Should rhetoric be confined to argumentative composition, or does that amputate the art?

Richard Whately, answered from the texts and cited to the page.

The position in brief

Rhetoric is the art of argumentative composition: the finding of arguments and their arrangement, with the excitement of feeling so far as it bears on persuasion.1 Taste and criticism are worthy studies and they are not this one.23

Sources

  1. I propose, then, to treat, first and principally, of the dis- covery of ARGUMENTS, and of their arrange- p,.^j^ ^^ ^,^^ ment; secondly, to lay down some rules respect- present treat- ing the excitement and management of what arc ^^^' commonly called the passions j (including every kind of fcel- 20 "ELEMENTS OF RHETORIC. [ 2.
    Elements of Rhetoric
  2. The process of investigation must be supposed completed, and certain conclusions arrived at by that process, before he begins to impart his ideas to others in a treatise or lecture; the object of which must, of course, be to ])rove the justness of those conclusions.
    Elements of Rhetoric
  3. The error is precisely the same in respect of llhetoric and of Logic; both being instimmental arts, and, as such, aj)pli- cahle to various kinds of subject-matter which do not properly come under them.
    Elements of Rhetoric

Where the argument is made

  • Elements of Rhetoric, the Introduction and Part I (of the address to the understanding)
  • Part II (of the address to the will)

How the argument was received

A deliberate narrowing, made against the prevailing fashion of the belletristic lectures.