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Of Grammar.

Man still striveth to reintegrate himself in those benedictions, from which by his fault he hath been deprived; and as he hath striven against the first general curse by the invention of all other arts, so hath he sought to come forth of the second general curse, which was the confusion of tongues, by the art of grammar: whereof the use in a mother tongue is small, in a foreign tongue more; but most in such foreign tongues as have ceased to be vulgar tongues, and are turned only to learned tongues.

The accidents of words, as measure, sound, &c. is an appendix to grammar.

There are various sorts of cyphers.

As there be many of great account in their countries and provinces, which, when they come up to the seat of the estate, are but of mean rank and scarcely regarded; so these arts, being here placed with the principal and supreme sciences, seem petty things; yet to such as have chosen them to spend their labours and studies in them, they seem great

matters.

THE METHOD OF SPEECH.

It is deficient.

Impatience of method.

Different sorts of methods.

The use of grammar is small in mother tongues-is greater in foreign living tongues; but greatest in dead languages 198

Duties of grammar are two.

1. Popular.

2. Philosophical.

Popular grammar is for the learning and speaking languages. Philosophical grammar examines the power of words as they

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First Method. Magistral which teaches, or initiative which insi

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He that delivereth knowledge, desireth to deliver it in such form as may be best believed, and not as may be best

examined; and he that receiveth knowledge, desireth rather present satisfaction, than expectant inquiry; and so rather not to doubt, than not to err.

Knowledge that is delivered as a thread to be spun on, ought to be delivered and intimated, if it were possible, in the same method wherein it was invented; and so is it possible of knowledge induced.

It is in knowledges as it is in plants; if you mean to use the plant, it is no matter for the roots'; but if you mean to remove it to grow, then it is more assured to rest upon roots than slips: so the delivery of knowledges, as it is now used, is as of fair bodies of trees without the roots; good for the carpenter, but not for the planter. But if you will have sciences grow, it is less matter for the shaft or body of the tree, so you look well to the taking up of the roots. Second Method. A concealed or revealed style Third Method. Method or aphorisms.

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1. Delivery by aphorisms is a test of the knowledge of the writer.

2. Methodical delivery is better to procure consent than to generate action.

3. Aphorisms invite to augment knowledge.

Fourth Method. Delivery by assertions, with their proofs or interrogations.

4. Delivery by interrogations should be used only to remove stray prejudices.

If it be immoderately followed, is as prejudicial to the proceeding of learning, as it is to the proceeding of an army to go about to besiege every little fort or hold. For if the field be kept, and the sum of the enterprise pursued, those smaller things will come in of themselves.

Fifth Method. Accommodation of delivery according to the matter which is to be treated.

Sixth Method. Delivery according to the anticipation in the minds of the hearers.

1. Those whose conceits are seated in popular

opinions need only to dispute or to prove.

2. Those whose conceits are beyond popular opinions have a double labour. 1st. That they may be conceited. 2d. That they may prove.

3. Science not consonant to presuppositions must bring in aid similitudes.

Method considers the disposition of the work, and the limitation of propositions

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It belongeth to architecture to consider not only the whole frame of a work, but the several beams and columns. Observations upon the limits of propositions.

Of the method of imposture.

A mass of words of all arts, to give men countenance, that those which use the terms might be thought to understand the art; which collections are much like a fripper's or broker's shop, that hath ends of every thing, but nothing of worth.

ILLUSTRATIVE OF SPEECH

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1. Eloquence is in reality inferior to wisdom; but in popular opinions superior to it.

It is said by God to Moses, when he disabled himself for want of this faculty, Aaron shall be thy speaker, and thou shalt be to him as God.

2. The deficiences in eloquence are rather in some collections than in the art itself.

3. The office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagination for the better moving of the will.

4. The disturbers of reason are fallacies of arguments: assiduity of impression, and violence of passion.

5. The counteractors of these disturbers are logic, morality and rhetoric.

6. Speech is more conversant in adorning what is good than in colouring evil.

"Virtue, if she could be seen, would move great love and affection;" so seeing that she cannot be shewed to the sense by corporal shape, the next degree is to shew her to the imagination in lively representation.

6. The affections not being pliant to reason, rhetoric is ne

cessary.

7. Difference between logic and rhetoric.

8. Deficiences of rhetoric

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1. Want of a collection of the popular signs of good and evil; of the defects of Aristotle's collection.

2. Want of a collection of common places

9. Appendices to the art of delivery.

1. The art critical.

2. The of art instruction.

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1. It contains that difference of tradition which is proper for

youth.

2. Different considerations.

1. The timing and seasoning of knowledges.

2. The judicious selection of difficulties and of easy studies.

It is one method to practise swimming with bladders, and another to practise dancing with heavy shoes.

3. The application of learning according to the mind to be instructed.

There is no defect in the faculties intellectual, but seemeth to have a proper cure contained in some studies: as for example, if a child be bird-witted, that is, hath not the faculty of attention, the mathematics giveth a remedy thereunto; for in them, if the wit be caught away but a moment, one is to begin anew.

4. The continuance and intermission of exercises.

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As the wronging or cherishing of seeds or young plants is that that is most important to their thriving: so the culture and manurance of minds in youth hath such a forcible, though unseen, operation, as hardly any length of time or contention of labour can countervail it afterwards.

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1. Writers on this subject have described virtues without pointing out the mode of attaining them.

Those which have written seem to me to have done as if a man, that professeth to teach to write, did only exhibit fair copies of alphabets and letters joined, without giving any precepts or directions for the carriage of the hand and framing of the letters.

These Georgics of the mind, concerning the husbandry and tillage thereof, are no less worthy than the heroical descriptions of virtue, duty, and felicity.

2. Division of moral philosophy

1. The image of good.

2. The culture of the mind.

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THE IMAGE OF GOOD.

1. Describes the nature of good.

2. Division.

1. The kinds of good.

2. The degrees of good.

3. The antients were defective in not examining the springs of good and evil.

4. Good is 1. Private. 2. Public.

There is formed in every thing a double nature of good: the one, as every thing is a total or substantive in itself; the other, as it is a part or member of a greater body; whereof the latter is in degree the greater and the worthier, because it tendeth to the conservation of a more general form. Therefore we see the iron in particular sympathy moveth to the loadstone; but yet if it exceed a certain quantity, it forsaketh the affection to the loadstone, and like a good patriot moveth to the earth, which is the region and country of massy bodies.

5. Public is more worthy than private good.

Pompeius Magnus, when being in commission of purveyance for a famine at Rome, and being dissuaded with great vehemency and instance by his friends about him, that he should

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