When our Universities found that there was no End of Wrangling this Way, they invented a kind of Argument, which is not reducible to any Mood or Figure in Aristotle.  It was called the Argumentum Basilinum (others write it Bacilinum or Baculinum) which is pretty well express’d in our English Word Club-Law.  When they were not able to confute their Antagonist, they knock’d him down.  It was their Method in these polemical Debates, first to discharge their Syllogisms, and afterwards to betake themselves to their Clubs, till such Time as they had one Way or other confounded their Gainsayers.  There is in Oxford a narrow [Defile, [1] (to make use of a military Term) where the Partizans used to encounter, for which Reason it still retains the Name of Logic-Lane.  I have heard an old Gentleman, a Physician, make his Boasts, that when he was a young Fellow he marched several Times at the Head of a Troop of Scotists, [2] and cudgel’d a Body of Smiglesians [3] half the length of High-street, till they had dispersed themselves for Shelter into their respective Garrisons.

This Humour, I find, went very far in Erasmus’s Time.  For that Author tells us [4], That upon the Revival of Greek Letters, most of the Universities in Europe were divided into Greeks and Trojans.  The latter were those who bore a mortal Enmity to the Language of the Grecians, insomuch that if they met with any who understood it, they did not fail to treat him as a Foe. Erasmus himself had, it seems, the Misfortune to fall into the Hands of a Party of Trojans, who laid him on with so many Blows and Buffets that he never forgot their Hostilities to his dying Day.

There is a way of managing an Argument not much unlike the former, which is made use of by States and Communities, when they draw up a hundred thousand Disputants on each Side, and convince one another by Dint of Sword.  A certain Grand Monarch [5] was so sensible of his Strength in this way of Reasoning, that he writ upon his Great Guns—­Ratio ultima Regum, The Logick of Kings; but, God be thanked, he is now pretty well baffled at his own Weapons.  When one was to do with a Philosopher of this kind, one should remember the old Gentleman’s Saying, who had been engaged in an Argument with one of the Roman Emperors. [6] Upon his Friends telling him, That he wonder’d he would give up the Question, when he had visibly the Better of the Dispute; I am never asham’d, says he, to be confuted by one who is Master of fifty Legions.

I shall but just mention another kind of Reasoning, which may be called arguing by Poll; and another which is of equal Force, in which Wagers are made use of as Arguments, according to the celebrated Line in Hudibras [7]