for this very end, to pursue truth; and we abuse one of his richest gifts if we basely yield it up, to be led astray by any of the meaner powers of nature, or the perishing interests of this life. Reasoning itself, if honestly obeyed, will lead us to receive the divine revelation of the Gospel, where it is duly proposed, and this will show us the path of life everlasting.

CHAPTER XI.

RULES OF METHOD IN THE PURSUIT OR COMMUNICATION OF KNOWLEDGE.

[From Watts's Logic.]

RULE I. It must be safe or secure from error.

To this end, observe these four directions.

(1.) Use great care in laying the foundation of your discourse, or your scheme of thoughts upon any subject.

Those propositions which are to stand as first principles, and on which the whole argument depends, must be viewed on all sides with the utmost accuracy, lest an error, being admitted there, should diffuse itself over the whole subject.

(2.) It is advisable not only to adopt as fundamental propositions those which are evident and true, but to render them familiar to the mind, by dwelling upon them before you proceed farther.

This will enable you to draw consequences from them with more freedom, with greater variety, and with brighter evidence than if you have but a slight and hasty view of them.

(3.) As you proceed in the argument, see that your ground be made firm at every step.

See that every link of your chain of reasoning be strong and good.

(4.) Draw up all your propositions and arguments with so much caution, and express your ideas with such a just limitation, as may preclude or anticipate any objections. If, however, such cautious limitations should render the ideas too much complicated, or the sense obscure, then it is better to keep the argument more simple and easy to be understood, and afterward mention the objections dis

tinctly in their full strength, and give a distinct answer to them.

RULE II. Let your method be plain and easy, so that your hearers or readers, as well as yourself, may run through it without embarrassment, and may take a clear and comprehensive view of the whole scheme. In order to this:

(1.) Begin always with those things that are best known and most obvious, so that the mind may have no difficulty or fatigue, and proceed by regular and easy steps to things that are more difficult.

(2.) Crowd not too many thoughts into one sentence or paragraph beyond the capacity of your readers or hearers. For the same reason, avoid too many subdivisions.

RULE III. Let your method be distinct, and without the perplexing mixture of things that ought to be kept separate.

RULE IV. The method of treating a subject should be full, so that nothing may be wanting; nothing which is necessary or proper should be omitted.

Let your explanations, your enumeration of parts or properties, your divisions, your illustrations, your narrative of circumstances, and your distributions of things, be so accurate that no needful idea or part be left out.

This fullness of method does not require that every thing should be said which can be said upon any subject; 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 amount of your matter and the fullness 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 brief, or without superfluity.

The following are some of the redundancies that are to be avoided:

(1.) All needless repetitions of the same thing in different parts of the discourse.

(2.) A tedious prolixity in one part to the neglect or too rapid disposal of, perhaps, more important parts.

(3.) The multiplying of explications where there is no difficulty, or darkness, or danger of mistake.

(4.) The practice of proving those things which need no proof.

(5) The mention and refuting of objections that are so evidently false as to need no refutation, and such as no man in sober earnest would offer.

i

RULE VI. Let your method be appropriate to the subject in hand, to your present design, and to the capaci ties and tastes of your hearers or readers.

RULE VII. The parts of a discourse should be well con nected. For this purpose,

(1.) Keep your main end and design ever in view, and let all the parts of your discourse have a perceptible tendency toward it.

(2.) Let the mutual relation and dependency of the parts be such-so just and evident, that every part may naturally lead on to the next, without material interruptions intervening.

(3.) Render yourself familiar with the best forms of transition from one part of a discourse to another, and practice them as occasion offers.

CHAPTER XII.

DEFECTS OF DR. JOHNSON'S STYLE OF WRITING.

[Supplementary to Part vi., Sec. v.]

The works of the celebrated Dr. Samuel Johnson have exerted, and still exert so commanding an influence on the style of modern composition, that the author can not close his volume without subjoining a few lines, to caution those who study it against too close an imitation of Johnson's peculiar style. They are taken from Macauley's Review of Boswell's Life of Johnson.

JOHNSON, as Mr. Burke most justly observed, appears far greater in Boswell's books than in his own. His conversation appears to have been quite equal to his writings in matter, and far superior to them in manner. When he talked, he clothed his wit and his sense in forcible and natural expressions. As soor

as he took his pen in hand to write for the public, his style became systematically vicious. All his books are written in a learned language; in a language which nobody hears from his mother or his nurse; in a language in which nobody ever quarrels, or drives bargains, or makes love; in a language in which nobody ever thinks.

It is clear that Johnson himself did not think in the dialect in which he wrote. The expressions which came first to his tongue were simple, energetic, and picturesque. When he wrote for publication, he did his sentences out of English into Johnsonese. His letters from the Hebrides to Mrs. Thrale are the original of that work, of which the Journey to the Hebrides is the translation; and it is amusing to compare the two versions. "When we were taken up stairs." says he in one of his letters, "a dirty fellow bounced out of the bed on which one of us was to lie." This incident is recorded in the Journey as follows: "Out of one of the beds on which we were to repose, started up, at our entrance, a man black as a cyclops from the forge."

Sometimes Johnson translated aloud. "The Rehearsal," he said, very unjustly, “has not wit enough to keep it sweet;" then, after a pause, “it has not vitality enough to preserve it from putrefaction."

The characteristic faults of his style are so familiar, and have been so often burlesqued, that it is almost superfluous to point them out.

It is well known that he made much less use than any other eminent writer of those strong, plain words, Anglo-Saxon or Norman French, of which the roots lie in the inmost depths of our language; and that he felt a vicious partiality for terms which, long after our own speech had been fixed, were borrowed from the Greek and Latin, and which, therefore, even when lawfully naturalized, must be considered as born aliens, not entitled to rank with the king's English.

His constant practice of padding out a sentence with useless epithets, till it became as stiff as the bust of an exquisite; his antithetical forms of expression.

constantly employed even where there is no opposition in the ideas expressed; his big words wasted on little things; his harsh inversions, so widely different from those graceful and easy inversions which give variety, spirit, and sweetness to the expression of our great old writers; all these peculiarities have been imitated by his admirers, and parodied by his assailants, till the public has become sick of the subject.

Goldsmith said to him very wittily and very justly, "If you were to write a fable about little fishes, doctor, you would make the little fishes talk like whales." No man, surely, ever had so little talent for personation as Johnson. Whether he wrote in the character of a disappointed legacy hunter or an empty town fop, of a crazy virtuoso or a flippant coquette, he wrote in the same pompous and unbending style.

THE END.