All this doctrine of the tradition of sciences, he produces under the head of the _method_ of their tradition, but in speaking of the _organ_ of it, he treats it _exclusively_ as the medium of tradition for _those sciences which require_ CONCEALMENT, or admit only of a suggestive exhibition. And as he makes, too, the claim that he has himself given practical proof, in passing, of his proficiency in this art, and appeals to the skilful for the truth of this statement, the passage, at least, in which this assertion is made, will be likely to repay the inquiry which it invites.
He begins by drawing our attention to the fact, that words are not the only representatives of things, and he says 'this is not an inconsiderable thing, _for while we are treating of the coin of intellectual_ matters, _it is_ pertinent to observe, that as money may be made of other materials besides gold and silver, so other marks of things may be invented besides words and letters.' And by way of illustrating the advantages of such a means of tradition, under certain disadvantages of position, he adduces as much in point, the case of Periander, who being consulted how to preserve a tyranny _newly usurped_, bid the messenger _attend_ and _report what he saw him do_, and went into his garden and _topped all the highest flowers_; signifying that it consisted in the cutting off and keeping low of the nobility and grandees. And thus other apparently trivial, purely purposeless and sportive actions, might have a traditionary character of no small consequence, if the messenger were only given to understand beforehand, that the acts thus performed were axiomatical, pointing to rules of practice, that the forms were representative forms, whose '_real_' exhibition of the particular natures in question, was much more vivid and effective, much more memorable as well as _safe_, than any abstract statement of that philosophic truth, which is the truth of direction, could be.
As to the '_accidents_ of words, which are measure, sound, and elevation of accent, and the sweetness and harshness of them,' even here the new science suggests a new rule, which is not without a remarkable relation to _that 'particular method of tradition_,' which the author tells us in another place, some parts of his new science required. 'This subject,' he says, 'involves some curious observations in rhetoric, but chiefly POESY, as we consider it in respect of the verse, and _not of the argument_; wherein, though men in learned tongues do tie themselves to _the ancient measures_, yet in modern languages it seemeth to me as free to make _new measures of verses as of dances_.' The spirit of the new philosophy had a chance to speak out there for once, without intending, of course, to transcend that particular limit just laid down, namely, the measure of _verses_, and with that literal limitation, to the form of the verse, the remark is sufficiently suggestive; for he brings out from it at the next step, in the way of formula, the new principle, the new Shaksperian principle of rhetoric: _In these things_ the sense is better judge than the art. And of the servile expressing antiquity in an unlike and an unfit subject, it is well said:--'_Quod tempore antiquum videtur, id incongruitate est maxime novum_.''