EPISTOLA.] A letter from Mr. Locke to Mr. 2. Toignard, containing a new and easy method of a common-place-book, to which an index of two pages is sufficient.

AT length, sir,

T length, sir, in obedience to you, I publish my "method of a common-place-book. I am ashamed that I deferred so long complying with your request; but I esteemed it so inean a thing, as not to deserve publishing, in an age so full of useful inventions, as ours is. You may remember, that I freely communicated it to you, and several others, to whom I imagined it would not be unacceptable: so that it was not to reserve the sole use of it to myself, that I declined publishing it. But the regard I had to the public discouraged me from presenting it with such a trifle. Yet my obligations to you, and the friendship between us, compel me now to follow your advice. Your last letter has perfectly determined me to it, and I am convinced that I ought not to delay publishing it, when you tell me, that an experience of several years has showed its usefulness, and several of your friends, to whom you have communicated it. There is no need I should tell you, how useful it has been to me, after five and twenty years experience, as I told you, eight years since, when I had the honour to wait on you at Paris, and when I might have been instructed, by your learned and agreeable discourse. What I aim at now, by this letter, is to testify publicly the esteem and respect I have for you, and to convince you how much I am, sir, your, &c.

Before I enter on my subject, it is fit to acquaint the reader, that this tract is disposed in the same manner that the common-place-book ought

3. ought to be disposed. It will be understood by

reading what follows, what is the meaning of the Latin titles on the top of the backside of each leaf, and at the bottom [a little below the top] of this page.

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ERIONITA.] In eorum evangelio, quod secundum Hebræos dicebatur, historia quæ habetur Matth. xix. 16. et alia quædam, erat interpolata in hune modum: "Dixit ad eum alter divitum, magister,

quid bonum faciens vivam? Dixit ei Dominus, legem & prophetas, fac. Respondit ad eum, feci. Dixit ei: vade, vende omnia quæ possides, & divide pauperibus, & veni, sequere me. Cœpit autem dives scalpere caput suum, & non placuit ei. Et dixit ad eum "Dominus: quomodo dicis, legem feci & prophetas? cùm scriptum sit in lege, diliges proximum tuum sicut teipsum: & ecce multi "fratres tui filii Abrahæ amicti sunt stercore, "morientes præ fame, & domus tua plena est " bonis multis, & non egreditur omnino aliquid

ex eâ ad eos. Et conversus, dixit Simoni, discipulo suo, sedenti apud se: Simon, fili Johannæ, facilius est camelum intrare per foramen

acûs, quam divitem in regnum cælorum.” Nimirum hæc ideo immutavit Ebion, quia Christum nec Dei filium, nec νομοθέτην, sed nudum interpretem legis per Mosem datæ agnoscebat.

In the Gospel of the Ebionites, which they called the Gospel according to the Hebrews, the story, that is in the xixth of St. Matth. and in the 16th and following verses, was changed after this manner: "One of the rich men said to him:

Master, what shall I do that I may have life? "Jesus said to him: Obey the law and the prophets. He answered, I have done so. Jesus " said unto him, Go, sell what thou hast, divide "it among the poor, and then come and follow

me. Upon which the rich man began to "scratch his head, and to dislike the advice of "Jesus: and the Lord said unto him, How can "you say you have done as the law and the pro

V. 10.

phets

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ADVERSARIORUM METHODUS.] I take a paper book 4. of what size I please. I divide the two first pages that face one another by parallel lines into five and twenty equal parts, every fifth line. black, the other red. I then cut them perpendicularly by other lines that I draw from the top to the bottom of the page, as you may see in the table prefixed. I put about the middle of each five spaces one of the twenty letters I design to make use of, and, a little forward in each space, the five vowels, one below another, in their natural order. This is the index to the whole volume, how big soever it may be.

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The index being made after this manner, I leave a margin in all the other pages of the book, of about the largeness of an inch, in a volume, in folio, or a little larger; and, in a less volume, smaller in proportion.

If I would put any thing in my CommonPlace-Book, I find out a head to which I may refer it. Each head ought to be some important and essential word to the matter in hand, and in that word regard is to be had to the first letter, and the vowel that follows it; for upon these two letters depends all the use of the index.

I omit three letters of the alphabet as of no use to me, viz. K. Y. W. which are supplied by C. I. U. that are equivalent to them. I put the letter Q. that is always followed with an u. in the fifth space of Z. By throwing Q. last in my index, I preserve the regularity of my index, and diminish not in the least its extent; for it seldom happens that there is any head begins with Z. u. I have found none in the five and twenty years I have used this method. If nevertheless it be necessary, nothing hinders but that one may make a reference after Q. u. provided it be done with any kind of distinction; but for more exactness a place may be assigned

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5. For Q. u. below the index, as I have formerly done. When I meet with any thing, that I think fit to put into my common-place-book, first find a proper head. Suppose, for example, that the head be EPISTOLA, I look unto the index for the first letter and the following vowel, which in this instance are E. i. if in the space marked E. i. there is any number that directs me to the page designed for words that begin with an E. and whose first vowel, after the initial letter, is I; I must then write under the word Epistola, in that page, what I have to remark. I write the head in large letters, and begin a little way out into the margin, and I continue on the line, in writing what I have to say. I observe constantly this rule, that only the head appears in the margin, and that it be continued on without ever doubling the line in the margin, by which means the heads will be obvious at first sight.

If I find no number in the index, in the space E. i. I look into my book for the first backside of a leaf that is not written in, which, in a book where there is yet nothing but the index, must be p. 2. I write then, in my index after E. i. the number 2. and the head Epistola at the top of the margin of the second page, and all that I put under that head, in the same page, as you see I have done in the second page of this method. From that time the class E. i. is wholly in possession of the second and third pages.

"They are to be employed only on words that begin with an E, and whose nearest vowel is an I, as Ebionitæ (see the third page) Episcopus, Echinus, Edictum, Efficacia, &c. The reason, why I begin always at the top of the backside of a leaf, and assign to one class two pages, that face one another, rather than an entire leaf, is, because the heads of the class appear ADVERSARIORUM METHODUS.] all at once, without the V. trouble of turning over a leaf.

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Every time, that I would write a new head, I look first in my index for the characteristic letters of the words, and I see, by the number that follows, what the page is that is assigned to the class of that head. If there is no number, I must look for the first backside of a page that is blank. I then set down the number in the index, and design that page, with that of the right side of the following leaf, to this new class. Let it be, for example, the word Adversaria; if I see no number in the space A. e. I seek for the first backside of a leaf, which being at p. 4. I set down in the space A. e. the number 4. and in the fourth page the head ADVERSARFA, with all that I write under it, as I have already informed you. From this time the fourth page with the fifth that follows is reserved for the class A. e. that is to say, for the heads that begin with an A, and whose next vowel is an E; as for instance, Aer, Aera, Agesilaus, Acheron, &c.

When the two pages designed for one class are full, I look forwards for the next backside of a leaf, that is blank. If it be that which immediately follows, I write, at the bottom of the margin, in the page that I have filled, the letter V, that is to say, Verte, turn over; as likewise. the same at the top of the next page. If the pages, that immediately follow, are already filled by other classes, I write at the bottom of the page last filled, V, and the number of the next empty backside of a page. At the beginning of that page I write down the head, under which I go on, with what I had to put in my commonplace-book, as if it had been in the same page. At the top of this new backside of a leaf, I set down the number of the page I filled last. By these numbers which refer to one another, the first whereof is at the bottom of one page, and