traction, multiplication, and division, if not various other higher processes. In acquiring the art, however, the attention of the learner is advantageously directed to these particular processes singly and successively. Each is studied and exercised upon before the next is taken up. When each several process is thus made familiar by separate and continued study and exercise, the more complicated operations are performed with ease and success. It is so with every art. So self-evident, indeed, is this principle that nothing but the fact of the strange neglect and oversight of it in the art of constructing discourse could justify a repeated reference to it in vindication of the course that is here proposed. The learner cannot be too earnestly or too frequently reminded of the necessity of studying and exercising upon each particular process in discourse separately; and of continuing his study and practice upon each in order, until a perfect practical familiarity with it is acquired.

CHAPTER II.

OF NARRATION.

§ 75. NARRATION is that process of explanation which exhibits the theme in its relations to time.

There are three different views which may be taken of an object in its relations to time, according as the view fastens more directly on the period of time in which the object of thought appears, on the object itself, or on the cause that works in the object. Every event thus has, first, its period, its duration, and its stages or parts of time; secondly, its subject which changes, making up the body of the event, so to speak; and thirdly, the cause which works out the event. The view accordingly may rest more directly on the period of time as filled out by the transpiring event; or on that which is the subject of change in that period; or, finally, on the cause which works out the changes during this period. If, for instance, we take as the theme England, we may narrate the theme by taking, first, the period of England and separating it into centuries or the periods covered by successive dynasties or individual reigns, mention the events that transpired in each of these successive portions of time. Such narratives are called annals or chronologies. Or, in the second place, we may take the subject of change, England, and exhibit that as it changes in the time of its existence. We have then proper History. Or, in the third place, we may take the succession of causes that have worked out the changes in English history and make them prominent. We have then what is called a Philosophical History. Although all these

forms of narrative agree in this that they alike view the theme under the relations of time, they yet differ specifically in important respects. It is necessary, therefore, that in writing a narrative it be clearly recognized in thought, at least, which view is to predominate, the chronological, the proper historical, or the causal. All the laws of explanation will vary their application, according to the specific view of the theme as here indicated.

The relation between these species of narration is well illustrated both in the changes of individual experience in respect to the degree of interest felt in them respectively, and also in the progress of historical literature. The child notices chiefly and characteristically the events that fill up a period of time. He passes from subject to subject in disregard of all interior connection. His narratives are made up of the series of events that have occurred one after another, to the suppression both of the subject and of the cause. The more advanced mind delights in proper history; it takes little pleasure in mere chronologies; it demands a subject of change and finds the chief interest in its changings, with comparatively slight interest in the causes that work the change. The more mature mind remains unsatisfied till it passes through the chronological succession of events to the one subject, the change in which forms the interior content of those events and the bond of connection between them, and then to the cause that produces those changes.

Corresponding to this changing experience in the individual mind, is the progress of narrative literature. The earlier histories confine themselves mainly to the simple representation of the successive events that fill up the period and the sphere of their narratives. More recent histories present the subject as passing through these changes; while truly causal, that is, philosophical histories, are the production of the most recent times. This progress in historical literature is exemplified in the histories of Herodotus, of Hume, and of Guizot.

§ 76. THE THEME in narration is ever something viewed as becoming, happening, changing. It is either SIMPLE, consisting of what is outward and sensible; or ABSTRACT, consisting of what is internal and spiritual. Examples of Simple Themes are: the siege of Jerusalem; the Crusades; the battle of Waterloo; the settlement of America; the Athenian Republic; - of Abstract Themes: the working of pride; the formation of habit ; the progress of art.

Themes in either class are variously modified according as they are viewed, in more direct reference (1), to time, that is, chronologically; or (2), to the subject of change, that is, historically; or (3), to the cause working in this subject, that is, philosophically.

Narrative themes are distributed also, on a somewhat different principle of division, into

1. Those of physical nature, narratives of which are styled Natural Histories, as of the globe, of plants, of animals.

2. Those of rational life. Themes of this class are subdivided into (a), those of individuals, narratives of which are biographies, memoirs, etc., if they cover personal experience generally, or travels, voyages, etc., if they embrace only particular kinds of personal experience; and (b), those of communities, narratives of which are proper histories. They are either (1), religious, or (2), secular or profane. They are also either general, exhibiting the experience generally, or particular, exhibiting only specific phases of it, as political, intellectual, moral, artistic, commercial, etc.

§ 77. The Law of Unity in narration requires, first. that the one theme be presented throughout as a proper narrative theme, that is, in its relations to time; and secondly, that it be presented in but one of the three possible views of a narrative theme, chronological, proper historical, or philosophical, as the predominant and governing view.

Nothing forbids the adoption of one of these views as governing in the distribution of the principal heads and of another in the subordinate development; as a simple history or a philosophical history may very properly adopt purely chronological divisions as its leading divisions.

The life of invention in writing narrative, and the interest in reading it will depend essentially on the firm grasp of the theme proposed by the writer, as the one theme to be developed. Even in chronological and in philosophical narrative, there is a subject of change that must never be lost sight of. It must be a chronology or a philosophy of changes in that one subject. The importance of this principle is illustrated in the wearisome effect of those general histories which take us in successive chapters to different countries, without keeping before our minds any one subject or theme of narrative. A history of the world's progress, which should firmly grasp the one race of men and present the successive changes they have undergone in their common relations, keeping the unity of the theme ever in sight, would be as attractive and as fascinating as most universal histories, so called, that have as yet appeared, are repulsive and wearisome. Such a universal history is a desideratum in our literature.

It will be observed that the comprehensiveness of the theme will not affect the unity. The theme may be the life or the transaction of an individual, the history of a community or nation through the whole or particular stages of its existence; it may be a cause producing its effects on a single individual, a community or state, or the race generally, through greater or less periods of time; it may be an effect experienced over the world, as that of the Christianization of the earth or of a single continent, as the civilization of Europe or of an individual, as the moral greatness of Howard.

Further, as the highest and ultimate aim in all human action is a moral one, and as all discourse has an ultimate end which is moral in its character, although in narration the commanding end is the information of the understand