'Therefore I do conclude this part of Moral Knowledge concerning the culture and regiment of the Mind; wherein if any man, considering the facts thereof which I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is to COLLECT INTO AN ART OR SCIENCE, that which hath been pretermitted by others, as matters of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.' The practised eye will detect on the surface here, some marks of that style which this author recommends in such cases: especially where such strong pre-occupations exist; already we perceive that this is one of those sentences which is addressed to the skill of the interpreter; in which, by means of a careful selection and collocation of words, two or more meanings are conveyed under one form of expression. And it may not be amiss to remember here, that this is a style, according to the author's own description of it elsewhere, in which the more involved and enigmatical passages sometimes admit of several readings, each having its own pertinence and value, according to the mental condition of the reader; and that it is a style in which even the delicate, collateral sounds, that are distinctly included in this art of tradition, must come in sometimes in the more critical places, in aid of the interpretation. 'But what if it be an harangue whereon his life depends?'
l.—If any man considering the parts thereof, which I have enumerated, do judge that MY LABOUR IS to collect into an ART or SCIENCE that which hath been PRETER-MITTED by others, he judgeth well.
2.—If any man do judge that my labour is to collect into an ART or SCIENCE that which hath been pretermitted by others AS MATTERS OF COMMON SENSE and EXPERIENCE, he judgeth well.
3.—If any man considering the PARTS THEREOF WHICH I HAVE ENUMERATED, do judge that my labor is to collect into an ART or SCIENCE, that which hath been pretermitted by OTHERS, as matters of common sense and experience, he judgeth well.
But if there be any doubt, about the more critical of these meanings, let us read on, and we shall find the criticism of this great and greatest proposition, the proposition to substitute learning for preconception, in the main department of human practice, brought out with all the emphasis and significance which becomes the close of so great a period in sciences, and not without a little flowering of that rhetoric, in which beauty is the incident, and discretion is more than eloquence.
'But as Philocrates sported with Demosthenes you may not marvel, Athenians, that Demosthenes and I do differ, for he drinketh water, and I drink wine. And like as we read of an ancient parable of the two gates of sleep—
Sunt geminae somni portae, quarum altera fertur
Cornea, qua veris facilis datur exitus umbris:
Altera candenti perfecta nitens elephanto,
Sed falsa ad coelum mittunt insomnia manes.
'So if we put on sobriety and attention we shall find it a sure maxim in knowledge, that the more pleasant liquor of wine is the more vaporous, and the braver gate of ivory sendeth forth the falser dreams.'