The latter kind whereof, if 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 fort or hold. For if the field be kept, and
the sum of the enterprise pursued, those smaller things will come in
of themselves: indeed a man would not leave some important piece
enemy at his back. In like manner, the use of confutation in the
delivery of sciences ought to be very sparing; and to serve to
remove strong preoccupations and prejudgments, and not to minister
and excite disputatious and doubts.
(9) Another diversity of method is, according to the subject or
matter which is handled. For there is a great difference in
delivery of the mathematics, which are the most abstracted of
knowledges, and policy, which is the most immersed. And howsoever
contention hath been moved, touching a uniformity of method in
multiformity of matter, yet we see how that opinion, besides the
weakness of it, hath been of ill desert towards learning, as that
which taketh the way to reduce learning to certain empty and barren
generalities; being but the very husks and shells of sciences, all
the kernel being forced out and expulsed with the torture and press
of the method.
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