The logicians school-master: or, A comment upon Ramus logick.: By Mr. Alexander Richardson, sometime of Queenes Colledge in Cambridge. Whereunto are added, his prelections on Ramus his grammer; Taleus his rhetorick; also his notes on physicks, ethicks, astronomy, medicine, and opticks. Never before published.

Quae constat.

I make no genus of it, for it is genus summum in its kind, as Ens also is.

Ob. But the Schooles say Art is an intellectual ver∣tue, ergo hath virtus for his genus.

Answ. It is no genus of Art, neither is Ars qua∣tenus it is Art in the thing a vertue; but as it is sci∣entia in mans head, so indeed it belongs to the E∣thicks: for if virtue were a genus to Ars, vertue be∣longs to Ethicks: and so by this reason. Ethicks should be the most general Art, and also by that rea∣son Ethicks should be under Ethicks: for virtus in∣tellectualis is but a little part of them, therefore this is fallacia accidentis, as they call it.

Again, to call it an habit as Aristotle saith it is, and as the Schooles make it, that conceit is very simple, for habitus or quantitas habitualis belongeth to Lo∣gick, and is nothing but a special kind of adjunct:

therefore Aristotle doth define homo to be genus ra∣tionale, whereas we know genus is but an adjunct to animal, which is the genus of homo: so that it is not Art in the thing, but the knowledge he hath of it, which is adjoyned to man. Now we have heard, that Art is the wisdom of God, in ente a primo, and the frame of the creature is in the antitype of this wisdom, and is a subject of Art. I say, Ars est quae constat, though it be the frame of the thing. Now con∣stare is to stand together in parts.

Quest. How come Arts to have parts, being but that one wisdom in God?

Answ. Not in regard of God, but in respect of the frame of the thing where we see it. For even as Gods Mercy and Justice are one, but various in re∣spect of the object: It is Mercy to him that comes before him in Christ; It is Justice to him that ap∣peares before him without Christ: So Art is one in God, but is various in respect of the various work it hath wrought in the creation of things, and that it acteth in their government to their end. Again, those parts must constare, for in the frame of the thing the subjects of the Arts do constare, ergo this wisdom fol∣lowing them must constare in his parts: and as one thing hath his frame, and another his, differing from the other; hence the precepts of Arts must be vari∣ous, and must constare one with another; hence it follows, that in Art we must have no rules but those that will constare, and are essential to it. So that if we bring a rule of Grammar into Logick, or econtra: or if we leave out of Logick some essential rule to it, it will not constare: again, if the rules of Art be dis∣ordered, they will not stand together: therefore when I say constare, I say two things, first that every

Art must have all the rules that are essential to it, and no more: and secondly, that every precept must be placed in his due order, and rank. For as a Painter that makes the picture of a man would make it very deformed, if he should set the head where the feet should be, or contra: so were it as absurd for an Artist to disorder his Art.