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When you are drawing up a narrative of any matter of fact, see that no important circumstance be omitted.

When you propose the solution of any difficulty; consider all the various cases wherein it can happen, and shew how they may be solved.

In short, let your enumerations, your divisions and distri butions of things be so accurate, that no needful part or idea may be left out.

This fulness of method does not require that every thing should be said which can be said upon any subject; for this would make each single science endless: but you should say every thing which is necessary to the design in view, and which has a proper and direct tendency to this end; always proportioning the amplitude of your matter, and the fulness of your discourse to your great design, to the length of your time, to the convenience, delight and profit of your hearers.

Rule V. As your method must be full without deficiency, so it must be short or without superfluity. The fulness of a discourse enlarges our knowledge, and the well-concerted brevity saves our time. In order to observe this rule, it will be enough to point out the chief of those superfluities or redundancies, which some persons are guilty of in their discourses, with a due caution against them.

1. "Avoid all needless repetitions of the same thing in different parts of your discourse." It must be confessed there are several cases when a review of the same foregoing proposition is needful to explain or prove several of the following positions; but let your method be so contrived, as far as possible, that it may occasion the fewest rehearsals of the same thing; for it is not grateful to the hearers without evident necessity.

2. "Have a care of tedious prolixity," or drawing out any part of your discourse to an unnecessary and tiresome length. It is much more honourable for an instructor, an orator, a pleader, or a preacher, that his hearers should say, I was afraid he would have done, than that they should be tempted to shew signs of uneasiness, and long for the conclusion.

Besides, there is another inconvenience in its when you affect to amplify on the former brauches of a discourse, you will often lay a necessity upon yourself of contracting the latter and most useful parts of it, and perhaps prevent yourself in the most important part of your design. Many a preacher has been guilty of this fault in former days, nor is the present age without some instances of this weakness.

3. "Do not multiply explications where there is no difficulty, or darkness, or danger of mistake." Be not fond of tracing every word of your theme through all the grammatical,

the logical, and metaphysical characters and relations of it; nor shew your critical learning in spreading abroad the various senses of a word, and the various origin of those senses, the etymology of terms, the synonymous and the paronymous or kindred names, &c. where the chief point of discourse does not at all require it: You would laugh at a pedant, who professing to explain the Athanasian Creed, should acquaint you, that Athanasius is derived from a Greek word, which signifies immortality, and that the same word Alavaosa signifies also the herb tansy.

There are some persons so fond of their learned distinctions, that they will shew their subtlety by distinguishing where there is no difference; and the same silly affectation will introduce distinctions upon every occurrence, and bring three or four negatives upon every subject of discourse'; first to declare what it is not, and then what it is; whereas such negatives ought never to be mentioned where there is no apparent danger of mistake. How ridiculous would that writer be, who if he were speaking of the Nicene Creed, should declare negatively, (1.) That he did not mean the doctrine which the inhabitants of Nice believed, nor (2.) A Creed written by them, but (3.) Positively a Creed composed by several christian bishops met together in the city of Nice: The positive is sufficient here, and the two negatives are impertinent.

4. "Be not fond of proving those things which need no proof;" such as self-evident propositions and truths universally confessed, or such as are entirely agreed to and granted by our opponents. It is this vain affectation of proving every thing that has led geometricians to form useless and intricate demonstrations to support some theorems which are sufficiently evident to the eye by inspection, or to the mind by the first mention of them; and it is the same humour that reigns sometimes in the pulpit, and spends half the sermon in proving some general truth which is never disputed or doubted, and thereby robs the auditory of more useful entertainment.

5. As there are some things so evidently true, that they want no proof, so there are others so evidently false that they want no refutation. It is mere trifling, and a waste of our precious moments, to invent and raise such objections as no man would ever make in earnest, and that merely for the sake of answering and solving them: This breaks in notoriously upen the due brevity of method.

6. Avoid in general all learned forms, all trappings of art, and ceremonies of the schools," where there is no need of them. It is reported concerning the late Czar of Muscovy, that when he first acquainted himself with mathematical learning, he practised all the rules of circumvallation and contra

vallation, at the siege of a town in Livonia; and by the length of those formalities he lost the opportunity of taking the town.

7. "Do not suffer every occasional and incidental thought to carry you away into a long parenthesis, and thus to stretch out your discourse, and divert you from the point in hand." In the pursuit of your subject, if any useful thought occur which belongs to some other theme, note it down for the sake of your memory on some other paper, and lay it by in reserve for its proper place and season: but let it not incorporate itself with your present theme, nor draw off your mind from your main business, though it should be ever so inviting. A man who walks directly but slowly towards his journey's end, will arrive thither much sooner than his neighbour, who runs into every crooked turning which he meets, and wanders aside to gaze at every thing that strikes his eyes by the way, or to gather every gaudy flower that grows by the side of the road.

To sum up all: "There is an happy medium to be observed in our method, so that the brevity may not render the sense obscure, nor the argument feeble, nor our knowledge merely superficial and on the other hand, that the fulness and copiousness of our method may not waste the time, tire the learner, - or fill the mind with trifles and impertinences."

The copious and the contracted way of writing have each their peculiar advantages. There is a proper use to be made of large paraphrases, and full, particular, and diffusive explications and arguments; these are fittest for those who design to be acquainted thoroughly with every part of the subject. There is also a use of shorter hints, abstracts, and compendiums, to instruct those who seek only a slight and general knowledge, as well as to refresh the memory of those who have learned the science already, and gone through a larger scheme. But it is a gross abuse of these various methods of instruction, when a person has read a mere compendium or epitome of any science, and he vainly imagines that be understands the whole science. So one boy may become a philosopher by reading over the mere dry definitions and divisions of Scheibler's Compendium of Peripatecism; So another may boast that he understands anatomy, because he has seen a skeleton, and a third profess himself a learned divine, when he can repeat the apostles' creed.

Rule VI. "Take care that your method be proper to the subject in band, proper to your present design, as well as proper to the age and place wherein you dwell."

1. Let your method be proper to the subject. must not be learned or taught in one method. theology, metaphysics, and logic, will not be easily

All sciences Morality and and happily

reduced into a strict mathematical method: Those who have tried, have found much inconvenience therein.

Some things have more need to be explained than to be proved, as axioms, or self-evident propositions; and indeed all the first great principles, the chief and most important doctrines both of natural and revealed religion; for when the sense of them is clearly explained, they appear so evident in the light of nature or scripture, that they want no other proof. There are other things that stand in need of proof, as well as explication, as many mathematical theorems, and several deep controversies in morality and divinity. There are yet other sorts of subjects which want rather to be warmly impressed upon the mind by fervent exhortations, and stand in more need of this than they do either of proof or explication; such are the most general, plain, and obvious duties of piety towards God, and love towards men, with the government of all our inclinations and passions. Now these several subjects ought to be treated in a different manner and method.

Again, There are some subjects in the same treatise which are more useful and necessary than others, and some parts of a subject which are eminently and chiefly designed by a writer or speaker: true method will teach us to dwell longer upon these themes, and to lay out more thought and labour upon them; whereas the same art of method will teach us to cut short those things which are used only to introduce our main subject, and to stand as scaffolding merely to aid the structure of our discourse. It will teach us also to content ourselves with brief hints of those matters which are merely occasional and incidental.

2. Your method must be adjusted by your design, for if you treat of the same subject with two different views and designs, you will find it necessary to use different methods. Suppose the doctrine of the sacred Trinity were your theme, and you were to read a lecture to young students on that subject, or if you designed a treatise for the conviction of learned men, you would pursue a very different method from that which would be proper to regulate a practical discourse, or a sermon to instruct common Christians merely in the pious improvement of this doctrine, and awaken them to the duties which are derived thence.

In short, we must not first lay down certain and precise rules of method, and resolve to confine the matter we discourse of to that particular form and order of topics; but we must well consider, and study the subject of our discourse thoroughly, and take a just survey of our present design, and these will give suffi, cient hints of the particular form and order in which we should handle it, provided that we are moderately skilled in the general laws of method and order.

Yet let it be noted here, that neither the subject nor matter

of a discourse, nor the particular design of it, can so precisely determine the method, as to leave no room for liberty and variety. The very same theme may be handled, and that also with the same design, in several different methods, among which it is hard to say which is the best. In writing a System of Divinity, some begin with the scriptures, and thence deduce all other doctrines and duties. Some begin with the Being of God and his Attributes, so far as he is known by the light of nature, and then proceed to the doctrines of revelation. Some distinguish the whole subject into the Credenda and Agenda, that is, things to be believed, and things to be done. Some think it best to explain the whole christian religion by an historical detail of all the discoveries which God has made of himself to this lower world, beginning at the creation in the first chapter of Genesis, and so proceeding onward according to the narrative of the Old and New Testament. And there are others that endeavour to include the whole of religion under these four heads, namely The Apostle's Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments, and the two Sacraments; though I cannot but think this is the least accurate of any. The same variety may be allowed in treating other subjects, this very treatise of Logic is an instance of it, whose method differs very considerably from any others which I have seen, as they differ also greatly from one another, though several of them are confessed to be well written.

3. Though a just view of our subject and our design may dictate proper rules of natural method, yet there must be some little deference at least paid to the custom of the age wherein we live, and to the humour and genius of our readers or hearers ; which if we utterly reject and disdain, our performances will fail of the desired success, even though we may have followed the just rules of method. I will mention but this one instance: In the former century it was frequent with learned men to divide their theme or subject into a great multitude of co-ordinate members or parts, they abounded also in the forms of logic and distinction, and indulged numerous ranks of subordination. Now though we ought not to abandon the rules of just method and division, in order to comport with the modish writers in our age who have renounced them, yet it is prudent to pay so much respect to the custom of the age, as to use these forms of division with due moderation, and not affect to multiply them in such a manner, as to give an early and needless disgust to the generality of our present readers. The same may be said concerning various other methods of conduct in the affairs of learning, as well as the affairs of life, wherein we must indulge a little to custom : and yet we must by no means suffer ourselves so far to be imposed upon and governed by it, as to neglect those rules of method which are necessary for the safe, easy, and complete enquiry

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