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.

Pro naturae suae claritate praepositorum.

For method is the rule of order, ergo, there must be a praepositio & a postpositio of axioms here: ergo, if we wil draw any Art out according to his true feature, we must set every thing in his own place, nature observes this course in every thing, as we see whilst the earth would rather ascend then there should be vacuum: and whilst the spirit of God his mighty power that governs all things, doth place every thing in order, we see he doth it by the rule of method continually: as he placeth the fire in the highest place above the

other elements, then the air, &c. dulcenatale solum, &c. to every man, and to every thing, because by the rule of method that is his place: and if things be displaced, they will sooner perish. The reason in nature why the load stone desires to stand North and South, is because of the rule of method, it being most agreeable to the nature thereof so to stand: so that every thing desires by this rule, not onely its proper place, but its proper situs also in that place.

Pro naturae suae claritate: this proposition must be guided by this rule, namely, the clearness of their na∣ture and good reason for the former axiom doth di∣sery some light to the following. Again he saith, pro naturae suae, so that clarius natura must go first, not that which is simply clarius, because that that is by nature clarius, is clarius, and notius then any other: and whereas we have a distinction of notius natura, and notias nobis, they are the same Notius natura is in Genest, notius nobis is in Analysi: for howbeit in analysi we begin at the lowest, which is notius nobis, yet in the end we come to notius natura, and then that which is notius natura, is notius nobis: and we know in genere before we know in specie, as we know homo before we know Thomas, or William, &c. Hence it is that many of our great Doctors know the rules of Art, but know not how to practise them: so that indeed they know them not. Again, because prius natura commonly containeth something in it that we must know before we can understand the next rule; so Arts teach us: as Logick first teacheth In∣vention, then Judgment. In Invention it first teach∣eth an argument in general, then in specie: now if we would know which is natura prius in every thing, that we may do thus, if one rule give light to ano∣ther

or if one rule may be without the other to clear the truth of it, then that is first: otherwise it needs the help of another, it must come after that other: as one is before two, for I cannot know two before I know one: secondly, two cannot be but there must be one, whereas one may be without two.