Note 625 — Chapter IV · (continued 2)

Buhle has observed that the favourable reception of Lully’s method is not surprising, since it really is useful in the association of ideas, like all other topical contrivances, and may be applied to any subject, though often not very appropriately, suggesting materials in extemporary speaking, and notwithstanding its shortness, professing to be a complete system of topics; but whosoever should try it must be convinced of its inefficacy in reasoning. Hence he thinks that such men as Agrippa and Bruno kept only the general principle of Lully’s scheme, enlarging it by new contrivances of their own. Hist. de Philos. ii. 612. See also an article on Lully in the Biographie Universelle. Tennemann calls the Ars Magna a logical machine to let men reason about everything without study or reflection. Manuel de la Philos. i. 380. But this seems to have been much what Lully reckoned its merit.