Roger Coke
A Discourse of Trade
1670
A Discourse of Trade.
In two Parts.
The first treats of The Reason of the Decay of the Strength,
Wealth, and Trade of England.
The latter, Of the Growth and Increase of the Dutch Trade above
the English
by ROGER COKE
LONDON
Printed for H. Brome, at the Gun near the West-End of St. Pauls:
and R. Horne at the South Entrance of the Royal Exchange,
Cornhill, 1670
To the great Example of Virtue
Sir CHARLES HARBORD.
Sir,
If I could describe Trade in all its excellencies so well as Ben
Johnson does the mind, and were to present it to him who I
thought did know best how to value it, I would prefer Sir Charles
Harbord: For in him besides a well weighed understanding, it will
meet with an open and free access (which are the principles from
whence Trade is best generated, preserved, and increased)
conjoyned with so even a temper, that he is never moved to judge,
or act, but from causes before understood by him.
This Sir, is one reason why this Treatise implores your
Patronage; and I wish that the same method of reasoning were
observed in Geometry, Numbers, Divinity, Physick, and Natural
Philosophy, as in this Discourse, viz. first to establish the
principles, and by a certain rule to reason under them. The
principles from which all Learning and Reasoning are generated
are three (though Aristotle is pleased to restrain them to two)
viz. Definitions, or sensible things or actions before known,
which cannot be defined; Petitions, and Axioms or Common Notions.
Here you may be pleased to take notice how by not right
understanding the nature of these Principles, and cofounding
them, all Learning and Reasoning in these studies is rendered
perplexed, difficult, and uncertain, and without any Order or
Method; which I may avoid, I think fit to here declare the nature
of them, and how they differ from one another.
A definition is the explaining the name of some intelligible
thing or act, which may be understood, but cannot be the object
of sence, nor can be taken for a Proposition, Sensible things and
actions may be alike know to sensitive Creatures, who have like
fences: but definitions are only understood by intelligent
Creatures, never to sensitive. For example, a Man, a Tree, a
Horse, or any sensible thing may be alike perceived ball
sensitive Creatures, who have like senses. But Father, Merchant,
Lawyer, Point-line, etc. may be defined and understood by
intellegent Creatures, but can never be perceived by sensitive.
By no power of the understanding can any man, negatively void of
any sence, be made to perceive any thing which is subject to that
sence. A man negatively blind, cannot be made to perceive things
which are only visible; and so it is of the other senses. And as
in Things, so in Actions; carnal copulation, killing another, and
taking from another, are sensible Actions, and cannot be defined:
but Murder, Justice, Adultery, Theft etc. may be defined and
understood by intelligent creatures, but can never be perceived
by the sences or sensitive Creatures. How much time is lost, and
confusion caused in defining sensible things by Aristotle, Plato,
and our Schools, which every ignorant man knows as much as the
most learned; and a thousand times better than all these
Sophisters by their contention in them, I leave to you Sir to
judge.
To this loss of time in defining sensible things, Aristotle
and our Schools from him, do not only confound definitions with
propositions; sometimes giving a definition the power of a
particular proposition, other times of an universal; but he makes
a man to be an universal proposition, and the man Callias to be a
particular: Nor is Euclid wholly free from mistaking herein; for
he oftentimes confounds difinitions with propositions, as
hereafter shall be shewed. So as Clavius following the Authority
of Aristotle and Euclid,and attempting to Analyse the
Propositions of Euclid in a rational method, not only makes the
Comment more perplexed and tedious, but not otherways to be done;
which is the reason he says in his Scholium upon the first
Proposition of the first Book of Euclid, that you must take the
way he is forced to do, as well as others before him.
2. Petitions are immediate Proprositions, wherein is
propounded some certain knowledge, which is either understood to
be necessary in one r more of the definitions, or some sensible
thing or act before know; or 2dly you require that one or more of
the definitions, or acts may be expressed, done by every learner;
or lastly fact or defect may be propounded in one or more of
them, which must be unquestionably true, as it is propounded:
These are frequently confounded by commentators upon Euclid, with
Axioms and common Notions. So, Sir, as it is no wonder that no
method or rule of reasoning is observed in Geometry, where the
principles of it are so perplexed and confounded; whereby Urania,
so far and lovely in it, is so clouded, and all ways of
approaching her so obstructed; that of ingenious men, who desire
to pay their Oblations at her Altars, not one of twenty can find
the passage to her.
3. But these principles are so sterile, that without the
conjunction of a superior and nobler cause they are never
imprgnated with any new generation of knowledge. Nor an this
knowledge be begotten from any less power than that which is
eternal and necessary in all things or actions, as they are
propounded. These principles from their excellency are stiled
Axioms, Dignities, Universals, and Common Notions; and though
every acquired proposition hath the authority of a Petition, yet
by no learning or reason can any Proposition have the authority
of an Axiom.
The principles thus established, men begin to learn and
reason, whereby knowledge may be infinitely improved by reason,
but never the principles; for as Aristotle in very many places
affirms, they are indemonstrable, and the intellect without
reason, is of them, and reason is of conclusions deduced form
them. Here Sir, I cannot pass over the first stumble which is
laid before every learner in out vulgar Logick, which in the
first page affirms Logick to prove (not the consequences but) the
Principles in its own Science and others too: which is all one,
as if one says the consequences (which must be proved by the
premisses) go before the principles, and the principles and
premises come after the consequences and conclusions. So as not
only all rules of reasoning are hereby inverted and destroyed,
but the authority of Aristotle contemned, who as I remember, in
16 places of his Analyticks, and frequently in his Physicks,
Metaphysicks, Topicks, and Ethicks, affirms the principle of
Science to indemonstrable; and that reason is of Science, and
demonstrable: And sure it is great pity none of the Rabbines
correct it: though from no learning or authority of Aristotle or
our vulgar Logick was ever any progress of knowledge in any one
proposition acquired or heard of, I am sure not by me.
These principles thus established, this metho or rule must
be observed in the generation of knowledge. One or more of the
definitions, or things, or actions before know (which are termed
the subjects of the proposition) must be assumed in every
scientifical proposition, either simply or conditionally, wherein
either some thing or act is propounded to be done (which is
termed a Problem) which was not before known in any of the
petitions or demonstrated propositions, or some new knowledge in
the Subjects propounded (which is termed a Theorem) which was not
before known & in the demonstration of this thing to be done or
knowledge to be understood (which are termed the Questions of the
Proposition). the major proposition must be an Axiom, the minor
proposition so made up of the Petitions, and before demonstrated
propositions, and the Hypothesis, if the Subjects be
conditionally assumed, conformable in all parts to the major
proposition, that the affirmation or question of the proposition,
or the contradiction, if the demonstration be negative, may flow
into the conclusion.
Here, Sir, be pleased to stay a little, and behold rational
knowledge thus begotten, how fair and lovely she is in her pure
and simple nakedness! how pleasant and easie her ways? and how
excellent and noble her extraction? descended from eternal
causes: begotten by a mind so pure, as partakes not any affection
of any sensual appetite or passion: Her ways all plain and before
known, and may be apprehended as well by youth of both Sexes as
men of riper years. Nor does knowledge thus begotten by the mind
die with the body: but though she be the daughter of time,
remains an eternal monument of the minds excellency, being
subject to no alteration, wrimple, or decay by any power of time
or fate. Oh Divine knowledge! how is thy excellency ...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Go to the beginning of the document
Go to previous page
Go to next page
Go to the end of document
