160 OF THE ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING. [XIV. 6. 
which passeth for a great faculty, and no doubt is of 
very great advantage: though the difference be good 
which was made between orators and sophisters, that the 
one is as the greyhound, which hath his advantage in the 
race, and the other as the hare, which hath her advantage in 
the turn, so as it is the advantage of the weaker creature. 
7. But yet further, this doctrine of edenches hath a more 
ample latitude and extent than is perceived; namely, unto 
divers parts of. knowledge ; whereof some are laboured 
and other omitted. For first, I conceive (though it may 
seem at first somewhat strange) that that part which is 
variably referred, sometimes to logic, sometimes to meta- 
physic, touching the common adjuncts of essences, is but 
an elenche. For the great sophism of all sophisms being 
equivocation or ambiguity of words and phrase, specially 
of such words as are most general and intervene in every 
inquiry, it seemeth to me that the true and fruitful use 
(leaving vain subtilities and speculations) of the inquiry of 
majority, minority, priority, posteriority, identity, diversity, 
possibility, act, totality, parts, existence, privation, and the 
like, are but wise cautions against ambiguities of speech, 
So again the distribution of things into certain tribes, 
which we call categories or predicaments, are but cau- 
tions against the confusion of definitions and divisions. 
8. Secondly, there is a seducement that worketh by 
the strength ,of the impression, and not by the subtilty 
of the illaqueation; not so much perplexing the reason, 
as overruling it by power of the imagination. But this 
part I think more proper to handle when I shall speak 
of rhetoric. 
9. But lastly, there is yet a much more important and 
profound kind of fallacies in the mind of man, which I 
find not observed or inquired at all, and think good to 
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