142 The Advancement of Learning 



vulgar capacities from being admitted to the secrets of 

 knowledges, and to reserve them to selected auditors, or 

 wits of such sharpness as can pierce the veil. 

 6, Another diversity of Method, whereof the consequence is 

 I great, is the delivery of knowledge in Aphorisms, or in 

 Methods; wherein we may observe that it hath been too 

 much taken into custom, out of a few axioms or observa- 

 tions upon any subject, to make a solemn and formal art, 

 filHng it with some discourses, and illustrating it with 

 examples, and digesting it into a sensible Method. But the 

 writing in Aphorisms hath many excellent virtues, where to 

 the writing in Method doth not approach. 



7. For first, it trieth the writer, whether he be superficial or 

 solid: for Aphorisms, except they should be redicuious, 

 cannot be made but of the pith and heart of sciences; for 

 discourse of illustration is cut off: recitals of examples 

 are cut off; discourse of connection and order is cut off; 

 descriptions of practice are cut off. So there remaineth 

 nothing to fill the Aphorisms but some good quantity of 

 observation: and therefore rio_man can suffi ce, nor in 

 reason will attempt to write Aphonsms, but he that is 

 sound and grounded. Rnt in Methods ""^ 



Tantum series juncturaque pollet, 

 Tantum de medio sumptis accedit honoris; * 



as a man shall make a great shew of an art, which, if it 

 were disjointed, would come to little. Secondly, methods 

 are more fit to win consent or belief, but less fit to point to 

 action; for they carry a kind of demonstration in orb or 

 circle, one part illuminating another, and therefore satisfy ; 

 but particulars, being dispersed, do best agree with dis- 

 persed directions. And lastly, Aphorisms, representing a 

 knowledge broken, do invite men to inquire farther ; whereas 

 Methods, carrying the show of a total, do secure men, as if 

 they were at farthest. 



8. Another diversity of Method, which is likewise of great 

 weight, is the handling of knowledge by assertions and 

 their proofsT^oF by questions and their determinatio ns; 

 the latter kind whereof, it it be immoderately followed, is 

 as prejudicial to the proceeding of learning, as it is to the 

 proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little 



^ Hor. Ars Poetica, 242. 



