l6o 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 clenches 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 m eta- 

 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 



