or known in the foregoing answer, and so proceeding to inquire something unknown in the following question, which again makes way for the next answer. Now such an exercise is very alluring and entertaining to the understanding, while its own reasoning powers are all along employed, and that without labour or difficulty, because the querist finds out and proposes all the intermediate ideas or middle terms.

IV. THERE is a method very near a-kin to this, which has much obtained of late, viz. writing controversies by questions only, or confirming or refuting any position, or persuading to or dehorting from any practice, by the mere proposal of queries. The answer to them is supposed to be so plain and so necessary, that they are not expressed, because the query itself carries a convincing argument in it, and seems to determine what the answer must be.

V. IF Christian catechisms could be framed in the manner of a Socratical dispute by question and answer, it would wonderfully enlighten the minds of children, and it would improve their intellectual and reasoning powers, at the same time that it leads them into the knowledge of religion and it is upon one account well suited to the capacity of children; for the questions may be pretty numerous, and the querist must not proceed too swiftly towards the determination of his point proposed, that he may with more ease, with brighter evidence, and with surer success, draw the learner on to assent to those principles step by step, from whence the final conclusion will naturally arise. The only inconvenience would be this, that if children were to reason out all their way entirely into the knowledge of every part of their religion, it would draw common catechisms into too large a volume for their leisure, attention, or memory.

Yet those who explain their catechisms to them may, by due application and forethought, instruct them in this manner.

CHAP. XII.

Of Forensic Disputes.

I.

THE Forum was a public place in Rome where lawyers and orators made their speeches before the proper judge in matters of property, or in criminal cases, to accuse or excuse, to complain or defend: thence all sorts of disputations in public assemblies, or courts of justice, where several persons make their distinct speeches for or against any person or thing whatsoever, but more especially in civil matters, may come under the name of forensic disputes.

II. THIS is practised not only in the courts of judicature, where a single person sits to judge of the truth or goodness of any cause, and to determine according to the weight of reasons on either side, but it is used also in political senates or parliaments, ecclesiastical synods, and assemblies of various kinds.

In these assemblies generally one person is chosen chairman or moderator, not to give a determination to the controversy, but chiefly to keep the several speakers to the rules of order and decency in their conduct; but the final determination of the questions arises from the majority of opinions or votes in the assembly, according as they are or ought to be swayed by the superior weight of reason appearing in the several speeches that are made.

III. THE method of proceeding is usually in some such form as this. The first person who speaks, when the court is set, opens the case either more briefly or at large, and proposes the case to the judge or the chairman, or moderator of the assembly, and gives his own reasons for his opinion in the case proposed.

IV. THIS person is succeeded by one, or perhaps two or several more, who paraphrase on the same subject, and argue on the same side of the question; they confirm what the first has spoken, and urge new reasons to enforce the same: then those who are of a different opinion stand up and make

their several speeches in a succession, opposing the cause which others have maintained, giving their reasons against it, and endeavouring to refute the arguments whereby the first speakers have supported it.

V. AFTER this, one and another rises up to make their replies, to vindicate or to condemn, to establish or to confute what has been offered before on each side of the question; till at last, according to the rules, orders, and customs of the court or assembly, the controversy is dicided either by a single judge, or the suffrage of the assembly.

VI. WHERE the question or matter in debate consists of several parts, after it is once opened by the first or second speaker, sometimes those who follow take each of them a particular part of the debate, according to their inclination or their prior agreement, and apply themselves to argue upon that single point only, that so the whole complexion of the debate may not be thrown into confusion by the variety of subjects, if every speaker should handle all the subjects of debate.

VII. BEFORE the final sentence or determination is given, it is usual to have the reasons and arguments, which have been offered on both sides, summed up and represented in a more compendious manner; and this is done either by the appointed judge of the court, or the chairman, or some noted person in the assembly, that so judgement may proceed upon the fullest survey of the whole subject, that, as far as possible in human affairs, nothing may be done contrary to truth or justice.

VIII. As this is a practice in which multitudes of gentlemen, besides those of the learned professions, may be en-. gaged, at least in their maturer years of life, so it would be a very proper and useful thing to introduce this custom into our academies, viz, to propose cases, and let the students debate them in a forensic manner in the presence of their tutors. There was something of this kind practised by the Roman youth in their schools, in order to train them up

for orators, both in the forum and in the senate. Juvenal gives some hints of it when he says,

et nos

Concilium dedimus Syllæ, privatus ut altum
Dormiret

Where with men-boys I strove to get renown,
Advising Sylla to a private gown,

That he might sleep the sounder.

Perhaps

Sat. I.

Sometimes these were assigned to the boys as single subjects of a theme or declamation: so the same poet speaks sarcastically to Hannibal,

I demens, et savas curre per Alpes,
Ut pueris placeas, et declamatio fias.

Go climb the rugged Alps, ambitious fool,

To please the boys, and be a theme at school.

Sat. 10,

See more of this matter in Kennet's Antiquities of Rome, in the second essay on the Roman Education.

THE

CHAP. XIII.

Of Academic or Scholastic Disputation.

HE common methods in which disputes are managed in the schools of learning are these, viz.

I. THE tutor appoints a question in some of the sciences to be debated amongst his students: one of them undertakes to affirm or deny the question, and to defend his assertion or negation, and to answer all objections against it; he is called the respondent: and the rest of the students in the same class, or who pursue the same science, are the oppo

nents,

nents, who are appointed to dispute or raise objections. against the proposition thus affirmed or denied.

II. EACH of the students successively in their turn becomes the respondent or the defender of that proposition, while the rest oppose it also successively in their turns.

III. It is the business of the respondent to write a thesis in Latin, or short discourse on the question proposed; and he either affirms or denies the question according to the opinion of the tutor, which is supposed to be the truth, and he reads it at the beginning of the dispute.

IV. In his discourse (which is written with as great accuracy as the youth is capable of), he explains the terms of the question, frees them from all ambiguity, fixes their sense, declares the true intent and meaning of the question. itself, separates it from other questions with which it may have been complicated, and distinguishes it from other questions which may happen to be a-kin to it, and then pro❤ nounces in the negative or affirmative concerning it.

V. WHEN this is done, then in the second part of his discourse he gives his own strongest arguments to confirm the proposition he has laid down, i. e. to vindicate his own. side of the question: but he does not usually proceed to represent the objections against it, and to solve or answer them; for it is the business of the other students to raise objections in disputing.

VI. Note, IN some schools, the respondent is admitted to talk largely upon the question with many flourishes and illustrations, to introduce great authorities from ancient and modern writings for the support of it, and to scatter Latin reproaches in abundance on all those who are of a different sentiment. But this is not always permitted, nor should it indeed be ever indulged, lest it teach youth to reproach instead of reasoning.

VII. WHEN the respondent has read over his thesis in the school, the junior student makes an objection, and draws up in the regular form of a syllogism: the respondent repeats the objection, and either denies the major or minor

it