In any art or field of practice, rules have a disappointing way of being too general. The more general, of course, the fewer, and that is an advantage. But it is also true that the more general, the more remote they are from the intricacies of the actual situation in which you try to follow them.
I have stated rules generally enough to apply to any instructive book. But you cannot read a book in general. You read this book or that, and every particular book is of a particular sort. It may be a history or a book in mathematics, a political tract or a work in natural science. Hence you must have some flexibility and adaptability in following these rules. I think you will gradually get the feel of how they work on different kinds of books, but I may be able to speed the process somewhat by a few indications of what to expect.
In Chapter Seven we excluded from consideration all belles-lettres—novels, plays, and lyrics. I am sure you see now that these rules of reading do not apply to fiction. (There is, of course, a parallel set of rules which I shall try to suggest in the following chapter.) Then, in Chapter Eight we saw that the basic division of expository books is into the practical and the theoretical—books that are concerned with problems of action and books that are concerned only with something to be known. I propose now that we examine the nature of practical books a little further.
The most important thing about any practical book is that it can never solve the practical problems with which it is concerned. A theoretical book can solve its own problems. Questions about the nature of something can be answered completely in a book. But a practical problem can only be solved by action itself. When your practical problem is how to earn a living, a book on how to make friends and influence people cannot solve it, though it may suggest things to do. Nothing short of the doing solves the problem. It is solved only by earning a living.
Take this book, for example. It is a practical book. If your interest in it is practical, you want to solve the problem of learning to read. You would not regard that problem as solved and done away with until you did learn. This book cannot solve the problem for you. It can only help. You must actually go through the activity of reading, not merely this book, but others. That is what I mean by saying that nothing but action solves practical problems, and action occurs only in the world, not in books.
Every action takes place in a particular situation, alwaya in the here and now and under these special circumstances. You cannot act in general. The kind of practical judgment which immediately precedes action must be highly particular. It can be expressed in words, but it seldom is. It is almost never found in books, because the author of a practical book cannot envisage the concrete practical situations in which his readers may have to act. Try as he will to be helpful, he cannot give them really concrete practical advice. Only another person in exactly the same situation could do that.
Practical books can, however, state more .or less general rules which apply to a lot of particular situations of the same general sort. Whoever tries to use such books must apply the rules to particular cases and, therefore, must exercise practical judgment in doing so. In other words, the reader himself must add something to the book to make it applicable in practice. He must add his knowledge of the particular situation, and his judgment of how the rule applies to the case.
Any book which contains rules—prescriptions, maxims, or any sort of general directions—you will readily recognize as a practical book. But a practical book may contain more than rules. It may try to state the principles which underlie the rules and make them intelligible. For example, in this practical book about reading, I have tried here and there to explain the rules by brief expositions of grammatical and logical principles. The principles which underlie rules are usually in themselves scientific, that is, they are uems of theoretic knowledge. Taken together, they are the theory of the thing. Thus, we talk about the theory of bridge building or the theory of bridge whist. We mean the theoretical principles which make the rules of good procedure what they are.
Practical books fall into two main groups. Some, like this one and the cookbook and the driver's manual, are prima^ rily presentations of rules. Whatever other discussion they contain is for the sake of the rules. I know of no great book of this sort. The other kind of practical book is primarily concerned with the principles which generate rules. All the great books in economics, politics, and morals are of this sort.
I do not mean that the distinction is sharp and absolute. Both principles and rules may be found in the same book. The point is only one of relative emphasis. You will have no difficulty in sorting books into these two piles. The book of rules in any field will always be immediately recognizable as practical. The book of practical principles may look at first like a theoretical book. In a sense it is, as we have seen. It deals with the theory of a particular kind of practice. You can always tell it is practical, however. The nature of its problems gives it away. It is always about a field of human behavior in which men can do better or worse.
In reading a book which is primarily a rulebook, the major propositions to look for, of course, are the rules. A rule is most directly expressed by an imperative rather than a declarative sentence. It is a command. It says: "Save nine, by taking a stitch in time." It can also be expressed declara-tively, as when we say, "A stitch in time saves nine." Both forms of statement suggest—the imperative a little mor< emphatically—that it is worth while to be prompt in ordei to save nine stitches.
Whether it is stated declaratively or in the form of direct command, you can always recognize a rule because it recom' mends something as worth doing to gain a certain end. Thus, the rule of reading which commands you to come to terms can also be stated as a recommendation: good reading involves coming to terms. The word "good" is the giveaway here. That such reading is worth doing is implied.
The arguments in a practical book of this sort will be attempts to show you that the rules are sound. The writer may have to appeal to principles to persuade you that they are, or he may simply illustrate their soundness by showing you how they work in concrete cases. Look for both sorts of arguments. The appeal to principles is usually less persuasive, but it has one advantage. It can explain the reason for the rules better than examples of their use can.
In the other kind of practical book, dealing mainly with the principles underlying rules, the major propositions and arguments will, of course, look exactly like those in a purely theoretical book. The propositions will say that something is the case, and the arguments will try to show that it is so.
But there is an important difference between reading such a book and a purely theoretical one. Since the ultimate problems to be solved are practical—problems of action— an intelligent reader of such books about "practical principles" always reads between the lines or in the margins. He tries to see the rules which may not be expressed but can, nevertheless, be derived from the principles. He may go even further. He may try to figure out how the rules should be applied in practice.
Unless it is so read, a practical book is not read as practical. To fail to read a practical book as practical is to read it poorly. You really do not understand it, and you certainly cannot criticize it properly in any other way. If the intelligibility of rules is to be found in principles, it is no less true that the significance of practical principles is to be.found in the rules they lead to, the actions they recommend.
This indicates what you must do to understand either sort of practical book. It also indicates the ultimate criteria for critical judgment. In the case of purely theoretical books, the criteria for agreement or disagreement relate to the truth of what is being said. But practical truth is different from theoretic truth. A rule of conduct is practically true on two conditions: one is that it works; the other is that its working leads you to the right end, an end you rightly desire.
Suppose that the end which an author thinks you should seek does not seem like the right oiie to you. Even though his recommendations may be practically sound, in the sense of getting you to that end, you will not agree with him ultimately. And your judgment of his book as practically true or false will be made accordingly. If you do not think careful and intelligent reading is worth doing, this book has little practical truth for you, however sound my rules may be.
Notice what this means. In judging a theoretic book, the reader must observe the identity of, or the discrepancy between, his own basic principles or assumptions and those of the author. In judging a practical book, everything turns on the ends or goals. If you do not share Karl Marx's fervor about economic justice, his economic doctrine and the reforms it suggests are likely to seem practically false or irrelevant. You may think that preserving the status quo is a more desirable objective than removing the iniquities of capital' ism. In that case, you are likely to think that revolutionary documents are preposterously false. Your main judgment will always be in terms of the ends, not the means. We have no practical interest in even the soundest means to reach ends we do not care about.
This brief discussion gives you a clue to the two major questions you must ask yourself in reading any sort of practical book. The first is: What are the author's objectives? The second is: What means is he proposing? It may be more difficult to answer these questions in the case of a book about principles than in the case of one about rules. The ends and means are likely to be less obvious. Yet answering them in either case is necessary for the understanding and criticism of a practical book.
It also reminds you of one aspect of practical writing we noted earlier. There is an admixture of oratory or propaganda in every practical book. I have never read a political book—however theoretical it may appear, however "abstract" the principles with which it deals—that did not try to persuade the reader about "the best form of government." Similarly, moral treatises try to persuade the reader about "the good life" as well as recommend ways of leading it.
You can see why the practical author must always be something of an orator or propagandist. Since your ultimate judgment of his work is going to turn on your acceptance of the goal tor which he is proposing means, it is up to him to win you to his ends. To do this, he has to argue in a way that appeals to your heart as well as your mind. He may have to play on your emotions and gain direction of your will. That is why I call him an orator or propagandist.
There is nothing wrong or vicious about this. It is of the very nature of practical affairs that men have to be persuaded to think and act in a certain way. Neither practical thinking nor action is an affair of the mind alone. The guts cannot be left out. No one makes serious practical judgments or engages in action without being moved somehow from below the neck. The writer of practical books who does not realize this will be ineffective. The reader of them who does not is likely to be sold a bill of goods without his knowing it.
The best protection against propaganda of any sort is the complete recognition of it for what it is. Only hidden and undetected oratory is insidious. What reaches the heart without going through the mind is likely to bounce back and put the mind out of business. Propaganda taken in that way is like a drug you do not know you are swallowing. The effect is mysterious. You do not know afterwards why you feel or think the way you do. But putting alcohol in your drink in a recognized dosage can give you a lift you need and know-how to use.
The person who reads a practical book intelligently, who knows its basic terms, propositions, and arguments, will always be able to detect its oratory. He will spot the passages which make an "emotive use of words." Aware that he must be subject to persuasion, he can do something about weighing the appeals. He has sales resistance. But do not make the error of supposing that sales resistance must be one hundred per cent. It is good when it prevents you from buying hastily and thoughtlessly. But it should not withdraw you from the market entirely. The reader who supposes he should be totally deaf to all appeals imght just as well not read practical books.
There is one further point here. Because of the nature of practical problems and because of the admixture of oratory in all practical writing, the "personality" of the author is aiore important in the case of practical books than theoretical. Both in order to understand and to judge a moral treatise, a political tract, or an economic discussion, you should know something about the character of the writer, something about his life and times. In reading Aristotle's Politics, it is highly relevant to know that Greek society was based on slavery. Similarly, much light is thrown on The Prince by knowing the Italian situation at the time of Machiavelli, and his relation to the Medicis; or, in the case of Hobbes' Leviathan, to know that Hobbes lived during the English civil wars and was pathologically distressed by social violence and disorder.
Sometimes the author tells you about himself, his life, and times. Usually he does not do so explicitly, and when he does, his deliberate revelation of himself is seldom adequate or dependable. Hence reading his book and nothing else may not suffice. To understand it and to judge it, you may have to read other books, books about him and his times, or books which he himself read and reacted to.
Any aid to reading which lies outside the book being read is extrinsic. You may remember that I distinguished between intrinsic rules and extrinsic aids in Chapter Seven. Well, the reading of other books is one of the most obvious extrinsic aids in reading a particular book. Let me call this aid "extrinsic reading." I can summarize my point here simply by saying that extrinsic reading about the author is much more important for interpreting and criticizing practical books than theoretical ones. Remember this as an additional rule to guide you in reading practical books.
Now let us turn to the large class of theoretic books and see if there are any additional rules there. I must break this large class up into three major divisions, which I have already named and discussed in Chapter Eight: history, science, and philosophy. In order to deal briefly with a complicated matter, I shall discuss only two things in connection with each of these types of books. I shall first consider whatever is peculiar to the problems of that type of book-its terms, propositions, and arguments—and then discuss whatever extrinsic aids are relevant.
You already know the point about a history book being a combination of knowledge and poetry. All of the great historical works are narratives. They tell a story. Any story must have a plot and characters. It must have episodes, complications of action, a climax, and an aftermath. These are the elements of a history, viewed as a narrative—not terms, propositions, and arguments. To understand a history in its poetic aspect, therefore, you must know how to read fiction. I have not yet discussed the rules for doing that, but most people can do this sort of reading with some skill anyway. They know how to follow a story. They also know the difference between a good and a bad story. History may be stranger than fiction, but the historian has to make what happened appear plausible, nevertheless. If he does not, he tells a bad story, a dull one, or even a preposterous one.
I shall discuss in the next chapter the rules for reading fiction. Such rules may help you to interpret and criticize .histories in their poetic dimension as narratives. Here I shall confine myself to the logical rules we have already discussed. Applied to histories, they require you to distinguish two kinds of statement you will find. In the first place, there are all the propositions about particular things-events, persons, or institutions. These are, in a sense, the matter of the history, the substance of what is being narrated. In so far as such statements are subject to argument, the author may try to give you, in his text or footnotes, the evidences for believing that things happened this way rather than otherwise.
In the second place, the historian may have some general interpretation of the facts he is narrating. This may be expressed poetically in the way he tells the story—whom he makes the hero, where he places the climax, how he develops the aftermath. But it may also be expressed in certain generalizations he enunciates. You must look for general propositions of this sort. Herodotus, in his history of the Persian wars, tells you early what his major insight is.
The cities which were formerly great, have most of them become insignificant; and such as are at present powerful, were weak in olden time. I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that prosperity never continues long in one place.
I have italicized the generalization which Herodotus exemplifies again and again in the course of his story. He does not try to prove the proposition. He is satisfied with showing you countless instances in which it appears to be true. That is usually the way historians argue for their generalizations.
There are some historians who try to argue for their general insights about the course of human affairs. The Marxist historian not only writes in such a way that the class struggle is always clearly exemplified; he frequently argues that this must be the case in terms of his "theory of history." He tries to show that the economic interpretation is the only one. Another historian, such as Carlyle, tries to show that human affairs are controlled by the action of leaders. This is the "great man" theory of history.
To read a history critically, therefore, you must discovel the interpretation a writer places on the facts. You must know his "theory," which means his generalizations and, if possible, the reasons for them. In no other way can you tell why certain facts are selected and others omitted, why stress is placed on this and not on that. The easiest way to catch on is to read two histories of the same thing, written from different points of view. (One of the things which distinguishes history from science is that there can be two or more good histories of the same events—sharply divergent though equally persuasive and creditable. Of a given matter, there is at any time only one good scientific account.)
Extrinsic reading is thus an aid to understanding and judging history books. You may go to other histories, or to reference books, to check on the facts. You may even get interested enough to look into the original documents from which the historian gathered evidence. Reading other books is not the only extrinsic aid to understanding a history. You can also visit the places where things happened, or look at monuments and other relics of the past. The experience of walking around the battlefield at Gettysburg made me realize how much better I should understand the account of Hannibal's invasion had I ever crossed the Alps on the back of an elephant.
I want to stress the reading of other great histories of the same events as the best way to get a line on the bias of a great historian. But there is often more than bias in a history. There is propaganda. A history of something remote in time or place is also often a tract or diatribe for the home folks, as was Tacitus' account of the Germans, and Gibbon's explanation of why Rome fell. Tacitus exaggerated the primitive virtues of the Teutonic tribes to shame the decadence and effeminacy of his fellow Romans. Gibbon stressed the part a rising Christianity had played in a falling Rome to support the freethinkers and anticlericals of his day against the established churchmen.
Of all theoretical books, a history is most like practical books in this respect. Therefore, the advice to a reader is the same. Find out something about the character of the historian, and the local conditions which may have motivated him. Facts of this sort will not only explain his bias but prepare you for the moral lessons he tells you history teaches.
The additional rules for reading scientific works are the easiest to state. By a scientific work, I mean the report of findings or conclusions in some field of research, whether carried on experimentally in a laboratory or by observations of nature in the raw. The scientific problem is always to describe the phenomena as accurately as possible, and to trace the interconnections among different kinds of phenomena.
In the great works of science, there is no oratory or propaganda, though there may be bias in the sense of initial presuppositions. You detect this, and take account of it, by distinguishing what the author assumes from what he establishes through argument. The more "objective" a scientific author is, the more he will explicitly beg you to take this or that for granted. Scientific objectivity is not the absence of initial bias. It is attained by frank confession of it.
The leading terms in a scientific work are usually expressed by uncommon or technical words. They are relatively easy to spot, and through them you can readily grasp the propositions. The main propositions are always general ones. A scientist, unlike a historian, tries to get away from locality in time and place. He tries to say how things are generally, how they generally behave.
The only point of difficulty is with respect to the arguments. Science, as you know, is primarily inductive. This means that its primary arguments are those which establish. a general proposition by reference to observable evidence—a single case created by an experiment, or a vast array of cases collected by patient inquiry. There are other arguments of the sort which are called deductive. These are arguments in which a proposition is proved by other propositions already somehow established. So far as proof is concerned, science does not differ much from philosophy. But the inductive argument is peculiar to science.
To understand and judge the inductive arguments in a scientific book, you must be able to follow the evidence which the scientist reports as their basis. Sometimes the scientist's description of an experiment performed is so vivid and clear that you have no trouble. Sometimes a scientific book contains illustrations and diagrams which help to acquaint you with the phenomena described.
If these things fail, the reader has only one recourse. He must get the necessary special experience for himself at first hand. He may have to witness a laboratory demonstration. He may have to look at and handle pieces of apparatus similar to those referred to in the book. He may have to go to a museum and observe specimens or models.
That is the reason why St. John's College in Annapolis, where all students read the great books, also requires four years of laboratory work for all students. The student must not only learn how to employ apparatus for precise measurements and laboratory constructions, but he must also become acquainted, through direct experience, with the crucial experiments in the history of science. There are classical experiments as well as classical books. The scientific classics become more intelligible to those who have seen with their own eyes and done with their own hands what a great scientist describes as the procedure by which he reached his insights.
Thus you see how the major extrinsic aid in the reading of scientific books is not the reading of other books but rather getting a direct acquaintance with the phenomena involved. In proportion as the experience to be obtained is highly specialized, it is both more indispensable and more difficult to get.
I do not mean, of course, that extrinsic reading may not be helpful, too. Other books about the same subject matter may throw light on the problems, and help us to be critical of the book we are reading. They may locate points of misinformation, lack of evidence, incompleteness of analysis. But I still think that the primary aid is the one which throws direct light on the inductive arguments that are the heart of any scientific book.
The reading of philosophical works has special aspects which relate to the difference between philosophy and science. I am considering here only theoretic works in philosophy, such as metaphysical treatises or books about the philosophy of nature, because ethical and political books have already been treated. They are practical philosophy.
The philosophical problem is to explain, not to describe, the nature of things. It asks about more than the connection of phenomena. It seeks to penetrate to the ultimate causes and conditions of things, as existing and changing. Such problems are solved only when the answers to them are clearly demonstrated.
The major effort of the reader here must be with respect to the terms and the initial propositions. Although the philosopher also has a technical terminology, the words which express his terms are often taken from common speech and used in a very special sense. This demands special care from the reader. If he does not overcome the tendency to use familiar words in a familiar way, he will probably make gibberish and nonsense of the book. I have seen many people throw a philosophical book away in disgust or irritation, when the fault was theirs, not the author's. They did not even try to come to terms.
The basic terms of philosophical discussion are, of course, abstract. But so are those of science. No general knowledge is expressible except in abstract terms. There is notliing peculiarly difficult about abstractions. We use them every day of our lives and in every sort of conversation. If you substitute the distinction between the particular and the general for that between the concrete and the abstract, you will have less fear of abstractions.
Whenever you talk generally about anything, you are using abstractions. What you can perceive through your senses is concrete and particular. What you think with your mind is always abstract and general. To understand an "abstract word" is to have the idea it expresses. "Having an idea" is just another way of saying that you know a general aspect of something, to which the mind can refer. You cannot see or touch or even imagine the aspect thus referred to. If you could, there would be no difference between the senses and the mind. People who try to imagine what ideas refer to befuddle themselves, and end up with that hopeless feeling about all abstractions.
Just as the inductive arguments should be the reader's main focus in the case of scientific books, so here you must pay closest attention to the philosopher's principles. The word "principle" means a beginning. The propositions with which a philosopher begins are his principles. They may be either things he asks you to assume with him, or matters which he calls self-evident.
There is no problem about assumptions. Make them to see what follows, even if you yourself have contrary presuppositions. The clearer you are about your own prejudg-ments, the more likely you are not to misjudge those made by others.
It is the other sort of principle, however, which may cause you trouble. I know of no philosophical book which does not have some initial propositions the author regards as self-evident. These propositions are like the scientist's inductions in one respect. They are drawn directly from experience rather than proved by other propositions.
The difference lies in the experience from which they are drawn. The philosopher appeals to the common experience of mankind. He does no work in laboratories or research in the field. Hence to understand and test a philosopher's leading principles you do not need the extrinsic aid of special experience. He refers you to your own common sense and daily observation of the world in which you live.
Once you have grasped a philosopher's terms and principles, the rest of your task in reading his book raises no special difficulties. You must follow the proofs, of course. You must note every step he takes in the progress of his analysis—his definitions and distinctions, his ordering of terms. But the same is true in the case of a scientific book. Acquaintance with the evidence, in the one case, and acceptance of the principles, in the other, are the indispensable conditions for following all the remaining arguments.
A good theoretic work in philosophy is as free from oratory and propaganda as a good scientific treatise. You do not have to be concerned about the "personality" of the author, or investigate his social and economic backgrounds. There is utility, nevertheless, in doing extrinsic reading in connection with a philosophical book. You should read the works of other great philosophers who dealt with the same problems. The philosophers have carried on a long conversation with one another in the history of thought. You had better listen in on it before you make up your mind about what any one of them says.
The fact that philosophers disagree does not make them different from other men. In reading philosophical books, you must remember, above all, the maxim to respect the difference between knowledge and opinion. The fact of disagreement must not lead you to suppose that everything is just a matter of opinion. Persistent disagreements sometimes locate the great unsolved and, perhaps, insoluble problems. They point to the mysteries. But where problems are genuinely answerable by knowledge, you must not forget that men can agree if they will talk to one another long enough.
Do not worry about the disagreement of others. Your responsibility is only for making up your own mind. In the presence of the long conversation which the philosophers have had through their books, you must judge what is true and false. When you have read a philosophical book well —and that means sufficient extrinsic reading as well as skill-tul interpretation—you are in a position to judge.
The most distinctive mark of philosophical questions is that every man must answer them for himself. Taking the opinions of others is not solving them, but evading them. They are answered only by knowledge, and it must be your knowledge. You cannot depend on the testimony of the experts, as you may have to in the case of science.
There are two further points about extrinsic reading in connection with philosophical books. Do not spend all your time reading books about the philosophers, their lives and opinions. Try reading the philosophers themselves, in relation to one another. And in reading ancient and medieval -philosophers, or even the early modems, do not be disturbed by the errors or inadequacies of scientific knowledge which their books reveal.
Philosophical knowledge rests directly on common experience and not on the findings of science, not on the results of specialized research. You will see, if you follow the arguments carefully, that the misinformation or lack of information about scientific matters is irrelevant.
This second point makes it important to note the date of the philosopher you are reading. That will not only place him properly in the conversation with those who came before and after, but prepare you for the sort of scientific imagery he will employ to illustrate some of his points. The same urbanity which makes you indulgent of those who speak a foreign tongue should lead you to cultivate a tolerance for men of wisdom who did not know all the facts we now possess. Both may have something to say that we would be fools not to listen to, simply because of our provincialism.
There are two classes of books I have tailed to mention specially. One is mathematics, the other theology. My reason is that at one level of reading, they do not present special problems. And at another, the problems they present are much too complicated and difficult for me to handle here. Perhaps I can say a few simple things about them, however.
In general, the type of proposition and the type of argument in a mathematical book are philosophical rather than scientific. The mathematician like the philosopher is an armchair thinker. He does no experiments. He undertakes no special observations. From principles, which are either self-evident or assumed, he proves his conclusions, and solves his problems.
The difficulty in reading mathematical books arises in part from the kind of symbols the mathematician uses. He writes in a special language, not that of ordinary speech. It has a special grammar, a special syntax, and special rules of operation. In part, also, the precise method of mathematical demonstration is peculiar to this one subject matter. We have already seen many times that Euclid and others who write mathematically have a distinctly different style from that of other authors.
You must know the special grammar and logic of mathematics if you are to become an accomplished reader of mathematical books. The general rules we have discussed can be applied intelligently to this subject matter only through understanding them in the light of special principles. I might add that the logic of scientific argument and of philosophical proof are also different,''not only from mathematics, but from each other. The insight I would like you to get here is that there are as many special grammars and logics as there are specifically different applications of the rules of reading to different kinds of books and subject matters.
A word about theology. It differs from philosophy in that its first principles are articles of faith adhered to by the communicants of some religion. Reasoning which rests on premises to which reason can itself attain is philosophical, not theological. A theological book always depends upon dogmas and the authority of a church which proclaims them. If you are not of the faith, if you do not belong to the church, you can nevertheless read a theological book well by treating its dogmas with the same respect you treat the assumptions of the mathematician. But you must remember that an article of faith is not something which the faithful assume. Faith, for those who have it, is the most certain form of knowledge, not a tentative opinion.
There is one kind of extrinsic reading peculiar to theological works. Those who have faith believe in the revealed word of God, as that is contained in a sacred scripture. Thus, Jewish theology requires that its readers be acquainted with the Old Testament, Christian theology with the New as well, Mohammedan theology with the Koran, and so forth.
Here I must stop. The problem of reading the Holy Book—if you have faith that it is the Word of God—is the most difficult problem in the whole field of reading. There have been more books written about how to read Scripture than about all other aspects of the art of reading together. The Word of God is obviously the most difficult writing men can read. The effort of the faithful has been duly proportionate to the difficulty of the task. I think it would be true to say that, in the European tradition at least, the Bible is the book in more senses than one. It has been not only the most widely read but the most carefully.
Let me close this chapter with a brief summary of the extrinsic aids to reading. What lies beyond the book you are reading? Three things, it seems to me, which are especially relevant: experience—common or special; other books; and live discussion. The role of experience as an extrinsic factor is, I think, sufficiently clear. Other books may be of various sorts. They may be reference books, secondary books, and commentaries, or other great books, dealing with the same or with related matters.
Following all the rules of intrinsic reading is seldom sufficient to read any book well, either interpretatively or critically. Experience and other books are indispensable extrinsic aids. In reading books with students, I am as frequently impressed by the fact that they do not employ these aids as that they do not know how to read the book by itself.
Under the elective system, a student takes a course as if it were something quite apart. One course has no connec tion with another, and no course seems to have any connection with his ordinary affairs, his vital problems, his daily experience. Students who take courses this way read books in the same way. They make no effort to connect one book with another, even when they are most obviously related, or to refer what the author is saying to,.their own experience. They read about Fascism and Communism in the newspapers. They hear defenses of democracy over the radio. But it never seems to occur to most of them that the great political treatise they may be reading deals with the same problems, though the language it speaks is a little more elegant.
Only last year Mr. Hutchins and I read a series of political works with some students. At first, they tended to read each book as if it existed in a vacuum. Despite the fact that the various authors were plainly arguing about the same thing, they did not seem to think that it was worth while to mention one book in discussing another. But the good students could make all these connections when called upon to do so. We had one of our most exciting class hours after Mr. Hutchins had asked whether Hobbes would have defended Hitler for keeping Pastor Niemoller in a concentration camp. Would Spinoza have tried to get him out? What would Locke have done, and John Stuart Mill?
The problems of free speech and free conscience found dead authors talking about living issues. The students took sides on the Niemoller question, and so did the books-Mill against Hobbes, and Locke against Spinoza. Even if the students could not help Pastor Niemoller, his case had helped them focus the opposition of political principles in the light of their practical consequences. Students who before had seen nothing wrong with Hobbes and Spinoza now began to doubt their prior judgments.
The utility of extrinsic reading is simply an extension of the value of context in reading a book by itself. We have seen how the context must be used to interpret words and sentences to find terms and propositions. Just as the whole book is a context for any of its parts, so related books provide an even larger context that helps you interpret the one you are reading.
I like to think of the great books as involved in a prolonged conversation about the basic problems of mankind. The great authors were great readers, and one way to understand them is to read the books they read. As readers, they carried on a conversation with other authors, just as each of us carries on a conversation with the books we read, though we may not write other books.
To get into this conversation, we must read the great books in relation to one another, and in an order that somehow respects chronology. The conversation of the books takes place in time. Time is of the essence here and should not be disregarded. The books can be read from the present into the past or from the past into the present., Though I think the order from past to present has certain advantages, through being more natural, the fact of chronology can be observed in either way.
The conversational aspect of reading (the authors conversing with one another, and any reader conversing with his author) explains the third extrinsic factor I mentioned above, namely, live discussion. By live discussion, I mean no more than the actual conversation you and I may have together about a book we have read in common.
While this is not an indispensable aid to reading, it is certainly a great help. That is why Mr. Hutchins and I conduct our course in reading books by meeting with the students to discuss them. The reader who learns to discuss a book well with other readers may come thereby to have better conversations with the author when he has him alone in his study. He may even come to appreciate better the conversation which the authors had with one another.
