insensibly develops the ability to construct a full and symmetrical circle of thought; there is something in the form of the distribution by which we are made aware that all the aspects of the thought, on that chosen scale, are provided for.

NOTE. The strictest logical guarantee of completeness in division is what is called "bifurcate classification," that is, classification that divides by a positive and a negative quality. Thus, by this classification angles would be classified as follows:

I. Right angles.

S Acute (less than right).

2. (Not right) Oblique angles obtuse (more than right).

So also Lord Bacon's classification of natural history would appear thus:

1. Nature in course- creatures.

2. Nature not in course

(Perverted-marvels.
Improved - arts.

Literary use, however, need not be so rigid. It bears to our minds equally the feeling of completeness if we take Lord Bacon's classification in his own words: "History of nature is of three sorts of nature in course; of nature erring or varying; and of nature altered or wrought; that is, history of creatures, history of marvels, and history of arts." Here we cannot easily think of any aspect of nature not included in these three divisions. The same feeling of a complete circle of thought arises on contemplating his division of general history: "History, which may be called just and perfect history, is of three kinds, according to the object which it propoundeth or pretendeth to represent: for it either representeth a time, or a person, or an action. The first we call chronicles, the second lives, and the third narrations or relations."

2. As regards its minuteness. Of course, on any principle of division the idea is subject to subdivision, sub-subdivision, and so on; the classification proceeding by successive steps from the more general to the more particular. Here the writer has to form the habit of accurately estimating the relative distance of any division from the main division, and of measuring divisions and subdivisions by each other to ascertain their relative rank. The ability to do this becomes increasingly a matter of insight, or at least of the application of undefined criterions.

A division may be complete as far as it goes, and complete

enough for the purpose in hand, though not carried to the minuteness of which it is capable. The wise writer will not divide more minutely than he has occasion to employ the classification; it confuses more than it helps if he does.

NOTE.

We may append here as an example Mr. Mulford's subdivision

of the idea of Rights, previously cited. Rights are —

1. Civil rights.

a. The right of life.

b. The right of liberty.

c. The right of property.

d. The right of equality before the law.

2. Political rights.

a. The right of citizenship.

b. The right of participation in national progress.

c. The right of personal action as a power in the nation.

d. The right of protection in moral relations.

Laws of Division. - In addition to what is involved in the above considerations, the following laws of division should be observed:

1. Every member of a division should be as complete and distinctly bounded in itself as is the divided whole; that is, the dividing members should exclude each other.

Thus, if a classification of geometrical figures should contain plane figures, parallelograms, rectangles, and polygons, the members would not be mutually exclusive, for plane figures would include all the others, and parallelograms would include also rectangles.

The old colloquial description of something nondescript or anomalous, that it is "neither fish nor flesh nor good red herring" derives its point from the fact that the first member includes also the third.

2. In dividing, work for simplicity, that is, for few and fundamental distinctions instead of for many and minute ones. A broad and deep distinction justifies itself.

To classify animals, for instance, according to the number of legs, into bipeds, quadrupeds, etc., would lead only to complexity and confusion, and would reveal no fundamental distinction; the true division must look for principles that determine more deeply the life and nature of the animal.

3. Seek to find the distinctions wholly in the nature of the idea; and beware of fanciful analogies or arbitrary preconceptions of symmetry in the subject. It is easy for the fancy, once allowed the control, to make brilliant but essentially unreal distinctions.

NOTE.-The following divisions from Lord Bacon are perhaps true enough, but the similitudes by which they are illustrated provoke the inquiry whether it was not fancy rather than insight that suggested them:

"For civil history, it is of three kinds; not unfitly to be compared with the three kinds of pictures or images. For of pictures or images, we see some are unfinished, some are perfect, and some are defaced. So of histories we may find three kinds, memorials, perfect histories, and antiquities; for memorials are history unfinished, or the first or rough draughts of history; and antiquities are history defaced, or some remnants of history which have casually escaped the shipwrecks of time."

"The knowledge of man is as the waters, some descending from above, and some springing from beneath; the one informed by the light of nature, the other inspired by divine revelation. The light of nature consisteth in the notions of the mind and the reports of the senses: for as for knowledge which man receiveth by teaching, it is cumulative and not original; as in a water that besides his own spring-head is fed with other springs and streams. So then, according to these two differing illuminations or originals, knowledge is first of all divided into divinity and philosophy."

Partition of a Subject. Distinction is to be made between the division of an idea and the mere partition of a subject. Division is made in the interests of completeness, and is worthless unless there are dividing members enough to make up exactly the divided whole, each being a true part of the whole. Partition is made for the conveniences of present treatment; accordingly it may stop with any limitation of the aspects of the subject, and its divisions, while they are component parts of the subject, may or may not relate to the subject as species to genus. So also in par

tition a striking or figurative division is not excluded, and may indeed be an advantage as a mnemonic to hold the real division in mind.

NOTE. The remarks already made on The Outline Structure, pages 264266, and on The Development, pages 272-279, bear closely on Partition. A

passage from Burke's East India Bill speech1 may here be quoted to show Burke's extraordinary care in dividing his subjects:·

"My second condition, necessary to justify me in touching the charter, is, whether the Company's abuse of their trust, with regard to this great object, be an abuse of great atrocity. I shall beg your permission to consider their conduct in two lights: first, the political, and then the commercial. Their political conduct (for distinctness) I divide again into two heads: the external, in which I mean to comprehend their conduct in their federal capacity, as it relates to powers and states independent, or that not long since were such; the other internal, namely, their conduct to the countries either immediately subject to the Company, or to those who, under the apparent government of native sovereigns, are in a state much lower, and much more miserable, than common subjection.

"The attention, sir, which I wish to preserve to method will not be consid ered as unnecessary or affected. Nothing else can help me to selection, out of the infinite mass of materials which have passed under my eye, or can keep my mind steady to the great leading points I have in view."

II. EXPOSITION IN LITERATURE.

Exposition in some form is one of the most prevalent modes of literary endeavor. It covers broadly all the work of informing the intellect, just as description and narration cover broadly the work of arousing and satisfying the imagination. The great body of literature that imparts knowledge, opinion, and counsel, may be included under the comprehensive term exposition.

Let us name a little more particularly the great divisions of literature in which exposition is the basis.

Science and Systematized Thought. Under this head may be comprised the various literary works that aim to present important subjects of knowledge or philosophy or speculation, in a thorough and carefully ordered manner. A very large proportion of published works belongs here. Text-books in science; treatises on subjects philosophical, political, economic; monographs on important questions of the day; all are predominantly works of exposition. Other forms of discourse, and especially argumentation,

1 The plan of this passage has already been drawn out, p. 279, to illustrate the deductive order of development.

may enter in to afford help; but the primary impulse that determines the work is the impulse to set forth in order what the author has thought out or deduced from investigation.

Such expository work takes two principal forms, the treatise and the essay.

1. The treatise, which generally takes the compass of a volume or more, aims to present its subject in all parts and with a thorough and finished treatment. In some cases it is very elaborate, giving all the processes of thought and investigation by which results are obtained; in other cases it gives results only.

EXAMPLES.- Lyell's "Principles of Geology"; Darwin's "Origin of Species"; Bacon's "Advancement of Learning"; Mill's treatise on "Liberty "; Tylor's "Primitive Culture"; Newman's "Grammar of Assent"; Jevons's "Principles of Science."

2. The essay presents its material in briefer compass, in a style more adapted to popular apprehension, and as a consequence with a less exhaustive treatment; its office being, as John Morley defines it, "merely to open questions, to indicate points, to suggest cases, to sketch outlines." 1

Owing to the tendency, now so prevalent, to discuss matters of all kinds in periodical publications, the essay has developed into a character quite different from what it had originally, when it was modestly named essay- that is, trial, or attempt. Or rather, while some essayists have adhered to the original type, others, and those the majority, have obeyed the tendency to make it a more comprehensive form for periodical writing; and thus have arisen two distinct types of essay."

The first, which is the prevailing modern type, may be called the didactic. It aims at careful plan, lays down a definite proposition to be established by logical exposition and reasoning, and addresses itself rigidly to the understanding. In such a work

1 Morley, "On Compromise," preface.

2 This classification of essay-writing is taken from Bulwer-Lytton, “Caxtoniana," p. 141 sq.