Page:The Works of John Locke - 1823 - vol 03.djvu/356

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338
A new Method of a Common-Place-Book.

Adversariorum Methodus.] look first in my index V. for the characteristic letters of the words, 6. and I see, by the number that follows, what the page is that is assigned to the class of that head. If there is no number, I must look for the first backside of a page that is blank. I then set down the number in the index, and design that page, with that of the right side of the following leaf, to this new class. Let it be, for example, the word Adversaria; if I see no number in the space A e, I seek for the first backside of a leaf, which being at p. 4, I set down in the space A e the number 4, and in the fourth page the head Adversaria, with all that I write under it, as I have already informed you. From this time the fourth page with the fifth that follows is reserved for the class A e, that is to say, for the heads that begin with an A, and whose next vowel is an E; as for instance, Aer, Aera, Agesilaus, Acheron, &c.

When the two pages designed for one class are full, I look forwards for the next backside of a leaf, that is blank. If it be that which immediately follows, I write at the bottom of the margin, in the page that I have filled, the letter V, that is to say, Verte, turn over; as likewise the same at the top of the next page. If the pages, that immediately follow, are already filled by other classes, I write, at the bottom of the page last filled, V. and the number of the next empty backside of a page. At the beginning of that page I write down the head, under which I go on, with what I had to put in my common-place-book, as if it had been in the same page. At the top of this new backside of a leaf, I set down the number of the page I filled last. By these numbers which refer to one another, the first whereof is at the bottom of one page, and the second is at the beginning of another, one joins matter that is separated,