we have already.  The forty-seventh proposition of the first book of Euclid is very true; but the discovery of it, I think, not owing to any rules of common logic.  A man knows first and then he is able to prove syllogistically.  So that syllogism comes after knowledge, and then a man has little or no need of it.  But it is chiefly by the finding out those ideas that show the connexion of distant ones, that our stock of knowledge is increased, and that useful arts and sciences are advanced.  Syllogism, at best, is but the art of fencing with the little knowledge we have, without making any addition to it.  And if a man should employ his reason all this way, he will not do much otherwise than he who, having got some iron out of the bowels of the earth, should have it beaten up all into swords, and put it into his servants’ hands to fence with and bang one another.  Had the King of Spain employed the hands of his people, and his Spanish iron so, he had brought to light but little of that treasure that lay so long hid in the dark entrails of America.  And I am apt to think that he who shall employ all the force of his reason only in brandishing of syllogisms, will discover very little of that mass of knowledge which lies yet concealed in the secret recesses of nature; and which, I am apt to think, native rustic reason (as it formerly has done) is likelier to open a way to, and add to the common stock of mankind, rather than any scholastic proceeding by the strict rules of mode and figure.

7.  Other Helps to reason than Syllogism should be sought.

I doubt not, nevertheless, but there are ways to be found to assist our reason in this most useful part; and this the judicious Hooker encourages me to say, who in his Eccl.  Pol. 1. i.  Section 6, speaks thus:  ’If there might be added the right helps of true art and learning, (which helps, I must plainly confess, this age of the world, carrying the name of a learned age, doth neither much know nor generally regard,) there would undoubtedly be almost as much difference in maturity of judgment between men therewith inured, and that which men now are, as between men that are now, and innocents.’  I do not pretend to have found or discovered here any of those ‘right helps of art,’ this great man of deep thought mentions:  but that is plain, that syllogism, and the logic now in use, which were as well known in his days, can be none of those he means.  It is sufficient for me, if by a Discourse, perhaps something out of the way, I am sure, as to me, wholly new and unborrowed, I shall have given occasion to others to cast about for new discoveries, and to seek in their own thoughts for those right helps of art, which will scarce be found, I fear, by those who servilely confine themselves to the rules and dictates of others.  For beaten tracks lead this sort of cattle, (as an observing Roman calls them,) whose thoughts reach only to imitation, non quo EUNDUM EST, sed quo ITUR.  But I can be bold to say, that this age is adorned with some men of that strength of judgment and largeness of comprehension, that, if they would employ their thoughts on this subject, could open new and undiscovered ways to the advancement of knowledge.