But the deductive method is best when I wish to direct the light of
familiar truths and roused emotions, upon new particulars, or upon
details in unsuspected relation to those truths; and when I wish the
attention to be absorbed by these particulars which are of interest in
themselves, not upon the general truths which are of no present
interest except in as far as they light up these details. A growing
thought requires the inductive exposition, an applied thought the
deductive.
This principle, which is of very wide application, is subject to two
important qualifications--one pressed on it by the necessities of
Climax and Variety, the other by the feebleness of memory, which cannot
keep a long hold of details unless their significance is apprehended;
so that a paragraph of suspended meaning should never be long, and when
the necessities of the case bring together numerous particulars in
evidence of the conclusion, they should be so arranged as to have
culminating force: one clause leading up to another, and throwing its
impetus into it, instead of being linked on to another, and dragging
the mind down with its weight.
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