JB_094_424.xml

Title: [Feb 1808 L d Eldon's Bill Letter]

Description: Feb 1808

L d Eldon's Bill

Letter V

[...?] necessary principle?

Let Reason be fruitful, (said one of our Lord Chancellors once) Let Reason be fruitful Custom barren.

But who was the Lord Chancellor? It was Chancellor Bacon not Lord Eldon not as yet Lord Redisdale[?] not /nor yet/ Ponsenby, nor yet Lord Erskine. It was Lord Bacon.

Under such husbandmen not to speak of Et cetera the elder nor Et cetera the younger, Reason would breed like a free martin: Custom like a doe-rabbit.

If like other breeders, whose fecundity does not suit the /accord with/ the countenance of the husbandman, Reason would submitt to no operation /no less as [...?...?] that which in one of the letters St. Everard[?] recommends to a young protege of his for the improvement of his voice/ nor indeed the might expect to be received with open arms: that little operation once over precedent /the operation over conditions/ performed on that condition the might then laugh and grow fat, which lolling on a couch, the sackloth[?] to be crammed with sinecures, cut out in large collars[?]. [...?] fashion, from the haunches of John bull, the most patient and most stupid of his name.

JB_101_388.xml

Title: [26 Aug. 1814 '.2 + Logic Ch]

Description: 26 Aug. 1814 '.2 +

Logic

Ch. │ │ Invention

'.2 Helps to all

4

1

'.2. Helps applicable to arts in general without exception or distinction.

In this view, a few rules present themselves as capable of being found, to some minds in the way of original instruction, to any minds in the way of memento or reminiscence, not altogether without their use. In some sort by affording positive helps: in others by the indication of obstacles: of certain obstacles, {the force of which will be to be encountered} which, in any track of the field of invention, the labourer will find standing in his way, and opposing his progress: and obstacles of the existence and force of which it concerns him to be well apprised, lest, when the time comes they find him unprepared.

Memento 1. Whatever be the art, which or in which, you think to invent, keep steadily in view the particular end at which it aims: the effect the production of which it has for its object. Keep your eyes fixt upon the end. In two latin words, Respice finem. Finem suspicito.

Memento 2. Beware of intellectual servility. In other words, take Reason not Custom for your Guide: the Reason of the thing including the nature of the effect meant to be produced, not confining yourself to the pursuing of the practice, to the performance of those operations and those only by which alone the effect is as yet wont to be produced. Dux sit non Mos sed Ratio. Non mos sed Ratio dux est.

Memento 3. Be on your guard against the confederated adversaries of all good, and thereby of all new good: viz. 1. Indigenous Intellectual Weakness. 2. Sinister Interest. 3. Interest-begotten prejudice. 4. Adoptive prejudice. +

Memento 4. In relation to every part of your subject, and every object connected with it, render your ideas as clear as possible. Lux undique fiat.

Memento 5. For means and instruments look out for analogies. Analogias

undique

indagato.

Memento 6. In your look-out for analogies, for surveying that quarter of the field of thought and action to which the art in question belongs, employ the logical ladders, the ladders made of nest of aggregates placed in logical subalternation. Analogias indagare. In Analogiarum indagatione scalis logicis utere.

Memento 7. Inquire & learn whatsoever, for the production of the effect in question has been already in use or in prospect. Iam acta et tentata discite.

+  Where they can not by force these events oppose, by discouragement, by discouraging opinion and advice.

345

JB_102_394.xml

Title: [26 Aug. 1814 '.3 Logic Ch.]

Description: 26 Aug. 1814 '.3

Logic

Ch. Language

Improvement 1. Copiousness

'.3 Psychical opponents

3

1

{But,} as there exist cases in which the alteration made in language by {the} increase given to the number of words, and combinations of words, of which it is composed, can not with propriety be set down to the account of advantage, so are there cases in which, though the addition, if made, is or would be of an advantageous nature, yet, the addition finds the introduction of it opposed, by various springs of human action, by various principles of human nature.

Indigenous weakness, viz. in the intellectual faculty, sinister interest, interest-begotten prejudice, adoptive prejudice; in this part of the field of action, as in every other, will human felicity find these its enemies set in array against it, and opposing its progress at every step.

117