THE SECOND BOOK 141 



said that the use of this doctrine is for redargution, yet 

 it is manifest the degenerate and corrupt use is for 

 caption and contradiction, 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 denches 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 con- 

 ceive (though it may seem at first somewhat strange) 

 that that part which is variably referred, sometimes to 

 logic, sometimes to metaphysic, touching the common 

 adjuncts of essences, is but an elenche. For the great 

 sophism of all sophisms being equivocation or am- 

 biguity 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 cautions 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 place here, as that which of all others appertain- 

 eth most to rectify judgement : the force whereof is- 



