Maitland Club > Works of Sir Thomas Urquhart

314 LOGOPANDECTEISION.
labour of a grammatical arithmetician then, after due enumeration, hinc inde, to appa-
riate the words of the universal language with the things of the universe.
59. The analogie therein 'twixt the signe and thing signified holding the more
exactly, that as, according to Aristotle, there can be no more worlds but one, because
all the matter whereof worlds can be composed is in this ; so can there be no universal
language but this I am about to divulge unto the world, because all tbe words enunci-
able are in it contained.
60. If any officious critick will run to the omnipotency of God for framing more
worlds, according to the common saying, Nothing is impossible to God, that implies
not a contradiction, so must he have recourse to the same omnipotent power for fur-
nishing of man with other speech-tools then his tongue, throat, roof of the mouth, lips,
and teeth, before the contexture of another universal language can be warped.
6 1 . That I should hit upon the invention of that, for the furtherance of philosophy,
and other disciplines and arts, which never hitherto hath been so much as thought
upon by any, and that in a matter of so great extent, as the expressing of all the
things in the world, both in themselves, actions, ways of doing, situation, pendicles,
relations, connexions, pathetick interpositions, and all other appurtenances to a perfect
elocution, without being beholding to any language in the world ; insomuch as one
word will hardly be believed by our fidimplicitary gown-men, who, satisfied with their
predecessors' contrivances, and taking all things laterally, without examination, blate-
rate, to the nauseating even of vulgar ears, those exotick proverbs, There is no new
thing under the sun, Nihil dictum quod non dictum prius, and, Beware of philosophers :
authorizating this on Paul, the first on Solomon, and the other on Terence.
62. But, poor souls, they understand not that in the passage of Solomon is meant,
that there is no innovation in the essence of natural things ; all transmutations on the
same matter, being into forms, which, as they differ from some, so have an essential
uniformity with others pre-existent in the same kind.
63. And when it was said by Paul, Beware of philosophers, he meant such sophis-
ters as themselves, who, under the vizzard of I know not what, corrupt the channels
of the truth, and pervert all philosophy and learning.
64. As for the sayings of Terence, whether Scipio couched them or himself, they
ought to be inferred rather as testimonies of neat Latine, then for asserting of infallible
verities.
65. If there hath been no new thing under tbe sun, according to the adulterate
sense of those pristinary lobcocks, how comes the invention of syllogisms to be attri-
buted to Aristotle, that of the sphere to Archimedes, and logarithms to Neper ? It
was not Swart, then, and Gertudenburg, that found out gunpowder and the art of
printing, for these two men lived after the decease of Solomon.
66. Had there been canon in Solomon's dayes, Rehoboam, by all appearance,