ISAAC WATTS

(1674-1748)

HE celebrated Dr. Watts, now remembered chiefly as the author of "Let Dogs Delight to Bark and Bite," was a man of great learning and a profound thinker. His work, "Improvement of the Mind,» contains much that deserves to be kept in lasting remembrance. It shows that he was deeply impressed with the need for more accurate thought and more nearly adequate expression, especially in the pulpit. He was born at Southampton, England, July 17th, 1674. He was a "Dissenter," and his work in the pulpit was done chiefly as the pastor of an independent church in London. His "Logic" was published in 1725, and his essay on "Improvement of the Mind” in 1741. These are his chief works in prose. His hymns and his "Divine and Moral Songs for Children," published in 1720, show that he had developed the lyrical faculty as it has seldom been developed by English hymn writers. He died November 25th, 1748.

THE ELOQUENCE OF COMMON SENSE

HE most necessary and most useful character of a style fit for instruction is, that it be plain, perspicuous, and easy. And here I shall first point out all those errors in a style which diminish or destroy the perspicuity of it, and then mention a few directions how to obtain a perspicuous and easy style.

The errors of style which must be avoided by teachers are these that follow:The use of many foreign words, which are not sufficiently naturalized and mingled with the language which we speak or write. It is true that in teaching the sciences in English we must sometimes use words borrowed from the Greek and Latin, for we have not in English names for a variety of subjects which belong to learning; but when a man affects, upon all occasions, to bring in long sounding words from the ancient languages, without necessity, and mingles French and other outlandish terms and phrases, where plain English would serve as well, he betrays a vain and foolish genius, unbecoming a teacher.

Avoid a fantastic learned style, borrowed from the various sciences, where the subject and matter do not require the use of them. Do not affect terms of art on every occasion, nor seek to show your learning by sounding words and dark phrases: this is properly called pedantry.

Young preachers, just come from the schools, are often tempted to fill their sermons with logical and metaphysical terms in explaining their text, and feed their hearers with sonorous words of vanity. This scholastic language perhaps may flatter their own ambition, and raise a wonderment at their learning among the staring

multitude, without any manner of influence toward the instruction of the ignorant, or the reformation of the immoral or impious. These terms of art are but the tools of an artificer, by which his work is wrought in private; but the tools ought not to appear in the finished workmanship.

There are some persons so fond of geometry, that they bring in lines and circles, tangents and parabolas, theorems, problems, and postulates, upon all occasions. Others who have dealt in astronomy borrow even their nouns and their verbs in their common discourse from the stars and planets. Instead of saying Jacob had twelve sons, they tell you Jacob had as many sons as there are signs in the zodiac. If they describe an inconstant person, they make a planet of him, and set him forth in all his appearances, direct, retrograde, and stationary. If a candle be set behind a screen, they call it eclipsed; and tell you fine stories of the orbit and the revolutions, the radii and the limb or circumference of a cart wheel.

Others again dress up their sense in chemical language. Extracts and oils, salts and essences, exalt and invigorate their discourses: a great wit with them is sublimated spirit, and a blockhead is a caput mortuum. A certain doctor in his bill swells in his own idea, when he tells the town that he has been counselor to the counselors of several kings and princes; that he has arrived at the knowledge of the green, black, and golden dragon, known only to magicians and hermetic philosophers. It would be well if the quacks alone had a patent for this language.

There are some fine affected words that are used only at court, and some peculiar phrases that are sounding or gaudy, and belong only to the theatre; these should not come into the lectures of instruction; the language of poets has too much of metaphor in it to lead mankind into clear and distinct ideas of things: the business of poesy is to strike the soul with a glaring light, and to urge the passions into a flame by splendid shows, by strong images, and a pathetic vehemence of style; but it is another sort of speech that is best suited to lead the calm inquirer into just conceptions of things.

There is a mean, vulgar style, borrowed from the lower ranks of mankind, the basest characters, and meanest affairs of life; this is also to be avoided, for it should be supposed that persons of liberal education have not been bred up within the hearing of such language, and consequently they cannot understand it; besides that it would create very offensive ideas, should we borrow even similes for illustration from the scullery, the dunghill, and the jakes.

An obscure and mysterious manner of expression and cloudy language is to be avoided. Some persons have been led by education, or by some foolish prejudices, into a dark and unintelligible way of thinking and speaking; and this continues with them all their lives, and clouds and confounds their ideas. Perhaps some of these may have been blessed with a great and comprehensive genius, with sublime nat ural parts, and a torrent of ideas flowing in upon them; yet for want of clearness in the manner of their conception and language, they sometimes drown their own subject of discourse, and overwhelm their argument in darkness and perplexity: such preachers as have read much of mystical divinity, and imitated its manner of expression, have many times buried a fine understanding under the obscurity of such a style.

A long and tedious style is very improper for a teacher, for this also lessens the perspicuity of it. Some learned writers are never satisfied unless they fill up every sentence with a great number of ideas and sentiments; they swell their propositions to an enormous size by explications, exceptions, and precautions, lest they should be mistaken, and crowd them all into the same period: they involve and darken their discourse by many parentheses, and prolong their sentences to a tiresome extent, beyond the reach of a common comprehension. Such sort of writers or speakers may

be rich in knowledge, but they are seldom fit to communicate it. He that would gain a happy talent for the instruction of others must know how to disentangle and divide his thoughts if too many of them are ready to crowd into one paragraph: and let him rather speak three sentences distinctly and perspicuously, which the hearer receives at once with his ears and his soul, than crowd all the thoughts into one sentence, which the hearer has forgot before he can understand it.

K

ON FORENSIC ARGUMENTS AND DISPUTES

EEP this always upon your mind as an everlasting rule of conduct in your debates to find out truth, that a resolute design, or even a warm affectation of victory, is the bane of all real improvement and an effectual bar against the admission of the truth which you profess to seek. This works with a secret, but a powerful and mischievous influence in every dispute, unless we are much upon our guard. It appears in frequent conversation; every age, every sex, and each party of mankind are so fond of being in the right, that they know not how to renounce this unhappy prejudice, this vain love of victory.

When truth with bright evidence is ready to break in upon a disputant, and to overcome his objections and mistakes, how swift and ready is the mind to engage wit and fancy, craft and subtilty, to cloud and perplex and puzzle the truth, if possible! How eager is he to throw in some impertinent question to divert from the main subject! How swift to take hold of some occasional word, thereby to lead the discourse off from the point in hand! So much afraid is human nature of parting with its errors, and being overcome by truth. Just thus a hunted hare calls up all the shifts that nature hath taught her; she treads back her mazes, crosses and confounds her former track, and uses all possible methods to divert the scent, when she is in danger of being seized and taken. Let puss practice what nature teaches; but would one imagine that any rational being should take such pains to avoid truth, and to escape the improvement of its understanding?

When you come to a dispute in order to find out truth, do not presume that you are certainly possessed of it beforehand. Enter the debate with a sincere design of yielding to reason, on which side soever it appears. Use no subtle arts to cloud and entangle the question; hide not yourself in doubtful words and phrases; do not affect little shifts and subterfuges to avoid the force of an argument; take a generous pleasure to espy the first rising beams of truth, though it be on the side of your opponent; endeavor to remove the little obscurities that hang about it, and suffer and encourage it to break out into open and convincing light; that while your opponent perhaps may gain the better of your reasonings, yet you yourself may triumph over error; and I am sure that is a much more valuable acquisition and victory.

The forum was a public place in Rome, where orators and lawyers made their speeches before the proper judge in matters of property, or in criminal cases, to accuse or excuse, to complain or defend; thence all sorts of disputations in public assemblies or courts of justice, where several persons make their distinct speeches for or against any person or thing whatsoever, but more especially in civil matters, may come under the name of forensic disputes.

This is practiced not only in the courts of judicature, where a single person sits to judge of the truth or goodness of any cause, and to determine according to the weight of reasons on either side, but it is used also in political senates or parliaments, ecclesiastical synods, and assemblies of various kinds.

In these assemblies, generally one person is chosen chairman or moderator, not to give a determination to the controversy, but chiefly to keep the several speakers to the rules of order and decency in their conduct; but the final determination of the questions arises from the majority of opinions or votes in the assembly, according as they are or ought to be swayed by the superior weight of reason appearing in the several speeches that are made.

The method of proceeding is usually in some such form as this. The first person who speaks when the court is set opens the case either more briefly or at large, and proposes the case to the judge or the chairman, or moderator of the assembly, and gives his own reasons for his opinion in the case proposed.

This person is succeeded by one, or perhaps two, or several more, who paraphrase on the same subject, and argue on the same side of the question; they confirm what the first has spoken, and urge new reasons to enforce the same; then those who are of a different opinion stand up and make their several speeches in succession, opposing the cause which others have maintained, giving their reasons against it, and endeavoring to refute the arguments whereby the first speakers have supported it.

After this, one and another rise up to make their replies, to vindicate or to condemn, to establish or to confute what has been offered before on each side of the question; till at last, according to the rules, orders, or customs of the court or assembly, the controversy is decided, either by a single judge, or the suffrage of the assembly.

Where the question or matter in debate consists of several parts, after it is once opened by the first or second speaker, sometimes those who follow take each of them a particular part of the debate, according to their inclination or their prior agreement, and apply themselves to argue upon that single point only, that so the whole complexion of the debate may not be thrown into confusion by the variety of subjects, if every speaker should handle all the subjects of debate.

Before the final sentence of determination is given, it is usual to have the reasons and arguments, which have been offered on both sides, summed up and represented in a more compendious manner; and this is done either by the appointed judge of the court, or the chairman, or some noted person in the assembly, that so judgment may proceed upon the fullest survey of the whole subject, that, as far as possible in human affairs, nothing may be done contrary to truth or justice.

As this is a practice in which multitudes of gentlemen, besides those of the learned professions, may be engaged, at least, in their maturer years of life, so it would be a very proper and useful thing to introduce this custom into our academies, viz., to propose cases, and let the students debate them in a forensic manner in the presence of their tutors. There was something of this kind practiced by the Roman youth in their schools, in order to train them up for orators, both in the forum and in the senate. Perhaps Juvenal gives some hints of it when he says,

et nos

Consilium dedimus Syllæ, privatus ut altum
Dormiret

- Sat. I.

"Where with men-boys I strove to get renown,

Advising Sylla to a private gown,

That he might sleep the sounder."

Ο

ON GOOD AND BAD PREACHING

UR fathers formed their sermons much upon the model of doctrine, reason, and use; and perhaps there is no one method of more universal service and more easily applicable to most subjects, though it is not necessary or proper in every discourse; but the very names of doctrine and use are become nowadays such stale and old-fashioned things that a modish preacher is quite ashamed of them; nor can a modish hearer bear the sound of those syllables. A direct and distinct address to the consciences of saints and sinners must not be named or mentioned, though these terms are scriptural, lest it should be hissed out of the church like the garb of a Roundhead or a Puritan.

Some of our fathers have multiplied their particulars under one single head of discourse, and run up the tale of them to sixteen or seventeen. Culpable, indeed, and too numerous! But in opposition to this extreme, we are almost ashamed in our age to say thirdly; and all fourthlies and fifthlies are very unfashionable words.

Our fathers made too great account of the sciences of logic and metaphysics, and the formalities of definition and division, syllogism and method, when they brought them so often into the pulpit; but we hold those arts so much in contempt and defiance that we had rather talk a whole hour without order, and without edification, than be suspected of using logic or method in our discourses.

Some of our fathers neglected politeness perhaps too much, and indulged a coarseness of style, and a rough or awkward pronunciation; but we have such a value for elegancy, and so nice a taste for what we call polite, that we dare not spoil the cadence of a period to quote a text of Scripture in it, nor disturb the harmony of our sentences to number or to name the heads of our discourse. And for this reason I have heard it hinted that the name of Christ has been banished out of polite sermons, because it is a monosyllable of so many consonants and so harsh a sound.

But after all, our fathers, with all their defects, and with all their weaknesses, preached the Gospel of Christ to the sensible instruction of whole parishes, to the conversion of sinners from the errors of their way, and the salvation of multitudes of souls. But it has been the late complaint of Dr. Edwards and other worthy sons of the Established Church, that in too many pulpits nowadays there are only heard some smooth declamations, while the hearers that were ignorant of the Gospel abide still without knowledge, and the profane sinners are profane still. O that divine grace would descend, and reform what is amiss in all the sanctuaries of the nation!

All the above extracts are from "Improve

ment of the Mind."