not see it either put in use or inquired of. Therefore I note it as deficient, and term it the Handing on of the Lamp, or Method of Delivery to Posterity.

Another diversity of Method there is, which in intention has an affinity with the former, but is in reality almost contrary. For both methods agree in aiming to separate the vulgar among the auditors from the select; but then they are opposed in this, that the former makes use of a way of delivery more open than the common, the latter (of which I am now going to speak) of one more secret. Let the one then be distinguished as the Exoteric method, the other as the Acroamatic; a distinction observed by the ancients principally in the publication of books, but which I transfer to the method of delivery. Indeed this acroamatic or enigmatical method was itself used among the ancients, and employed with judgment and discretion. But in later times it has been disgraced by many, who have made it as a false and deceitful light to put forward their counterfeit merchandise. The intention of it however seems to be by obscurity of delivery to exclude the vulgar (that is the profane vulgar) from the secrets of knowledges, and to admit those only who have either received the interpretation of the enigmas through the hands of the teachers, or have wits of such sharpness and discernment as can pierce the veil.

Next comes another diversity of Method, of great consequence to science; which is the delivery of knowledge in aphorisms, or in methods. For it is specially to be noted, that it has become the fashion to make, out of a few axioms and observations upon any subject, a kind of complete and formal art, filling it up with some discourses, illustrating it with examples, and

digesting it into method. But that other delivery by aphorisms has many excellent virtues whereto the methodical delivery does not attain. First it tries the writer, whether he be light and superficial in his knowledge, or solid. For aphorisms, not to be ridiculous, must be made out of the pith and heart of sciences. For illustration and excursion are cut off; variety of examples is cut off; deduction and connexion are cut off: descriptions of practice are cut off; so there is nothing left to make the aphorisms of but some good quantity of observation. And therefore a man will not be equal to the writing in aphorisms, nor indeed will he think of doing so, unless he feel that he is amply and solidly furnished for the work. But in methods, Tantum series juncturaque pollet,

Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris,1

that those things many times carry a show of I know not what excellent art, which if they were taken to pieces, separated, and stripped, would shrink to little or nothing. Secondly, methodical delivery is fit to win consent or belief, but of little use to give directions for practice; for it carries a kind of demonstration in circle, one part illuminating another, and therefore more satisfies the understanding; but as actions in common life are dispersed, and not arranged in order, dispersed directions do best for them. Lastly, aphorisms, representing only portions and as it were fragments of knowledge, invite others to contribute and add something in their turn; whereas methodical delivery, carrying the show of a total, makes men careless, as if they were already at the end.

1 Hor. Ep. ad Pisones, 242.:

The order and the joining give such graces,

Mean matters take such honour from their places.

Next comes another diversity of Method, which is likewise of great weight; namely the delivery of knowledge by assertions with proofs, or by questions with determinations; the latter kind whereof, if it be immoderately followed, is as prejudicial to the advancement of learning, as it is detrimental to the fortunes and progress of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or hold. For if the field be kept, and the sum of the enterprise pursued, those smaller thing. will come in of themselves; although it is true that to leave a great and fortified town in the rear would not be always safe. In like manner in the transmission of knowledge confutations should be refrained from; and only employed to remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to excite and provoke the lighter kind of doubts.

Next comes another diversity of Method, namely that the method used should be according to the subjectmatter which is handled. For there is one method of delivery in the mathematics (which are the most abstracted and simple of knowledges), another in politics (which are the most immersed and compounded). And (as I have already said) uniformity of method is not compatible with multiformity of matter. Wherefore as I approved of Particular Topics for invention, so to a certain extent I allow likewise of Particular Methods for transmission.

Next comes another diversity of Method, which in the delivery of knowledge is to be used with discretion. This is regulated according to the informations and anticipations already infused and impressed on the minds of the learners concerning the knowledge which is to be delivered. For that knowledge which comes

altogether new and strange to men's minds is to be delivered in another form than that which is akin and familiar to opinions already taken in and received. And therefore Aristotle, when he thinks to tax Democritus, does in truth commend him, where he says, "If we shall indeed dispute, and not follow after similitudes,"1 &c.; thus making it a charge against Democritus, that he was too fond of comparisons. For those whose conceits are already seated in popular opinions, need but to dispute and prove; whereas those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions, have a double labour; first to make them understood, and then to prove them; so that they are obliged to have recourse to similitudes and metaphors to convey their meaning. We see therefore in the infancy of learning, and in rude times, when these conceits which are now old and trivial were new and unheard of, that the world was full of parables and similitudes. For else would men either have passed over without due mark or attention, or else rejected as paradoxical, that which was laid before them. For it is a rule in the art of transmission, that all knowledge which is not agreeable to anticipations or presuppositions must seek assistance from similitudes and comparisons.

And so much for the diversities of Method, which have not hitherto been pointed out by others. For as for those other methods, — Analytic, Systatic, Diæretic, also Cryptic, Homeric, and the like, they are rightly invented and distributed, and I see no reason why I should dwell upon them.

Such then are the kinds of Method. Its parts are two; the one relating to the disposition of the whole

1 Arist. Nic. Eth. vi. 3.

work or argument of a book; the other to the limitation of propositions. For there belongs to architecture not only the frame of the whole, building, but also the formation and shape of the several beams and columns thereof; and Method is as it were the architecture of the sciences. And herein Ramus merited better in reviving those excellent rules of propositions (that they should be true, universally, primarily, and essentially1), than he did in introducing his uniform method and dichotomies; and yet it comes ever to pass, I know not how, that in human affairs (according to the common fiction of the poets) "the most precious things have the most pernicious keepers." Certainly the attempt of Ramus to amend propositions drove him upon those epitomes and shallows of knowledge. For he must have a lucky and a happy genius to guide him who shall attempt to make the axioms of sciences convertible, and shall not withal make them circular, or returning into themselves. Nevertheless I must confess that the intention of Ramus in this was excellent.

There still remain two limitations of propositions, besides that for making them convertible; the one regarding their extension, the other their production. Certainly sciences, if a man rightly observe it, have, besides profundity, two other dimensions, namely latitude and longitude. The profundity relates to their truth and reality; for it is they which give solidity. As to the other two, the latitude may be accounted and computed from one science to another; the longitude from the highest proposition to the lowest in the same science. The one contains the true bounds and limits of sciences, that the propositions thereof may be handled properly,

1 Καθόλου πρῶτον, κατὰ παντὸς, καθ' αυτό, &c.