Chapter III: LOGIC. The science of reasoning, or more accurately Reason herself,

or pure intelligence.

Science to be gained after that of Expression, says Simon Memmi; so, young people, it appears, that though you must not speak before you have been taught how to speak, you may yet properly speak before you have been taught how to think.

For indeed, it is only by frank speaking that you _can_ learn how to think. And it is no matter how wrong the first thoughts you have may be, provided you express them clearly;--and are willing to have them put right.

Fortunately, nearly all of this beautiful figure is practically safe, the outlines pure everywhere, and the face perfect: the _prettiest_, as far as I know, which exists in Italian art of this early date. It is subtle to the extreme in gradations of colour: the eyebrows drawn, not with a sweep of the brush, but with separate cross touches in the line of their growth--exquisitely pure in arch; the nose straight and fine; the lips--playful slightly, proud, unerringly cut; the hair flowing in sequent waves, ordered as if in musical time; head perfectly upright on the shoulders; the height of the brow completed by a crimson frontlet set with pearls, surmounted by a _fleur-de-lys_.

Her shoulders were exquisitely drawn, her white jacket fitting close to soft, yet scarcely rising breasts; her arms singularly strong, at perfect rest; her hands, exquisitely delicate. In her right, she holds a branching and leaf-bearing rod, (the syllogism); in her left, a scorpion with double sting, (the dilemma)--more generally, the powers of rational construction and dissolution.

Beneath her, Aristotle,--intense keenness of search in his half-closed eyes.

Medallion above, (less expressive than usual) a man writing, with his head stooped.

The whole under Isaiah, in the line of Prophets.

_Technical Points_.--The only parts of this figure which have suffered seriously in repainting are the leaves of the rod, and the scorpion. I have no idea, as I said above, what the background once was; it is now a mere mess of scrabbled grey, carried over the vestiges, still with care much redeemable, of the richly ornamental extremity of the rod, which was a cluster of green leaves on a black ground. But the scorpion is indecipherably injured, most of it confused repainting, mixed with the white of the dress, the double sting emphatic enough still, but not on the first lines.

The Aristotle is very genuine throughout, except his hat, and I think that must be pretty nearly on the old lines, through I cannot trace them. They are good lines, new or old.