=Example= is another method of amplifying a definition or of expounding an idea

more fully. The following sentences immediately succeed Mr. Bates's definition

and contrast just quoted:

 

A good deal which we are accustomed inexactly to call description is really

exposition. Suppose that your small boy wishes to know how an engine works, and

should say: "Please describe the steam-engine to me." If you insist on taking

his words literally--and are willing to run the risk of his indignation at being

wilfully misunderstood--you will to the best of your ability picture to him this

familiarly wonderful machine. If you explain it to him, you are not describing

but expounding it.

 

The chief value of example is that it makes clear the unknown by referring the

mind to the known. Readiness of mind to make illuminating, apt comparisons for

the sake of clearness is one of the speaker's chief resources on the

platform--it is the greatest of all teaching gifts. It is a gift, moreover, that

responds to cultivation. Read the three extracts from Arlo Bates as their author

delivered them, as one passage, and see how they melt into one, each part

supplementing the other most helpfully.

 

=Analogy=, which calls attention to similar relationships in objects not

otherwise similar, is one of the most useful methods of exposition. The

following striking specimen is from Beecher's Liverpool speech: