to the attainment of form; and particular works pre-eminent for that quality should be sought out and read.  “Form” is doubtless a wide word, and comprises both the logical or pervading method of a work, and the expression or dress throughout.  Method by itself can be soonest acquired because it turns on a small number of points; language is a multifarious acquirement, and can hardly be forced, although it will come eventually by due application.

[EXAMPLE FROM PRACTICE OF MEDICINE.]

To show what is meant by learning Form, with a view to the more effectual study of subject-matter, I will take the example of a work on the Practice of Medicine; in which the idea is to describe Diseases seriatim, with their treatment or cures.  At the present day, this subject possesses method or form:  there is a systematic classification of diseased processes and diseases; also, a regular plan of setting forth the specific marks of each disease, its diagnosis, and, finally, its remedies.  There are more and less perfect models of the methodical element; while there are differences among authors in the fulness of the detailed information.  There is, besides, a Logic of Medicine, representing the absolute form, in a kind of logical synopsis, by which it is more easily comprehended in the first instance:  not to mention the general body of the Logic of the Inductive Sciences, of which medicine is one.  Now, undoubtedly, the best work to begin with—­the Text-book-in-chief—­would be one where Form is in its highest perfection; the amount of matter being of less consequence.  In a subject of great complication, and vast detail, the student cannot too soon get possession of the best method or form of arrangement.  When a work of this character is before him, he is to read and re-read it, till the form becomes strongly apparent; he is to compare one part with another, to see how the author adheres to his own pervading method; he should, if possible, make a synopsis of the plan in itself, disentangling it from the applications, for greater clearness.  The scheme of a medical work, for example, comprises the Classification of Diseases, the parting off of Diseased Processes—–­Fever, Inflammation, &c.—­from Diseases properly so called; the modes of defining Disease; the separation of defining marks, from predications, and so on:  all involved in a strict Logic of Disease.  Armed with these logical or methodical preliminaries, the student next attacks one of the extended treatises on the Practice of Medicine.  He is now prepared to work the process of abstracting to the utmost advantage, both for clearness of understanding, and for impressing the memory.  As in such a vast subject, no one author is deemed adequate to a full exposition, and as, moreover, a great portion of the information occurs, apart from systems, in detached memoirs or monographs,—­the only mode of unifying and holding together the aggregate, is to reduce all the statements to a common form and order, by help of the pre-acquired plan.  The progress of study may amend the plan, as well as add to the particular information; but absolute perfection in the scheme is not so essential as strict adherence to it through all the details.  To work without a plan at all, is not merely to tax the memory beyond its powers, but probably also to misconceive and jumble the facts.