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The Sophistical Rhetoric of the 20th Century
In the 19th century, there's still a huge amount of suspicion of rhetoric. Disraeli calling Gladstone a Sophistical Retoration seems to me to be a case of the pot calling the kettle black if ever there was one. But also in terms of what Tom was saying about the attacks from science, we get Th H Huxley attacking the opponents of Darwin for their hiding behind aimless rhetoric and trying to conceal their own lack of scientific understanding. So huge suspicion of rhetoric, even though in practice a lot of use of oratory.