others don’t ship a queer pairing. Like, c’mon. But, inthis case (and Wendy’s), I must admit that I do find it somewhatrelevant… Idk if this ship’s popularity (and, more so, acceptance alongsidethe actual semi-canon pairs) is because most have been influenced byexternal material or if it’s just because there’s no other member of the opposite sex that they’re paired with, but Fraxus was actually suggested in canon; emphaticallyfrom Freed’s point of view! Even on Laxus’ side, numerous chapters have moments that – here’s the thing – anyone would undeniablyaccept if either Freed or Laxus were female*.

[ My earlier volumes are enclosed in my bookcase, but I have 49 – 57 (Avatar – Alvarez) on-hand beside my bed, so I skimmed through to find (max.) five pages to evidence Laxus’ P.O.V. ‘cause this post will already be long enough. ]

Chapter 416: “At this rate, I won’t be able to protect what’s important to me.”

It’s also worth noting that the official tankōbon/volume translation of this reads: “I’m not strong enough to protect the people I love yet.”

Chapter 460.

Chapter 462: “But that ain’t important now. All I’ve got on my mind… Is bringing the pain to the bastard who took out Freed and the others.”

Chapter 472: “So you’re the one who did a number on Freed and the others?”

Chapter 473: “Thanks a lot, Freed… There’s no wizard that could break your spells…”

*That’s the key consideration – that if you were to replace either’s gender for that of the opposite sex, it changes how these scenes are perceived. These panels, for example, are dismissed by those who oppose Fraxus, but they would be regarded as “ship moments” and a validation of Laxus’ affection if you were to replace Freed’s name in the dialogue and/or presence in the panels with a female (Mira)!

That’s why I can kind ofunderstand these claims, ’cause the existence and general fandomacceptance of these ships is very heteronormative in that respect (i.e.ignoring present queer pairings for heterosexual ‘crack-ships’) which makes it kind of discriminatory; reminiscent of homophobia perhaps. Although, I agree that term is a little extreme, as it doesn’t seem intentionally prejudiced. And whilst Freed is emphatically portrayed as queer, Laxus’ sexualityis a little more implicit, yet he is assumed straight by default… It’sironic/hypocritical because the majority of ships across all fandoms are typically founded upon onecharacter’s feelings, whilst neither Mira nor Laxus have shown said romanticinterest in each-other.

( 2 ) Ro/Wen [ &Chendy ]

Again, I hate Ro/Wen dueto a similar reasoning. Finding out that they even existed as a ship wasbaffling, tbh! I mean, at least Mir/axus had the cover as some rationale,but Ro/Wen is based solely on them being the same age… Talk aboutheteronormative? Also, technically, that’s an incorrect claim, due to the sevenyear time-skip in which she remained frozen. Like, she’s actually thesame age as Sting & Rogue. But you don’t find her forced with them. Why,because they’re older and that’s frowned upon? You know, despite the samepremise applying to Ro/Wen; since Romeo was half Wendy’s age when she wasintroduced (6 & 12).

The ship can’t even besupported with evidence, since they had no significant canoninteraction until the Alvarez Arc. Their only other contact was in an omake.Yet their age difference is evident in both; dismissing any reach atromantic subtext. In the omake, Romeo refers to Wendy as “nee[-chan]”.Similarly, she is presented comforting him like a child in their limited Alvarez panels, with him lookingup to her as that same sister figure. I have seen some of these shippers disregard Chendy asbeing “platonic”, when Romeo and Wendy’s dynamic isactually – canonically and strictly – such.

Chendy, however, do have asubstantial, visibly and literally present, mutual bond. They have extensive,plentiful interaction, as well as actually present romanticsubtext… I know that it may be difficult for (I guess) anyone outside of theLGBT+ community or a truly ‘open’ one to understand, due to ourheteronormative society – as Chendy are often disregarded as “justfriends” (🙄) – but many of theirmoments transcend platonic affection and bear intense likeness to theother romantic pairs’ depictions. For example, they are also featuredalongside the semi-canon couples in art-work, like Mashima’s couple sketches onTwitter.

Not to mention thatfriendship is the foundation of any healthy, romantic relationship! Of coursethey’re going to be best friends before engaging in such, particularly in thecase of same-sex pairs. Yet no-one uses this dialogue (of labellingeach-other as “friends”) against NaLu, despite them stating the otheras that same description on numerous occasions. But despite the justification mentioned above,Chendy are still dismissed. Again, if either were the male, it would be a completely different situation… I mean, since people shipcharacters based solely on covers and all – chapter 421’s cover (amongothers)?

Summary:

Obviously there’s nothingwrong with crack-shipping! And, no, not liking a queer pair [more than astraight one] doesn’t make you “homophobic”. But – in the case ofFraxus 🆚 Mir/axus& Chendy 🆚 Ro/Wen –I think that there is something kind of messed up with arrogantly defying acharacter’s canon depicted/suggested sexuality and/or romantic interest(s).There is something somewhat discriminatory about disregarding theirother prevalent, significant and actually developed bonds, to the extent that someone’sheteronormativity is so severe that they substitute a same-sex character foran irrelevant one of the opposite sex, who does not even have decentinteraction with the character in question; fabricated entirely from theridiculous, inaccurate [R/W] rationale of them being “the same age” or merelysharing a chapter cover.

That sounds much harsherthan I intended, I’m so sorry! Btw, I don’t blame shippers –everyone is (obviously) allowed to ship what they want! What’s stated above issimply why I’m against Mir/axus and Ro/Wen, especially as an avidsupporter of the LGBTQ+ community, a bisexual myself and a university scholar who has studied/written about this field.

[ I’ve updated by ‘about’ page now too, btw! ]

[focusontheeasternlightning-blog]

Why Are There Over 2, 000 Christian Denominations? It’s Because …

By Li Meng

Hello brothers and sisters of Find the Shepherd!

All over the whole world, the believers in Jesus have been divided into many denominations. 

In mainland China alone, there is the Justification by Faith, the Charismatic Church, the Shouters, the Great Praise Church, the Three Grades of Servants Church, the True Jesus Church, and so on. I can’t understand it. Since we all believe in the Lord Jesus and read the same Bible, why do so many denominations appear? Can we gain the Lord’s approval by believing in the Lord this way?

Li Meng

Hello Sister Li Meng,

Your questions touch on very practical issues. Most brothers and sisters are also confused about this. With regard to this aspect of truth, we’d like to first fellowship how the various denominations come into being.

Different denominations arise because of people’s one-sided understanding of the Bible and their arrogant nature.

We believers in the Lord all know Christianity came into being as a result of the work of the Lord Jesus, and originally was personally led and shepherded by Him. At that time, the followers wouldn’t deviate from the right way and thus there were no divisions. But after the Lord Jesus ascended to heaven and His disciples and apostles passed away, different denominations gradually appeared. Why did these denominations form? Let’s look at what God’s words say and we’ll understand. God says: “People have studied the Bible for all these years, they have come up with so many explanations, and put in so much work; they also have many differences of opinion about the Bible, which they debate endlessly, such that over two thousand different denominations have been formed today.”

From God’s words we can see that the main reason for different denominations being formed is because the people who believe in the Lord have their own one-sided understanding of the Bible. We all know that the Lord Jesus left when He finished the work of crucifixion, and then the followers of the Lord Jesus began to spread His gospel. Because the followers of God don’t have a pure understanding of the teachings in the Bible, many of them take their one-sided understanding of the Bible as doctrines for establishing a church, and hold on tight to them. For example, some people took the words of Paul: “For with the heart man believes to righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made to salvation” (Rom 10:10), then they created the Justification by Faith; some people adhere to the words of the Lord Jesus: “Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat: 4:17), and they think the “Repentance Denomination” is what is most in line with the Lord’s will. Every denomination has its own one-sided understanding of the Bible. Furthermore, people have the satanic dispositions of arrogance, conceit, self-rightness, self-importance etc. They think that they have gifts and erudition, that their understanding of the Bible is the purest, and that only they are right. Therefore, they strongly deny or judge others’ opinions, and show off by explaining the Bible’s teachings. They draw a group of people around themselves and set up a denomination for themselves. This is how denominations arise. For two thousand years, because of different doctrines Christians have debated endlessly and formed new denominations; they attack, despise, argue with and exclude each other, and can never be united as one. This is how one church developed into over two thousand denominations. From this we can see that the establishment of denominations comes from humans. It is not what the Lord Jesus requires, nor is it in accordance with God’s will at all.

People in organized religions who believe in God will be entrapped by people, will worship and follow people, and will never understand the truth or know God.

From the cause of the formation of the different denominations, we can see that religious leaders all rely on their own understanding of the Bible to do work and preach, rather than following the Lord’s teachings to serve God. Then what’s the substance of their work? What will be the consequences if we join such denominations to believe in God? God’s words say: “Pastors and leaders in the religious world, for example, rely on their gifts and positions to do their work. People who follow them for a long time will be infected by their gifts and be influenced by some of what they are. They focus on people’s gifts, abilities and knowledge, and they pay attention to some supernatural things and many profound unrealistic doctrines (of course, these profound doctrines are unattainable). They do not focus on changes to people’s disposition, but rather they focus on training people’s preaching and working abilities, improving people’s knowledge and rich religious doctrines. They do not focus on how much people’s disposition is changed or how much people understand the truth. They do not concern themselves with the substance of people, much less try to know people’s normal and abnormal states. They do not counter people’s notions or reveal their notions, much less mend their deficiencies or corruptions. Most of the people who follow them serve by their natural gifts, and what they express is knowledge and vague religious truth, which are out of touch with reality and are completely unable to confer people with life.”

From God’s words we know that religious leaders and pastors all rely on theological knowledge and doctrines to do work and preach. They don’t resolve the believers’ various improper views about belief in God or their corruptions. For example, in the midst of the attacks and arguments among different denominations, the pastors all insist that their opinions are right and others’ are wrong. They never reflect on their own deviations or errors, nor do they know that they are revealing their arrogant disposition. And they certainly don’t communicate God’s will to help believers know God. Instead, they always avoid practical issues and just talk about empty theories. Their fellowshiping has nothing to do with getting rid of the bondage of sin; they just want to display their talent and how blessed they are, and show off their theological knowledge and theories. Once the believers have listened to the pastors for a long while, they are inevitably affected and influenced by them. They adore the pastors’ talent and how blessed they are, admire them for being eloquent and good at talking, wish that they could also have rich biblical knowledge, and be good at talking, preaching and spreading the gospel like the pastors so that they can also win the envy and admiration of others. As a result, they no longer pay attention to putting God’s words into practice or trying to figure out God’s intentions, but just follow the ceremonies and regulations. As such, religious believers are just like the people who believed in God in the temple at the end of the Age of Law, unable to enjoy the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Thus, no matter how many years they have believed in God, they cannot understand the truth or know God, and their disposition doesn’t change. So, the substance of believing in God in a religious context is merely worshiping and following human leaders but not truly following God.

Leave religion, keep pace with God’s work, and return before God.

It is recorded in the Bible that: “And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of Jehovah’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow to it” (Isa 2:2).

God’s words say: “Bring … people throughout every religion and denomination, under the dominion of one God. Regardless of what religion you belong to, ultimately you will all submit under the dominion of God. Only God Himself can carry out this work; it cannot be done by any religious head. There are several major religions in the world, and each has its own head, or leader, and the followers are spread across different countries and regions all over the world; every country, be it large or small, has different religions within it. However, regardless of how many religions there are across the world, all people within the universe ultimately exist under the guidance of one God…. All things are in the hands of the Creator, and in the end they will all return to the hands of the Creator. Mankind was originally made by God, and regardless of the religion, every person will return under the dominion of God—this is inevitable.”

From God’s words we can see that in the late period of the last days, all religions will become one and all peoples will return to the house of God. In the last days, God needs to undertake a stage of work of saving mankind so that all those who truly yearn for the appearance of God can hear God’s voice, leave their denominations and return before God. This work cannot be done by anyone but God Himself. God can create us, lead us, and moreover, bring us to a glorious destination—this is the symbol of God’s authority, as well as the symbol of His unique disposition, which cannot be replaced by any religious figure or leader. There are over two thousand denominations in the world, but they were all established by humans. The sheep of God will finally walk away from the denominations and return under the dominion of the Creator, and it is thus that all denominations will become one. This is the work that God intends to accomplish in the last days. No matter how much status the pastors and elders have, they are all people corrupted by Satan. They can’t even save themselves, so how can they save others? Only the one true God who rules over all things can save us from the affliction of Satan and guide us to come before Him. Now is the time of the last days, and many people are testifying that the Lord Jesus has returned. We should let go of our notions, leave religion, and search for God’s work and words of the last days. This is the choice of a wise person.

That’s a bit of our understanding. We hope it can bring you some help. If you have any other questions, you are welcome to write to us again.

Sincerely yours,

Find the Shepherd!

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The Training of a Public Speaker

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The Training of a Public Speaker

THE TRAINING OF A PUBLIC SPEAKER

by Grenville Kleiser

RHETORIC AND ELOQUENCE

WHAT RHETORIC IS

Rhetoric has been commonly defined as “The power of persuading.” This opinion originated with Isocrates, if the work ascribed to him be really his; not that he intended to dishonor his profession, tho he gives us a generous idea of rhetoric by calling it the workmanship of persuasion. We find almost the same thing in the Gorgias of Plato, but this is the opinion of that rhetorician, and not of Plato. Cicero has written in many places that the duty of an orator is to speak in “a manner proper to persuade”; and in his books of rhetoric, of which undoubtedly he does not approve himself, he makes the end of eloquence to consist in persuasion.

But does not money likewise persuade? Is not credit, the authority of the speaker, the dignity of a respectable person, attended with the same effect? Even without speaking a word, the remembrance of past services, the appearance of distress, a beautiful aspect, make deep impressions on minds and are decisive in their favor.

Did Antonius, pleading the cause of M. Aquilius, trust to the force of his reasons when he abruptly tore open his garment and exposed to view the honorable wounds he received fighting for his country? This act of his forced streams of tears from the eyes of the Roman people, who, not able to resist so moving a spectacle, acquitted the criminal. Sergius Galba escaped the severity of the laws by appearing in court with his own little children, and the son of Gallus Sulpitius, in his arms. The sight of so many wretched objects melted the judges into compassion. This we find equally attested by some of our historians and by a speech of Cato. What shall I say of the example of Phryne, whose beauty was of more service in her cause than all the eloquence of Hyperides; for tho his pleading was admirable in her defense, yet perceiving it to be without effect, by suddenly laying open her tunic he disclosed the naked beauty of her bosom, and made the judges sensible that she had as many charms for them as for others. Now, if all these instances persuade, persuasion, then, can not be the end of rhetoric.

Some, therefore, have seemed to themselves rather more exact who, in the main of the same way of thinking, define rhetoric as the “Power of persuading by speaking.” It is to this that Gorgias, in the book above cited, is at last reduced by Socrates. Theodectes does not much differ from them, if the work ascribed to him be his, or Aristotle’s. In this book the end of rhetoric is supposed to be “The leading of men wherever one pleases by the faculty of speaking.” But this definition is not sufficiently comprehensive. Many others besides the orator persuade by their words and lead minds in whatever direction they please.

Some, therefore, as Aristotle, setting aside the consideration of the end, have defined rhetoric to be “The power of inventing whatever is persuasive in a discourse.” This definition is equally as faulty as that just mentioned, and is likewise defective in another respect, as including only invention, which, separate from elocution, can not constitute a speech.

It appears from Plato’s Gorgias that he was far from regarding rhetoric as an art of ill tendency, but that, rather it is, or ought to be, if we were to conceive an adequate idea of it inseparable from virtue. This he explains more clearly in his Phædrus, where he says that “The art can never be perfect without an exact knowledge and strict observance of justice.” I join him in this opinion, and if these were not his real sentiments, would he have written an apology for Socrates and the eulogium of those brave citizens who lost their lives in the defense of their country? This is certainly acting the part of an orator, and if in any respect he attacks the profession, it is on account of those who make ill use of eloquence. Socrates, animated with the same spirit, thought it unworthy of him to pronounce the speech Lysias had composed for his defense, it being the custom of the orators of those times to write speeches for arraigned criminals, which the latter pronounced in their own defense; thus eluding the law that prohibited pleading for another. Plato, likewise, in his Phædrus, condemns the masters that separated rhetoric from justice, and preferred probabilities to truth.

Such are the definitions of rhetoric which have been principally set forth. To go through all of them is not my purpose, nor do I think it possible, as most writers on arts have shown a perverse dislike for defining things as others do or in the same terms as those who wrote before them. I am far from being influenced by a like spirit of ambition, and far from flattering myself with the glory of invention, and I shall rest content with that which seems most rational, that rhetoric is properly defined as “The science of speaking well.” Having found what is best, it is useless to seek further.

Accepting this definition, therefore, it will be no difficult matter to ascertain its end, for if it be “The science of speaking well,” then “to speak well” will be the end it proposes to itself. THE USE OF RHETORIC

The next question is on the utility of rhetoric, and from this point of view some direct the bitterest invectives against it, and what is very unbecoming, exert the force of eloquence against eloquence, saying that by it the wicked are freed from punishment, and the innocent opprest by its artifices; that it perverts good counsel, and enforces bad; that it foments troubles and seditions in States; that it arms nations against each other, and makes them irreconcilable enemies; and that its power is never more manifest than when error and lies triumph over truth.

Comic poets reproach Socrates with teaching how to make a bad cause good, and Plato represents Lysias and Gorgias boasting the same thing. To these may be added several examples of Greeks and Romans, and a long list of orators whose eloquence was not only the ruin of private persons, but even destructive to whole cities and republics; and for this reason it was that eloquence was banished from Sparta and so restricted at Athens that the orator was not allowed to make appeal to the passions.

Granting all this as sound argument, we must draw this necessary inference, that neither generals of armies, nor magistrates, nor medicine, nor philosophy, will be of any use. Flaminius, an imprudent general, lost one of our armies. The Gracchi Saturninus, and Glaucia, to raise themselves to dignity, put Rome into an uproar. Physicians often administer poisons, and among philosophers some have been found guilty of the most enormous crimes. Let us not eat of the meats with which our tables are spread, for meats frequently have caused disease. Let us never go into houses; they may fall and crush us to death. Let not our soldiers be armed with swords; a robber may use the same weapon against us. In short, who does not know that the most necessary things in life, as air, fire, water, nay, even the celestial bodies, are sometimes very injurious to our well-being?

But how many examples can be quoted in our favor? Did not Appius the Blind, by the force of his eloquence dissuade the Senate from making a shameful peace with Pyrrhus? Did not Cicero’s divine eloquence appear more popular than the Agrarian law he attacked? Did it not disconcert the audacious measures of Cataline? And did not he, even in his civil capacity, obtain by it honors that are conferred on only the most illustrious conquerors? Is it not the orator who strengthens the soldier’s drooping courage, who animates him amidst the greatest dangers, and inspires him to choose a glorious death rather than a life of infamy?

The example of the Romans, among whom eloquence always has been held in the greatest veneration, shall have a higher place in my regard than that of the Spartans and Athenians. It is not to be supposed that the founders of cities could have made a united people of a vagabond multitude without the charms of persuasive words, nor that law-givers, without extraordinary talent for speaking, could have forced men to bend their necks to the yoke of the laws. Even the precepts of moral life, tho engraved on our hearts by the finger of nature, are more efficacious to inspire our hearts with love for them when their beauty is displayed by the ornaments of eloquent speech. Tho the arms of eloquence may harm and benefit equally, we must not, therefore, look on that as bad which may be put to a good use. Doubts of this kind may well be entertained by such as make “the force persuasion the end of eloquence,” but we who constitute it “The science of speaking well,” resolved to acknowledge none but the good man an orator, must naturally judge that its advantage is very considerable.

Certainly, the gracious Author of all beings and Maker of the world, has distinguished us from the animals in no respect more than by the gift of speech. They surpass us in bulk, in strength, in the supporting of toil, in speed, and stand less in need of outside help. Guided by nature only, they learn sooner to walk, to seek for their food, and to swim over rivers. They have on their bodies sufficient covering to guard them against cold; all of them have their natural weapons of defense; their food lies, in a manner, on all sides of them; and we, indigent beings! to what anxieties are we put in securing these things? But God, a beneficent parent, gave us reason for our portion, a gift which makes us partakers of a life of immortality. But this reason would be of little use to us, and we would be greatly perplexed to make it known, unless we could express by words our thoughts. This is what animals lack, more than thought and understanding, of which it can not be said they are entirely destitute. For to make themselves secure and commodious lodges, to interweave their nests with such art, to rear their young with such care, to teach them to shift for themselves when grown up, to hoard provisions for the winter, to produce such inimitable works as wax and honey, are instances perhaps of a glimmering of reason; but because destitute of speech, all the extraordinary things they do can not distinguish them from the brute part of creation. Let us consider dumb persons: how does the heavenly soul, which takes form in their bodies, operate in them? We perceive, indeed, that its help is but weak, and its action but languid. THE VALUE OF THE GIFT OF SPEECH

If, then, the beneficent Creator of the world has not imparted to us a greater blessing than the gift of speech, what can we esteem more deserving of our labor and improvement, and what object is more worthy of our ambition than that of raising ourselves above other men by the same means by which they raise themselves above beasts, so much the more as no labor is attended with a more abundant harvest of glory? To be convinced of this we need only consider by what degrees eloquence has been brought to the perfection in which we now see it, and how far it might still be perfected. For, not to mention the advantage and pleasure a good man reaps from defending his friends, governing the Senate by his counsels, seeing himself the oracle of the people, and master of armies, what can be more noble than by the faculty of speaking and thinking, which is common to all men, to erect for himself such a standard of praise and glory as to seem to the minds of men not so much to discourse and speak, but, like Pericles, to make his words thunder and lightning.

THE ART OF SPEAKING

There would be no end were I to expatiate to the limit of my inclination on the subject of the gift of speech and its utility. I shall pass, therefore, to the following question, “Whether rhetoric be an art?” Those who wrote rules for eloquence doubted so little its being so, that they prefixt no other title to their books than “The art of speaking.” Cicero says that what we call rhetoric is only an artificial eloquence. If this were an opinion peculiar to orators, it might be thought that they intended it as a mark of dignity attached to their studies, but most philosophers, stoics as well as peripatetics, concur in this opinion. I must confess I had some doubt about discussing this matter, lest I might seem diffident of its truth; for who can be so devoid of sense and knowledge as to find art in architecture, in weaving, in pottery, and imagine that rhetoric, the excellence of which we have already shown, could arrive at its present state of grandeur and perfection without the direction of art? I am persuaded that those of the contrary opinion were so more for the sake of exercising their wit on the singularity of the subject than from any real conviction.

IS ELOQUENCE A GIFT OF NATURE?

Some maintain that rhetoric is a gift of nature, yet admit that it may be helped by exercise. Antonius, in Cicero’s books of the Orator, calls it a sort of observation and not an art. But this opinion is not there asserted as truth, but only to keep up the character of Antonius, who was a connoisseur at concealing art. Lysias seems to be of the same opinion, which he defends by saying that the most simple and ignorant people possess a kind of rhetoric when they speak for themselves. They find something like an exordium, they make a narration, they prove, refute, and their prayers and entreaties have the force of a peroration. Lysias and his adherents proceed afterward to vain subtleties. “That which is the effect of art,” say they, “could not have existed before art. In all times men have known how to speak for themselves and against others, but masters of rhetoric have been only of a late date, first known about the time of Tisias and Corax; therefore oratorical speech was prior to art, consequently it could not be the result of art, and therefore, rhetoric is not an art.” We shall not endeavor to enquire into the time when rhetoric began to be taught, but this we may say, that it is certain Homer makes mention not only of Phoenix, who was a master, skilled in both speaking and fighting, but also of many other orators. We may observe likewise from Homer, that all the parts of a discourse are found in the speech of the three captains deputed to Achilles, that several young men dispute for the prize of eloquence, and that among other ornaments of sculpture on the buckler of Achilles, Vulcan did not forget law-causes and the pleaders of them.

It will be sufficient, however, to answer that “Everything perfected by art has its source in nature.” If it were not so, we should exclude medicine from the catalog of arts, the discovery of which was owing to observations made on things conducive or harmful to public health, and in the opinion of some it is wholly grounded on experiments. Before it was reduced to an art, tents and bandages were applied to wounds, rest and abstinence cured fever; not that the reason of all this was then known, but the nature of the ailment indicated such curative methods and forced men to this regimen. In like manner architecture can not be an art, the first men having built their cottages without its direction. Music must undergo the same charge, as every nation has its own peculiarities in dancing and singing. Now, if by rhetoric be meant any kind of speech, I must own it prior to art; but if not everyone who speaks is an orator, and if in the primitive ages of the world men did not speak orator-like, the orator, consequently, must have been made so by art, and therefore could not exist before it. RHETORIC AND MISREPRESENTATION

The next objection is not one so much in reality as it is a mere cavil; that “Art never assents to false opinions, because it can not be constituted as such without precepts, which are always true; but rhetoric assents to what is false, therefore it is not an art.” I admit that sometimes rhetoric says false things instead of true, but it does not follow that it assents to what is false. There is a wide difference between assenting to a falsehood, and making others assent to it. So it is that a general of an army often has recourse to stratagems. When Hannibal perceived himself to be blocked up by Fabius, he ordered faggots of brush-wood to be fastened about the horns of some oxen, and fire being set to the faggots, had the cattle driven up the mountains in the night, in order to make the enemy believe he was about to decamp. But this was only a false alarm, for he himself very well knew what his scheme was. When Theopompus the Spartan, by changing clothes with his wife, made his escape out of prison, the deception was not imposed upon himself, but upon his guards. Thus, when an orator speaks falsehood instead of truth, he knows what he is about; he does not yield to it himself, his intention being to deceive others. When Cicero boasted that he threw darkness on the minds of the judges, in the cause of Cluentius, could it be said that he himself was unacquainted with all the intricacies of his method of confusing their understanding of the facts? Or shall a painter who so disposes his objects that some seem to project from the canvas, others to sink in, be supposed not to know that they are all drawn on a plain surface?

THE OBJECT OF A SPEECH

It is again objected that “Every art proposes to itself an end; but rhetoric has no end, or does not put into execution the end it proposes to itself.” This is false, as is shown from what already has been said concerning the end of rhetoric and in what it consists. The orator will never fail to obtain this end, for he always will speak well. This objection, therefore, can affect only those who make persuasion the end of rhetoric; but our orator, and our definition of art, are not restricted to events. An orator, indeed, strives to gain his cause; but suppose he loses it, as long as he has pleaded well he fulfils the injunctions of his art. A pilot desires to come safe into port, but if a storm sweeps away his ship, is he, on that account, a less experienced pilot? His keeping constantly to the helm is sufficient proof that he was not neglecting his duty. A physician tries to cure a sick person, but if his remedies are hindered in their operation by either the violence of the disease, the intemperance of the patient, or some unforeseen accident, he is not to be blamed, because he has satisfied all the directions of his art. So it is with the orator, whose end is to speak well; for it is in the act, and not in the effect, that art consists, as I shall soon make clear. Therefore, it is false to say that “Art knows when it has obtained its end, but rhetoric knows nothing of the matter,” as if an orator could be ignorant of his speaking well and to the purpose.

But it is said, further, that rhetoric, contrary to the custom of all other arts, adopts vice, because it countenances falsehood and moves the passions. Neither of these are bad practises, and consequently not vicious, when grounded on substantial reasons. To disguise truth is sometimes allowable even in the sage, and if a judge can not be brought to do justice except by means of the passions, the orator must necessarily have recourse to them. Very often the judges appointed to decide are ignorant, and there is necessity for changing their wrongly conceived opinions, to keep them from error. Should there be a bench, a tribunal, an assembly of wise and learned judges whose hearts are inaccessible to hatred, envy, hope, fear, prejudice, and the impositions of false witnesses, there would be little occasion for the exertions of eloquence and all that might seem requisite would be only to amuse the ear with the harmony of cadence. But if the orator has to deal with light, inconstant, prejudiced, and corrupt judges, and if many embarrassments must be removed in order to throw light upon truth, then artful stratagem must fight the battle, and set all its engines to work, for he who is beaten out of the straight road can not get into it again except by another turnabout.

ELOQUENCE ACQUIRED BY STUDY AND PRACTISE

These are the principal objections which have been made against rhetoric. There are others of less moment but derived from the same source. That rhetoric is an art is thus briefly demonstrated. If art, as Cleanthes thinks, is a power which prepares a way and establishes an order, can it be doubted that we must keep to a certain way and a certain order for speaking well? And if, according to the most generally accepted opinion, we ought to call art, everything which by a combination of agreeing and co-exercised principles conducts to a useful end, have we not already shown that nothing of all this is lacking in rhetoric? Has it not, likewise, the two constituent parts of other arts, theory and practise? Again, if dialect be an art, as it is granted, for the same reason; so is rhetoric an art, the chief difference lying not so much in the genus as in the species. But we must not forget this observation, that art must be where a thing is done according to rule, and not at random; and art must be where he who has learned succeeds better than he who has not learned. But in matter of eloquence not only will the ignorant person be surpassed by the learned, but also the learned by the more learned; otherwise we should not have so many rules nor so many excellent masters. This ought to be acknowledged by all, but more especially by us who do not separate eloquence from the man of integrity. THE EXORDIUM OR INTRODUCTION

The exordium, or introduction, is that part of the discourse which is pronounced before the subject is entered upon. As musicians make a prelude for obtaining silence and attention before they play their selections, so orators, before they begin their cause, have specified by the same application that which they say by way of preface for securing for themselves a kindly feeling in the listeners.

THE PURPOSE OF THE INTRODUCTION

The reason for an exordium is to dispose the auditors to be favorable to us in the other parts of the discourse. This, as most authors agree, is accomplished by making them friendly, attentive, and receptive, tho due regard should be paid to these three particulars throughout the whole of a speech.

Sometimes the exordium is applicable to the pleader of the cause, who, tho he ought to speak very little of himself, and always modestly, will find it of vast consequence to create a good opinion of himself and to make himself thought to be an honest man. So it is he will be regarded not so much as a zealous advocate, as a faithful and irreproachable witness. His motives for pleading must, therefore, appear to proceed not from tie of kindred, or friendship, but principally from a desire to promote the public good, if such motive can be urged, or any other important consideration. This conduct will befit plaintiffs in a much greater degree, that they may seem to have brought their action for just and weighty reasons, or were even compelled to do it from necessity.

As nothing else gives so great a sanction to the authority of the speaker as to be free from all suspicion of avarice, hatred, and ambition, so, also, there is a sort of tacit recommendation of ourselves if we profess our weak state and inability for contending with the superior genius and talents of the advocate of the other side. We are naturally disposed to favor the weak and opprest, and a conscientious judge hears an orator willingly whom he presumes not to be capable of making him swerve from his fixt purpose of doing justice. Hence the care of the ancients for concealing their talents.

IDEAS TO AVOID AND TO INCLUDE

All contemptuous, spiteful, haughty, calumniating expressions must be avoided and not so much as even insinuated to the defamation of any particular person or rank, much less against those to whom an affront would alienate the minds of the judges. To be so imprudent as to attack judges themselves, not openly, but in any indirect manner, would be most unwise.

The advocate for the other side may likewise furnish sufficient matter for an exordium. Sometimes honorable mention may be made of him, as when we pretend to be in dread of his interest and eloquence in order to make them suspected by the judges, and sometimes by casting odium on him, altho this must be done very seldom. I rather think, from the authority of the best authors, that whatever affects the orator, affects also the cause he patronizes, as it is natural for a judge to give more credit to those whom he more willingly hears.

We shall procure the favor of the judge not so much by praising him, which ought to be done with moderation, and is common to both sides, but rather by making his praise fitting, and connecting it with the interest of our cause. Thus, in speaking for a person of consequence, we may lay some stress on the judge’s own dignity; for one of mean condition, on his justice; for the unhappy, on his mercy; for the injured, on his severity.

STUDYING YOUR HEARERS

It also would not be amiss to become acquainted, if possible, with his character. For, according as his temper is, harsh or mild, pleasant or grave, severe or easy, the cause should be made to incline toward the side which corresponds with his disposition, or to admit some mitigation or softening where it runs counter to it.

It may happen sometimes, too, that the judge is our enemy, or the opponent’s friend. This is a circumstance requiring the circumspection of both parties, yet I think the favored advocate should behave with great caution, for a judge of a biased disposition will sometimes choose to pass sentence against his friends, or in favor of those to whom he bears enmity, that he may not appear to act with injustice. AROUSING EMOTIONS

Judges have also their private opinions and prejudices, which we must either strengthen or weaken, according as we see necessary. Fear, too, sometimes must be removed, as Cicero, in his defense of Milo, endeavors to assure the judges that Pompey’s army, drawn up about the Forum, is for their protection; and sometimes there will be an occasion to intimidate them, as the same orator does in one of his pleadings against Verres.

There are two ways of proceeding in this last case, the first plausible, and frequently used, as when it is hinted to them that the Roman people might entertain an ill opinion of them, or that there might be an appeal from their judgment; the other desperate, and not so much used, as when threatened with prosecution themselves if they suffer themselves to be corrupted. This is a hazardous point, and is conducted with more safety to the orator when in a large assembly where corrupt judges are restrained by fear, and the upright have the majority. But I would never counsel this before a single judge, unless every other resource was wanting. If necessity requires it, I can not say that it is the business of the art of oratory to give directions in the matter, any more than to lodge an appeal, tho that, too, is often of service, or to cite the judge in justice before he passes sentence, for to threaten, denounce, or indict may be done by any one else as well as the orator.

If the cause itself should furnish sufficient reason for gaining the good will of the judge, out of this whatever is most specious and favorable may be inserted in the exordium. It will be unnecessary to enumerate all the favorable circumstances in causes, they being easily known from the state of facts; besides, no exact enumeration can take place on account of the great diversity of law-suits. It is the cause itself, therefore, that must teach us to find and improve these circumstances; and, in like manner, with a circumstance that may make against us the cause will inform us how it may either be made entirely void, or at least invalidated.

From the cause compassion also sometimes arises, whether we have already suffered or are likely to suffer anything grievous. For I am not of the opinion of those who to distinguish the exordium from the peroration, will have the one to speak of what is past and the other of what is to come. They are sufficiently distinguished without this discrimination. In the exordium the orator ought to be more reserved, and ought only to throw out some hints of the sentiments of compassion he designs to excite in the minds of the judges; whereas in the peroration he may pour out all the passions, introduce persons speaking, and make the dead to come forth, as it were, out of their graves, and recommend to the judges the care of their dearest pledges. All these particulars are seldom executed in the exordium. But the manner just pointed out, it will be very proper to observe in it, and to wear down all impressions to the contrary made by the opposite side, that as our situation will be deplorable if we should be defeated in our expectations, so, on the other hand, the behavior of our opponent would be insolent and haughty.

MATERIAL FOR THE INTRODUCTION

Besides persons and causes, the exordium likewise is sometimes taken from their adjuncts, that is, from things relating to the cause and persons. To persons are applicable not only the pledges above mentioned, but affinities, friendships, sometimes cities and whole countries are also likely to suffer by the person’s misfortunes.

Theophrastus adds another kind of exordium, taken from the pleading of the orator who speaks first. Such seems to be that of Demosthenes for Ctesiphon, in which he requests the judges to please permit him to reply as he thinks suitable rather than to follow the rules prescribed by the accuser.

As the confidence observable in some orators may easily pass for arrogance, there are certain ways of behavior which, tho common, will please, and therefore ought not to be neglected, to prevent their being used by the opposing side: these are wishing, warding off suspicion, supplicating, and making a show of trouble and anxiety.

The judge’s attention is secured by inducing him to believe that the matter under debate is new, important, extraordinary, or of a heinous nature, or that it equally interests him and the public. Then his mind is to be roused and agitated by hope, fear, remonstrance, entreaty, and even by flattery, if it is thought that will be of any use. Another way of procuring attention may be to promise that we shall take up but little of their time, as we shall confine ourselves to the subject.

From what has been said, it appears that different causes require to be governed by different rules; and five kinds of causes are generally specified, which are said to be, either honest, base, doubtful, extraordinary, or obscure. Some add shameful, as a sixth kind, which others include in base or extraordinary. By extraordinary is understood that which is contrary to the opinion of men. In a doubtful cause the judge should be made favorable; in an obscure, docile; in a base, attentive. An honest cause is sufficient of itself to procure favor. Extraordinary and base causes lack remedies. TWO TYPES OF INTRODUCTIONS

Some, therefore, specify two kinds of exordiums, one a beginning, the other an insinuation. In the first the judges are requested openly to give their good will and attention; but as this can not take place in the base kind of cause, the insinuation must steal in upon their minds, especially when the cause does not seem to appear with a sufficiently honest aspect, either because the thing itself is wicked, or is a measure not approved by the public. There are many instances of causes of unseemly appearance, as when general odium is incurred by opposing a patriot; and a like hostility ensues from acting against a father, a wretched old man, the blind, or the orphan.

This may be a general rule for the purpose, “To touch but slightly on the things that work against us, and to insist chiefly on those which are for our advantage.” If the cause can not be so well maintained, let us have recourse to the goodness of the person, and if the person is not condemnable, let us ground our support on the cause. If nothing occurs to help us out, let us see what may hurt the opponent. For, since to obtain more favor is a thing to be wished, so the next step to it is to incur less hatred.

In things that can not be denied, we must endeavor to show that they are greatly short of what they are reported to be, or that they have been done with a different intention, or that they do not in any wise belong to the present question, or that repentance will make sufficient amends for them, or that they have already received a proportionate punishment. Herein, therefore, it will be better and more suitable for an advocate to act than for the person himself; because when pleading for another he can praise without the imputation of arrogance, and sometimes can even reprove with advantage.

Insinuation seems to be not less necessary when the opponent’s action has pre-possest the minds of the judges, or when they have been fatigued by the tediousness of the pleading. The first may be got the better of by promising substantial proofs on our side, and by refuting those of the opponent. The second, by giving hopes of being brief, and by having recourse to the means prescribed for making the judge attentive. In the latter case, too, some seasonable pleasantry, or anything witty to freshen the mind will have a good effect. It will not be amiss, likewise, to remove any seeming obstruction. As Cicero says of himself, he is not unaware that some will find it strange that he, who for so many years had defended such a number of people, and had given no offense to anyone, should undertake to accuse Verres. Afterward he shows that if, on the one hand, he accuses Verres, still, on the other, he defends the allies of the Roman people.

HOW TO SELECT THE RIGHT BEGINNING

The orator should consider what the subject is upon which he is to speak, before whom, for whom, against whom, at what time, in what place, under what conditions, what the public think of it, what the judges may think of it before they hear him, and what he himself has to desire, and what to apprehend. Whoever makes these reflections will know where he should naturally begin. But now orators call exordium anything with which they begin, and consider it of advantage to make the beginning with some brilliant thought. Undoubtedly many things are taken into the exordium which are drawn from other parts of the cause or at least are common to them, but nothing in either respect is better said than that which can not be said so well elsewhere.

THE VALUE OF NATURALNESS

There are many very engaging things in an exordium which is framed from the opponent’s pleading, and this is because it does not seem to favor of the closet, but is produced on the spot and comes from the very thing. By its easy, natural turn, it enhances the reputation of genius. Its air of simplicity, the judge not being on his guard against it, begets belief, and tho the discourse in all other parts be elaborate and written with great accuracy, it will for the most part seem an extempore oration, the exordium evidently appearing to have nothing premeditated.

But nothing else will so well suit an exordium as modesty in the countenance, voice, thoughts, and composition, so that even in an uncontrovertible kind of cause, too great confidence ought not to display itself. Security is always odious in a pleader, and a judge who is sensible of his authority tacitly demands respect.

An orator must likewise be exceedingly careful to keep himself from being suspected, particularly in that regard; therefore, not the least show of study should be made, because all his art will seem exerted against the judge, and not to show this is the greatest perfection of art. This rule has been recommended by all authors, and undoubtedly with good reason, but sometimes is altered by circumstances, because in certain causes the judges themselves require studied discourses, and fancy themselves thought mean of unless accuracy appears in thought and expression. It is of no significance to instruct them; they must be pleased. It is indeed difficult to find a medium in this respect, but the orator may so temper his manner as to speak with justness, and not with too great a show of art. THE NEED OF SIMPLICITY OF EXPRESSION

Another rule inculcated by the ancients is not to admit into the exordium any strange word, too bold a metaphor, an obsolete expression, or a poetical turn. As yet we are not favorably received by the auditors, their attention is not entirely held, but when once they conceive an esteem and are warmly inclined toward us, then is the time to hazard this liberty, especially when we enter upon parts the natural fertility of which does not allow the liberty of expression to be noticed amidst the luster spread about it.

The style of the exordium ought not to be like that of the argument proper and the narration, neither ought it to be finely spun out, or harmonized into periodical cadences, but, rather, it should be simple and natural, promising neither too much by words nor countenance. A modest action, also, devoid of the least suspicion of ostentation, will better insinuate itself into the mind of the auditor. But these ought to be regulated according to the sentiments we would have the judges imbibe from us.

It must be remembered, however, that nowhere is less allowance made than here for failing in memory or appearing destitute of the power of articulating many words together. An ill-pronounced exordium may well be compared to a visage full of scars, and certainly he must be a bad pilot who puts his ship in danger of sinking, as he is going out of port.

In regard to the length of the exordium, it ought to be proportionate to the nature of the cause. Simple causes admit of a shorter exordium; the complex, doubtful, and odious, require a longer exordium. Some writers have prescribed four points as laws for all exordiums,–which is ridiculous. An immoderate length should be equally avoided, lest it appear, as some monsters, bigger in the head than in the rest of the body, and create disgust where it ought only to prepare.

“TYING UP” THE INTRODUCTION

As often as we use an exordium, whether we pass next to the narration, or immediately to the proofs, we ought always to preserve a connection between what follows and what goes before. To proceed from one part to another, by some ingenious thought which disguises the transition, and to seek applause from such a studied exertion of wit, is quite of a piece with the cold and childish affectation of our declaimers. If a long and intricate narration must follow, the judge ought naturally to be prepared for it. This Cicero often does, as in this passage: “I must proceed pretty high to clear up this matter to you, which I hope, gentlemen, you will not be displeased at, because its origin being known will make you thoroughly acquainted with the particulars proceeding from it.”

THE NARRATION

There are causes so short as to require rather to be proposed than told. It is sometimes the case with two contending sides, either that they have no exposition to make, or that agreeing on the fact, they contest only the right. Sometimes one of the contending parties, most commonly the plaintiff, need only propose the matter, as most to his advantage, and then it will be enough for him to say: “I ask for a certain sum of money due to me according to agreement; I ask for what was bequeathed to me by will.” It is the defendant’s business to show that he has no right to such a debt or legacy. On other occasions it is enough, and more advisable, for the plaintiff to point out merely the fact: “I say that Horatius killed his sister.” This simple proposition makes known the whole crime, but the details and the cause of the fact will suit better the defendant. Let it be supposed, on the other hand, that the fact can not be denied or excused; then the defendant, instead of narrating, will best abide by the question of right. Some one is accused of sacrilege for stealing the money of a private person out of a temple. The pleader of the cause had better confess the fact than give an account of it. “We do not deny that this money was taken out of the temple. It was the money of a private person, and not set apart for any religious use. But the plaintiff calumniates us by an action for sacrilege. It is, therefore, your business, gentlemen, to decide whether it can properly be specified as sacrilege.”

THE TWO KINDS OF NARRATION

There are two kinds of narration in judicial matters, the one for the cause, the other for things belonging to it. “I have not killed that man.” This needs no narration. I admit it does not; but there may be a narration, and even somewhat long, concerning the probable causes of innocence in the accused, as his former integrity of life, the opponent’s motives for endangering the life of a guiltless person, and other circumstances arguing the incredibility of the accusation. The accuser does not merely say, “You have committed that murder,” but shows reasons to evince its credibility; as, in tragedies, when Teucer imputes the death of Ajax to Ulysses, he says that “He was found in a lonely place, near the dead body of his enemy, with his sword all bloody.” Ulysses, in answer, not only denies the crime, but protests there was no enmity between him and Ajax, and that they never contended but for glory. Then he relates how he came into that solitary place, how he found Ajax dead, and that it was Ajax’s own sword he drew out of his wound. To these are subjoined proofs, but the proofs, too, are not without narration, the plaintiff alleging, “You were in the place where your enemy was found killed.” “I was not,” says the defendant, and he tells where he was. HOW TO MAKE THE CONCLUSION

The end of the narration is rather more for persuading than informing. When, therefore, the judges might not require information, yet, if we consider it advisable to draw them over to our way of thinking, we may relate the matter with certain precautions, as, that tho they have knowledge of the affair in general, still would it not be amiss if they chose to examine into every particular fact as it happened. Sometimes we may diversify the exposition with a variety of figures and turns; as, “You remember”; “Perhaps it would be unnecessary to insist any longer on this point”; “But why should I speak further when you are so well acquainted with the matter.”

A subject of frequent discussion is to know whether the narration ought immediately to follow the exordium. They who think it should, seem to have some reason on their side, for as the design of the exordium is to dispose the judges to hear us with all the good will, docility, and attention, we wish, and as arguments can have no effect without previous knowledge of the cause, it follows naturally that they should have this knowledge as soon as it can conveniently be given to them.

PURPOSES OF THE NARRATION

If the narration be entirely for us, we may content ourselves with those three parts, whereby the judge is made the more easily to understand, remember, and believe. But let none think of finding fault if I require the narration which is entirely for us, to be probable tho true, for many things are true but scarcely credible, as, on the contrary, many things are false tho frequently probable. We ought, therefore, to be careful that the judge should believe as much what we pretend as the truth we say, by preserving in both a probability to be credited.

Those three qualities of the narration belong in like manner to all other parts of the discourse, for obscurity must be avoided throughout, and we must everywhere keep within certain bounds, and all that is said must be probable; but a strict observance of these particulars ought to be kept more especially in that part wherein the judge receives his first information, for if there it should happen that he either does not understand, remember, or believe, our labor in all other parts will be to no purpose.

THE QUALITIES NEEDED FOR SUCCESS

The narration will be clear and intelligible if, first, it be exprest in proper and significant words, which have nothing mean and low, nothing far-fetched, and nothing uncommon. Second, if it distinguishes exactly things, persons, times, places, causes; all of which should be accompanied with a suitable delivery, that the judge may retain the more easily what is said.

This is a quality neglected by most of our orators, who, charmed by the applause of a rabble brought together by chance, or even bribed to applaud with admiration every word and period, can neither endure the attentive silence of a judicious audience, nor seem to themselves to be eloquent unless they make everything ring about them with tumultuous clamor. To explain simply the fact, appears to them too low, and common, and too much within the reach of the illiterate, but I fancy that what they despise as easy is not so much because of inclination as because of inability to effect it. For the more experience we have, the more we find that nothing else is so difficult as to speak in such a manner that all who have heard us may think they could acquit themselves equally as well. The reason for the contrary notion is that what is so said is considered as merely true and not as fine and beautiful. But will not the orator express himself in the most perfect manner, when he seems to speak truth? Now, indeed, the narration is laid out as a champion-ground for eloquence to display itself in; the voice, the gesture, the thoughts, the expression, are all worked up to a pitch of extravagance, and what is monstrous, the action is applauded, and yet the cause is far from being understood. But we shall forego further reflections on this misguided notion, lest we offend more by reproving faults, than gratify by giving advice.

The narration will have its due brevity if we begin by explaining the affair from the point where it is of concern to the judge; next, if we say nothing foreign to the cause; and last, if we avoid all superfluities, yet without curtailing anything that may give insight into the cause or be to its advantage. There is a certain brevity of parts, however, which makes a long whole: “I came to the harbor, I saw a ship ready for sailing, I asked the price for passengers, I agreed as to what I should give, I went aboard, we weighed anchor, we cleared the coast, and sailed on briskly.” None of these circumstances could be exprest in fewer words, but it is sufficient to say, “I sailed from the port.” And as often as the end of a thing sufficiently denotes what went before, we may rest satisfied with it as facilitating the understanding of all other circumstances.

But often when striving to be short, we become obscure, a fault equally to be avoided, therefore it is better that the narration should have a little too much, than that it should lack enough. What is redundant, disgusts; what is necessary is cut down with danger. I would not have this rule restricted to what is barely sufficient for pronouncing judgment on, because the narration may be concise, yet not, on that account, be without ornament. In such cases it would appear as coming from an illiterate person. Pleasure, indeed, has a secret charm; and the things which please seem less tedious. A pleasant and smooth road, tho it be longer, fatigues less than a rugged and disagreeable short cut. I am not so fond of conciseness as not to make room for brightening a narration with proper embellishments. If quite homely and curtailed on all sides, it will be not so much a narration as a poor huddling up of things together. GETTING YOUR STATEMENTS ACCEPTED

The best way to make the narration probable is to first consult with ourselves on whatever is agreeable to nature, that nothing may be said contrary to it; next, to find causes and reasons for facts, not for all, but for those belonging to the question; and last, to have characters answerable to the alleged facts which we would have believed; as, if one were guilty of theft, we should represent him as a miser; of adultery, as addicted to impure lusts; of manslaughter, as hot and rash. The contrary takes place in defense, and the facts must agree with time, place, and the like.

Sometimes a cause may be prepared by a proposition, and afterward narrated. All circumstances are unfavorable to three sons who have conspired against their father’s life. They cast lots who shall strike the blow. He on whom the lot falls, enters his father’s bed-chamber at night, with a poniard, but has not courage to put the design into execution. The second and the third do the same. The father wakes. All confess their wicked purpose, and by virtue of a law made and provided for such case, they are to be disinherited. But should the father, who has already made a partition of his estate in their favor, plead their cause, he may proceed thus: “Children are accused of parricide, whose father is still alive, and they are sued in consequence of a law that is not properly applicable to their case. I need not here give an account of a transaction that is foreign to the point of law in question. But if you require a confession of my guilt, I have been a hard father to them, and rather too much occupied in hoarding up the income of my estate, which would have been better spent in necessaries for them.” Afterward he may say that they did not form this plan by themselves, that they were instigated to it by others who had more indulgent parents, that the result clearly showed they were not capable of so unnatural an action, that there was no necessity for binding themselves by oath if in reality they could have had such an inclination, nor of casting lots if each did not want to avoid the perpetration of such a crime. All these circumstances, such as they are, will be favorably received, softened in some measure by the short defense of the previous propositions.

THE ORDER OF THE NARRATION

I am not of the opinion of those who think that the facts ought always to be related in the same order in which they happened. That manner of narration is best which is of most advantage to the cause, and it may, not improperly, call in the aid of a diversity of figures. Sometimes we may pretend that a thing has been overlooked, so that it may be better exprest elsewhere than it would be in its own order and place; assuring the judges at the same time that we shall resume the proper order, but that the cause in this way will be better understood. Sometimes, after explaining the whole affair, we may subjoin the antecedent causes. And thus it is that the art of defense, not circumscribed by any one invariable rule, must be adapted to the nature and circumstances of the cause.

It will not be amiss to intimate that nothing enhances so much the credibility of a narration as the authority of him who makes it, and this authority it is our duty to acquire, above all, by an irreproachable life, and next, by the manner of enforcing it. The more grave and serious it is, the more weight it will have. Here all suspicion of cunning and artifice should, therefore, be particularly avoided, for the judges, ever distrustful, are here principally on their guard, and, likewise, nothing should seem a pure fiction, or the work of study, which all might rather be believed to proceed from the cause than the orator. But this we can not endure, and we think our art lost unless it is seen; whereas it ceases to be art if it is seen. DIVISION AND ARGUMENT

Some are of the opinion that division should always be used, as by it the cause will be more clear and the judge more attentive and more easily taught when he knows of what we speak to him and of what we intend afterward to speak. Others think this is attended with danger to the orator, either by his sometimes forgetting what he has promised, or by something else occurring to the judge or auditor, which he did not think of in the division. I can not well imagine how this may happen, unless with one who is either destitute of sense or rash enough to plead without preparation. In any other respect, nothing else can set a subject in so clear a light as just division. It is a means to which we are directed by the guidance of nature, because keeping in sight the heads on which we propose to speak, is the greatest help the memory can have.

THE MISTAKE OF TOO MANY DIVISIONS

But if division should seem requisite, I am not inclined to assent to the notion of those who would have it extend to more than three parts. Indeed, when the parts are too many, they escape the judge’s memory and distract his attention; but a cause is not scrupulously to be tied down to this number, as it may require more.

DISADVANTAGES OF DIVISIONS

There are reasons for not always using division, the principal reason being that most things are better received when seemingly of extempore invention and not suggestive of study, but arising in the pleading from the nature of the thing itself. Whence such figures are not unpleasing as, “I had almost forgotten to say”; “It escaped my memory to acquaint you”; and “You have given me a good hint.” For if the proofs should be proposed without something of a reputation of this kind, they would lose, in the sequel, all the graces of novelty.

The distinguishing of questions, and the discussing of them, should be equally avoided. But the listeners’ passions ought to be excited, and their attention diverted from its former bias, for it is the orator’s business not so much to instruct as to enforce his eloquence by emotion, to which nothing can be more contrary than minute and scrupulously exact division of a discourse into parts.

WHEN THE DIVISION IS DESIRABLE

If many things are to be avoided or refuted, the division will be both useful and pleasing, causing everything to appear in the order in which it is to be said. But if we defend a single crime by various ways, division will be superfluous, as, “I shall make it clear that the person I defend is not such as to make it seem probable that he could be guilty of murder; it shall also be shown that he had no motives to induce him to do it; and lastly, that he was across the sea when this murder took place.” Whatever is cited and argued before the third point must seem quite unnecessary, for the judge is in haste to have you come to that which is of most consequence, and the patient, will tacitly call upon you to acquit yourself of your promise, or, if he has much business to dispatch, or his dignity puts him above your trifling, or he is of a peevish humor, he will oblige you to speak to the purpose, and perhaps do so in disrespectful terms.

PITFALLS IN ARGUMENT

Many doubt the desirability of this kind of defense: “If I had killed him, I should have done well; but I did not kill him.” Where is the occasion, say they, for the first proposition if the second be true? They run counter to each other, and whoever advances both, will be credited in neither. This is partly true, for if the last proposition be unquestionable, it is the only one that should be used. But if we are apprehensive of anything in the stronger, we may use both. On these occasions persons seem to be differently affected; one will believe the fact, and exculpate the right; another will condemn the right, and perhaps not credit the fact. So, one dart may be enough for an unerring hand to hit the mark, but chance and many darts must effect the same result for an uncertain aim. Cicero clears up this matter in his defense of Milo. He first shows Clodius to be the aggressor, and then, by a superabundance of right, adds that tho he might not be the aggressor, it was brave and glorious in Milo to have delivered Rome of so bad a citizen.

Tho division may not always be necessary, yet when properly used it gives great light and beauty to a discourse. This it effects not only by adding more perspicuity to what is said, but also by refreshing the minds of the hearers by a view of each part circumscribed within its bounds; just so milestones ease in some measure the fatigue of travelers, it being a pleasure to know the extent of the labor they have undergone, and to know what remains encourages them to persevere, as a thing does not necessarily seem long when there is a certainty of coming to the end. ESSENTIALS OF GOOD ARGUMENT

Every division, therefore, when it may be employed to advantage, ought to be first clear and intelligible, for what is worse than being obscure in a thing, the use of which is to guard against obscurity in other things? Second, it ought to be short, and not encumbered with any superfluous word, because we do not enter upon the subject matter, but only point it out.

If proofs be strong and cogent, they should be proposed and insisted on separately; if weak, it will be best to collect them into a body. In the first case, being persuasive by themselves, it would be improper to obscure them by the confusion of others: they should appear in their due light. In the second case, being naturally weak, they should be made to support each other. If, therefore, they are not greatly effective in point of quality, they may be in that of number, all of them having a tendency to prove the same thing; as, if one were accused of killing another for the sake of inheriting his fortune: “You did expect an inheritance, and it was something very considerable; you were poor, and your creditors troubled you more than ever; you also offended him who had appointed you his heir, and you know that he intended to alter his will.” These proofs taken separately are of little moment, and common; but collectively their shock is felt, not as a peal of thunder, but as a shower of hail.

The judge’s memory, however, is not always to be loaded with the arguments we may invent. They will create disgust, and beget distrust in him, as he can not think such arguments to be powerful enough which we ourselves do not think sufficient. But to go on arguing and proving, in the case of self-evident things, would be a piece of folly not unlike that of bringing a candle to light us when the sun is in its greatest splendor.

To these some add proofs which they call moral, drawn from the milder passions; and the most powerful, in the opinion of Aristotle, are such as arise from the person of him who speaks, if he be a man of real integrity. This is a primary consideration; and a secondary one, remote, indeed, yet following, will be the probable notion entertained of his irreproachable life.

THE BEST ORDER OF THE ARGUMENT

It has been a matter of debate, also, whether the strongest proofs should have place in the beginning, to make an immediate impression on the hearers, or at the end, to make the impression lasting with them, or to distribute them, partly in the beginning and partly at the end, placing the weaker in the middle, or to begin with the weakest and proceed to the strongest. For my part I think this should depend on the nature and exigencies of the cause, yet with this reservation, that the discourse might not dwindle from the powerful into what is nugatory and frivolous.

Let the young orator, for whose instruction I make these remarks, accustom himself as much as possible to copy nature and truth. As in schools he often engages in sham battles, in imitation of the contests of the bar, let him even then have an eye to victory, and learn to strike home, dealing moral blows and putting himself on his defense as if really in earnest. It is the master’s business to require this duty, and to commend it according as it is well executed. For if they love praise to the degree of seeking it in their faults, which does them much harm, they will desire it more passionately when they know it to be the reward of real merit. The misfortune now is that they commonly pass over necessary things in silence, considering what is for the good of the cause as of little or no account if it be not conducive to the embellishment of the discourse. THE PERORATION

The peroration, called by some the completion, by others the conclusion, of a discourse, is of two kinds, and regards either the matters discust in it or the moving of the passions.

The repetition of the matter and the collecting it together, which is called by the Greeks recapitulation, and by some of the Latins enumeration, serves for refreshing the judge’s memory, for placing the whole cause in one direct point of view, and for enforcing in a body many proofs which, separately, made less impression. It would seem that this repetition ought to be very short, and the Greek term sufficiently denotes that we ought to run over only the principal heads, for if we are long in doing it, it will not be an enumeration that we make, but, as it were, a second discourse. The points which may seem to require this enumeration, however, ought to be pronounced with some emphasis, and enlivened with opposite thoughts, and diversified by figures, otherwise nothing will be more disagreeable than a mere cursory repetition, which would seem to show distrust of the judge’s memory.

RULES FOR THE PERORATION

This seems to be the only kind of peroration allowed by most of the Athenians and by almost all the philosophers who left anything written on the art of oratory. The Athenians, I suppose, were of that opinion because it was customary at Athens to silence, by the public crier, any orator who should attempt to move the passions. I am less surprized at this opinion among philosophers, every perturbation of the mind being considered by them as vicious; nor did it seem to them compatible with sound morality to divert the judge from truth, nor agreeable to the idea of an honest man to have recourse to any sinister stratagem. Yet moving the passions will be acknowledged necessary when truth and justice can not be otherwise obtained and when public good is concerned in the decision. All agree that recapitulation may also be employed to advantage in other parts of the pleading, if the cause is complicated and requires many arguments to defend it, and, on the other hand, it will admit of no doubt that many causes are so short and simple as to have no occasion in any part of them for recapitulation. The above rules for the peroration apply equally to the accuser and to the defendant’s advocate.

They, likewise, use nearly the same passions, but the accuser more seldom and more sparingly, and the defendant oftener and with greater emotions; for it is the business of the former to stir up aversion, indignation, and other similar passions in the minds of the judges, and of the latter to bend their hearts to compassion. Yet the accuser is sometimes not without tears, in deploring the distress of those in whose behalf he sues for satisfaction, and the defendant sometimes complains with great vehemence of the persecution raised against him by the calumnies and conspiracy of his enemies. It would be best, therefore, to distinguish and discuss separately the different passions excited on the parts of the plaintiff and defendant, which are most commonly, as I have said, very like what takes place in the exordium, but are treated in a freer and fuller manner in the peroration.

PURPOSES OF THE PERORATION

The favor of the judges toward us is more sparingly sued for in the beginning, it being then sufficient to gain their attention, as the whole discourse remains in which to make further impressions. But in the peroration we must strive to bring the judge into that disposition of the mind which it is necessary for us that he should retain when he comes to pass judgment. The peroration being finished, we can say no more, nor can anything be reserved for another place. Both of the contending sides, therefore, try to conciliate the judge, to make him unfavorable to the opponent, to rouse and occasionally allay his passions; and both may find their method of procedure in this short rule, which is, to keep in view the whole stress of the cause, and finding what it contains that is favorable, odious, or deplorable, in reality or in probability, to say those things which would make the greatest impression on themselves if they sat as judges.

I have already mentioned in the rules for the exordium how the accuser might conciliate the judges. Yet some things, which it was enough to point out there, should be wrought to a fulness in the peroration, especially if the pleading be against some one universally hated, and a common disturber, and if the condemnation of the culprit should redound as much to the honor of the judges as his acquittal to their shame. Thus Calvus spoke admirably against Vatinius:

“You know, good sirs, that Vatinius is guilty, and no one is unaware that you know it.” Cicero, in the same way, informs the judges that if anything is capable of reestablishing the reputation of their judgment, it must be the condemnation of Verres. If it be proper to intimidate the judges, as Cicero likewise does, against Verres, this is done with better effect in the peroration than in the exordium. I have already explained my sentiments on this point. HOW TO AROUSE EMOTIONS

In short, when it is requisite to excite envy, hatred, or indignation there is greater scope for doing this to advantage in the peroration than elsewhere. The interest in the accused may naturally excite the judge’s envy, the infamy of his crimes may draw upon him his hatred, the little respect he shows him may rouse his indignation. If he is stubborn, haughty, presumptuous, let him be painted in all the glaring colors that aggravate such vicious temper, and these manifested not only from his words and deeds, but from face, manner, and dress. I remember, on my first coming to the bar, a shrewd remark of the accuser of Cossutianus Capito. He pleaded in Greek before the Emperor, but the meaning of his words was: “Might it not be said that this man disdains even to respect Cæsar.”

The accuser has recourse frequently to the arousing of compassion, either by setting forth the distrest state of him for whom he hopes to find redress, or by describing the desolation and ruin into which his children and relations are likely thereby to be involved. He may, too, move the judges by holding out to them a prospect of what may happen hereafter if injuries and violence remain unpunished, the consequence of which will be that either his client must abandon his dwelling and the care of his effects, or must resolve to endure patiently all the injustice his enemy may try to do him.

The accuser more frequently will endeavor to caution the judge against the pity with which the defendant intends to inspire him, and he will stimulate him, in as great a degree as he can, to judge according to his conscience. Here, too, will be the place to anticipate whatever it is thought the opponent may do or say, for it makes the judges more circumspect regarding the sacredness of their oath, and by it the answer to the pleading may lose the indulgence which it is expected to receive, together with the charm of novelty in all the particulars which the accuser has already cleared up. The judges, besides, may be informed of the answer they should make to those who might threaten to have their sentence reversed; and this is another kind of recapitulation.

The persons concerned are very proper objects for affecting the mind of the judge, for the judge does not seem to himself to hear so much the orator weeping over others’ misfortunes, as he imagines his ears are smitten with the feelings and voice of the distrest. Even their dumb appearance might be a sufficiently moving language to draw tears, and as their wretchedness would appear in lively colors if they were to speak it themselves, so proportionately it must be thought to have a powerful effect when exprest, as it were, from their own mouths. Just so, in theatrical representations, the same voice, and the same emphatic pronunciation, become very interesting under the masks used for personating different characters. With a like view Cicero, tho he gives not the voice of a suppliant to Milo, but, on the contrary, commends his unshaken constancy, yet does he adapt to him words and complaints not unworthy of a man of spirit: “O my labors, to no purpose undertaken! Deceiving hopes! Useless projects!”

This exciting of pity, however, should never be long, it being said, not without reason, that “nothing dries up so soon as tears.” If time can mitigate the pangs of real grief, of course the counterfeit grief assumed in speaking must sooner vanish; so that if we dally, the auditor finding himself overcharged with mournful thoughts, tries to resume his tranquility, and thus ridding himself of the emotion that overpowered him, soon returns to the exercise of cool reason. We must, therefore, never allow this kind of emotion to become languid, but when we have wound up the passions to their greatest height, we must instantly drop the subject, and not expect that any one will long bewail another’s mishap. Therefore, as in other parts, the discourse should be well supported, and rather rise, so here particularly it should grow to its full vigor, because that which makes no addition to what has already been said seems to diminish it, and a passion soon evaporates that once begins to subside.

Tears are excited not only by words but by doing certain things, whence it is not unusual to present the very persons who are in danger of condemnation, in a garb suitable to their distress, together with their children and relations. Accusers, too, make it a custom to show a bloody sword, fractured bones picked out of wounds, and garments drenched in blood. Sometime, likewise, they unbind wounds to show their condition, and strip bodies naked to show the stripes they have received. These acts are commonly of mighty efficacy, as fully revealing the reality of the occurrence. Thus it was that Cæsar’s robe, bloody all over, exposed in the Forum, drove the people of Rome into an excess of madness. It was well known that he was assassinated; his body also lay in state, until his funeral should take place; yet that garment, still dripping with blood, formed so graphic a picture of the horrible murder that it seemed to them to have been perpetrated that very instant.

It will not be amiss to hint that the success of the peroration depends much on the manner of the parties in conforming themselves to the emotions and action of their advocates. Stupidity, rusticity, and a want of sensibility and attention, as it is said, throw cold water on a cause against which the orator can not be too well provided. I have, indeed, often seen them act quite contrary to their advocate’s instructions. Not the least show of concern could be observed in their countenance. They laughed foolishly and without reason, and made others laugh by some ridiculous gesticulation or grimace, especially when the heat of a debate exhibited anything akin to theatrical action.

An orator of slender ability will acquit himself better if he allows the judges by themselves to feel the compassion with which his subject may naturally inspire them, especially since the appearance, and voice, and studied air of the advocate’s countenance are often ridiculed by such as are not affected by them. Let the orator make an exact estimate of his powers, therefore, and be conscious of the burden he undertakes. Here there is no middle state; he must either make his hearers weep, or expect to be laughed at.

It should not be imagined, as some have thought, that all exciting of the passions, all sentimental emotions, ought to be confined to the exordium and peroration. In them they are most frequent, yet other parts admit them likewise, but in a shorter compass, as their greatest stress should be reserved for the end. For here, if anywhere, the orator may be allowed to open all the streams of eloquence. If we have executed all other parts to advantage, here we take possession of the minds of the judges, and having escaped all rocks, may expand all our sails for a favorable gale; and as amplification makes a great part of the peroration, we then may raise and embellish our style with the choicest expressions and brightest thoughts. And, indeed, the conclusion of a speech should bear some resemblance to that of tragedy and comedy, wherein the actor courts the spectator’s applause. In other parts the passions may be touched upon, as they naturally rise out of the subject, and no horrible or sorrowful thing should be set forth without accompanying it with a suitable sentiment. When the debate may be on the quality of a thing, it is properly subjoined to the proofs of each thing brought out. When we plead a cause complicated with a variety of circumstances, then it will be necessary to use many perorations, as it were; as Cicero does against Verres, lending his tears occasionally to Philodamus, to the masters of ships, to the crucified Roman citizens, and to many others. PASSION AND PERSUASION

It may well be imagined that nothing else is so important in the whole art of oratory as the proper use of the passions. A slender genius, aided by learning or experience, may be sufficient to manage certain parts to some advantage, yet I think they are fit only for instructing the judges, and as masters and models for those who take no concern beyond passing for good speakers. But to possess the secret of forcibly carrying away the judges, of moving them, as we please, to a certain disposition of mind, of inflaming them with anger, of softening them to pity, so as to draw tears from them, all this is rare, tho by it the orator is made most distinguished and by it eloquence gains empire over hearts. The cause itself is naturally productive of arguments, and the better share generally falls to the lot of the more rightful side of the question, so that whichever side wins by dint of argument, may think that so far they did not lack an advocate. But when violence is to be used to influence the minds of the judges, when they are to be turned from coolly reflecting on the truth that works against us, then comes the true exercise of the orator’s powers; and this is what the contending parties can not inform us of, nor is it contained in the state of their cases. Proofs, it is true, make the judges presume that our cause is the better, but passion makes them wish it to be such, and as they wish it, they are not far from believing it to be so. For as soon as they begin to absorb from us our passions of anger, favor, hatred, or pity, they make the affair their own. As lovers can not be competent judges of beauty, because love blinds them, so here a judge attentive to the tumultuous working of a passion, loses sight of the way by which he should proceed to inquire after the truth. The impetuous torrent sweeps him away, and he is borne down in the current. The effect of arguments and witnesses is not known until judgment has been passed, but the judge who has been affected by the orator, still sitting and hearing, declares his real sentiments. Has not he who is seen to melt into tears, already pronounced sentence? Such, then, is the power of moving the passions, to which the orator ought to direct all his efforts, this being his principal work and labor, since without it all other resources are naked, hungry, weak, and unpleasing. The passions are the very life and soul of persuasion.

QUALITIES NEEDED IN THE ORATOR

What we require in the orator is, in general, a character of goodness, not only mild and pleasing, but humane, insinuating, amiable, and charming to the hearer; and its greatest perfection will be if all, as influenced by it, shall seem to flow from the nature of things and persons, that so the morals of the orator may shine forth from his discourse and be known in their genuine colors. This character of goodness should invariably be maintained by those whom a mutual tie ought to bind in strict union, whenever it may happen that they suffer anything from each other, or pardon, or make satisfaction, or admonish, or reprimand, but far from betraying any real anger or hatred.

A sentiment very powerful for exciting hatred may arise when an act of submission to our opponents is understood as a silent reproach of their insolence. Our willingness to yield must indeed show them to be insupportable and troublesome, and it commonly happens that they who have desire for railing, and are too free and hot in their invectives, do not imagine that the jealousy they create is of far greater prejudice to them than the malice of their speech.

All this presupposes that the orator himself ought to be a good and humane man. The virtues which he commends, if he possibly can, in his client, he should possess, or be supposed to possess, himself. In this way will he be of singular advantage to the cause he undertakes, the good opinion he has created of himself being a prejudice in its favor. For if while he speaks he appears to be a bad man, he must in consequence plead ill, because what he says will be thought repugnant to justice. The style and manner suitable on these occasions ought, therefore, to be sweet and insinuating, never hot and imperious, never hazarded in too elevated a strain. It will be sufficient to speak in a proper, pleasing, and probable way.

The orator’s business in regard to the passions should be not only to paint atrocious and lamentable things as they are, but even to make those seem grievous which are considered tolerable, as when we say that an injurious word is less pardonable than a blow, and that death is preferable to dishonor. For the powers of eloquence do not consist so much in forcing the judge into sentiments which the nature of the matter itself may be sufficient to inspire him with, as they do in producing and creating, as it were, the same sentiments when the subject may seem not to admit them. This is the vehemence of oratorical ability which knows how to equal and even to surpass the enormity and indignity of the facts it exposes, a quality of singular consequence to the orator, and one in which Demosthenes excelled all others.

THE SECRET OF MOVING THE PASSIONS

The great secret for moving the passions is to be moved ourselves, for the imitation of grief, anger, indignation, will often be ridiculous if conforming to only our words and countenance, while our heart at the same time is estranged from them. What other reason makes the afflicted exclaim in so eloquent a manner during the first transports of their grief? And how, otherwise, do the most ignorant speak eloquently in anger, unless it be from this force and these mental feelings?

In such passions, therefore, which we would represent as true copies of real ones, let us be ourselves like those who unfeignedly suffer, and let our speech proceed from such a disposition of mind as that in which we would have the judge be. Will he grieve who hears me speak with an expressionless face and air of indifference? Will he be angry when I, who am to excite him to anger, remain cool and sedate? Will he shed tears when I plead unconcerned? All this is attempting impossibilities. Nothing warms nor moistens but that which is endued with the quality of heat or moisture, nor does anything give to another a color it has not itself. The principal consideration, then, must be that we, ourselves, retain the impression of which we would have the judges susceptible, and be ourselves affected before we endeavor to affect others. THE POWER OF MENTAL IMAGERY

But how shall we be affected, the emotions or passions being not at our command? This may be done by what we may call visions, whereby the images of things absent are so represented to the mind that we seem to see them with our eyes and have them present before us. Whoever can work up his imagination to an intuitive view of this kind, will be very successful in moving the passions.

If I deplore the fate of a man who has been assassinated, may I not paint in my mind a lively picture of all that probably happened on the occasion? Shall not the assassin appear to rush forth suddenly from his lurking place? Shall not the other appear seized with horror? Shall he not cry out, beg for his life, or fly to save it? Shall I not see the assassin dealing the deadly blow, and the defenseless wretch falling dead at his feet? Shall I not picture vividly in my mind the blood gushing from his wounds, his ghastly face, his groans, and the last gasp he fetches?

When there is occasion for moving to compassion, we should believe and, indeed, be persuaded that the distress and misfortunes of which we speak have happened to ourselves. Let us place ourselves in the very position of those for whom we feel sorrow on account of their having suffered such grievous and unmerited treatment. Let us plead their cause, not as if it were another’s, but taking to ourselves, for a short time, their whole grief. In this way we shall speak as if the case were our own. I have seen comedians who, when they have just appeared in a mournful character, often make their exit with tears in their eyes. If, then, the expression given to imaginary passions can affect so powerfully, what should not orators do, whose inner feelings ought to sympathize with their manner of speaking, which can not happen unless they are truly affected by the danger to which their clients are exposed.

RULES FOR PRACTISE

In the declamatory exercises of schools it would be expedient, likewise, to move the passions and imagine the scene as a real one in life, and it is the more important as there the part is performed rather of a pleader against some person, than an advocate for some person. We represent a person who has lost his children, or has been shipwrecked, or is in danger of losing his life, but of what significance is it to personate such characters, unless we also assume their real sentiments. This nature, and these properties of the passions, I thought it incumbent on me not to conceal from the reader, for I, myself, such as I am, or have been (for I flatter myself that I have acquired some reputation at the bar), have often been so affected that not only tears, but even paleness, and grief, not unlike that which is real, have betrayed my emotions.

THE STUDY OF WORDS

What now follows requires special labor and care, the purpose being to treat of elocution, which in the opinion of all orators is the most difficult part of our work, for M. Antonius says that he has seen many good speakers, but none eloquent. He thinks it good enough for a speaker to say whatever is necessary on a subject, but only the most eloquent may discuss it with grace and elegance. If down to the time he lived in, this perfection was not discoverable in any orator, and neither in himself nor in L. Crassus, it is certain that it was lacking in them and their predecessors only on account of its extreme difficulty. Cicero says that invention and disposition show the man of sense, but eloquence the orator. He therefore took particular pains about the rules for this part, and that he had reason for so doing the very name of eloquence sufficiently declares. For to be eloquent is nothing else than to be able to set forth all the lively images you have conceived in your mind, and to convey them to the hearers in the same rich coloring, without which all the principles we have laid down are useless, and are like a sword concealed and kept sheathed in its scabbard.

This, then, is what we are principally to learn; this is what we can not attain without the help of art; this ought to be the object of our study, our exercise, our imitation; this may be full employment for our whole life; by this, one orator excels another; and from this proceeds diversity of style.

THE PROPER VALUE OF WORDS

It should not be inferred from what is said here that all our care must be about words. On the contrary, to such as would abuse this concession of mine, I declare positively my disapprobation of those persons who, neglecting things, the nerves of causes, consume themselves in a frivolous study about words. This they do for the sake of elegance, which indeed is a fine quality when natural but not when affected. Sound bodies, with a healthy condition of blood, and strong by exercise, receive their beauty from the very things from which they receive their strength. They are fresh-colored, active, and supple, neither too much nor too little in flesh. Paint and polish them with feminine cosmetics, and admiration ceases; the very pains taken to make them appear more beautiful add to the dislike we conceive for them. Yet a magnificent, and suitable, dress adds authority to man; but an effeminate dress, the garb of luxury and softness, lays open the corruption of the heart without adding to the ornament of the body. In like manner, translucent and flashy elocution weakens the things it clothes. I would, therefore, recommend care about words, but solicitude about things.

The choicest expressions are for the most part inherent in things, and are seen in their own light, but we search after them as if always hiding and stealing themselves away from us. Thus we never think that what ought to be said is at hand; we fetch it from afar, and force our invention. Eloquence requires a more manly temper, and if its whole body be sound and vigorous, it is quite regardless of the nicety of paring the nails and adjusting the hair. THE DANGER OF VERBIAGE

It often happens, too, that an oration becomes worse by attending to these niceties, because simplicity, the language of truth, is its greatest ornament, and affectation the reverse. The expressions that show care, and would also appear as newly formed, fine, and eloquent, lose the graces at which they aim, and are far from being striking and well received, because they obscure the sense by spreading a sort of shadow about it, or by being too crowded they choke it up, like thick-sown grain that must run up too spindling. That which may be spoken in a plain, direct manner we express by paraphrase; and we use repetitions where to say a thing once is enough; and what is well signified by one word, we load with many, and most things we choose to signify rather by circumlocution than by proper and pertinent terms.

A proper word, indeed, now has no charms, nothing appearing to us fine which might have been said by another word. We borrow metaphors from the whims and conceits of the most extravagant poets, and we fancy ourselves exceedingly witty, when others must have a good deal of wit to understand us. Cicero is explicit in his views in this respect. “The greatest fault a speech can have,” says he, “is when it departs from the common way of discourse and the custom of common sense.” But Cicero would pass for a harsh and barbarous author, compared to us, who make little of whatever nature dictates, who seek not ornaments, but delicacies and refinements, as if there were any beauty in words without an agreement with things, for if we were to labor throughout our whole life in consulting their propriety, clearness, ornament, and due placing, we should lose the whole fruit of our studies.

ACQUIRING A PRACTICAL VOCABULARY

Yet many are seen to hesitate at single words, even while they invent, and reflect on and measure what they invent. If this were done designedly to use always the best, this unhappy temper would still be detestable, as it must check the course of speaking and extinguish the heat of thought by delay and diffidence. For the orator is wretched, and, I may say, poor, who can not patiently lose a word. But he will lose none who first has studied a good manner of speaking, and by reading well the best authors has furnished himself with a copious supply of words and made himself expert in the art of placing them. Much practise will so improve him afterward that he always will have them at hand and ready for use, the thought fitting in naturally with the proper manner of expression.

But all this requires previous study, an acquired faculty, and a rich fund of words. For solicitude in regard to inventing, judging, and comparing, should take place when we learn, and not when we speak. Otherwise they who have not sufficiently cultivated their talents for speaking will experience the fate of those who have made no provision for the future. But if a proper stock of words is already prepared, they will attend as in duty bound, not so much in the way of answering exigencies as always to seem inherent in the thought and to follow as a shadow does a body.

HOW TO CHOOSE THE RIGHT WORDS

Yet this care should not exceed its due bounds, for when words are authorized by use, are significant, elegant, and aptly placed, what more need we trouble ourselves about? But some eternally will find fault, and almost scan every syllable, who, even when they have found what is best, seek after something that is more ancient, remote, and unexpected, not understanding that the thought must suffer in a discourse, and can have nothing of value, where only the words are commendable. Let us, therefore, pay particular regard to elocution, yet, at the same time be convinced that nothing is to be done for the sake of words, they having been invented solely for the sake of things. The most proper words always will be those which are best expressive of the ideas in our mind, and which produce in the ideas of the judges the effect we desire. Such undoubtedly will make a speech both admirable and pleasing, but not so admirable as are prodigies, nor pleasing by a vicious and unseemly pleasure, but a pleasure reflecting dignity with praise. ELEGANCE AND GRACE

The orator will recommend himself particularly by the embellishments he adopts, securing in other ways the approbation of the learned, and in this also the favor of popular applause.

Not so much with strong as with shining armor did Cicero engage in the cause of Cornelius. His success was not due merely to instructing the judges, and speaking in a pure and clear style. These qualities would not have brought him the honor of the admiration and applause of the Roman people. It was the sublimity, magnificence, splendor, and dignity of his eloquence that forced from them signal demonstrations of their amazement. Nor would such unusual eulogies have been given him if his speech had contained nothing extraordinary, nothing but what was common. And, indeed, I believe that those present were not completely aware of what they were doing, and that what they did was neither spontaneous, nor from an act of judgment, but that filled with a sort of enthusiasm, and not considering the place they were in, they burst forth with unrestrained excitement.

THE VALUE OF BEAUTY OF EXPRESSION

These ornaments of speech, therefore, may be thought to contribute not a little to the success of a cause, for they who hear willingly are more attentive and more disposed to believe. Most commonly it is pleasure that wins them over, and sometimes they are seized and carried away with admiration. A glittering sword strikes the eyes with some terror, and thunder would not so shock us if its crash only, and not its lightning, was dreaded. Therefore Cicero, with good reason, says in one of his epistles to Brutus: “The eloquence which does not excite admiration, I regard as nothing.” Aristotle, too, would have us endeavor to attain this perfection.

But this embellishment, I must again and again repeat, ought to be manly, noble, and modest; neither inclining to effeminate delicacy, nor assuming a color indebted to paint, but glistening with health and spirits.

Let none of those who build up their reputation on a corrupt manner of eloquence, say that I am an enemy to such as speak with elegance. I do not deny that it is a perfection, but I do not ascribe it to them. Shall I think a piece of ground better laid out and improved, in which one shall show me lilies and violets and pleasing cascades, than one where there is a full harvest or vines laden with grapes? Shall I esteem a barren planetree and shorn myrtles beyond the fruitful olive and the elm courting the embraces of the vine? The rich may pride themselves on these pleasures of the eye, but how little would be their value if they had nothing else?

But shall no beauty, no symmetry, be observed in the care of fruit trees? Undoubtedly there should, and I would place them in a certain order, and keep a due distance in planting them. What is more beautiful than the quincunx, which, whatever way you look, retains the same direct position? Planting them out so will also be of service to the growth of the trees, by equally attracting the juices of the earth. I should lop off the aspiring tops of my olive; it will spread more beautifully into a round form, and will produce fruit on more branches. A horse with slender flanks is considered handsomer than one not framed in that manner, and the same quality also shows that he excels in swiftness. An athlete whose arms from exercise show a full spring and play of the muscles, is a beautiful sight, and he, likewise, is best fitted as a combatant. Thus the true species is never without its utility, as even a meager judgment easily may discern.

DEVELOPING VARIETY OF STYLE

But it will be of more importance to observe that this decent attire ought to be varied according to the nature of the subject. To begin with our first division, the same style will not suit equally demonstrative, deliberative, and judicial causes. The first, calculated for ostentation, aims at nothing but the pleasure of the auditory. It, therefore, displays all the riches of art, and exposes to full view all the pomp of eloquence; not acting by stratagem, nor striving for victory, but making praise and glory its sole and ultimate end. Whatever may be pleasing in the thought, beautiful in the expression, agreeable in the turn, magnificent in the metaphor, elaborate in the composition, the orator will lay open for inspection and, if it were possible, for handling, as a merchant exposes his wares; for here the success wholly regards him and not the cause.

But when the serious part of a trial is on hand, and the contest is truly in earnest, care of reputation ought to be the orator’s last concern. For this reason, when everything in a way is at stake, no one ought to be solicitous about words. I do not say that no ornaments ought to have place in them, but that they should be more modest and severe, less apparent, and above all suited to the subject. For in deliberations the senate require something more elevated; the assemblies of the people, something more spirited; and at the bar, public and capital causes, something more accurate. But a private deliberation, and causes of trivial consequence, as the stating of accounts and the like, need little beyond the plain and easy manner of common discourse. Would it not be quite shameful to demand in elaborate periods the payment of money lent, or appeal to the emotions in speaking of the repairs of a gutter or sink? THE CHOICE OF WORDS

As the ornament, as well as perspicuity, of speech consists either in single words or in many together, we shall consider what they require separately and what in conjunction. Tho there is good reason for saying that perspicuity is best suited by proper words, and ornament by metaphorical, yet we should always know that an impropriety is never ornamental. But as many words very often signify the same thing, and therefore are called synonymous, some of these must be more sublime, more bright, more agreeable, and sweeter and fuller in pronunciation than others. As the more clear-sounding letters communicate the same quality to the syllables they compose, so the words composed of these syllables become more sonorous, and the greater the force or sound of the syllables is, the more they fill or charm the ear. What the junction of syllables makes, the copulation of words makes also, a word sounding well with one, which sound badly with another.

There is a great diversity in the use of words. Harsh words best express things of an atrocious nature. In general, the best of simple words are believed to be such as sound loudest in exclamation, or sweetest in a pleasing strain. Modest words will ever be preferred to those that must offend a chaste ear, and no polite discourse ever makes allowance for a filthy or sordid expression. Magnificent, noble, and sublime words are to be estimated by their congruity with the subject; for what is magnificent in one place, swells into bombast in another; and what is low in a grand matter, may be proper in a humble situation. As in a splendid style a low word must be very much out of place and, as it were, a blemish to it, so a sublime and pompous expression is unsuited to a subject that is plain and familiar, and therefore must be reputed corrupt, because it raises that which ought to find favor through its native simplicity.

THE MANNER OF DELIVERY

I shall pass now to the construction of words, observing that their ornamental use may be considered from two points of view; first, as it regards the elocution we conceive in our minds; second, the manner of expressing it. It is of particular consequence that we should be clear as to what ought to be amplified or diminished; whether we are to speak with heat or moderation; in a florid or austere style; in a copious or concise manner; in words of bitter invective, or in those showing placid and gentle disposition; with magnificence or plainness; gravity or politeness. Besides which it is equally important to know what metaphors, what figures, what thoughts, what manner, what disposition, are best suited for effecting our purpose.

FAULTS OF EXPRESSION TO AVOID

In speaking of the ornaments of a discourse, it may not be amiss to touch first upon qualities contrary to them, because the principal perfection consists in being free from faults. We, therefore, must not expect ornament that is not probable, in a discourse. Cicero calls that kind of ornament probable which is not more nor less than it ought to be. Not that it should not appear neat and polished, for this is a part of ornament, but because too much in anything is always a fault. He would have authority and weight in words, and thoughts that are sensible, or conformable to the opinions and manners of men. These inviolably retained and adhered to, he makes ample allowance for whatever else may contribute to illustrate a discourse. And thus it is that metaphors, superlatives, epithets, compound, and synonymous words, if they seem to express the action and fully represent things, seldom fail to please.

We should avoid the fault which makes a sentence appear not full enough, on account of something defective, tho this is rather a vice of obscurity than want of ornament in speech. But when it is done for some particular reason, then it becomes a figure of speech. We should likewise be aware of tautology, which is a repetition of the same word or thought, or the use of many similar words or thoughts. Tho this does not seem to have been much guarded against by some authors of great note, it is, notwithstanding, a fault, and Cicero himself often falls into it.

Similarity of expression is a still greater vice, because the mind is wearied by lack of the graces of variety, and the discourse being all of one color, shows a great deficiency in the art of oratory. It, besides, creates loathing, and at length becomes insupportable, both to the mind and ear, through the tedious repetition of the same cold thoughts, figures, and periods.

There is another fault, that of being over-nice, which is caused by extreme anxiety to be exact, but which is as far distant from exactness as superstition is from true religion. In short, every word that contributes neither to perspicuity nor ornament, may be called vicious.

A perverse affectation is faulty in all respects. All bombast, and flimsiness, and studied sweetness, and redundancies, and far-fetched thoughts, and witticisms, fall under the same denomination. Thus whatever stretches beyond the bounds of perfection, may be called affectation, and this happens as often as the genius is lacking in judgment, and suffers itself to be deceived by an appearance of good. It is the worst of vices in matters of eloquence, for even when others are avoided, this is sought after, and its whole trespass is against elocution. There are vices incident to things, which come from being devoid of sense, or from being common, or contrary, or unnecessary, and a corrupt style consists principally in impropriety of words, in their redundancy, in their obscure import, in a weak composition, and in a puerile hunting after synonymous or equivocal words. But every perverse affectation is false in consequence of its idea, tho not everything that is false is an affectation, the latter saying a thing otherwise than as nature will have it, and than it ought to be, and than is sufficient. USE OF VIVID DESCRIPTION

There can not be a greater perfection than to express the things we speak of in such lively colors as to make them seem really to take place in our presence. Our words are lacking in full effect, they assume not that absolute empire they ought to have, when they strike only the ear, and when the judge who is to take cognizance of the matter is not sensible of its being emphatically exprest.

One manner of representation consists in making out of an assemblage of circumstances the image we endeavor to exhibit. An example of this we have in Cicero’s description of a riotous banquet; he being the only one who can furnish us with examples of all kinds of ornaments: “I seemed to myself to see some coming in, others going out; some tottering with drunkenness, others yawning from yesterday’s carousing. In the midst of these was Gallius, bedaubed with essences, and crowned with flowers. The floor of their apartment was all in a muck of dirt, streaming with wine, and strewed all about with chaplets of faded flowers, and fish-bones.” Who could have seen more had he been present?

In this manner pity grows upon us from hearing of the sacking of a town. Undoubtedly he who acquaints us of such an event, comprehends all the incidents of so great a calamity, yet this cursory piece of intelligence makes but a languid impression upon the mind. But if you enter into descriptive pictures of all that was included in one word, as it were, flames will appear spreading through houses and temples; the crash of falling houses will be heard; and one confused noise formed out of all together. Some will be seen striving to escape the danger, but know not where to direct their flight; others embracing for the last time their parents and relations; here the dismal shrieks of women and piercing cries of children fill one with pity; there the sighs and groans of old men, lamenting their unhappy fate for having lived so long as to be witnesses of their country’s desolation. A further addition to these scenes of woe is the plunder of all things, sacred as well as profane; the avidity of the soldier prowling after and carrying away his prey; the wretched citizens dragged away in chains before their haughty conquerors; mothers struggling to keep with them their children; and slaughter still exercising its cruelties wherever there is the least expectation of booty. Tho all these details are comprehended in the idea of the sacking of a town, yet it is saying less to state merely that the town was sacked than to describe its destruction in this circumstantial manner.

Such circumstances may be made to appear vivid if they retain a likeness to truth. They may not have happened in reality, yet, as they are possible, the descriptive evidence is not objectionable. The same evidence will arise also from accidents, as in the following examples:

… me horror chills, Shudd’ring, and fear congeals my curdling blood. TRAPP.

… to their bosoms press’d, The frighted mothers clasp’d their crying babes. TRAPP.

This perfection, the greatest, in my opinion, a discourse can have, is very easily acquired by only considering and following nature. For eloquence is a picture of the happenings of human life, every one applying to himself what he hears, by making the case in some measure his own, and the mind receives very willingly that with which it has become familiar.

To throw light, also, upon things, similes have been invented, some of which by way of proof are inserted among arguments, and others are calculated for expressing the images of things, the point we are here explaining.

… Thence like wolves Prowling in gloomy shade, which hunger blind Urges along, while their forsaken whelps Expect them with dry jaws. TRAPP.

… Thence with all his body’s force Flings himself headlong from the steepy height Down to the ocean: like the bird that flies Low, skimming o’er the surface, near the sea, Around the shores, around the fishy rocks. TRAPP. HOW TO EMPLOY SIMILES AND METAPHORS

We must be exceedingly cautious in regard to similitudes, that we do not use such as are either obscure or unknown. For that which is assumed for the sake of illustrating another thing, ought indeed to be clearer than that which it so illustrates.

In speaking of arguments I mentioned a kind of similitude which, as an ornament to a discourse, contributes to make it sublime, florid, pleasing, and admirable. For the more far-fetched a similitude is, the more new and unexpected it will appear. Some may be thought commonplace, yet will avail much for enforcing belief; as, “As a piece of ground becomes better and more fertile by cultivation, so does the mind by good institutions.” “As physicians prescribe the amputation of a limb that manifestly tends to mortification, so would it be necessary to cut off all bad citizens, tho even allied to us in blood.” Here is something more sublime: “Rocks and solitudes echo back the melody, and the fiercest beasts are often made more gentle, being astonished by the harmony of music.” But this kind of similitude is often abused by the too great liberties our declaimers give themselves; for they use such as are false, and they do not make a just application of them to the subjects to which they would compare them.

In every comparison the similitude either goes before, and the thing follows; or the thing goes before, and the similitude follows. But the similitude sometimes is free and separate: sometimes, which is best, it is connected with the thing of which it is the image, this connection being made to aid and correspond mutually on both sides. Cicero says in his oration for Murena: “They who have not a genius for playing on the lyre, may become expert at playing on the flute (a proverbial saying among the Greeks to specify the man who can not make himself master of the superior sciences): so among us they who can not become orators, turn to the study of the law.” In another passage of the same oration, the connected comparison is conceived in a sort of poetical spirit. “As storms are often raised by the influence of some constellation, and often suddenly and from some hidden cause which can not be accounted for, so the stormy agitations we sometimes behold in the assemblies of the people are often occasioned by a malign influence easily discoverable by all; and often their cause is so obscure as to seem merely the effect of chance.” There are other similes, which are very short, as this, “Strolling and wandering through forests like beasts.” And that of Cicero against Clodius, “From which judgment we have seen him escape naked, like a man from his house on fire.” Such similes constantly occur in common discourse.

Of a similar kind is an ornament which not only represents things, but does so in a lively and concise manner. Undoubtedly a conciseness in which nothing is lacking, is deservedly praised; that which says precisely only what is necessary, is less estimable; but that which expresses much in a few words is of all the most beautiful.

Eloquence does not think it enough to show of what it speaks, in a clear and evident manner; it uses, besides, a variety of other expedients for embellishing a discourse. Thus it is that a simple and unaffected style is not without beauty, but it is a beauty entirely pure and natural, such as is admired in women. Beauty is also annexed to propriety and justness of expression, and this beauty is the more elegant as it shows but little care. There is an abundance that is rich, an abundance that smiles amidst the gaiety of flowers, and there is more than one sort of power, for whatever is complete in its kind can not be destitute of its proper strength and efficacy. COMPOSITION AND STYLE

I well know that there are some who will not sanction any care in composition, contending that our words as they flow by chance, however uncouth they may sound, are not only more natural, but likewise more manly. If what first sprang from nature, indebted in nowise to care and industry, be only what they deem natural, I admit that the art of oratory in this respect has no pretensions to that quality. For it is certain that the first men did not speak according to the exactness of the rules of composition; neither were they acquainted with the art of preparing by an exordium, informing by a narration, proving by arguments, and moving by passions. They were deficient in all these particulars, and not in composition only; and if they were not allowed to make any alterations for the better, of course they would not have exchanged their cottages for houses, nor their coverings of skins for more decent apparel, nor the mountains and forests in which they ranged for the abode of cities in which they enjoy the comforts of social intercourse. And, indeed, what art do we find coeval with the world, and what is there of which the value is not enhanced by improvement? Why do we restrain the luxuriance of our vines? Why do we dig about them? Why do we grub up the bramble-bushes in our fields? Yet the earth produces them. Why do we tame animals? Yet are they born with intractable dispositions. Rather let us say that that is very natural which nature permits us to meliorate in her handiwork.

THE POWER OF SKILFUL COMPOSITION

How can a jumble of uncouth words be more manly than a manner of expression which is well joined and properly placed? If some authors weaken the subjects of which they treat, by straining them into certain soft and lascivious measures, we must not on that account judge that this is the fault of composition. As the current of rivers is swifter and more impetuous in a free and open channel than amidst an obstruction of rocks breaking and struggling against the flow of their waters, an oration that is properly connected flows with its whole might, and is far preferable to one that is craggy and desultory by reason of frequent interruptions. Why, then, should it be thought that strength and beauty are incompatible, when, on the contrary, nothing has its just value without art, and embellishment always attends on it? Do not we observe the javelin which has been cleverly whirled about, dart through the air with the best effect; and in managing a bow and arrow, is not the beauty of the attitude as much more graceful as the aim is more unerring? In feats of arms, and in all the exercises of the palæstra, is not his attitude best calculated for defense or offense, who uses a certain art in all his motions, and keeps to a certain position of the feet? Composition, therefore, in my opinion, is to thoughts and words what the dexterous management of a bow or string may be for directing the aim of missive weapons; and I may say that the most learned are convinced that it is greatly conducive not only to pleasure, but also to making a good impression on others. First, because it is scarcely possible that anything should affect the heart, which begins by grating on the ear. Secondly, because we are naturally affected by harmony, otherwise the sounds of musical instruments, tho they express no words, would not excite in us so great a variety of pleasing emotions. In sacred canticles, some airs are for elating the heart into raptures, others to restore the mind to its former tranquillity. The sound of a trumpet is not the same when it is the signal for a general engagement, and when on defeat it implores the conqueror’s mercy; neither is it the same when an army marches up to give battle, and when it is intent on retreating. It was a common practise with the Pythagoric philosophers, on arising in the morning, to awake their minds by an air on the lyre, in order to make them more alert for action; and they had recourse to the same musical entertainment for disposing them to sleep, believing it to be a means for allaying all tumultuous thoughts which might in any way have ruffled them in the course of the day.

If, then, so great a power lies in musical strains and modulations, what must it be with eloquence, the music of which is a speaking harmony? As much, indeed, as it is essential for a thought to be exprest in suitable words, it is equally necessary for the same words to be disposed in proper order by composition, that they may flow and end harmoniously. Some things of little consequence in their import, and requiring but a moderate degree of elocution, are commendable only by this perfection; and there are others which appear exprest with so much force, beauty, and sweetness, that if the order in which they stand should be changed or disturbed, all force, beauty, and sweetness would vanish from them. THE ESSENTIALS OF GOOD COMPOSITION

There are three things necessary in every kind of composition, and these are order, correction, and number.

_1. Order_

We shall speak first of order, which applies to words considered separately or joined together. In regard to the former, care must be taken that there be no decrease by adding a weaker word to a stronger, as accusing one of sacrilege, and giving him afterward the name of thief; or adding the character of wanton fellow to that of a highwayman. The sense ought to increase and rise, which Cicero observes admirably where he says: “And thou, with that voice, those lungs, and that gladiator-like vigor of thy whole body.” Here each succeeding thing is stronger than the one before; but if he had begun with the whole body, he could not with propriety have descended to the voice and lungs. There is another natural order in saying men and women, day and night, east and west.

Words in prose not being measured, as are the feet which compose verse, they are, therefore, transferred from place to place, that they may be joined where they best fit, as in a building where the irregularity, however great, of rough stones is both suitable and proper. The happiest composition language can have, however, is to keep to a natural order, just connection, and a regularly flowing cadence.

Sometimes there is something very striking about a word. Placed in the middle of a sentence, it might pass unnoticed, or be obscured by the other words that lie about it, but when placed at the end the auditor can not help noting it and retaining it in his mind.

_2. Connection_

Juncture follows, which is equally requisite in words, articles, members, and periods, all these having their beauty and faults, in consequence of their manner of connection. It may be a general observation that in the placing of syllables, their sound will be harsher as they are pronounced with a like or different gaping of the mouth. This, however, is not to be dreaded as a signal fault, and I know not which is worse here, inattention or too great care. Too scrupulous fear must damp the heat and retard the impetuosity of speaking, while at the same time it prevents the mind from attending to thoughts which are of greater moment. As, therefore, it is carelessness to yield to these faults, so it is meanness to be too much afraid of them.

_3. Number_

Numbers are nowhere so much lacking, nor so remarkable, as at the end of periods; first, because every sense has its bounds, and takes up a natural space, by which it is divided from the beginning of what follows: next, because the hearers following the flow of words, and drawn, as it were, down the current of the oration, are then more competent judges, when that impetuosity ceases and gives time for reflection. There should not, therefore, be anything harsh nor abrupt in that ending, which seems calculated for the respite and recreation of the mind and ear. This, too, is the resting-place of the oration, this the auditor expects, and here burst forth all his effusions of praise.

THE COMPOSITION OF PERIODS

The beginning of periods demands as much care as the closing of them, for here, also, the auditor is attentive. But it is easier to observe numbers in the beginning of periods, as they are not depending on, nor connected with, what went before. But the ending of periods, however graceful it may be in composition and numbers, will lose all its charm if we proceed to it by a harsh and precipitate beginning.

As to the composition of the middle parts of a period, care must be taken not only of their connection with each other, but also that they may not seem slow, nor long, nor, what is now a great vice, jump and start from being made up of many short syllables, and producing the same effect on the ear as the sounds from a child’s rattle. For as the ordering of the beginning and ending is of much importance, as often as the sense begins or ends; so in the middle, too, there is a sort of stress which slightly insists; as the feet of people running, which, tho they make no stop, yet leave a track. It is not only necessary to begin and end well the several members and articles, but the intermediate space, tho continued without respiration, ought also to retain a sort of composition, by reason of the insensible pauses that serve as so many degrees for pronunciation.

Cicero gives many names to the period, calling it a winding about, a circuit, a comprehension, continuation, and circumscription. It is of two kinds; the one simple when a single thought is drawn out into a considerable number of words; the other compound, consisting of members and articles which include several thoughts.

Wherever the orator has occasion to conduct himself severely, to press home, to act boldly and resolutely, he should speak by members and articles. This manner has vast power and efficacy in an oration. The composition is to adapt itself to the nature of things, therefore, even rough things being conceived in rough sounds and numbers, that the hearer may be made to enter into all the passions of the speaker. It would be advisable, for the most part, to make the narration in members; or if periods are used, they ought to be more loose and less elaborate than elsewhere. But I except such narrations as are calculated more for ornament than for giving information. THE USE OF PERIODS

The period is proper for the exordiums of greater causes, where the matter requires solicitude, commendation, pity. Also in common places and in every sort of amplification; but if you accuse, it ought to be close and compact; if you praise, it should be full, round, and flowing. It is likewise of good service in perorations, and may be used without restriction wherever the composition requires to be set off in a somewhat grand and noble manner, and when the judge not only has a thorough knowledge of the matter before him, but is also captivated with the beauty of the discourse and, trusting to the orator, allows himself to be led away by the sense of pleasure.

History does not so much stand in need of a periodical flow of words, as it likes to move around in a sort of perpetual circle, for all its members are connected with each other, by its slipping and gliding along from one subject to the next, just as men, strengthening their pace, hold and are held, by grasping each other by the hand. Whatever belongs to the demonstrative kind has freer and more flowing numbers. The judicial and deliberative, being varied in their matter, occasionally require a different form of composition.

FITTING EXPRESSION TO THOUGHT

Who doubts that some things are to be exprest in a gentle way, others with more heat, others sublimely, others contentiously, and others gravely? Feet composed of long syllables best suit grave, sublime, and ornamental subjects. The grave will take up a longer space in the pronunciation, and the sublime and ornamental will demand a clear and sonorous expression. Feet of short syllables are more agreeable in arguments, division, raillery, and whatever partakes of the nature of ordinary conversation.

The composition of the exordium will differ, therefore, as the subject may require. For the mind of the judge is not always the same, so that, according to the time and circumstances, we must declare our mournful plight, appear modest, tart, grave, insinuating; move to mercy and exhort to diligence. As the nature of these is different, so their composition must be conducted in a different way.

Let it be in some measure a general observation that the composition ought to be modeled on the manner of pronunciation. In exordiums are we not most commonly modest, except when in a cause of accusation we strive to irritate the minds of the judges? Are we not copious and explicit in narration; in arguments animated and lively, even showing animation in our actions; in common places and descriptions, exuberant and lavish of ornaments; and in perorations, for the most part weighed down by distress? Of the variety which ought to be in a discourse, we may find another parallel instance in the motions of the body. With all of them, do not the circumstances regulate their respective degrees of slowness and celerity? And for dancing as well as singing, does not music use numbers of which the beating of the time makes us sensible? As our voice and action are indeed expressive of our inner feelings in regard to the nature of the things of which we speak, need we, then, be surprized if a like conformity ought to be found in the feet that enter into the composition of a piece of eloquence? Ought not sublime matters be made to walk in majestic solemnity, the mild to keep in a gentle pace, the brisk and lively to bound with rapidity, and the nice and delicate to flow smoothly?

FAULTS IN COMPOSITION

If faults in composition be unavoidable, I should rather give preference to that which is harsh and rough than to that which is nerveless and weak, the results of an affected style that many now study, and which constantly corrupts, more and more, by a wantonness in numbers more becoming a dance than the majesty of eloquence. But I can not say that any composition is good, however perfect otherwise, which constantly presents the same form, and continually falls into the same feet. A constant observing of similar measures and cadences, is a kind of versification, and all prose in which this fault is discoverable, can have no allowance made for it, by reason of its manifest affectation (the very suspicion of which ought to be avoided), and its uniformity, which, of course, must fatigue and disgust the mind. This vice may have some engaging charms at first sight, but the greater its sweets are, the shorter will be their continuance; and the orator once detected of any anxious concern in this respect, will instantly lose all belief that has been placed in him, and vainly will he strive to make on others’ minds the impressions he expected to make; for how is it to be expected that a judge will believe a man, or permit himself to feel grief or anger on account of one whom he observes to have attended to nothing more than the display of such trifles? Some of the connections of smooth composition ought, therefore, to be designedly broken, and it is no small labor to make them appear not labored.

Let us not be such slaves to the placing of words as to study transpositions longer than necessary, lest what we do in order to please, may displease by being affected. Neither let a fondness for making the composition flow with smoothness, prevail on us to set aside a word otherwise proper and becoming; as no word, in reality, can prove disagreeable enough to be wholly excluded, unless it be that in the avoiding of such words we consult mere beauty of expression rather than the good of composition.

To conclude, composition ought to be graceful, agreeable, varied. Its parts are three: order, connection, number. Its art consists in adding, retrenching, changing. Its qualities are according to the nature of the things discust. The care in composition ought to be great, but not to take the place of care in thinking and speaking. What deserves to be particularly attended to is the concealing of the care of composition, that the numbers may seem to flow of their own accord, and not with the least constraint or affectation. COPIOUSNESS OF WORDS

Eloquence will never be solid and robust, unless it collects strength and consistence from much writing and composing; and without examples from reading, that labor will go astray for lack of a guide; and tho it be known how everything ought to be said, yet the orator who is not possest of a talent for speaking, always ready to exert himself on occasion, will be like a man watching over a hidden treasure.

Our orator, who we suppose is familiar with the way of inventing and disposing things, of making a choice of words, and placing them in proper order, requires nothing further than the knowledge of the means whereby in the easiest and best manner he may execute what he has learned. It can not, then, be doubted that he must acquire a certain stock of wealth in order to have it ready for use when needed, and this stock of wealth consists of a plentiful supply of things and words.

THE RIGHT WORD IN THE RIGHT PLACE

Things are peculiar to each cause, or common to few; but a provision of words must be made indiscriminately for all subjects. If each word were precisely significant of each thing, our perplexity would be less, as then words would immediately present themselves with things, but some being more proper than others, or more ornamental, or more emphatic, or more harmonious, all ought not only to be known but to be kept ready and in sight, as it were, that when they present themselves for the orator’s selection, he easily may make a choice of the best.

I know that some make a practise of classing together all synonymous words and committing them to memory, so that out of so many at least one may more easily come to mind; and when they have used a word, and shortly after need it again, to avoid repetition they take another of the same significance. This is of little or no use, for it is only a crowd that is mustered together, out of which the first at hand is taken indifferently, whereas the copiousness of language of which I speak is to be the result of acquisition of judgment in the use of words, with the view of attaining the true expressive force of eloquence, and not empty volubility of speech. This can be affected only by hearing and reading the best things; and it is only by giving it our attention that we shall know not only the appellations of things, but what is fittest for every place.

THE VALUE OF HEARING SPEAKERS

With some eloquent compositions we may derive more profit by reading them, but with some others, more by hearing them pronounced. The speaker keeps awake all our senses, and inspires us by the fire that animates him. We are struck, not by the image and exterior of things, but by the things themselves. All is life and motion, and with solicitude for his success, we favorably receive all he says, its appeal to us lying in the charm of novelty. Together with the orator, we find ourselves deeply interested in the issue of the trial and the safety of the parties whose defense he has undertaken. Besides these we find that other things affect us: a fine voice, a graceful action corresponding with what is said, and a manner of pronunciation, which perhaps is the most powerful ornament of eloquence; in short, everything conducted and managed in the way that is most fitting.

THE ADVANTAGES OF READING

In reading, our judgment goes upon surer ground, because often our good wishes for the speaker, or the applause bestowed on him, surprizes us into approbation. We are ashamed to differ in opinion from others, and by a sort of secret bashfulness are kept from believing ourselves more intelligent than they are; tho indeed we are aware, at the same time, that the taste of the greater number is vicious, and that sycophants, even persons hired to applaud, praise things which can not please us; as, on the other hand, it also happens that a bad taste can have no relish for the best things. Reading is attended, besides, with the advantage of being free, and not escaping us by the rapidity which accompanies action; and we may go over the same things often, should we doubt their accuracy, or wish to fix them in our memories. Repeating and reviewing will, therefore, be highly necessary; for as meats are chewed before they descend into the stomach, in order to facilitate their digestion, so reading is fittest for being laid up in the memory, that it may be an object of imitation when it is no longer in a crude state but has been softened and elaborated by long meditation.

HOW TO READ MOST PROFITABLY

None, however, but the best authors, and such as we are least liable to be deceived in, demand this care, which should be diligent and extended even almost to the point of taking the pains to transcribe them. Nor ought judgment to be passed on the whole from examining a part, but after the book has been fully perused, it should have a second reading; especially should this be done with an oration, the perfections of which are often designedly kept concealed. The orator, indeed, often prepares, dissembles, lies in wait, and says things in the first part of the pleading which he avails himself of in the last part. They may, therefore, be less pleasing in their place, while we still remain ignorant of the purpose for their being said. For this reason, after a due consideration of particulars, it would not be amiss to re-read the whole. WHAT TO READ

Theophrastus says that the reading of poetry is of vast service to the orator. Many, and with good reason, are of the same opinion, as from the poets may be derived sprightliness in thought, sublimity in expression, force and variety in sentiment, propriety and decorum in character, together with that diversion for cheering and freshening minds which have been for any time harassed by the drudgery of the bar.

Let it be remembered, however, that poets are not in all things to be imitated by the orator, neither in the liberty of words, nor license of figures. The whole of that study is calculated for ostentation. Its sole aim is pleasure, and it invariably pursues it, by fictions of not only what is false, but of some things that are incredible. It is sure, also, of meeting with partizans to espouse its cause, because, since it is bound down to a certain necessity of feet it can not always use proper words, and being driven out of the straight road, must turn into byways of speaking, and be compelled to change some words, and to lengthen, shorten, transpose and divide them. As for orators, they must stand their ground completely armed in the order of battle, and having to fight for matters of the highest consequence, must think of nothing but gaining the victory.

Still would I not have their armor appear squalid and covered with rust, but retain rather a brightness that dismays, such as of polished steel, striking both the mind and eyes with awe, and not the splendor of gold and silver, a weak safeguard, indeed, and rather dangerous to the bearer.

History, likewise, by its mild and grateful sap may afford kind nutriment to an oratorical composition. Yet the orator should so read history as to be convinced that most of its perfections ought to be avoided by him. It nearly borders upon poetry, and may be held as a poem, unrestrained by the laws of verse. Its object is to narrate, and not to prove, and its whole business neither intends action nor contention, but to transmit facts to posterity, and enhance the reputation of its author.

In the reading of history there is another benefit, and indeed the greatest, but one not relative to the present subject. This proceeds from the knowledge of things and examples, which the orator ought to be well versed in, so that not all his testimonies may be from the parties, but many of them may be taken from antiquity, with which, through history, he will be well acquainted; these testimonies being the more powerful, as they are exempt from suspicion of prejudice and partiality.

I shall venture to say that there are few which have stood the test of time, that may not be read with some profit by the judicious. Cicero himself confesses that he received great help from old authors, who were, indeed, very ingenious but were deficient in art. Before I speak of the respective merit of authors, I must make, in a few words, some general reflections on the diversity of taste in regard to matters of eloquence. Some think that the ancients deserve to be read, believing that they alone have distinguished themselves by natural eloquence and that strength of language so becoming men. Others are captivated with the flowery profusion of the orators of the present age, with their delicate turns, and with all the blandishments they skilfully invent to charm the ears of an ignorant multitude. Some choose to follow the plain and direct way of speaking. Others take to be sound and truly Attic whatever is close, neat, and departs but little from ordinary conversation. Some are delighted with a more elevated, more impetuous, and more fiery force of genius. Others, and not a few, like a smooth, elegant, and polite manner. I shall speak of this difference in taste more fully when I come to examine the style which may seem most proper for the orator.

QUALITIES OF CLASSIC WRITERS

_Homer_

We may begin properly with Homer.

He it is who gave birth to, and set the example for all parts of eloquence, in the same way, as he himself says, as the course of rivers and springs of fountains owe their origin to the ocean. No one, in great subjects, has excelled him in elevation; nor in small subjects, in propriety. He is florid and close, grave and agreeable, admirable for his concise as well as for his copious manner, and is not only eminent for poetical, but likewise oratorical, abilities.

_Æschylus_

Æschylus is the one who gave birth to tragedy. He is sublime, and grave, and often pompous to a fault. But his plots are mostly ill-contrived and as ill-conducted. For which reason the Athenians permitted the poets who came after him to correct his pieces and fit them for the stage, and in this way many of these poets received the honor of being crowned. _Sophocles and Euripides_

Sophocles and Euripides brought tragedy to greater perfection; but the difference in their manner has occasioned dispute among the learned as to their relative poetic merits. For my part, I shall leave the matter undecided, as having nothing to do with my present purpose. It must be confest, nevertheless, that the study of Euripedes will be of much greater value to those who are preparing themselves for the bar; for besides the fact that his style comes nearer the oratorical style, he likewise abounds in fine thoughts, and in philosophic maxims is almost on an equality with philosophers, and in his dialog may be compared with the best speakers at the bar. He is wonderful, again, for his masterly strokes in moving the passions, and more especially in exciting sympathy.

_Thucydides and Herodotus_

There have been many famous writers of history, but all agree in giving the preference to two, whose perfections, tho different, have received an almost equal degree of praise. Thucydides is close, concise, and ever pressing on. Herodotus is sweet, natural, and copious. One is remarkable for his animated expression of the more impetuous passions, the other for gentle persuasion in the milder: the former succeeds in harangues and has more force; the other surpasses in speeches of familiar intercourse, and gives more pleasure.

_Demosthenes_

A numerous band of orators follows, for Athens produced ten of them, contemporary with one another. Demosthenes was by far the chief of them, and in a manner held to be the only model for eloquence; so great is his force; so closely together are all things interwoven in his discourse, and attended with a certain self-command; so great is his accuracy, he never adopting any idle expression; and so just his precision that nothing lacking, nothing redundant, can be found in him. Æschines is more full, more diffusive, and appears the more grand, as he has more breadth. He has more flesh, but not so many sinews.

_Lysias and Isocrates_

Lysias, older than these, is subtle and elegant, and if it is enough for the orator to instruct, none could be found more perfect than he is. There is nothing idle, nothing far-fetched in him; yet is he more like a clear brook than a great river. Isocrates, in a different kind of eloquence, is fine and polished, and better adapted for engaging in a mock than a real battle. He was attentive to all the beauties of discourse, and had his reasons for it, having intended his eloquence for schools and not for contentions at the bar. His invention was easy, he was very fond of graces and embellishments, and so nice was he in his composition that his extreme care is not without reprehension.

_Plato_

Among philosophers, by whom Cicero confesses he has been furnished with many resourceful aids to eloquence, who doubts that Plato is the chief, whether we consider the acuteness of his dissertations, or his divine Homerical faculty of elocution? He soars high above prose, and even common poetry, which is poetry only because comprised in a certain number of feet; and he seems to me not so much endowed with the wit of a man, as inspired by a sort of Delphic oracle.

_Xenophon_

What shall I say of Xenophon’s unaffected agreeableness, so unattainable by any imitation that the Graces themselves seem to have composed his language? The testimony of the ancient comedy concerning Pericles, is very justly applicable to him, “That the Goddess of Persuasion had seated herself on his lips.”

_Aristotle and Theophrastus_

And what shall I say of the elegance of the other disciples of Socrates? What of Aristotle? I am at a loss to know what most to admire in him, his vast and profound erudition, or the great number of his writings, or his pleasing style and manner, or the inventions and penetration of his wit, or the variety of his works. And as to Theophrastus, his elocution has something so noble and so divine that it may be said that from these qualities came his name.

_Vergil_

In regard to our Roman authors, we can not more happily begin than with Vergil, who of all their poets and ours in the epic style, is without any doubt the one who comes nearest to Homer. Tho obliged to give way to Homer’s heavenly and immortal genius, yet in Vergil are to be found a greater exactness and care, it being incumbent on him to take more pains; so that what we lose on the side of eminence of qualities, we perhaps gain on that of justness and equability.

_Cicero_

I proceed to our orators, who likewise may put Roman eloquence upon a par with the Grecian. Cicero I would strenuously oppose against any of them, tho conscious of the quarrel I should bring upon myself by comparing him with Demosthenes in a time so critical as this; especially as my subject does not oblige me to it, neither is it of any consequence, when it is my real opinion that Demosthenes ought to be particularly read, or, rather, committed to memory.

I must say, notwithstanding, that I judge them to be alike in most of the great qualities they possest; alike in design, disposition, manner of dividing, of preparing minds, of proving, in short in everything belonging to invention. In elocution there is some difference. The one is more compact, the other more copious; the one closes in with his opponent, the other allows him more ground to fight in; the one is always subtle and keen in argument, the other is perhaps less so, but often has more weight; from the one nothing can be retrenched, neither can anything be added to the other; the one has more study, the other more nature. Still ought we to yield, if for no other reason than because Demosthenes lived before Cicero, and because the Roman orator, however great, is indebted for a large part of his merit to the Athenian. For it seems to me that Cicero, having bent all his thoughts on the Greeks, toward forming himself on their model, had at length made constituents of his character the force of Demosthenes, the abundance of Plato, and the sweetness of Isocrates. Nor did he only, by his application, extract what was best in these great originals, but by the happy fruitfulness of his immortal genius he himself produced the greater part, or rather all, of these same perfections. And to make use of an expression of Pindar, he does not collect the water from rains to remedy a natural dryness, but flows continually, himself, from a source of living waters, and seems to have existed by a peculiar gift of Providence, that in him eloquence might make trial of her whole strength and her most powerful exertions.

For who can instruct with more exactness, and move with more vehemence? What orator ever possest so pleasing a manner that the very things he forcibly wrests from you, you fancy you grant him; and when by his violence he carries away the judge, yet does the judge seem to himself to obey his own volition, and not to be swept away by that of another? Besides, in all he says there is so much authority and weight that you are ashamed to differ from him in opinion; and it is not the zeal of an advocate you find in him, but rather the faith and sincerity of a witness or judge. And what, at the same time, is more admirable, all these qualities, any one of which could not be attained by another without infinite pains, seem to be his naturally; so that his discourses, the most charming, the most harmonious, which possibly can be heard, retain, notwithstanding, so great an air of happy ease that they seem to have cost him nothing.

With good reason, therefore, is he said by his contemporaries to reign at the bar, and he has so far gained the good graces of posterity that Cicero is now less the name of a man than the name of eloquence itself. Let us then keep him in view, let him be our model, and let that orator think he has made considerable progress who has once conceived a love and taste for Cicero.

_Cæsar_

If Cæsar had made the bar his principal occupation, no other of our orators could better have disputed the prize of eloquence with Cicero. So great is his force, so sharp his wit, so active his fire, that it plainly appears he spoke with as much spirit as he fought. A wonderful elegance and purity of language, which he made his particular study, were a further embellishment of all these talents for eloquence.

_Philosophers_

It remains only to speak of those who have written on subjects of philosophy. Hitherto we have had but few of this kind. Cicero, as in all other respects, so also in this, was a worthy rival of Plato. Brutus has written some excellent treatises, the merit of which is far superior to that of his orations. He supports admirably well the weight of his matter, and seems to feel what he says. Cornelius Celsus, in the manner of the Skeptics, has written a good many tracts, which are not without elegance and perspicuity. Plancus, among the Stoics, may be read with profit, for the sake of becoming acquainted with the things he discusses. Catius, an Epicurean, has some levity in his way, but in the main is not an unpleasing author.

_Seneca_

I have designedly omitted speaking hitherto of Seneca,–who was proficient in all kinds of eloquence,–on account of the false opinion people entertained that I not only condemned his writings, but also personally hated him. I drew this aspersion upon myself by my endeavor to bring over eloquence to a more austere taste, which had been corrupted and enervated by very many softnesses and delicacies. Then Seneca was almost the only author young people read with pleasure. I did not strive to exclude him absolutely, but could not bear that he should be preferred to others much better, whom he took all possible pains to cry down, because he was conscious that he had taken to a different manner from their way of writing, and he could not otherwise expect to please people who had a taste for these others. It was Seneca’s lot, however, to be more loved than imitated, and his partizans run as wide from him as he himself had fallen from the ancients. Yet it were to be wished that they had proved themselves like, or had come near, him. But they were fond of nothing in him but his faults, and every one strove to copy them if he could. Then priding themselves on speaking like Seneca, of course they could not avoid bringing him into disgrace.

His perfections, however, were many and great. His wit was easy and fruitful, his erudition considerable, his knowledge extensive–in which last point he sometimes was led into mistakes, probably by those whom he had charged to make researches for him. There is hardly a branch of study on which he has not written something; for we have his orations, his poems, epistles, and dialogs. In philosophic matters he was not so accurate, but was admirable for his invectives against vice.

He has many bright thoughts, and many things are well worth reading in him for improvement of the moral character; but his elocution is, for the most part, corrupt, and the more dangerous because its vices are of a sweet and alluring nature. One could wish he had written with his own genius and another’s judgment. For if he had rejected some things, if he had less studiously affected some engaging beauties, if he had not been overfond of all his productions, if he had not weakened the importance of his matter by frivolous thoughts, he would have been honored by the approbation of the learned rather than by the love of striplings.

However, such as he is, he may be read when the taste is formed and strengthened by a more austere kind of eloquence, if for no other reason than because he can exercise judgment on both sides. For, as I have said, many things in him are worthy of praise, worthy even of admiration if a proper choice had been made, which I wish he had made himself, as indeed that nature is deserving of an inclination to embrace what is better, which has ability to effect anything to which it inclines. KNOWLEDGE AND SELF-CONFIDENCE

Knowledge of the civil law will, likewise, be necessary for the orator whom we have described, and together with it knowledge of the customs and religion of the commonwealth of which he may take charge, for how shall he be able to give counsel in public and private deliberations if ignorant of the many things which happen together particularly to the establishment of the State? And must he not falsely aver himself to be the patron of the causes he undertakes, if obliged to borrow from another what is of greatest consequence in these causes, in some measure like those who repeat the writings of poets? And how will he accomplish what he has so undertaken if the things which he requires the judge to believe, he shall speak on the faith of another, and if he, the reputed helper of his clients, shall himself stand in need of the help of another?

THOROUGH INFORMATION INDISPENSABLE

But we will suppose him not reduced to this inconvenience, having studied his cause sufficiently at home, and having thoroughly informed himself of all that he has thought proper to lay before the judges: yet what shall become of him when unforeseen questions arise, which often are suddenly started on the back of pleadings? Will he not with great unseemliness look about him? Will he not ask the lower class of advocates how he shall behave? Can he be accurate in comprehending the things then whispered to him, when he is to speak on them instantly? Can he strongly affirm, or speak ingenuously for his clients? Grant that he may in his pleadings, but what shall be his fate in altercation, when he must have his answer ready and he has no time for receiving information? And what if a person learned in the law is not assisting? What if one who knows little of the matter tells him something that is wrong? And this is the greatest mischief in ignorance, to believe such a monitor intelligent.

Now, as we suppose the orator to be a particularly learned and honest man, when he has made sufficient study of that which naturally is best, it will give him little trouble if a lawyer dissents from him in opinion, since even they are admitted to be of different opinions among themselves. But if he desires to know their sentiments on any point of law, he need only read a little, which is the least laborious part of study. If many men who despaired of acquiring the necessary talents for speaking in public, have engaged in the study of law, with how much more ease will the orator effect this, which may be learned by those who from their own confession could not be orators?

M. Cato was as much distinguished by his great eloquence as by his great learning in the law. Scævola and Servius Sulpitius, both eminent lawyers, were also very eloquent. Cicero not only in pleading never appeared at a loss in knowledge of the law, but also began to write some tracts on it. From all these examples it appears that an orator may not less attend to the teaching than the learning of it.

THE MANNER OF THE SPEAKER

I would not have him who is to speak rise unconcerned, show no change of color, and betray no sense of danger,–if they do not happen naturally, they ought at least to be pretended. But this sense should proceed from solicitude for performing well our duty, not from a motive of fear; and we may decently betray emotion, but not faint away. The best remedy, therefore, for bashfulness, is a modest assurance, and however weak the forehead may be, it ought to be lifted up, and well it may by conscious merit.

THE NEED OF GOOD DELIVERY

There are natural aids, as specified before, which are improved by care, and these are the voice, lungs, a good presence, and graceful action, which are advantages sometimes so considerable as to beget a reputation for wit. Our age produced orators more copious than Trachallus, but when he spoke he seemed to surpass them all, so great was the advantage of his stature, the sprightliness of his glance, the majesty of his aspect, the beauty of his action, and a voice, not as Cicero desires it should be, but almost like that of tragedians, and surpassing all the tragedians I ever heard. I well remember that when he once pleaded in the Julian Hall before the first bench of judges, and there also, as usual, the four classes of judges were then sitting, and the whole place rang with noise, he was not only heard distinctly from the four benches, but also was applauded, which was a disparagement to those who spoke after him. But this is the accumulation of what can be wished for, and a happiness hard to be met with, and as it can not fall to every one’s lot, let the orator strive at least to make himself heard by those before whom he speaks.

THE TEST OF AN ORATION

Above all, as happens to a great many, let not desire for temporary praise keep our orator from having an eye to the interest of the cause he has undertaken. For as generals in waging wars do not always march their armies over pleasant plains, but often must climb rugged hills, must lay siege to forts and castles raised on steep rocks and mountains, and fortified both by nature and by art: so an orator will be pleased with an opportunity to make great excursions, and when he engages on champion ground, he will display all his forces so as to make an exceedingly fine appearance; but if under the necessity of unraveling the intricacies of some points of law, or placing truth in a clear light from amidst the obscurity thrown around it, he will not then ostentatiously ride about, nor will he use a shower of pointed sentences, as missive weapons; but he will carry on his operations by frustrating his enemy; by mines, by ambuscade, and by stratagem: all of which are not much to be commended while they are being used, but after they have been practised. Whence those men benefit themselves most, who seem least desirous of praise; for when the frivolous parade of eloquence has ceased its bursts of thunder among its own applauders, the more potent applause of true talents will appear in genuine splendor; the judges will not conceal the impressions which have been made on them; the sense of the learned will outweigh the opinion of ignorance: so true it is that it is the winding up of the discourse, and the success attending it, that must prove its true merit. AVOIDING OSTENTATION

It was customary with the ancients to hide their eloquence; and M. Antonius advises orators so to do, in order that they may be the more believed, and that their stratagems may be less suspected. But the eloquence of those times could well be concealed, not yet having made an accession of so many luminaries as to break out through every intervening obstacle to the transmission of their light. But indeed all art and design should be kept concealed, as most things when once, discovered lose their value. In what I have hitherto spoken of, eloquence loves nothing else so much as privacy. A choice of words, weight of thought, elegance of figures, either do not exist, or they appear. But because they appear, they are not therefore to be displayed with ostentation. Or if one of the two is to be chosen, let the cause rather than the advocate be praised; still the issue will justify him, by his having pleaded excellently a very good cause. It is certain that no one else pleads so ill as he who endeavors to please, while his cause displeases; because the things by which he pleases must necessarily be foreign to his subject.

The orator ought not to be so particular and vain as not to undertake the pleading of the smaller kind of causes, as beneath him, or as if a matter of less consequence should in any respect lessen the reputation he has acquired. Duty indeed is a just motive for his undertaking them, and he should wish that his friends were never engaged in any other kind of suits, which in the main are set off with sufficient eloquence when he has spoken to the purpose.

DO NOT ABUSE YOUR OPPONENT

Some are very liberal in abuse of the advocate of the opposing party, but unless he has brought it upon himself, I think it is acting very ungenerously by him, in consideration of the common duties of the profession. Add to this that these sallies of passion are of no advantage whatever to him who pleads, the opponent having, in his turn, an equal right to abuse; and they may even be harmful to the cause, because the opponent, spurred on to become a real enemy, musters together all the forces of wit to conquer if possible. Above all, that modesty is irrecoverably lost which procures for the orator so much authority and belief, if once departing from the character of a good man, he degenerates into a brawler and barker, conforming himself not to the disposition of the judge, but to the caprice and resentment of the client.

Taking liberties of this kind frequently leads the orator to hazard some rash expressions not less dangerous to the cause than to himself. Pericles was accustomed to wish, with good reason, that no word might ever enter his mind which could give umbrage to the people. But the respect he had for the people ought in my opinion to be had for all, who may have it in their power to do as much hurt; for the words that seemed strong and bold when exprest, are called foolish when they have given offense.

THOROUGH PREPARATION ESSENTIAL

As every orator is remarkable for his manner, the care of one having been imputed to slowness, and the facility of another to rashness, it may not be amiss to point out here a medium. Let him come for pleading prepared with all possible care, as it must argue not only neglect, but also a wicked and treacherous disposition in him, to plead worse than he can in the cause he undertakes, therefore he should not undertake more causes than he is well able to handle.

He should say things, studied and written, in as great a degree as the subject can bear, and, as Demosthenes says, deeply engraven, if it were possible, on his memory, and as perfect as may be. This may be done at the first pleading of a cause, and when in public judgments a cause is adjourned for some time before it comes to a rehearsing. But when a direct reply is to be made, due preparations are impracticable; and even they who are not so ready find what they have written to be rather a prejudice to them if anything unexpectedly is brought forward; for it is with reluctance that they part with what they have prepared, and keeping it in mind during the whole pleading, they are forced to continually wonder if anything can be taken from it to be included in what they are obliged to speak extempore. And tho this may be done, there will still be a lack of connection, and the incoherence will be discoverable from the different coloring and inequality of style. Thus there is neither an uninterrupted fluency in what they say extempore, nor a connection between it and what they recite from memory, for which reason one must be a hindrance to the other, for the written matter will always bring to it the attention of the mind, and scarcely ever follow it. Therefore in these actions, as country-laboring men say, we must stand firmly on our legs. For, as every cause consists of proving and refuting, whatever regards the first may be written, and whatever it is certain the opponent will answer, as sometimes it is certain what he will, may be refuted with equal care and study.

Knowing the cause well is one essential point for being prepared in other respects, and listening attentively to all the opponent states, is another. Still we may previously think of many particular incidents and prepare the mind for all emergencies, this being of special advantage in speaking, the thought being thereby the more easily transmitted and transferred.

But when in answering or otherwise there may be necessity for extempore speaking, the orator will never find himself at a loss and disconcerted, who has been prepared by discipline, and study, and exercise, with the powers of facility, and who, as always under arms and ready for engaging, will no more lack a sufficient flow of speech in the pleading of causes than he does in conversation on daily and domestic occurrences; neither will he ever, for lack of coming duly prepared, decline burdening himself with a cause, if he has time to learn the state of it, for with anything else he always will be well acquainted. CONCLUSION

The orator having distinguished himself by these perfections of eloquence at the bar, in counsels, in the assemblies of the people, in the senate, and in all the duties of a good citizen, ought to think, likewise, of making an end worthy of an honest man and the sanctity of his ministry: not that during the course of his life he ought to cease being of service to society, or that, endowed with such integrity of mind and such talent of eloquence, he can continue too long in the exercise of so noble an employment; but because it is fitting that he should guard against degrading his character, by doing anything which may fall short of what he has already done. The orator is indebted for what he is, not only to knowledge, which increases with his years, but to his voice, lungs, and strength of body; and when the latter are impaired by years, or debilitated by infirmities, it is to be feared that something might be lacking in this great man, either from his stopping short through fatigue, and out of breath at every effort, or by not making himself sufficiently heard, or, lastly, by expecting, and not finding, him to be what he formerly was.

When the orator does sound a retreat, no less ample fruits of study will attend on him. He either will write the history of his time for the instruction of posterity, or he will explain the law to those who came to ask his advice, or he will write a treatise on eloquence, or that worthy mouth of his will employ itself in inculcating the finest moral precepts. As was customary with the ancients, well-disposed youth will frequent his house, consulting him as an oracle on the true manner of speaking. As the parent of eloquence will he form them, and as an old experienced pilot will he give them an account of shores, and harbors, and what are the presages of storms, and what may be required for working the ship in contrary or favorable winds. To all this will he be induced not only by a duty of humanity common to mankind, but also by a certain pleasure in it; for no one would be glad to see an art going into decay, in which he himself excelled, and what is more laudable than to teach others that in which one is perfectly skilled?

For all I know, the happiest time in an orator’s life is when he has retired from the world to devote himself to rest; and, remote from envy, and remote from strife, he looks back on his reputation, as from a harbor of safety; and while still living has a sense of that veneration which commonly awaits only the dead; thus anticipating the pleasure of the noble impression posterity will conceive of him. I am conscious that to the extent of my poor ability, whatever I knew before, and whatever I could collect for the service of this work, I have candidly and ingenuously made a communication of, for the instruction of those who might be willing to reap any advantage from it: and it is enough for an honest man to have taught what he knows.

To be good men, which is the first and most important thing, consists chiefly in the will, and whoever has a sincere desire to be a man of integrity, will easily learn the arts that teach virtue; and these arts are not involved in so many perplexities, neither are they of such great number, as not to be learned by a few years’ application. The ordering of an upright and happy life is attainable by an easy and compendious method, when inclination is not lacking. Nature begot us with the best dispositions, and it is so easy to the well-inclined to learn that which is good, that we can not help being surprized, on making a due estimate of things, how there can be so many bad persons in the world. For, as water is naturally a proper element for fish, dry land for quadrupeds, and air for birds, so indeed it ought to be more easy to live according to the prescript of nature than to infringe her laws.

As to the rest, tho we might measure our age, not by the space of more advanced years, but by the time of youth, we should find that we had quite years enough for learning, all things being made shorter by order, method, and the manner of application. To bring the matter home to our oratorical studies, of what significance is the custom which I see kept up by many, of declaiming so many years in schools, and of expending so much labor on imaginary subjects, when in a moderate time the rules of eloquence may be learned, and pursuant to their directions, a real image framed of the contests at the bar? By this I do not mean to hint in the least that exercises for speaking should ever be discontinued, but rather that none should grow old in any one particular exercise for that purpose, for we may require the knowledge of many sciences, and learn the precepts of morality, and exercise ourselves in such causes as are agitated at the bar, even while we continue in the state of scholars. And indeed the art of oratory is such as need not require many years for learning it. Each of the arts I have mentioned may be abridged into few books, there being no occasion to consider them so minutely and so much in detail. Practise remains, which soon makes us well skilled in them. Knowledge of things is increasing daily, and yet books are not so many; it is necessary to read in order to acquire this knowledge, of which either examples as to the things themselves may be met with in history, or the eloquent expression of them may be found in orators. It is also necessary that we should read the opinions of philosophers and lawyers, with some other things deserving of notice. TAKING TIME FOR STUDY

All this indeed may be compassed, but we ourselves are the cause of our not having time enough. How small a portion of it do we allot to our studies! A good part of it is spent in frivolous compliments and paying and returning visits, a good part of it is taken up in the telling of idle stories, a good part at the public spectacles, and a good part in the pleasures of the table. Add to these our great variety of amusements, and that extravagant indulgence we bestow upon our bodies. One time we must go on a course of travels, another time we wish recreation amidst the pleasures of rural life, and another time we are full of painful solicitude regarding the state of our fortune, calculating and balancing our loss and gain; and together with these, how often do we give ourselves up to the intoxication of wine, and in what a multiplicity of voluptuousness does our profligate mind suffer itself to be immersed? Should there be an interval for study amidst these avocations, can it be said to be proper? But were we to devote all this idle or ill-spent time to study, should we not find life long enough and time more than enough for becoming learned? This is evident by only computing the time of the day, besides the advantages of the night, of which a good part is more than sufficient for sleep. But we now preposterously compute not the years we have studied, but the years we have lived. Tho geometricians and grammarians, and the professors of other arts, spent all their lives, however long, in treating and discussing their respective arts, does it thence follow that we must have as many lives as there are things to be learned? But they did not extend the learning of them to old age, being content with learning them only, and they spent so many years not so much in their study as in their practise.

Now, tho one should despair of reaching to the height of perfection, a groundless hope even in a person of genius, health, talent, and with masters to assist him; yet it is noble, as Cicero says, to have a place in the second, or third, rank. He who can not rival the glory of Achilles in military exploits, shall not therefore have a mean opinion of the praise due to Ajax, or Diomedes, and he who can not approach Homer, need not despise the fame of Tyrteus. If men were to yield to the thought of imagining none capable of exceeding such eminent persons as went before them, then they even who are deemed excellent would not have been so. Vergil would not have excelled Lucretius and Macer; nor Cicero, Crassus and Hortensius; and no one for the future would pretend to any advantage over his predecessor.

Tho the hope of surpassing these great men be but faint, yet it is an honor to follow them. Have Pollio and Messala, who began to appear at the bar when Cicero was already possest of the empire of eloquence, acquired little dignity in their life-time, and left but a small degree of glory for the remembrance of posterity? True it is that arts brought to perfection would deserve very ill of human affairs if afterward they could not at least be kept to the same standard.

THE REWARDS OF ELOQUENCE

Add to this that a moderate share of eloquence is attended with no small advantage, and if measured by the fruits gathered from it, will almost be on a par with that which is perfect. It would be no difficult matter to show from many ancient or modern examples that no other profession acquires for men, greater honors, wealth, friendship, present and future glory, were it not degrading to the honor of letters to divert the mind from the contemplation of the most noble object, the study and possession of which is such a source of contentment, and fix it on the less momentous rewards it may have, not unlike those who say they do not so much seek virtue as the pleasure resulting from it.

Let us therefore with all the zealous impulses of our heart endeavor to attain the very majesty of eloquence, than which the immortal gods have not imparted anything better to mankind, and without which all would be mute in nature, and destitute of the splendor of a perfect glory and future remembrance. Let us likewise always make continued progress toward perfection, and by so doing we shall either reach the height, or at least shall see many beneath us.

This is all, as far as in me lies, I could contribute to the promoting and perfecting of the art of eloquence; the knowledge of which, if it does not prove of any great advantage to studious youth, will, at least, what I more heartily wish for, give them a more ardent desire for doing well.

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ISLAM 101: Existence and Oneness of God Almighty: One True God: Part 5

THE UNIVERSE AND GOD’S EXISTENCE 

The existence of God is too evident to need any arguments. Some saintly scholars even have stated that God is more manifest than any other being, but that those who lack insight cannot see Him. Others have said that He is concealed from direct perception because of the intensity of His Self-manifestation.

However, the great influence of positivist and materialist schools of thought on science and on all people of recent centuries makes it necessary to discuss this most manifest truth. As this now-prevalent “scientific” world-view reduces existence to what can be perceived directly, it blinds itself to those invisible dimensions of existence that are far vaster than the visible.

Let us reflect on one simple historical fact: Since the beginning of human life, the overwhelming majority of humanity has believed that God exists. This belief alone is enough to establish God’s Existence. Those who do not believe cannot claim to be smarter than those who do. Among past and present-day believers are innovative scientists, scholars, researchers and, most importantly, saints and Prophets, who are the experts in the field. In addition, people usually confuse the non-acceptance of something’s existence with the acceptance of its non-existence. While the former is only a negation or a rejection, the latter is a judgment that requires proof. No one has ever proven God’s non-existence, for to do so is impossible, whereas countless arguments prove His existence. This point may be clarified through the following comparison.

Suppose there is a large palace with 1,000 entrances, 999 of which are open and one which appears to be closed. No one could reasonably claim that the palace cannot be entered. Unbelievers are like those who, in order to assert that the palace cannot be entered, confine their (and others’) attention only to the door that is seemingly closed. The doors to God’s existence are open to everybody, provided that they sincerely intend to enter through them.

The most important factor leading many, especially those under the spell of materialistic science and its worldview, to fix their eyes on the apparently closed door is causality. Causality leads to the vicious chain of cause and effect, for each cause is also an effect. Moreover, the effect is totally different from the cause. All things and effects are usually so full of art and beneficial purposes that even if all causes gathered they would be unable to produce one single thing, let alone their simple immediate causes.

In order for a cause to produce an effect, it has to be able to produce the whole universe in which that effect takes place, for that effect cannot exist without the whole universe. Nor can they exist separately. Materialist scientists imagine powerless, dependent, and ignorant causes to be responsible for the existence of beings and things, and thus fancy them to possess absolute qualities. In this way, they are implying (tacitly believing) that each of those causes possesses qualities that only can be attributed to God.