Robert Sanderson, De Ordine in Methodo Genere

Having considered the Argumentation, it remains to consider the other Instrument of the Discourse, namely the Method or Order: ....
The laws common to Method are:

I. Law of Brevity: Nothing should lack or be redundant in a discourse. It is a mutilation, not a compendium, if a necessary part is missing. Redundancy or Tautology in the teachings produces nausea: I say in teachings not in examples or commentaries. If the examples are frequent, and if the commentaries are fuller we are not doing harm, hence we can use many.

II. Law of Harmony: The individual parts of a teaching should fit among them. It does wrong he who by thoughtlessness overturns this.

III. Law of Unity or Homogeneity: Nothing in a teaching should be placed which is not homogeneous with the Subject or End. I mean Science by Subject, and by End I mean Arts and Prudence. Woe on Aristotle that changed the merit from genus to genera.

IV. Law of Generality or of Antecedents and Consecutives: It should precede that without which next things cannot be understood, or this without the other. The light and strength in what follows ought to come from what's preceding, and not the opposite.

V. Law of Connection: The individual parts of a teaching should be aptly connected. For the frequent discontinuities (interruptions) disturbe the intellect and the memory. But the suitable colligation is the delight of the one and the other and the reasons of the Method become apparent. It will be rewarded he who represents the method of connexions and all the reasons to the disciples by means of table and diagraphs