Locke would have been more intelligible, if, instead of telling us to strip an author's meaning of the words, he had impressed strongly the necessity of defining all leading terms; and of making sure that each was always used in the same meaning. While, in order to veracious conclusions, it is necessary that every matter of fact should be truly given, it is equally necessary that the language should be free from ambiguity. If an author uses the word "law," at one time as an enactment: by some authority, and at another time, as a sequence in the order of nature, he is sure to land us in fallacy and confusion, as Butler did in explaining the Divine government. The remedy is, not to perform the operation of separating the meaning entirely from the language, but to vary the language, so as to substitute terms that have no ambiguity. "Law" is equivocal; "social enactment," and "order of nature," are both unequivocal; and when one is chosen, and adhered to, the confusion is at an end.
The mere art of study is no preparation for such a task. It demands a very advanced condition of knowledge on the particular subject, as well as a logical habit of mind, however acquired; and to include it in a practical essay on the Conduct of the Understanding is to overstep the limits of the subject.
As our present head represents the very pith and marrow of the art of study, we may dwell a little longer on the process of changing the form of an author, whether by condensing, expanding, varying the expression, altering the order, selecting, and rejecting, —or by any other known device. Worst of all is change for the mere sake of change; it is simply better than literal copying. But, to rise above it, needs a sense of FORM already attained. According as this sense is developed, the exercise of altering or amending is more and more profitable. Consequently, there should be an express application of the mind to the attainment of form; and particular works pre-eminent for that quality should be sought out and read. "Form" is doubtless a wide word, and comprises both the logical or pervading method of a work, and the expression or dress throughout. Method by itself can be soonest acquired because it turns on a small number of points; language is a multifarious acquirement, and can hardly be forced, although it will come eventually by due application.
[EXAMPLE FROM PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.]
To show what is meant by learning Form, with a view to the more effectual study of subject-matter, I will take the example of a work on the Practice of Medicine; in which the idea is to describe Diseases seriatim, with their treatment or cures. At the present day, this subject possesses method or form: there is a systematic classification of diseased processes and diseases; also, a regular plan of setting forth the specific marks of each disease, its diagnosis, and, finally, its remedies. There are more and less perfect models of the methodical element; while there are differences among authors in the fulness of the detailed information. There is, besides, a Logic of Medicine, representing the absolute form, in a kind of logical synopsis, by which it is more easily comprehended in the first instance: not to mention the general body of the Logic of the Inductive Sciences, of which medicine is one. Now, undoubtedly, the best work to begin with—the Text-book-in-chief—would be one where Form is in its highest perfection; the amount of matter being of less consequence. In a subject of great complication, and vast detail, the student cannot too soon get possession of the best method or form of arrangement. When a work of this character is before him, he is to read and re-read it, till the form becomes strongly apparent; he is to compare one part with another, to see how the author adheres to his own pervading method; he should, if possible, make a synopsis of the plan in itself, disentangling it from the applications, for greater clearness. The scheme of a medical work, for example, comprises the Classification of Diseases, the parting off of Diseased Processes—-Fever, Inflammation, &c.—from Diseases properly so called; the modes of defining Disease; the separation of defining marks, from predications, and so on: all involved in a strict Logic of Disease. Armed with these logical or methodical preliminaries, the student next attacks one of the extended treatises on the Practice of Medicine. He is now prepared to work the process of abstracting to the utmost advantage, both for clearness of understanding, and for impressing the memory. As in such a vast subject, no one author is deemed adequate to a full exposition, and as, moreover, a great portion of the information occurs, apart from systems, in detached memoirs or monographs,—the only mode of unifying and holding together the aggregate, is to reduce all the statements to a common form and order, by help of the pre-acquired plan. The progress of study may amend the plan, as well as add to the particular information; but absolute perfection in the scheme is not so essential as strict adherence to it through all the details. To work without a plan at all, is not merely to tax the memory beyond its powers, but probably also to misconceive and jumble the facts.
To enhance the illustration of the two main heads of the Art of Study, I will so far deviate from the idea of the essay, as to take up a special branch of education, which, more than any other, has been reduced to form and rule, I mean the great accomplishment of Oratory, or the Art of Persuasion. The practical Science of Rhetoric, cultivated both by ancients and by moderns, has especially occupied itself with directions for acquiring this great engine of influencing mankind.
It was emphatically averred by the ancient teachers of the Oratorical art, that it must be grounded on a wide basis of general information. I do not here discuss the exact scope of this preparatory study, as my purpose is to narrow the illustration to what is special to the faculty of persuasion. I must even omit all those points relating to delivery or elocution, on which so much depends; and also the consideration of how to attain readiness or fluency in spoken address, except in so far as that follows from abundant oratorical resources. We thus sink the difference between spoken oratory, and persuasion through the press.
Even as thus limited, oratory is still too wide for a pointed illustration: and, so, I propose farther to confine my references to the department of Political Oratory; coupling with that, however, the Forensic branch—which has much in common with the other, and has given birth to some of our most splendid examples of the art of persuasion.