Thomas Henry Huxley (1825 – 1895) was a self-taught English biologist specializing in comparative anatomy. He earned the nickname “Darwin’s Bulldog” for his advocacy of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution.
Why am I telling you this? Because Huxley said something that opened my eyes to my own career as a lover of the spoken word.
He said, “Try to learn something about everything and everything about something.”
I confess to you that I did not learn anything in college. I was lost, completely unmoored, unhappy, and woefully depressed.
Lost and Found
But one day, when I was reading in my ratty old easy chair in my single room, I came across three words that made my scalp tingle: Ethos, Pathos, and Logos.
Suddenly the world made sense to me, and I knew what I wanted to know everything about: I wanted to know about the power of the spoken word.
And when I knew that, I only needed to know a little something about everything else.
Those three words gave me a lens through which I could see clearly, and see myself thriving.
They were old words, ancient Greek words, but for me they were my future. They told me about the mysterious power of speech, the power to influence and persuade.
Ethos, Pathos, and Logos
First, ethos is our ethical appeal, our trustworthiness. It is arguably the most important element of a persuasive speech or presentation. We dismiss the appeals of people we don’t trust.
Next, pathos is our emotional appeal. Emotions cause people to act. Facts and figures don’t do that so well. They make us think, but they don’t often tip us over into action.
Finally, logos is our logical appeal, the information that our presentation contains and the coherence and clarity of our argument.
I confess that I don’t know something about everything, but who could? I don’t even claim to know everything about something. I only know that I try to keep growing and knowing.
For that, I hope Huxley would give me an “atta’boy.”