Chapter II (5)

Method of Speech includes a wide Part of Tradition. Styled the Wisdom of Delivery. Various kinds of Methods enumerated. Their respective Merits

THE doctrine concerning the method of speech has been usually treated as a part of logic; it has also found a place in rhetoric, under the name of disposition; but the placing of it in the train of other arts has introduced a neglect of many useful things relating to it. We, therefore, think proper to advance a substantial and capital doctrine of method, under the general name of traditive prudence. But as the kinds of method are various, we shall rather enumerate than divide them; but for one only method, and perpetually splitting and subdividing, it scarce need be mentioned, as being no more than a light cloud of doctrine that soon blows over, though it also proves destructive to the sciences, because the observers thereof, when they wrest things by the laws of their method, and either omit all that do not justly fall under their divisions, or bend them contrary to their own nature, squeeze, as it were, the grain out of the sciences, and grasp nothing but the chaff—whence this kind of method produces empty compendiums, and loses the solid substance of the sciences.

Let the first difference of method be, therefore, between the doctrinal and initiative. By this we do not mean that the initiative method should treat only of the entrance into the sciences, and the other their entire doctrine; but borrowing the word from religion, we call that method initiative which opens and reveals the mysteries of the sciences; so that as the doctrinal method teaches, the initiative method should intimate, the doctrinal method requiring a belief of what is delivered, but the initiative rather that it should be examined. The one deals out the sciences to vulgar learners, the other as to the children of wisdom—the one having for its end the use of the sciences as they now stand, and the other their progress and further advancement. But this latter method seems deserted; for the sciences have hitherto been delivered as if both the teacher and the learner desired to receive errors by consent—the teacher pursuing that method which procures the greatest belief to his doctrine, not that which most commodiously submits it to examination, while the learner desires present satisfaction without waiting for a just inquiry, as if more concerned not to doubt than not to mistake. Hence the master, through desire of glory, never exposes the weakness of his own science, and the scholar, through his aversion to labor, tries not his own strength; whereas knowledge, which is delivered to others as a web to be further wove, should if possible be introduced into the mind of another in the manner it was first procured; and this may be done in knowledge acquired by induction; but for that anticipated and hasty knowledge we have at present it is not easy for the possessor to say by what road he came at it. Yet in a greater or less degree any one might review his knowledge, trace back the steps of his own thoughts, consent afresh, and thus transplant his knowledge into the mind of another as it grew up in his own. For it is in arts as in trees—if a tree were to be used, no matter for the root, but if it were to be transplanted, it is a surer way to take the root than the slips. So the transplantation now practiced of the sciences makes a great show, as it were, of branches, that without the roots may be fit indeed for the builder, but not for the planter. He who would promote the growth of the sciences should be less solicitous about the trunk or body of them, and bend his care to preserve the roots, and draw them out with some little earth about them. Of this kind of transplantation there is some resemblance in the method of mathematicians; but in general we do not see that it is either used or inquired after; we therefore place it among the deficiencies, under the name of the traditive lamp, or a method for posterity.

There is another difference of method, bearing some relation to the former intention, though in reality almost opposite to it; both of them have this in common, that they separate the vulgar audience from the select; but herein they are opposite, that the former introduces a more open and the other a more secret way of instruction than the common; hence let them be distinguished, by terming the former plain or open, and the latter the learned or concealed method, thus transferring to the manner of delivery the difference made use of by the ancients, especially in publishing their books. This concealed or enigmatical method was itself also employed by the ancients with prudence and judgment, but is of late dishonored by many, who use it as a false light to set off their counterfeit wares. The design of it seems to have been, by the veil of tradition, to keep the vulgar from the secrets of sciences, and to admit only such as had, by the help of a master, attained to the interpretation of dark sayings, or were able, by the strength of their own genius, to enter within the veil.

The next difference of method is of great moment with regard to the sciences, as these are delivered either in the way of aphorism or methodically. It highly deserves to be noted, that the general custom is, for men to raise as it were a formal and solemn art from a few axioms and observations upon any subject, swelling it out with their own witty inventions, illustrating it by examples, and binding the whole up into method. But that other way of delivery by aphorisms has numerous advantages over the methodical. And first, it gives us a proof of the author’s abilities, and shows whether he has entered deep into his subject or not. Aphorisms are ridiculous things, unless wrought from the central parts of the sciences; and here all illustration, excursion, variety of examples, deduction, connection, and particular description, is cut off, so that nothing besides an ample stock of observations is left for the matter of aphorisms. And, therefore, no person is equal to the forming of aphorisms, nor would ever think of them, if he did not find himself copiously and solidly instructed for writing upon a subject. But in methods so great a power have order, connection, and choice—

that methodical productions sometimes make a show of I know not what specious art, which, if they were taken to pieces, separated, and undressed, would fall back again almost to nothing. Secondly, a methodical delivery has the power of enforcing belief and consent, but directs not much to practical indications, as carrying with it a kind of demonstration in circle, where the parts mutually enlighten each other, and so gratifies the imagination the more; but as actions lie scattered in common life, scattered instructions suit them the best. Lastly, as aphorisms exhibit only certain scraps and fragments of the sciences, they carry with them an invitation to others for adding and lending their assistance, whereas methods dress up the sciences into bodies, and make men imagine they have them complete.

There is a further difference of method, and that too very considerable; for as the sciences are delivered either by assertions with their proofs, or by questions with their answers, if the latter method be pursued too far, it retards the advancement of the sciences no less than it would the march of an army, to be sitting down against every little fort in the way; whereas, if the better of the battle be gained, and the fortune of the war steadily pursued, such lesser places will surrender of themselves, though it must be allowed unsafe to leave any large and fortified place at the back of the army. In the same manner confutations are to be avoided or sparingly used in delivering the sciences, so as only to conquer the greater prejudices and prepossessions of the mind, without provoking and engaging the lesser doubts and scruples.

Another difference of method lies in suiting it to the subject; for mathematics, the most abstract and simple of the sciences, is delivered one way, and politics, the more compound and perplexed, another. For a uniform method cannot be commodiously observed in a variety of matter. And as we approve of particular topics for invention, so we must in some measure allow of particular methods of delivery.

There is another difference of method to be used with judgment in delivering the sciences, and this is governed by the informations and anticipations of the science to be delivered that are before infused and impressed upon the mind of the learner. For that science which comes as an entire stranger to the mind is to be delivered one way, and that which is familiarized by opinions already imbibed and received another. And therefore, Aristotle, when he thought to chastise, really commended Democritus, in saying, “If we would dispute in earnest, and not hunt after comparisons,” etc.; as if he would tax Democritus with being too full of comparisons; whereas they whose instructions are already grounded in popular opinion have nothing left them but to dispute and prove, while others have a double task whose doctrines transcend the vulgar opinions; viz., first to render what they deliver intelligible, and then to prove it; whence they must of necessity have recourse to simile and metaphor, the better to enter the human capacity. Hence we find in the more ignorant ages, when learning was in its infancy, and those conceptions which are now trite and vulgar were new and unheard of, everything was full of parables and similitudes, otherwise the things then proposed would either have been passed over without due notice and attention, or else have been rejected as paradoxes. For it is a rule in the doctrine of delivery, that every science which comports not with anticipations and prejudices must seek the assistance of similies and allusions. And thus much for the different kinds of methods, which have not hitherto been observed; but for the others, as the analytic, systatic, diæretic, cryptic, homeric, etc., they are already justly discovered and ranged.

Method has two parts, one regarding the disposition of a whole work or the subject of a book, and the other the limitation of propositions. For architecture not only regards the fabric of the whole building, but also the figure of the columns, arches, etc.; for method is as it were the architecture of the sciences. And herein Ramus has deserved better, by reviving the ancient rules of method, than by obtruding his own dichotomies. But I know not by what fatality it happens that, as the poets often feign, the most precious things have the most pernicious keepers. Doubtless the endeavors of Ramus about the reduction of propositions threw him upon his epitomes, and the flats and shallows of the sciences: for it must be a fortunate and well-directed genius that shall attempt to make the axioms of the sciences convertible, and not at the same time render them circular, that is, keep them from returning into themselves. And yet the attempt of Ramus in this way has not been useless.

There are still two other limitations of propositions, besides that for making them convertible—the one for extending and the other for producing them. For if it be just that the sciences have two other dimensions, besides depth, viz., length and breadth, their depth bearing relation to their truth and reality, as these are what constitute their solidity; their breadth may be computed from one science to another, and their length from the highest degree to the lowest in the same science—the one comprehends the ends and true boundaries of the sciences, whence propositions may be treated distinctly, and not promiscuously, and all repetition, excursion, and confusion avoided; the other prescribes a rule how far and to what particular degree the propositions of the sciences are to be reduced. But no doubt something must here be left to practice and experience; for men ought to avoid the extreme of Antoninus Pius, and not mince cumin-seed in the sciences, nor multiply divisions to the utmost. And it is here well worth the inquiry, how far we should check ourselves in this respect; for we see that too extensive generals, unless they be reduced, afford little information, but rather expose the sciences to the ridicule of practical men, as being no more fitted for practice than a general map of the world to show the road from London to York. The best rules may well be compared to a metal-line speculum, which represents the images of things, but not before it is polished; for so rules and precepts are useful after having undergone the file of experience. But if these rules could be made exact and clear from the first, it were better, because they would then stand in less need of experience.

We must not omit that some men, rather ostentatious than learned, have labored about a certain method not deserving the name of a true method, as being rather a kind of imposture, which may nevertheless be acceptable to some busy minds. This art so scatters the drops of the sciences, that any pretender may misapply it for ostentation, with some appearance of learning. Such was the art of Lully, and such the typocosmia cultivated by some; for these are only a collection of terms of art heaped together, to the end that those who have them in readiness may seem to understand the arts whereto the terms belong. Collections of this kind are like a piece-broker’s shop, where there are many slips, but nothing of great value. And thus much for the science which we call traditive prudence.