Chapter XI: Appendix: On Disputed Points

By suggesting elementary regulations, and by improvements on the best plans of his predecessors, PHILIDOR laid a foundation for investing the theory of the game with stability and excellence; and there wants only the concurrent efforts of reasoning players, to give the few principles which remain afloat, or which rest, by sufferance, on bases that do not harmonize, a settlement that by an agreement of parts, and a coincidence with order, shall be entitled to permanence.

As the object of the game is to convey into the mind a facility at resource by exercise, it seems peculiarly worthy to receive, from time to time, all the improvement, as a system, that experience and reflection can bestow. But the thinking votary of Chess, in the cultivation of this slow maturity, will guard it from all radical changes; because the history of its progress, through successive ages, and in various countries, allows no hope of producing all at once, by any effort of mind, a combination of study with amusement, to be pursued as a game, that shall rival it in utility and interest.

As a prelude to a complete adjustment of principles, the Nomenclature of Chess, circumscribed in subjects, but redundant in obscurity and error, deserves attention. Care should be taken to distinguish, by appropriate terms, the _Elementary Institutes_ which fix the powers, and modes of action of the pieces, from the _General Maxims_, or Directions for Playing, which communicate, as far as theoretic indications can, the most dextrous ways of using them; and these, again, should be distinguished from those _Laws_ or Regulations which obviate or decide disputes between players, respecting punctilios in the management of the pieces, and the board. In Treatises of Chess, these have been indiscriminately blended under the general name of _Rules_; to the impediment of the student, exploring publications for a lucid path to the game. A neglect of division and arrangement, was the less pardonable in works professed to be scientific compendiums of Chess, because discretionary liberty was afforded, in the local position of the materials, by the extent of the plan. The framers of the _Laws of Chess_[36], on the contrary, had it not in contemplation to compose a system for the uninitiate; which is a satisfactory apology for their mixing decisions on a few disputed points, which belong to the class of _Elementary Institutes_, with Provisions, or _Laws_, to prevent the errors or inadvertencies of players, from obstructing the game.

[36] Ante page 199.

It is not intended to call in question the justness of the general tenor of their short code, which administers corrections of incidental informalities, perfectly equitable. Sections IX, X, XI, XII, however, are employed in regulating the powers and modes of action of peculiar pieces, embracing the most problematical points. Separating these, we investigate their propriety, in the order there pursued.