in an inclosure. Order, therefore, is a manifest help to memory; for here there is a previous notion, that the things sought for must be agreeable to order. And thus verse is easier remembered than prose, because if we stick at any word in verse, we have a previous notion that it is such a word as must stand in the verse, and this prenotion is the first part of artificial memory. For in artificial memory we have certain places digested, and proposed beforehand; but we make images extemporary as they are required, wherein. we have a previous notion that the image must be such as may, in some measure, correspond to its place; while this stimulates the memory, and, as it were, strengthens it to find out the thing sought for.

But emblems bring down intellectual to sensible things; for what is sensible always strikes the memory stronger, and sooner impresses itself than what is intellectual. Thus the memory of brutes is excited by sensible, but not by intellectual things. And, therefore, it is easier to retain the image of a sportsman hunting the hare, of an apothecary ranging his boxes, an orator making a speech, a boy repeating verses, or a player acting his part, than the corresponding notions of invention, disposition, elocution, memory, and action. There are also other things that contribute to assist the memory, but the art at present in use consists of the two above mentioned;' and to treat of the particular defects of the arts is foreign to our present purpose.

I suppose that the art of memory, now commonly taught by memory masters, is little more than a lecture upon the foundations here laid down; and perhaps their secrets are disclosed in Sir Hugh Plat's "Jewel House of Art and Nature, printed in London in the year 1653. See page 77-80 of that edition. Consult also upon the means of improving the memory, Morhof's "Polyhistor, tom. i. lib. ii. cap. 4, de Subsidiis dirigendi Judicii.-Shaw. [Grey's "Memoria Technica" and Feinagle's "Art of Memory" are the modern works on the same subject.-Ed.]

SIXTH BOOK

CHAPTER I

Division of Tradition into the Doctrine of the Organ, the Method and the Illustration of Speech. The Organ of Speech divided into the Knowledge of the Marks of Things, of Speaking and Writing. The last two comprise the two Branches of Grammar. The Marks of Things divided into Hieroglyphics and Real Characters. Grammar again divided into Literary and Philosophical. Prosody referred to the Doctrine of Speech, and Ciphers to the Department of Writing

A

NY man may, excellent King, when he pleases, take the liberty to jest and laugh at himself or his own projects. Who, then, knows-as there is a book in the famous library of St. Victor, entitled "Formicarum Artium," whether our book may not be an accidental transcript of its contents. We have indeed only accumulated a little heap of dust, and deposited therein many grains of the arts and sciences whereto ants may creep to repose a while, and then betake themselves to their labors: nay, the wisest of kings points out the ant as an example to those whose only care is to live upon the main stock, neglecting to cultivate the fields of science, and reap a new harvest of discoveries."

We next proceed to the art of delivering, uttering, and communicating such things as are discovered, judged of, and treasured up in the memory; and this we call by the general name of traditive doctrine, which takes in all the arts relating to words and discourse. For although reason be as the soul of discourse, yet they ought both to be treated separate, no less than the soul and body. We divide this traditive doctrine into three parts; viz., with regard, 1, to

1 Pantagruel, ii. 7, p. 76.

2 ii. 6, 6.

the organ; 2, the method; and 3, the illustration or ornament of speech and discourse.

The vulgar doctrine of the organ of speech called grammar is of two kinds, the one having relation to speaking, the other to writing. For, as Aristotle well observed, words are the marks of thoughts, and letters of words; and we refer both of these to grammar.' But before we proceed to its several parts, it is necessary to say something in general of the organ of this traditive doctrine, because it seems to have more descendants besides words and letters. And here we observe, that whatever may be split into differences, sufficiently numerous for explaining the variety of notions, provided these differences are sensible, may be a means of conveying the thoughts from man to man; for we find that nations of different languages hold a commerce, in some tolerable degree, by gestures. And from the practice of some persons born deaf and dumb, but otherwise ingenious, we see conversation may be held between them and such of their friends as have learned their gestures. And it is now well known, that in China and the more eastern provinces, they use at this day certain real, not nominal, characters, to express, not their letters or words,

3 Interpret. i. 2.

4

4 The original is, "nec literas nec verba," which in Latin signify oral as well as written language; so that, to avoid equivocation, we should annex the two adjectives, sonorous and written, to fix their signification. With regard to the relation which exists between the oral and written speech of the Chinese, it is, as the text would imply, not different from that which prevails among us. In articulating, we pronounce as the Chinese the sonorous signs which correspond to the written words, and their art of reading, no less than ours, consists in the struggle to transplant this correspondence in our minds, and learn its reciprocal relations. Even allowing that the Chinese, in addition to their vulgar tongue, had adopted hieroglyphical writing, so designed as to convey, without the interposition of oral signs, the exact ideas which they represent, yet each of these signs would invariably awaken the idea which represented it in the oral language, as well as the vocal word refer to the idea indicated by the written hieroglyphic. The only persons who appear not to intrude intermediate signs between the hieroglyphic and the idea which it conveys to the mind, are those who are incapacitated by nature. But in this respect there is no resemblance between the deaf and dumb and our Asiatic contemporaries.

Bacon therefore has not seized the exact distinction between the Chinese writing and our own, which consists not in dispensing with vocal signs, but in the diversified elements of which it is composed. Our language contains only

but things and notions; insomuch, that numerous nations, though of quite different languages, yet, agreeing in the use of these characters, hold correspondence by writing." And thus a book written in such characters may be read and interpreted by each nation in its own respective language.

The signs of things significative without the help or interposition of words are therefore of two kinds, the one congruous, the one arbitrary. Of the first kind, are hieroglyphics and gestures; of the second, real characters. The use of hieroglyphics is of great antiquity, being held in veneration, especially among that most ancient nation, the Egyptians, insomuch that this seems to have been an early kind of writing, prior to the invention of letters, unless, perhaps, among the Jews. And gestures are a kind of transitory hieroglyphics; for as words are fleeting in the pronunciation, but permanent when written down, so hieroglyphics, expressed by gesture, are momentary; but when painted, durable. When Periander, being consulted how to preserve a tyranny newly usurped, bid the messenger report what he saw; and going into the garden, cropped all the tallest flowers; he thus used as strong a hieroglyphic as if he had drawn it upon paper.

Again, it is plain that hieroglyphics and gestures have

twenty-five letters, while the Chinese letters are as innumerable as our words; and what makes the distinction perhaps more startling, there never has been an attempt on the part of that nation to analyze this infinite series of words, or to reduce them to the common elements of vocal sounds. Through this want of philosophic analysis, which characterizes nearly all the Asiatic tribes, the Chinese may be said never perfectly to understand their own language.-Ed.

5 See Spizelius "De Re Literaria Chinensium," ed. Lugd. Bat. 1660; Webb's "Historical Essay upon the Chinese Language," printed at London, 1669; Father Besnier's "Réunion des Langues"; Father le Compe, and other of the Missionaries' Letters.-Ed.

6 See Causinus's "Polyhistor. Symbolicus," and "Symbolica Ægyptiorum Sapientia," ed. Par. 1618. And for other writers upon this subject, see Mor hof's "Polyhistor.," tom. i. lib. iv. cap. 2, de Variis Scripturæ Modis.-Ed.

Arist. Polit. iii. 13. The person who sent to consult Periander was Thrasybulus of Miletus. Herodotus (v. 92) gives the opposite version of the story, making Periander consult Thrasybulus. Compare the story of Tarquin, told by Ovid, Fast. ii. 701.

always some similitude with the things signified, and are in reality emblems; whence we call them congruous marks of things: but real characters have nothing of emblem, as being no less mute than the elementary letters themselves, and invented altogether at discretion, though received by custom as by a tacit agreement. Yet it is manifest that a great number of them is required in writing; for they must be as numerous as the radical words. This doctrine, therefore, concerning the organ of speech, that is, the marks of things, we set down as wanting; for although it may seem. a matter of little use, while words and writing with letters are much more commodious organs of delivery; yet we think proper here to mention it as no inconsiderable thing. For while we are treating, as it were, of the coin of intellectual matters, it is not improper to observe that as money may be made of other materials besides gold and silver, so other marks of things may be invented besides words and letters."

Grammar holds the place of a conductor in respect of the other sciences; and though the office be not noble, it is extremely necessary, especially as the sciences in our times are chiefly derived from the learned languages. Nor should this art be thought of small dignity, since it acts as an antidote against the curse of Babel, the confusion of tongues. Indeed, human industry strongly endeavors to recover those enjoyments it lost through its own default. Thus it guards against the first general curse, the sterility of the earth, and the eating our bread in the sweat of the brow, by all the otner arts; as against the second, the confusion of languages, it caus in the assistance of grammar. Though this art is of little use in any maternal language, but more serviceable

8 On this foundation, Bishop Wilkins undertook his laborious treatise of a real character, or philosophical language; though Dalgarn published a treatise on the same subject before him; viz., at London, in the year 1661. In the same year, Becher also published another to the same purpose at Frankfort, entitled "Character pro Notitia Linguarum Universali.” See more upon this subject in Joachim Fritschii "Lingua Ludovicea," Kircher's "Polygraphia, 29 Paschius's "Inventa Nova-Antiqua," and Morhof's "Polyhistor."-Shaw.