ADVANCEMENT OF LEARNING 177 



in the words of God to Moses upon his refusing, for want of elo- 

 cution, the charge assigned him : " Aaron shall be thy speaker, 

 and thou shalt be to him as God."a But for advantage and 

 popular esteem, wisdom gives place to eloquence. " The wise 

 in heart shall be called prudent, but the sweet of tongue shall 

 find greater things," says Solomon :& clearly intimating that 

 wisdom procures a name and admiration, but that eloquence is 

 of greater efficacy in business and civil life. And for the culti- 

 vation of this art, the emulation betwixt Aristotle and the rhet- 

 oricians of his time, the earnest study of Cicero, his long prac- 

 tice and utmost endeavor every way to dignify oratory, hath 

 made these authors even exceed themselves in their books upon 

 the subject. Again, the great examples of eloquence found 

 in the orations of Demosthenes and Cicero, added to the perfec- 

 tion and exactness of their precepts, have doubled its advance- 

 ment. And therefore the deficiencies we find in it rather turn 

 upon certain collections belonging to its train, than upon the 

 doctrine and use of the art itself. 



But in our manner to open and stir the earth a little about the 

 roots of this science, certainly rhetoric is subservient to the 

 imagination, as logic is to the understanding. And if the 

 thing be well considered, the office and use of this art is but to 

 apply and recommend the dictates of reason to the imagination, 

 in order to excite the affections and will. For the administra- 

 tion of reason is disturbed three ways; viz., i. either by the 

 ensnaring of sophistry, which belongs to logic ; 2. the delusion 

 of words, which belongs to rhetoric ; or 3. by the violence of 

 the affections, which belongs to ethics. For as in transacting 

 business with others, men are commonly over-reached, or 

 drawn from their own purposes either by cunning, importu- 

 nity, or vehemence ; so in the inward business we transact with 

 ourselves, we are either, I. undermined by the fallacy of argu- 

 ments ; 2. disquieted and solicited by the assiduity of impres- 

 sions and observations ; or 3. shaken and carried away by the 

 violence of the passions. Nor is the state of human nature so 

 unequal, that these arts and faculties should have power to dis- 

 turb the reason, and none to confirm and strengthen it; for 

 they do this in a much greater degree. The end of logic is to 

 teach the form of arguments for defending, and not for ensnar- 

 ing, the understanding. The end of ethics is so to compose the 

 affections, that they may co-operate with reason, and not insult 



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