But for _fables_, they were vicegerents and supplies, _where examples failed_. Now that the times abound with history, THE AIM IS BETTER WHEN THE MARK IS ALIVE. And, therefore, he recommends as the form of writing, 'which is of all others fittest for this variable argument, discourses upon histories and examples: for knowledge drawn freshly, _and in our view_, out of particulars, _knoweth the way best to particulars again_; and it hath much greater life _for practice_, when _the discourse attendeth upon the example_, than when the example attendeth upon the discourse. For this is no point of order as it seemeth at first' (indeed it is not, it is a point as substantial as the difference between the old learning of the world and the new)--'this is no point of order, but of substance. For when the example is the _ground_ being set down in a history at large, it is set down with all circumstances, which may _sometimes control_ the discourse thereupon made, and sometimes supply it as _a very pattern for action_; whereas the examples which are alleged _for the discourse's sake_, are cited succinctly and without _particularity_, and carry a _servile aspect_ towards the discourse which they are brought in to make good.' The question of method is here, as we see, incidentally introduced; but it is to be noted, and it makes one of the rules for the interpretation of that particular kind of style which is under consideration, that in this casual and secondary introduction of a subject, we often get shrewder hints of the author's real intention than we do in those parts of the work where it is openly and distinctly treated; at least, these scattered and apparently accidental hints,--these dispersed directions, often contain the key for the 'second' reading, which he openly bespeaks for the more open and elaborate discussion.