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Oftimes the Major is omitted, and the Minor onely with the Approbation thereof, and the Conclusion, are mentioned. This argumentation is called an Enthymem, of which the first part is called the Antecedent, the other the consequent. And you may place them as you please, the Antecedent first and then the Consequent, or on the con∣trary.
Let the proposition be: Youths are not to be bridled with rigid discipline. The Rea∣son: Because they are not the better for rigour, but the worse. Omitting the Major, place it Logically thus: Youths are worse for the rigour of discipline, therefore they ought not to be kept under a rigid Discipline. Oratori∣cally thus.
You erre greatly if you think that a youth may be improved by severity and fear of discipline; for though they may by an austere carriage seem to be reclaimed, yet really and indeed, they become there∣by the more dissolute: Go to experience, and you shall find them, to be commonly the worst of all others, who have passed their youth under the most severe disci∣pline. As a torrent may for a while be stopped by an overthwart bank, but while it stops, it is but gathering its more strong floud, by which when the bank is broken, it doth redeem the length of its cessation, with its more raging flux: so youth being bridled under cruel pressures, after it is once freed from those lawes by wich it was restrained, it doth become the more violently insolent; and drowneth the Soul
in the pursuite of those Syren snares from which it was before debarred: for we al∣waies desire forbidden fruit, and to enjoy what we cannot obtain. This disease of the soul is best cured by indulgence: for as O vid excellently describes such tem∣pers.