Practical Essays Part 14

[MAKING ABSTRACTS.]

3. Making Abstracts.--This is the plan of studying that most advances our intelligent comprehension of any work of difficulty, and also impresses it on the memory in the best form. But there are many ways of doing it; and beginners, from the very fact that they are beginners, are not competent to choose the best. If a book has an obvious and methodical plan in itself, the reader can follow that plan, taking down the leading positions, selecting some of the chief examples or ill.u.s.trations, giving short headings of chapters and paragraphs, and thus making a synopsis, or full table of contents. All this is useful.

The memory is much better impressed through the exertion of picking, choosing, and condensing, than by copying _verbatim_; and the plan or evolution of the whole is more fully comprehended. But, if a work does not easily lend itself to a methodical abstract, the task of the beginner is much harder. To abstract the treatises of Aristotle was fitting employment for Hobbes. The "Wealth of Nations" is not easy to abstract; but, at the present day, it would not be chosen as the Text-book-in-chief for Political Economy: as a third or fourth work to be perused at a reading pace, it would have its proper effect. The best studious exercise upon it would be to mark the agreements and disagreements with the newer authority, the weak and strong points of the exposition, and the perennial force of a certain number of the propositions and examples. Many parts could be skipped entirely as not even repaying historical study. Yet, as the work of a great and original mind, its interest is perennial.

To go back once more to the example of Thucydides. Setting aside, from intrinsic improbability, both the traditions--the copyings, and the committal to memory _verbatim_,--we can easily see what Demosthenes could find in the work, and how he could make the most of it. The narrative or story could be indelibly fixed in his memory by a few perusals, and, if need be, by a full chronology drawn up by his own hand. The speeches could be committed in whole or in part, for their arguments and language; and a minute study could be made of the turns of expression, as they seemed to be either meritorious or defective. The young orator had already studied the more finished styles of Isocrates, Lysias, Isanis, and Plato, and could make comparisons between their forms and the peculiarities of Thucydides, which belonged to an earlier age. This, however, was a discipline altogether apart, and had nothing to do with copying, committing, or abstracting. It involved one exercise more or less allied to the last, namely, _making changes upon an author, according to ones best ideal at the time_: changes, if possible, for the better, but perhaps not; still requiring, however, an effort of mind, and so far favourable to culture.

[VARIOUS MODES OF ABSTRACTING.]

Every one's first attempts at abstracting must be very bad. There is no more opportune occasion for the a.s.sistance of a tutor or intelligent monitor, than to revise an abstract. The weaknesses of a beginner are apparent at a glance; even better than by a _viva voce_ interrogation.

Useful abstracting comes at a late stage of study, when one or two subjects have been pretty well mastered. It is then that the pupil can best overtake more advanced works on the subjects already commenced, or can enter upon an entirely new department, in the light of previous acquisitions.

Any work that deserves thorough study deserves the labour of making an abstract; without which, indeed, the study is not thorough. It is quite possible to read so as to comprehend the drift of a book, and yet forget it entirely. The point for us to consider is--Are we likely to want any portion of it afterwards? If we can fix upon the parts most likely to be useful, we either copy or abstract these, or preserve a reference so as to turn them up when wanted. In the case of a work, containing a ma.s.s of new and valuable materials, such as we wish to incorporate with our intellectual structure, we must act the part of the beginner in a new field, and make an abstract on the most approved plan: that is, by such changes as shall at once preserve the author's ideas, and intersperse them with our own. There is an ideal balance of two opposing tendencies: one to take down the writer too literally, which fails to impress the meaning; the other to accommodate him too much to our own language and thinking, in which case, we shall remember more, but it will be remembering ourselves and not him. He that can hit the just mean between these extremes is the perfect student.

There are easier modes of abstracting, such as serve many useful purposes, although not sufficient for the mastery of a leading Text-book, or even of a second or third in a new subject. We may pencil on the margin, or underscore, all the leading propositions, and the typical examples. In a well-composed scientific manual, the proceeding is too obvious to be impressive. Very often, however, the main points are not given in the most methodical way, but have to be searched out by carefully scanning each paragraph. This is an exercise that both instructs and impresses us; it is the kind of change that calls our faculties into play, and gives us a better hold of an author, without superseding him.

A Table of Contents carefully examined is favourable to a comprehensive view of the whole; and, this attained, the details are remembered in the best possible way, that is, by taking their place in the scheme. Any other form of recollection is of the desultory kind.

[LOCKE'S RECOMMENDATIONS.]

4. Let us next glance at Locke's method of reading, which is unique and original, like the man himself. It is given with much iteration in his Conduct of the Understanding, but comes in substance to this:--

We are to fix in the mind the author's ideas, stripped of his words; to distinguish between such ideas as are pertinent to the subject, and such as are not; to keep the precise question steadily before our minds; to appreciate the bearing of the arguments; and, finally, to see what the question bottoms upon, or what are the fundamental verities or a.s.sumptions underneath.

All this is very thorough in its way; but, in the first place, it applies chiefly to argumentative works, and, in the second place, it is entirely beyond the powers of ordinary students. Such an examination of an author as Locke contemplates is not seen many times in a generation.

His own controversies give but indifferent examples of it; several of Bentham's works and a few of John Mill's polemical articles also give an idea of thorough handling; but it is not so properly a studious effort, as the consummated product of a highly logical discipline, and is within the reach of only a small elect number.

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 subst.i.tute 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 cla.s.sification 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 Cla.s.sification 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.tration: 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.

While declining to enter on the wide field of the general education of the orator, I may not improperly advert to the more immediate preparation for the political orator, by a familiar acquaintance with History and Political Philosophy, howsoever obtained. Then, on the other hand, the course here to be chalked out a.s.sumes a considerable proficiency in language or expression. The special education will incidentally improve both these accomplishments, but must not be relied on for creating them, or for causing a marked advance in either. The effect to be looked for is rather to give them direction for the special end.

[EXAMPLE FROM THE ART OF ORATORY.]

These things premised, the line of proceeding manifestly is to study the choicest examples of the oratorical art, according to the methods already laid down, with due adaptation to the peculiarities of the case.

Now, we have not, as in a Science, two or three systematic works, one of which is to be chosen as a chief, to be followed by a reference more or less to the others. Our material is a long series of detached orations; from these we must make a selection at starting, and such selection, which may comprise ten or twenty or more, will have to be treated with the intense single-minded devotion that we hitherto limited to a single work. Repeated perusal, with a process of abstracting to be described presently, must be bestowed upon the chosen examples, before embarking, as will be necessary, upon the wide field of miscellaneous oratory.

No doubt, an oratorical education could be grounded in a general and equal study of the orators at large, taking the ancients either first or last, according to fancy. Probably the greater number of students have fallen into this apparently obvious course. Our present contention is, that it is better to make a thorough study of a proper selection of the greatest speeches, together with the most persuasive unspoken compositions. This, however, is not all. We are following the wisdom of the ancients, in insisting on the farther expedient of proceeding to the study of the great examples by the aid of an oratorical scheme. At a very early stage of Oratory in Greece, its methods began to be studied, and, in the education of the orator, these methods were made to accompany the study of exemplary speeches.

The principles of Rhetoric at large, and of the Persuasive art in particular, have been elaborated by successive stages, and are now in a tolerable state of advancement. The learner will choose the scheme that is judged best, and will endeavour to master it provisionally, before entering on the oratorical models; holding it open to amendment from time to time, as his education goes on. The scheme and the examples mutually act and re-act: the better the scheme, the more rapidly will the examples fructify; and the scheme will, in its turn, profit by the mastery of the details.

[NECESSITY OF AN ORATORICAL a.n.a.lYSIS.]

One great use of an oratorical a.n.a.lysis, as supplied by the teachers of Rhetoric, is to part off the different merits of a perfect oration; and to show which are to be extracted from the various exemplary orators.

One man excels in forcible arguments, another in the lucid array of facts; one is impressive and impa.s.sioned, another is quiet but circ.u.mspect. Now, the benefit of studying on principle, instead of working at random, is, that we concentrate attention on each one's strong points, and disregard the rest. But it needs a preparatory a.n.a.lysis, in order to make the discrimination. All that the uninstructed reader or hearer of a great oration knows is, that the oration is great: this may be enough for the persons to be moved; it is insufficient for an oratorical disciple.

In the hazardous task of pursuing the ill.u.s.tration by naming the examples of oratory most suitable to commence with, I shall pa.s.s over living men, and choose from the past orators of our own country. Without discussing minutely the respective merits of individuals, I am safe in selecting, as in every way suitable for our purpose, Burke, Fox, Erskine, Canning, Brougham, and Macaulay. Burke's Speeches on America; Fox on the Westminster Scrutiny; Erskine on Stockdale, and on Hardy, Tooke, &c.; Canning on the Slave Trade; Brougham, Lyndhurst, and Denman in the Queen's Trial; Macaulay on the Reform Bill,--would comprise, in a moderate compa.s.s, a considerable range of oratorical excellence. I doubt if any member of the list would be more suitable for a beginning than Macaulay's Reform Speeches. These are no mere displays of a brilliant imagination: they are known to have influenced thousands of minds otherwise averse to political change. The reader finds in them an immense repository of historical facts as well as of doctrines; but facts and doctrines, by themselves, do not make oratory. It is the use made of these, that gives us the instruction we are now in quest of. In a first or second reading, however, matter and form equally captivate the mind. It would be impossible, at that early stage, to make an abstract such as would separate the oratorical from the non-oratorical merits. Only when, by help of our scheme, we have made a critical distinction between the two kinds of excellence, are we able to arrive at an approach to a pure oratorical lesson; and, for a long time, we shall fail to make the desired isolation. We have to learn not to expect too much from any one speech: to pa.s.s over in Macaulay, what is more conspicuously shown, say in Fox, or in Erskine. If our political and historical education has made some progress, the mere thoughts and facts do not detain us; their employment for the end of persuasion is what we have to take account of.

[COMPREHENSIVE PRINCIPLE OF ORATORY.]

It is impossible here to indicate, except in a very general way, the successive steps of the operation. The one summary consideration in the Rhetoric of Oratory, from which flows the entire array of details, is the regard to the dispositions and state of mind of the audience; the presenting of topics and considerations that chime in with these dispositions, and the avoiding of everything that would conflict with them. To grasp this comprehensive view, and to follow it out in some of the chief circ.u.mstantials of persuasive address--the leading forms of argument, and the appeals to the more prominent feelings,--would soon provide a touchstone to a great oration, and lead us to distinguish the materials of oratory from the use made of them.

Take the circ.u.mstance of _negative tact_; by which is meant the careful avoidance of whatever might grate on the minds of those addressed.

Forensic oratory in general, and the oratory of Parliamentary leaders in particular, will show this in perfection; and, for a first study of it, there is probably nothing to surpa.s.s the Erskine Speeches above cited.

It could, however, be found in Macaulay; although in a different proportion to the other merits.

The Macaulay Speeches have the abundance of matter, and the powers of style, that minister to oratory, although not const.i.tuting its distinctive feature. In these speeches, we may note how he guages the minds of the men of rank and property, in and out of Parliament, who const.i.tuted the opposition to Reform; how tenderly he deals with their prejudices and cla.s.s interests; how he shapes and adduces his arguments so as to gain those very feelings to the side he advocates; how he brings his acc.u.mulated store of historical ill.u.s.trations to his aid, under the guidance of both the positive and the negative tact of the orator; saying everything to gain, and nothing to alienate the dispositions that he has carefully measured.

After Erskine and Macaulay have yielded their first contribution to the oratorical student, he could turn with profit to Burke, who has the materials of oratory in the same high order as Macaulay, but who in the employment of them so often miscarries--sometimes partially, at other times wholly. It then becomes an exercise to distinguish his successes from his failures; to resolve these into their elementary merits and defects, according to the oratorical scheme. The close study of one or two orations is still the preferable course; and the most profitable transition from the Burke sample is to the selected speech or speeches of some other orator as Canning or Brougham. All the time, the pupil must be enlarging and improving his a.n.a.lytic scheme, which is the means of keeping his mind to the point in hand, amid the distraction of the orator's gorgeous material.

The subsequent stages of oratorical study are much plainer than the commencement. A time comes when the pupil will roam freely over the great field of oratory, modern and ancient, knowing more and more exactly what to appropriate and what to neglect. He will be quite aware of the necessity of rivalling the great masters in resources of knowledge on the one hand, and of style on the other; but he will look for these elsewhere, as well as in the professed orators.

[EXAMPLES OF PERSUASIVE ART.]

Moreover, as the persuasive art is exemplified in men that have never been public speakers, the oratorical pupil will make a selection from the most influential of this cla.s.s. He will find, for example, in the argumentative treatises of Johnson, in the Letters of Junius, in the writings of G.o.dwin, in Sydney Smith, in Bentham, in Cobbett, in Robert Hall, in Fonblanque, in J.S. Mill, in Whately, and a host besides, the exemplification of oratorical merits, together with materials that are of value. It is understood, however, that the search for materials and the acquisition of oratorical form, are not made to advantage on the same lines, and, for this and other reasons, should not go together.

The extreme test of the principle of concentration as against equal application, is the acquirement of Style, or the extending of our resources of diction and expression in all its particulars. Being a matter of endless minute details, we may feel ourselves at a loss to compa.s.s it by the intensive study of a narrow and select example. Still, with due allowance for the speciality of the case, the principle will still be found applicable. We should, however, carry along with us, the maxim exemplified under oratory, of separating in our study, as far as may be, the style from the matter. We begin by choosing a treatise of some great master. We may then operate either (1) by simple reading and re-reading, or (2) by committing portions to memory _verbatim_, or (3), best of all, by making some changes according to an already acquired ideal of good composition. This too shows the great importance of attaining as early as possible some regulating principles of goodness of style: the action and reaction of these, on the most exemplary authors, const.i.tute our progress in the art, and, in the quickest way, store the memory with the resources of good expression.

[ECONOMICS OF BOOK READING.]

III. The head just now finished includes really by far the greatest portion of the economy of study. There are various other devices of importance in their way, but much less liable to error in practice. Of these, a leading place may be a.s.signed to the best modes of Distributing the Attention in reading. Such questions as the following present themselves for consideration to the earnest student. How many distinct studies can be carried on together? What interval should be allowed in pa.s.sing from one to another? How much time should be given to the art of reading, and how much to subsequent meditating or ruminating on what has been read? These points are all susceptible of being determined, within moderate limits of error. As to the first, the remark was made by Quintilian, that, in youth, we can most easily pa.s.s from one study to another. The reason of this, however, is, that youth does not take very seriously to any study. When a special study becomes engrossing, the alternatives must rather be recreative than acquisitive; not much progress being made in what is slighted, or left over to the exhaustion caused by attention to the favourite topic. A more precise answer can be made to the second and third queries, namely, as to an interval for recall and meditation, after putting down a book, and before turning the attention into other channels. There is a very clear principle of economy here. We should save as far as possible the fatigue of the reading process, or make a given amount of attention to the printed page yield the greatest impression on the memory. This is done by the exercise of recalling without the book; an advantage that we do not possess in listening to a lecture, until the whole is finished, when we have too much to recall. To hurry from book to book is to gain stimulation at the cost of acquisition.

I have alluded to the case of an engrossing subject, which starves all accompanying studies. There are but two ways of obviating the evil, if it be an evil; which it indeed becomes, when the alternative demands also are legitimate. The one is peremptorily to limit the time given to it daily, so as to rescue some portion of the strength for other topics.

The other is to intermit it wholly for a certain period, and let other subjects have their swing. In advancing life, and when our studious leisure is only what is left from professional occupation, two different studies can hardly go on together. The alternative of a single study needs to be purely recreative.