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employed as follows: "The Surgeon General and the American Medical Association long ago warned that smoking was dangerous to human health; the executives of tobacco companies made this admission only when forced to do so by the courts."

U S I N G E X A M P L E S

Aristotle preferred enthymemes to examples as a kind of proof, no doubt because enthymemes were similar to the fundamental unit of proof in his logical syllogism. However, he wrote that if no enthymemes are available to a rhetor, she must use examples since they do produce con- viction (II xx 9). If enthymemes are available, he recommended that a rhetor support them with examples and that she put the examples last since they are likely to induce belief. If a rhetor must begin with examples, she should include several; however, if she uses them last, in support of an enthymeme, one example will do.

Aristotle's preference for logical reasoning seems to have overtaken his usual good sense at this point. Modern audiences are ordinarily impressed by examples. The argument from example is certainly a favorite of adver- tisers—think, for instance, of the ads for beer that show people drinking beer and having a good time. Many contemporary journalists and writers of also begin their arguments with extended examples. Here are the opening paragraphs from the first chapter of Peter Baker's book about the impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton:

Hillary Rodham Clinton looked miserable. Her hair was pulled back, her face clear of any makeup, her eyes ringed red and puffy in that way that suggested she had been crying. She stared vacantly across the room. The people who had surrounded her and her husband for the past seven years had never seen her like this. Even in private, she was always perfectly poised, immaculately coiffed, impeccably dressed, and inalterably in control. Now, however, she appeared to have been to hell and back. To see her like this, thought some of the longtime Clinton loyalists who had rushed back to the White House to help in weathering the worst crisis of her husband's presidency, it seemed as if someone had died.

When one of her husband's original political advisers, James Carville, arrived in the Solarium on the third floor of the White House, summoned back overnight Brazil at her request, Hillary rushed over to him, clutched his hand, and sat him down next to her. "You just have to help us get through this," she said. "1 don't know how we can get through this."

Neither did anyone else. At that moment, on the afternoon of Monday, August 17, 1998, President Clinton was three floors below them, facing off against Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr in the Map Room of the White House and testifying via closed-circuit television to a federal grand jury about his relationship with a young former intern named Monica Samille Lewinsky and his efforts to cover it up during the sexual-harassment lawsuit filed against him by former Arkansas state clerk Paula Jones. Forced by incontrovertible

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DNA evidence, Clinton was admitting after seven months of adamant denials that he had fooled around with a woman less than half his age in a private hall- way and cubbyhole just off the Oval Office, and he would have to tell the nation later that night. It was not an easy confession to make. Indeed, Clinton had not been able to bring himself to break the news to his own wife. Four nights before, he had sent his lawyer to pave the way for him.

It had to have been the longest walk of David E. Kendall's life, the journey that night, Thursday, August 13, to the residential part of the executive man- sion where he had met with the first lady. Kendall, a fastidious yet tough-as- attorney from the blue-chip Washington law firm of Williams & Connolly, had represented both Clintons for five years now through every manner of alleged scandal, from Whitewater to Travelgate to Filegate, becoming one of their most trusted confidants. And so it fell to him at that critical moment to play emissary from husband to wife, to disclose the most awful secret of any marriage.

Something had obviously gone on between the president and Lewinsky, Kendall had told the first lady in his soft, understated way. The president was going to have to tell the grand jury about it. Only after Kendall laid the foun- dation did Clinton speak directly with his wife.

Over the weekend it became clear to others in the White House that the president was about to change his story, and reports citing unnamed sources began appearing in the press, first in the York Times and later the Washington Post. Clinton's political advisers began preparing for the inevitable

national television address he would have to give to explain himself. Mickey Kantor, a longtime friend who had served as his commerce secretary and now as occasional damage-control adviser, was pushing to have Clinton preempt Starr by addressing the nation on Sunday evening, the night before his grand jury appearance. The lawyers were horrified. A witness never spoke publicly before undergoing an interrogation under oath, they argued; that would only give the prosecution ammunition and possibly aggravate the grand jurors.

No, it had to be Monday night, after the session, or perhaps the next morn- ing, depending on how Clinton felt afterward. With the timing settled, the real question then came down to what should be said and how. Everyone agreed that Paul Begala, Carville's spirited and tart-tongued former partner who had come on board at the White House as a free-floating political adviser, would be in charge of putting together a speech for the president, even though no one had told him officially what Clinton would tell the grand jury. The consensus was that Begala would have the best feel for the delicate job. Begala solicited a draft from Robert the longtime Kennedy family adviser and word- smith, who faxed it over to the White House. In this version, Clinton would say, "I have fallen short of what you should expect from a president. I have failed my own religious faith and values. I have let too many people down. I take full responsibility for my hurting my wife and daughter, for hurting Monica Lewinsky and her family, for hurting friends." (23-24)

Notice how Baker uses an extended example here to dramatize events in his narrative, events that he could not have witnessed personally. This use of extended example is intended to arouse the passions of the reader, entic- ing him to read further into the narrative.

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If well chosen, examples cause audiences to recall similar circum- stances in which they have participated or in which they would like to par- ticipate. The rhetorician can hope that the vividness of the comparison will also cause his audience to draw the conclusions at which he has only hinted. The rhetors who design beer ads obviously hope that viewers will connect use of the product with the fun shown in the ad.

Maxims

Maxims are wise sayings or proverbs that are generally accepted by the rhetorician's community. Ancient maxims were often drawn from poetry or history, as with Aristotle's "There is no man who is happy in every- thing," by the playwright Euripides, or "The best of omens is to defend one's country" from the poet Homer 2 and 11). But maxims also arise from the common wisdom of the people: the proverb "Birds of a feather flock together" was old even when Quintilian cited it two thousand years ago (V xi 41). Modern examples of maxims include such hoary sayings as "A stitch in time saves nine," "Better late than never," "Rolling stones gather no moss."

In ancient times, when literacy was not widespread, much popular wisdom was contained in oral sayings. Many of these were drawn from lines composed by respected poets, especially Homer. A rhetorician could utter a line from Homer and his audience would immediately recognize the context and point of the quotation. This is still possible to a certain extent, although modern audiences are not as well acquainted with lines from poetry as people once were. However, many of us do know maxims taken from the Christian Bible such as "an eye for an eye," and most of us have heard the line "To be or not to be" at least once in our lives, although fewer people know that it is the first line of a speech uttered by a character created by Shakespeare named Hamlet. This phrase could well serve as the opening line of a defense attorney's opening speech; in fact a rhetor could use it to organize a list of options in any discourse urging that some action be taken. We do remember lines from speeches, such as Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" or John F. Kennedy's "Ask not what your country can do for you" or George W. Bush's "axis of evil." Such lines serve subse- quent rhetors as a rhetorical shorthand that can evoke whole political philosophies.

According to Aristotle, maxims are general statements which deal with human actions that should be chosen or avoided (II xxi 2). The first two modern maxims listed above recommend actions: "A stitch in time saves nine" counsels us to be as well prepared as possible in order to save our- selves extra trouble. "Better late than never" implies that doing something too late is better than never doing it at all. The "rolling stones" maxim implies that people who submit to wanderlust don't pile up responsibili- ties; since wanderlust as a way of life might be either appealing or repul- sive to a given audience, the action recommended here is culturally

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ambiguous. A rhetor who relies on the persuasive power of this maxim would do well to clarify whether she approves of wanderlust and why.

Maxims can be found in dictionaries of proverbs or collections of quo- tations. Their rhetorical force derives from their commonness. Since they are commonly held, they seem to be true. As Quintilian pointed out, "say- ings such as these would not have acquired immortality had they not car- ried conviction of their truth to all mankind" (V xi 41). And as Aristotle noted, somewhat cynically, maxims are especially convincing to audiences who like to hear their beliefs confirmed. Aristotle's example is this: a per- son who happened to have bad neighbors or children would welcome any- one's statement that nothing is worse than having neighbors or more stupid than to beget children (II xxi 15). This feature of maxims provides a clue as to how to hunt for appropriate ones: a rhetor should try to deter- mine whether his audience has any preconceived opinions that are relevant to his point. If so, he should find an appropriate maxim that generalizes these preconceived opinions. For example, the maxim "Rolling stones gather no moss" would be appropriate for an older audience who disap- proves of the way younger Americans tend to move frequently from com- munity to community and from job to job. Their very general nature makes maxims applicable to a wide variety of situations. In fact, part of their per- suasive force lies in their applied to a specific case, a maxim can impart its own persuasive force to that case. For example, Marine officers use the motto of the corps, Semper fidelis ("Always faith- ful"), to breed camaraderie among their troops and to convince them to go into battle. The motto is an abbreviated reference to the entire history of the Marine reminds Marines of the corps's martial history and of its tradition of brotherhood under fire. Thus, though general, the motto can be effectively used in any specific situation when the troops need to be urged forward. Its use is such a commonplace among Marines and ex-Marines that saying "Semper fi" establishes an immediate relation of trust between even recent acquaintances.

Aristotle noted that maxims are often the premises or conclusions of an enthymeme. Here is an argument from a news editorial using an enthymeme that employs the maxim "Better late than never" as its conclusion:

Last year Mr. Bush finally conceded that global warming existed. This year he conceded that human beings were to blame, and the damage was going to be severe. At this rate, next year he'll start to champion policies that will begin to put a dent in climate basic steps as higher gas-mileage standards for American cars and trucks, more research into renewable energy, and tougher enforcement of the Clean Air Act instead of Mr. Bush's attempts to weaken it.

Better late than never. But for an administration that views energy conser- vation as nothing more than a personal virtue, you probably shouldn't count on it. (" 'Get Used to It': President's New Philosophy on Global Warming," The Record,