An Essay on the Signs of Ideas. 267 
structed. All for which a wise man will be 
anxious in regard tostyle, is correctness and 
intelligibility ; every thing else is compara- 
tively insignificant. The difficulties of the 
art of writing, appear to me to have been 
always much exaggerated. ‘T'wo simple rules 
“may supersede all the treatises of rhetoric. 
The first is, to understand the subject ; the 
second, to be content to write with plainness 
and perspicuity.* 
A very few words respecting gestures, 
will conclude this subject. Gestures are al- 
most infinite, in number and meaning ; one 
n 
* With regard to the study of words, and of languages 
we ought to draw a line of distinction. Nothing can be 
more useful, than that study of words which is bent upon 
discovering their meanings, and proper uses, so as to pre- 
vent ourselves from being deceived by them, and to enable 
us to avoid deceiving others. At the same time, hardly 
any thing is more contemptible, than “ the hunting after 
“ words more than matter,” as Lord Bacon expresses it, 
the “seeking more after the choiceness of the phrase, and 
“the round and clea composition of the sentence, and 
“ the sweet falling of the clauses, and the varying and il- 
“ Justration of their works with tropes and figures, than 
“ after the weight of matter, worth of subject, soundness 
“ of argument, life of invention, or depth of judgment.” 
(Of the advancement of learning, Book 1.) This was, in a 
great measure, the employment of the learned, about the 
16th century, when hardly any thing was studied, except 
the works of orators and rhetoricians. At that time, a 
