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into four rather
than into six? Why should I rather establish virtue in four, in two, in one?
Why into Abstine et sustine[1] rather than into "Follow Nature," or,
"Conduct your private affairs without injustice," as Plato, or anything
else? But there, you will say, everything is contained in one word. Yes, but
it is useless without explanation, and when we come to explain it, as soon
as we unfold this maxim which contains all the rest, they emerge in that
first confusion which you desired to avoid. So, when they are all included
in one, they are hidden and useless, as in a chest, and never appear save in
their natural confusion. Nature has established them all without including
one in the other.
21. Nature has made all her truths independent of one another. Our art makes
one dependent on the other. But this is not natural. Each keeps its own
place.
22. Let no one say that I have said nothing new; the arrangement of the
subject is new. When we play tennis, we both play with the same ball, but
one of us places it better.
I had as soon it said that I used words employed before. And in the same way
if the same thoughts in a different arrangement do not form a different
discourse, no more do the same words in their different arrangement form
different thoughts!
23. Words differently arranged have a different meaning, and meanings
differently arranged have different effects.
Eveline
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Linear Mode
