OF HELPS OF THE INTELLECTUAL POWERS.
The intellectual powers have fewer means to work upon them than the will or body of man; but the one that prevaileth, that is exercise, worketh more forcibly in them than in the rest.
The ancient habit of the philosophers; "Si quis quærat, in utramque partem, de omni scibili."
The exercise of scholars making verses extempore; "Stans pede in uno."
The exercise of lawyers in memory narrative.
The exercise of sophists, and "Jo. ad oppositum," with manifest effect.
Artificial memory greatly holpen by exercise.
The exercise of buffoons, to draw all things to conceits ridiculous.
The means that help the understanding and faculties thereof are:—
(Not example, as in the will, by conversation; and here the conceit of imitation already digested, with the confutation, "Obiter, si videbitur," of Tully's opinion, advising a man to take some one to imitate. Similitude of faces analysed.)
Arts, Logic, Rhetoric: The ancients, Aristotle, Plato, Thesetetus, Gorgias, litigiosus vel sophista, Protagoras, Aristotle, schola sua. Topics, Elenches, Rhetorics, Organon, Cicero, Hermogenes. The Neoterics, Ramus, Agricola. Nil sacri; Lullius his Typocosmia, studying Cooper's Dictionary; Mattheus Collection of proper words for Metaphors; Agrippa de vanitate, &c.
Qu. If not here of imitation.
Collections preparative. Aristotle's similitude of a shoemaker's shop full of shoes of all sorts; Demosthenes Exordia concionum. Tully's precept, of Theses of all sorts, preparative.
The relying upon exercise, with the difference of using and tempering the instrument; and the similitude of prescribing against the laws of nature and of estate.
FIVE POINTS.
1. That exercises are to be framed to the life; that is to say, to work ability in that kind whereof a man in the course of action shall have most use.
2. The indirect and oblique exercises which do, "per partes" and "per consequentiam" enable these faculties, which perhaps direct exercise at first would but distort: and these have chiefly place where the faculty is weak, not "per se," but "per accidens;" as if want of memory grow through lightness of wit and want of stayed attention, then the mathematics or the law helpeth; because they are things wherein if the mind once roam it cannot recover.
3. Of the advantages of exercise; as to dance with heavy shoes, to march with heavy armour and carriage; and the contrary advantage (in natures very dull and unapt) of working alacrity by framing an exercise with some delight or affection;
"Veluti pueris dant crustula blandi
Doctores, elementa velint ut discere prima."
4. Of the cautions of exercise; as to beware, lest by evil doing (as all beginners do weakly) a man grow not and be inveterate in an ill habit; and so take not the advantage of custom in perfection, but in confirming ill. Slubbering on the lute.
5. The marshalling, and sequel of sciences and practices: logic and rhetoric should be used to be read after poesy, history, and philosophy. First. exercise to do things well and clean: after, promptly and readily.
The exercises in the universities and schools are of memory and invention; either to speak by heart that which is set down verbatim, or to speak extempore; whereas, there is little use in action of either of both: but most things which we utter are neither verbally premeditate, nor merely extemporal; therefore exercise would be framed to take a little breathing and to consider of heads; and then to fit and form the speech extempore; this would be done in two manners, both with writing and tables, and without: for in most actions it is permitted and passable to use the note; whereunto if a man be not accustomed it will put him out.
There is no use of a narrative memory in academies, viz. with circumstances of times, persons, and places, and with names; and it is one art to discourse, and another to relate and describe; and herein use and action is most conversant.
Also to sum up and contract is a thing in action of very general use.
