Let it be observed, while we are on the subject, that in deliberative and judicial speaking the orator depends upon his audience. Indeed, the accomplishment of that purpose in behalf of which he essays to speak hinges upon the favor of his hearers. Let it be further noted, that in epideictic speaking the case is the opposite of this, inasmuch as the mind of the hearer is surrendered to the speaker. It is, indeed, as if he who adjudges praise were himself relieved from judgment. These points in which we differ from the recognized opinions of the rhetoricians must, from the very nature of my undertaking, be dwelt upon, just as we have dealt more accurately with various other matters. Thus we might say that the translative state could be subsumed under the conjectural,1 since in both, the fact being conceded, it is a question who is responsible for it. All kinds of speeches have this in common. The orator in the forum debates concerning life, vices, virtues, examining them in the state of quality, and in that in which inquiry is made concerning what is, just as in councils the question is what is to be preferred. But the philosopher and the poet deal with all such matters in the very same spirit, each in his own person or in that of another. As an illustration of the latter mode, Socrates introduces Diotimas or Aspasia, and Plato brings forward Socrates; and the orator in like manner interjects personifications. If he would eulogize a man, he must needs touch upon the story of his life, his family, his nation; and this allies him with the historian. The historian, on his part, frequently adds a characterization, such as we'read of Camillus, Scipio, Hannibal, Jugurtha, and Cicero; and, as it were, intersperses his decrees. But it is only poetry which includes everything of this kind, excelling those other arts in this, that while they, as we have said above, represent things just as they

For these technical terms see Quintilian, Bk 3, chap. 6, especially sections 45 ff.

'The definitive state.

are, in some sense like a speaking picture, the poet depicts quite another sort of nature, and a variety of fortunes; in fact, by so doing, he transforms himself almost into a second deity. Of those things which the Maker of all framed, the other sciences are, as it were, overseers; but since poetry fashions images of those things which are not, as well as images more beautiful than life of those things which are, it seems unlike other literary forms, such as history, which confine themselves to actual events, and rather to be another god, and to create. In view of this fact, its common title was furnished it, not by the agreement of men, but by the provident wisdom of nature. I must express my surprise that when the learned Greeks had most happily defined the poet as the maker, our ancestors should be so unfair to themselves as to limit the term to candle-makers, for though usage has sanctioned this practice, etymologically it is absurd.1

1 Saintsbury, Hist. of Crit., 2. 71: 'This joke requires a little explanation and adaptation to get it into English. The Latin is miror majores nostros sibi tam iniquos fuisse ut factoris vocem maluerint oleariorum cancellis circumscribere. In fact, fattojo and fattojano, if not fattore, do mean in Italian "oil-press and oilpresser."

I. 2.

THE NAME POET, THE ORIGIN OF POETRY, ITS CAUSES, EFFECTS, FORM, AND MATERIAL

The word poet is not, as popularly supposed, derived from the fact that the poet employs the fictitious, but from the fact that he makes verse. Indeed, the propensity for rhythm, the medium of poetry, is an instinct with man. There is in fact a degree of quality and quantity in every vocal movement! Quality is determined by the pitch, whether high or low; quantity by the length of time that the sound is audible; time, in turn, by the extent to which the air is moved; and the air in movement is the sound proper. Again, the child cries before it can speak, and many children cannot go to sleep without crying.

After certain more inspired composers were successful in providing the old forms of poetry with new themes, they were called poets, and they arrogated to themselves, as guardians, the protection of the Muses, the Muses by the inspiration of whom they had discovered what was concealed from others. Those, on the other hand, who lacked this inspiration, and simply composed metrical narratives, were called versifiers.

Plato deduced the name Muses, to whom of course invention is attributed, from a form of the verb paíoμau (to seek after). Others derived the word from the passive of uvéw (to be initiated), whence mysta (a priest of the mysteries), and mysterium (secret rites). This last word. implies discernment, and of course discerning judgment was used in the choosing of the sacred mysteries, and in election to the secret order.

Clearly, everything that enters into an intellectual product is the result either of intellection, or of invention, or of judg

ment, a classification which is better than that made by Cicero in his Topics, where it is said that invention has to do with topics only, and judgment only with dialectics, or logical questions. This is clearly wrong, for, on the one hand, one must be as careful to observe the limits of necessity in demonstration as of probability in topics, and these limits are determined by invention; and, on the other, logic is common to all kinds of argumentation, since arguments present themselves as either good or bad, necessary or contingent, and judgment must determine what of these are to be used.

You can now see why the early theologians, the selfstyled disciples of the Muses, recognized only two Muses, one Meλerá, who invented through meditating, the other Iloná, who arranged the inventions according to an established or logical method. Next, because they unearthed records relating to the creation, and unknown to the common herd, some poets added a third Muse, whom they appropriately named Mμa, Memory, and these same men chose to call the Muse which had previously been named Hoŋτά, 'Aoidá, the Singer, rather than the Maker. But the earlier name is the better, for song is not essential to poetry. Later, those who approved this change, and regarded themselves as even more precise, made a threefold classification of ȧoidá, in accordance with their notion of early music. They recognized harmony as one element, which they said was dependent upon sound alone; brass, as another element, suggested of course by the instruments; and water as a third, an element which Vitruvius says was first used in the instrument which Ctesibius invented, and called the hydraulic organ. But, if we must analyze, this analysis is far from complete, for sound is produced by striking the air, and the vibration of the air either results from a vibration external to itself, or is air in process of vibration. Then it is clear, is it not, that the flute and pipe and the voice alike employ breathing as an agency. Further, water does not give forth

any sound without air; and finally, harmony, which is the blending of properly related sounds, is clearly generic to all

the others.

According to my way of thinking, it seems more reason- ! able to suppose that in the early times the number of the Muses was determined by the number of those engaged in rendering a piece of music. So when four performers came to take part, many were disposed to recognize a fourth Muse, and when three more instruments were added, the number of the Muses was raised to seven. Finally the number became fixed at nine, and quite properly so, for nine is the perfect number.

Of the significance of there being nine Muses, much traditional musical theory has been handed down, but for the most part it is mere nonsense, not worthy of wise men, for how is the number nine to be accommodated to the octave? Eight notes, not nine, constitute the octave. The ancients were again in error in accounting for the number by the number of the heavens, for as they recognized only eight heavens, the ninth had to be explained as the mother of the rest, or perhaps I should rather say the nurse, or Apollo. The pleasing elegies in which Mimnermus celebrated the daughters of the sky are based on this theory. With like impertinency, Plutarch, in his Symposiacs, where he makes many absurd suggestions about letters, mentions as significant the fact that there are as many Muses as letters in the name of the mother Mnemosyne. Forsooth, he would fain have substantiated some trifling Greek theory by a falsehood, and have claimed that the letters in the word Mnemosyne were the capital letters of the names of the Muses, but so long as the facts were against him, he decided to keep still about it.

Again, the theologians advanced the idea that the Muses were the daughters of Jove, on the ground that simultaneously with the creation of human life, of which Jove was the author, harmony, as already stated, came to be. And