XVI11. i.] THE SECOND BOOK. 177 



shall be to him as God ; yet with people it is the more 

 mighty : for so Salomon saith, Sapiens corde appcllabitur 

 prudens, sed dulcis eloquio major a reperiet ; signifying that 

 profoundness of wisdom will help a man to a name or 

 admiration, but that it is eloquence that prevaileth in an 

 active life. And as to the labouring of it, the emulation 

 of Aristotle with the rhetoricians of his time, and the 

 experience of Cicero, hath made them in their works of 

 rhetorics exceed themselves. Again, the excellency of 

 examples of eloquence in the orations of Demosthenes 

 and Cicero, added to the perfection of the precepts of 

 eloquence, hath doubled the progression in this art ; and 

 therefore the deficiences which I shall note will rather be 

 in some collections, which may as handmaids attend the 

 art, than in the rules or use of the art itself. 



2. Notwithstanding, to stir the earth a little about the 

 roots of this science, as we have done of the rest ; the 

 duty and office of rhetoric is to apply reason to imagina 

 tion for the better moving of the will. For we see reason 

 is disturbed in the administration thereof by three means ; 

 by illaqueation or sophism, which pertains to logic ; by 

 imagination or impression, which pertains to rhetoric; and 

 by passion or affection, which pertains to morality. And 

 as in negotiation with others, men are wrought by cun 

 ning, by importunity, and by vehemency; so in this 

 negotiation within ourselves, men are undermined by in 

 consequences, solicited and importuned by impressions 

 or observations, and transported by passions. Neither is 

 the nature of man so unfortunately built, as that those 

 powers and arts should have force to disturb reason, and 

 not to establish and advance it. For the end of logic is to 

 teach a form of argument to secure reason, and not to en 

 trap it. The end of morality is to procure the affections to 



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