Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

EK2KYBAAATP0N. 209
compensation suitable to the worth thereof may be allowed to him ? founding the equity
of so just a retribution upon Ahab's case in Naboth's vineyard. Now the soul and
body of man being more a man's own, they being the constitutive parts whereof phy-
sically he is composed, then are the goods of fortune, which totally are accidental to
him, it follows clearly that a man hath a full right of propriety to the goods of his own
mind, and consequently such goods being better, as hath been evidenced by the sixth
axiome, then any external means, what can be more manifest, than that he who is
endowed with them, so careful a course being taken for the satisfaction of any in matter
of outward wealth, may at the best rate he can, capitulate for their disposal with
what persons he thinks most concerned in the benefits and utility by them accrescing ;
because it is an argument a minore ad majus, and therefore a fortiori.
22. If such a one nevertheless voluntarily accept of a lesser recompence, then by
his deserving he may claim right unto, he is not unjustly dealt with ; quia volenti rum
fit injuria, and pactum hominis tollit conditionem legis.
These specious axiomes, definitions, and uncontroulable maximes thus premised, I
must make bold, in behalf of the author, to deduce from thence the equity of his de-
sires, in demanding that the same inheritance, which for these several hundreds of
yeers, through a great many progenitors, hath by his ancestors, without the interrup-
tion of any other, been possest, be now fully devolved on him, with the same privi-
ledges and immunities in all things, as they enjoyed it. But the better to make ap-
pear his ingenuity in this his suit, and modestie in requiring no more, it is expedient
to declare what it is he offereth unto the State, for obliging them to vouchsafe him the
grant of no less. May the reader therefore be pleased to understand, that it is the
discovery of a secret in learning, which, besides the great contentment it cannot chuse
but yield to ingenious spirits, will afford a huge benefit to students of all sorts, by the
abridgement of their studies, in making them learn more in three yeers, with the help
thereof, then, without it, in the space of five. This saving of two yeers charges to
scholars, in such a vast dominion as this is, although I speak nothing of the sparing
of so much time, which, to a methodical wit of any pregnancie, is a menage of an
inestimable value, cannot be appreciated, how parsimonious soever they be in their
diet and apparel, at less then ten thousand pounds English a yeer.
That this is a secret, it is clear by this, That never any, since the laying of the
foundation of the earth, did so much as divulge a syllable thereof; which undoubtedly,
they would have done, had they had any knowledge therein. And that none now
living, be it spoken without disparagement of any, either knoweth it, or knoweth how-
to go about it, save the aforesaid author alone, who is willing to forfeit all he demands,
although by birth-right it be his own already, and worth neer upon a thousand pounds
sterlin a yeer, if without his help, any breathing, notwithstanding the instructions
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