Pleasant in all their kinds. These latter Ch. I. Compositions aspire not to the Intellect, but being addressed to the Imagination, the Affections, and the Sense, become

plains something, and one to the THINGS, concerning which the Speaker proposes to persuade his Hearers: With respect to the first Relation, that which regards the HEARERS, are employed Poetry and Rhetoric. Thus it becomes the business of these two, to select the most respectable Words, and not those that are common and of vulgar use, and to connect such Words harmoniously one with another, so as thro' these things and their consequences, such as Perspicuity, Delicacy, and the other Forms of Eloquence, together with Copiousness and Brevity, all employed in their proper season, to lead the Hearer, and strike him, and hold him vanquished by the power of Persuasion. On the contrary, as to the Relation of Speech to THINGS, here the Philosopher will be found to have a principal employ, as well in refuting the False, as in demonstrating the True.

Sanctius speaks elegantly on the same subject. Creavit Deus hominem rationis participem; cui, quia Sociabilem esse voluit, magno pro munere dedit Sermonem. Sermoni autem perficiendo tres opifices adhibuit. Prima est Grammatica, quæ ab oratione solæcismos & barbarismos expellit; secunda Dialectica, quæ in Sermonis veritate versatur; tertia Rhetorica, quæ ornatum Sermonis tantum exquirit.M in. 1. 1. c. 2.

Ch. I. become from their different heightnings either RHETORIC or POETRY.

Nor need we necessarily view these Arts distinctly and apart; we may observe, if we please, how perfectly they co-incide. GRAMMAR is equally requisite to every one of the rest. And though LOGIC may indeed subsist without RHETORIC or POETRY, yet so necessary to these last is a sound and correct LOGIC, that without it, they are no better than warbling Trifles.

Now all these Inquiries (as we have said already) and such others arising from them as are of still sublimer Contemplation, (of which in the Sequel there may be possibly not a few) may with justice be deemed Inquiries both interesting and liberal.

Ar present we shall postpone the whole synthetical Part, (that is to say,

Logic

Logic and Rhetoric) and confine our- Ch. I. selves 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 cerB 4

66

"tain

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

66

see so great a Man. They came, and, "as it happened, found him warming " himself in a Kitchen. The meanness. "of the place occasioned them to stop; 66 upon which the Philosopher thus ac"costed them-ENTER, (says he) BOLD66 LY, "GODS(e)."

FOR HERE TOO THERE

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

HOSE 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.