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Take this book, for example. It is a practical book. If your interest in it is practical ( it might, of course, be only theoretical ), 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 only this book but many others. That is what it means to say 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, always in the here and now and under a particular set of circumstances. You cannot act in general. The kind of practical judgment that 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 ofra 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 concrete practical advice. Only another person in exactly the same situation could do that.

194 HOW TO READ A BOOK

Practical books can, however, state more or less general rules that apply to a lot of particular situations of the same 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 that contains rules-prescriptions, maxims, or

�ny 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 that underlie the rules and make them intelligible. For example, in this practical book about reading, we have tried here and there to explain the rules by brief expositions of grammatical, rhetorical, and logical principles. The principles that underlie rules are usually in themselves scientific, that is, they are items of theoretical knowledge. Taken together, they are the theory of the thing.

Thus, we talk about the theory of bridge building or the theory of contract bridge. We mean the theoretical principles that make the rules of good procedure what they are.

Practical books thus fall into two main groups. Some, like this one, or a cookbook, or a driver's manual, are primarily presentations of rules. Whatever other discussion they contain is for the sake of the rules. There are few great books of this sort. The other kind of practical book is primarily concerned with the principles that generate rules. Most of the great books in economics, politics, and morals are of this sort.

This distinction is not sharp and absolute. Both principles and rules may be found in the same book. The point is 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, How to Read Practical Books 195

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 that is primarily a rule-book, 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 stitches by taking a stitch in time." That rule can also be expressed declaratively, as when we say, "A stitch in time saves nine." Both forms of statement suggest-the imperative a little more emphatically, but not necessarily more memorably-that it is worth while to be prompt.

Whether it is stated declaratively