of Columbia College, and especially Mr. John Hays Gardiner, of Harvard. In reprinting these selections it has generally seemed best to take no liberties with the original texts. Hence the punctuation is not perfectly uniform throughout the book. CAMBRIDGE, MASS., July 27, 1895. The Physical Basis of Life......... Thomas Henry Huxley. 22 The Character and Policy of Charles II. John Richard Green. 40 The Interpretation of the Constitution.........James Bryce. 46 INTRODUCTION. I. WHAT EXPOSITION IS. IN this compilation the editor has followed those who divide writing roughly into four kinds, exposition, argumentation, description, and narration. A glance at these specimens shows that he has taken the term exposition broadly enough to include all writing, the chief purpose of which is to explain. For instance, the first selection is an exposition, or explanation, of the construction of the steam-engine; the second is Huxley's explanation of the nature of protoplasm ; the third, Green's exposition of the character and policy of Charles the Second; the last, Arnold's exposition of the place and value of Wordsworth's poetry. The student, then, adopting this somewhat loose definition, might, when asked for an exposition, expound, or explain, some mechanical or chemical process, such as the operation of a dynamo or the reaction by which oxygen and hydrogen are produced from water; he might expound some theory or doctrine in religion, science, philosophy, economics, or literature, such as the doctrine of the atonement, the theory of evolution, Kant's idealism, Mill's theory of rent, or an opinion of Ten nyson's "Idylls of the King;" he might expound the rules for baseball, the uses of the Greek optative mood, the policy of Charlemagne, the working of the feudal system, the powers of the English cabinet, or the Democratic attitude on the tariff; or he might, by expounding the purport of an essay or book, make a sort of exposition usually called a summary, or synopsis. If, however, the student wishes, for the practice, to stick rigidly to exposition, he will need a definition somewhat sharper than that above. The common distinction, then, between exposition and argumentation is that exposition is intended to explain, to make men understand; but argumentation, not merely to make them understand, but to convince them that a certain belief is sound, a certain course of action desirable. This distinction is easy enough to apply in some cases but hard in others. A man may, for instance, try merely to explain the principles of free trade; obviously he will be expounding. If, on the other hand, he tries, not only to make his readers comprehend these principles, but, more than that, to convince them that free trade is beneficial, he will evidently be arguing. And yet, what purports to be simply an exposition of the principles of free trade, may readily have the practical effect of an argument for it. To decide whether such a piece is argumentation or exposition is next to impossible. Thus it happens that, although in most cases the distinction is clear, yet exposition sometimes shades so imperceptibly into argumentation, that no man can draw a hard and fast line between them. |