Although it's important to understand that these three strategies often overlap--that is, any one sentence or idea within a piece of text could simultaneously demonstrate two or even all three of these methods--let's go ahead and treat them as isolated concepts for the purpose of this analysis.
To find examples of ethos, we should look for places where the speaker is establishing himself as a trusted authority, someone with a respectable character or credibility. When does the speaker show intelligence or eschew bias?
1. In the fourth paragraph, the speaker asserts that he's dealt with the problem at hand and its possible solutions for "many years" of serious contemplation. With this assertion, he attempts to establish himself as an expert on the issue:
"As to my own part, having turned my thoughts for many years, upon this important subject, and maturely weighed the several schemes of our projectors, I have always found them grossly mistaken in their computation."
2. The eighth paragraph functions as a transition to the bulk of the proposal. In it, the speaker exudes an earnestness and candor that work to establish him as someone with an upright character:
"I shall now therefore humbly propose my own thoughts, which I hope will not be liable to the least objection."
Finding examples of pathos is as easy as locating the emotional spots within the text. When does the speaker want to excite pity, or anger, or sadness, or some other strong emotion within us?
1. The first paragraph of the essay is an onslaught of pathos. We're presented with the plight of the abjectly poor mother and her many children, dressed in horribly ragged clothes, begging from others in order to get food to stay alive:
"It is a melancholy object to those, who walk through this great town, or travel in the country, when they see the streets, the roads and cabbin-doors crowded with beggars of the female sex, followed by three, four, or six children, all in rags, and importuning every passenger for an alms. These mothers instead of being able to work for their honest livelihood, are forced to employ all their time in stroling to beg sustenance for their helpless infants who, as they grow up, either turn thieves for want of work, or leave their dear native country, to fight for the Pretender in Spain, or sell themselves to the Barbadoes."
2. The fifth paragraph is equally pathetic--not in the sense of weak, but in the "pathos" sense of evoking an emotional response. The speaker claims that his proposal will prevent the pain, heartache, shame, and savagery of abortions:
"There is likewise another great advantage in my scheme, that it will prevent those voluntary abortions, and that horrid practice of women murdering their bastard children, alas! too frequent among us, sacrificing the poor innocent babes, I doubt, more to avoid the expence than the shame, which would move tears and pity in the most savage and inhuman breast."
For logos, look for places in the text where the speaker relies on reason or logic to persuade us. The speaker might draw an interesting analogy, or reveal statistical information.
1. The beginning of the sixth paragraph calls on reasoned calculations; the speaker is trying to persuade us by showing us that he's done the math and that the whole plan adds up:
"The number of souls in this kingdom being usually reckoned one million and a half, of these I calculate there may be about two hundred thousand couple whose wives are breeders; from which number I subtract thirty thousand couple, who are able to maintain their own children, (although I apprehend there cannot be so many, under the present distresses of the kingdom) but this being granted, there will remain an hundred and seventy thousand breeders. I again subtract fifty thousand, for those women who miscarry, or whose children die by accident or disease within the year. There only remain an hundred and twenty thousand children of poor parents annually born."
2. The rest of the sixth paragraph employs a new example of logos. The speaker has us follow him along a line of reasoning that cannot be denied (or so we might think). He's saying, if there are so many kids out there doing nothing and being a burden on society, what are we supposed to do about it? They definitely can't do any kind of meaningful labor when they're just little kids:
"The question therefore is, How this number shall be reared, and provided for? which, as I have already said, under the present situation of affairs, is utterly impossible by all the methods hitherto proposed. For we can neither employ them in handicraft or agriculture; we neither build houses, (I mean in the country) nor cultivate land..."
Taken all together, instances of persuasion like these help the speaker establish the cold and calculating persona that makes this satirical essay so effective.
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