SOME BOOKS OF THE WEEK.
(Under ate heading we notice such Books of the week ae hare not been seemed for review teL other forma.] The Art of the Orator. By Edgar R. Jones, M.P. (A. and C. Black. 3s. fid. net.)—Success in oratory, according to Mr. Jones, depends very largely upon a comprehension of the truths of psychology. It is accordingly upon the standard works on that subject that ho founds the greater part of his text-book. Mr. Jones has studied, and can quote for his purpose, Professor Stout, Professor Mackenzie, and oven the monumental encycloprodia article of Professor James Ward. He discourses with the greatest ease upon the Laws of Association, upon Apper- ceptive Attention, upon Discrimination and Assimilation, and upon the Universe of Desire. Having thus made the best possible use of orthodox psychology, he turns to orthodox logic and devotes a chapter to the lessons which an orator may learn from Whately and Mill. Ho winds up—and this is something of an anticlimax—with a chapter upon composition which gives such useful information as that we must not say "different to" but "different from." It would no doubt be easy to sneer at Mr. Jones's somewhat naV dis- play of his knowledge of the transcendental sciences. But at a time when abstract thinking seems almost irrevocably divorced from practical polities it is consoling to find tho subject of rhetoric approached in such a philosophical spirit. A few sen- tences from Mr. Lloyd George's pen supply an unexpected intro- duction to such a book. We are interested by a statement which ho quotes from Gladstone to the effect "that in a conflict between tho platform and the Press for the direction of public opinion in this country an efficient platform would surely win."
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