A savage is a man of one story, and that one story a cellar. When a man begins

to be civilized he raises another story. When you christianize and civilize the

man, you put story upon story, for you develop faculty after faculty; and you

have to supply every story with your productions.

 

=Discarding= is a less common form of platform explanation. It consists in

clearing away associated ideas so that the attention may be centered on the main

thought to be discussed. Really, it is a negative factor in exposition though a

most important one, for it is fundamental to the consideration of an intricately

related matter that subordinate and side questions should be set aside in order

to bring out the main issue. Here is an example of the method:

 

I cannot allow myself to be led aside from the only issue before this jury. It

is not pertinent to consider that this prisoner is the husband of a heartbroken

woman and that his babes will go through the world under the shadow of the law's

extremest penalty worked upon their father. We must forget the venerable father

and the mother whom Heaven in pity took before she learned of her son's

disgrace. What have these matters of heart, what have the blenched faces of his

friends, what have the prisoner's long and honorable career to say before this

bar when you are sworn to weigh only the direct evidence before you? The one and

only question for you to decide on the evidence is whether this man did with

revengeful intent commit the murder that every impartial witness has solemnly

laid at his door.

 

=Classification= assigns a subject to its class. By an allowable extension of