found in former Encyclopedias), or to suggest a better definition than
had been offered in the text. There are two sorts of writing. The
first is compilation; and consists in collecting and stating all that is
already known of any question in the best possible manner, for the
benefit of the uninformed reader. An author of this class is a very
learned amanuensis of other people's thoughts. The second sort proceeds
on an entirely different principle: instead of bringing down the account
of knowledge to the point at which it has already arrived, it professes
to start from that point on the strength of the writer's individual
reflections; and supposing the reader in possession of what is already
known, supplies deficiencies, fills up certain blanks, and quits the
beaten road in search of new tracts of observation or sources of
feeling. It is in vain to object to this last style that it is
disjointed, disproportioned, and irregular. It is merely a set of
additions and corrections to other men's works, or to the common stock
of human knowledge, printed separately. You might as well expect a
continued chain of reasoning in the notes to a book. It skips all the
trite, intermediate, level common-places of the subject, and only stops
at the difficult passages of the human mind, or touches on some striking
point that has been overlooked in previous editions. A view of a
subject, to be connected and regular, cannot be all new. A writer will
always be liable to be charged either with paradox or common-place,
either with dulness or affectation. But we have no right to demand from
any one more than he pretends to. There is indeed a medium in all
things, but to unite opposite excellencies is a task ordinarily too hard
for mortality. He who succeeds in what he aims at, or who takes the
lead in any one mode or path of excellence, may think himself very well
off. It would not be fair to complain of the style of an Encyclopedia
as dull, as wanting volatile salt; nor of the style of an Essay because
it is too light and sparkling, because it is not a _caput mortuum_. So