I have said before, in the second chapter, that a man did excel all other animals in this faculty, that when he conceived anything whatsoever, he was apt to inquire the consequences of it, and what effects he could do with it. And now I add this other degree of the same excellence, that he can by words reduce the consequences he finds to general rules, called “theorems,” or “aphorisms”; that is, he can reason, or reckon, not only in number, but in all other things, whereof one may be added unto, or subtracted from another.
But this privilege is allayed by another; and that is, by the privilege of absurdity; to which no living creature is subject, but man only. And of men, those are of all most subject to it, that profess philosophy. For it is most true that Cicero saith of them somewhere; that there can be nothing so absurd, but may be found in the books of philosophers. And the reason is manifest. For there is not one of them that begins his ratiocination from the definitions, or explications of the names they are to use; which is a method that hath been used only in geometry; whose conclusions have thereby been made indisputable.
The first cause of absurd conclusions I ascribe to the want of method; in that they begin not their ratiocination from definitions; that is, from settled significations of their words; as if they could cast account, without knowing the value of the numeral words “one,” “two,” and “three.” And whereas all bodies enter into account upon divers considerations, which I have mentioned in the precedent chapter; these considerations being diversely named, divers absurdities proceed from the confusion, and unfit connection of their names into assertions. And therefore, The second cause of absurd assertions, I ascribe to the giving of names of “bodies” to “accidents”; or of “accidents” to “bodies”; as they do that say, “faith is infused,” or “inspired”; when nothing can be “poured” or “breathed” into anything, but body; and that “extension” is “body”; that “phantasms” are “spirits,” etc.