TRENT UNIVERSITY LIBRARY Ramus, Method, and the Decay of Dialogue Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Kahle/Austin Foundation https://archive.org/details/ramusmethoddecayOOOOongw Quiiacuit mifcris mutilus laccr obrutus vndis Ramus, ab obfccena iam reuirefcic huraoY Nam facie exprefsi rapiamur imagine vulcus Artificis doclalineadu&a maim. A: meiioic fui fa: eric vir parre fuperftes* Ingcmj vigcanc cum monimenra fui. Nic. Berg. Pic. Er. Pof. PETER RAMUS THE YEAR OF HIS DEATH RAMUS Method, and the Decay of Dialogue FROM THE ART OF DISCOURSE TO THE ART OF REASON By Walter J. Ong, S.J. Young man, listen to me: You will never be a great man if you think that Ramus was a great man. — Justus Lipsius, Misc. Letters, 89 Harvard University Press Cambridge, Massachusetts 1958 © Copyright, 1958, by the President and Fellows of Harvard College Distributed in Great Britain by Oxford University Press, London Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the Ford Foundation Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 58-10403 Printed in the United States of America