EXPERIENCE

Another class of particular conditions which should be studied by the rhetorician may be designated by the general name Experience. This is meant to include such personal preparation as education, occupation, political privilege, and general familiarity with the subject discussed. 1. The Nature of Experience. A very frequent but absurd mistake is, to confound experience with age, or some other non-essential but usual concomitant of experience. Political wisdom is often supposed to be associated with years, and a youtlr of wide historical knowledge, familiar with the causes and signs of national growth and decay, is supposed to know less of government than an ignorant voter of many years standing. Nothing can be more distinct than age and experience. There is no necessary bond of connection between them, though, it is true, they are often associated. Experience in a particular de¬partment of knowledge depends upon the amount of time and attention bestowed upon the subject with a given amount of intelligence. The factors a2 experi¬ence are three : time, attention, intelligence. A neg¬lect to remember that experience is the product of these three factors often leads to a fatal misapprehen¬sion a individual capacity. 2. General and Specific Experiences. Another prevalent error is the confounding of a general and a particular experience. A man may have a long experimental knowledge of religion without the ability to reason about even the fundamental doctrines of his faith. His experience may have been in the practice of religious precepts, whereas the experience required is in the discussion of doctrinal truths. For this special purpose a practical knowledge of religion would be an inadequate preparation. Whately cites an instance of a grain merchant in Holland who had spent a large part of his life dealing in corn, but who had never seen it growing in the field. His general experience with corn was extensive, but his opinion would be valueless with reference to the best modes of producing it. 3. Inferred Experience. Another mistake is often made by persons who sup¬pose their experience to extend farther than it does, and this error often needs to be pointed out before their opinions can be changed. It consists in regard¬ing the causes as coming within the scope of experi¬ence, when only certain effects have been perceived. If a person were to take a medicine and soon afterward were to recover from his disease, he would possibly be¬lieve himself to have experimental knowledge that he was cured by that remedy. This would, however, im¬ply a tracing of causes and effects which is not always possible. He might infer that the remedy effected the cure, but experience would justify him in affirming only that he took the medicine, and the disease was cured. The connection between the taking of the remedy and the cure is one of inference, and not of experience, since other causes might have produced the effect. In offering to the mind a new theory to account for facts of experience, it will often be necessary to show that what has been taken for experience is not experience but inference.