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Logic and Rhetoric) and confine ourselves to the analytical, that is to say, UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR. In this we shall follow the Order, that we have above laid down, first dividing SPEECH, as a WHOLE, into its CONSTITUENT PARTS; then resolving it, as a COMPOSITE, into its MATTER and FORM; two Methods of Analysis very different in their kind, and which lead to a variety of very different Speculations.

SHOULD any one object, that in the course of our Inquiry we sometimes descend to things, which appear trivial and low; let him look upon the effects, to which those things contribute, then from the Dignity of the Consequences, let him honour the Principles.

THE following Story may not improperly be here inserted. "When the "Fame of Heraclitus was celebrated throughout Greece, there were cer

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Ch. I.

Ch. I. "tain Persons, that had a curiosity to

"see so great a Man. They came, and,

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as it happened, found him warming "himself in a Kitchen. The meanness "of the place occasioned them to stop ; upon which the Philosopher thus ac"costed them-ENTER, (says he) BOLD66 LY, FOR HERE TOO THERE "GODS(e)."

ARE

WE shall only add, that as there is no part of Nature too mean for the Divine Presence; so there is no kind of Subject, having its foundation in Nature, that is below the Dignity of a philosophical Inquiry.

(e) See Aristot. de Part. Animal. 1. 1. c. 5.

CHAP.

CHAP. II.

Concerning the Analysing of Speech into

its smallest Parts.

THOSE things which are first to Na- Ch. II. ture, are not first to Man. Nature begins from Causes, and thence descends to Effects. Human Perceptions first! open upon Effects, and thence by slow degrees ascend to Causes. Often had Mankind seen the Sun in Eclipse, before they knew its Cause to be the Moon's Interposition; much oftener had they seen those unceasing Revolutions of Summer and Winter, of Day and Night, before they knew the Cause to be the Earth's double Motion (a).

Even
in

(a) This Distinction of first to Man, and first to Nature, was greatly regarded in the Peripatetic Philosophy.-See Arist. Phys. Auscult. 1. 1. c. 1. Themistius's Comment on the same, Poster. Analyt. 1. 1. c. 2. De Anima,

1. 2. c. 2.

Ch. II. shall follow the Order consonant to hu

man Perception, as being for that reason the more easy to be understood.

WE shall begin therefore first from a Period or Sentence, that combination in Speech, which is obvious to all; and thence pass, if possible, to those its primary Parts, which, however essential, are only obvious to a few.

WITH respect therefore to the different Species of Sentences, who is there so ignorant, as if we address him in his Mother-Tongue, not to know when 'tis we assert, and when we question; when 'tis we command, and when we pray or wish?

For example, when we read in Shakespeare*,

The Man that hath no music in himself,
And is not moved with concord of sweet
sounds,
Is fit for Treasons·

* Merchant of Venice.

Or

Or in Milton*,

O Friends, I hear the tread of nimble

feet,

Hasting this way—

'tis obvious that these are assertive Sentences, one founded upon Judgment, the other upon Sensation.

WHEN the Witch in Macbeth says to her Companions,

When shall we three meet again

In thunder, lightning, and in rain? this 'tis evident is an interrogative Sen

tence.

WHEN Macbeth says to the Ghost of Banquo,

Hence, horrible Shadow,

Unreal Mock'ry, hence !——

he speaks an imperative Sentence, found

ed

upon the passion of hatred.

*P. L. IV. 866.

WHEN

Ch. II.

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