Domestic Encyclopædia (1802)/Aphorism

APHORISM is a term used to denote either an unconnected maxim, or a short pointed sentence, comprising much in a few words. It is at present chiefly used in medicine, and law: thus we say, the Aphorisms of Boerhaave, Hippocrates, of the Civil Law, &c.

It would be highly conducive to the progress of learning, if all elementary works, which treat of any particular art or science, were written in an aphoristic form, so that every detached fact, or assertion, might be reduced to a distinct proposition.