Of Agriculture, p

The Utility (1 mean plainly the Lucre of it); … As for the Necessity of this Art, it is evident enough...; The Innocence of this Life is the next thing for which I commend it..; And if great delights be joyn’d with so much Innocence...; The Antiquity of this Art is certainly not to be contested by any other...; Behold the Original and Primitive Nobility of all those Great Persons...; if Heraldry were guided by Reason, a Plough in a Field Arable, would be the most Noble and Antient Armes 27.

Il aime définir et classer. Mais sa logique n’enserre que rarement la pensée avec cette rigidité. Elle reste le plus souvent invisible, et ne se décèle qu’à l’atmosphère d’ordre où baigne l’œuvre entière. Discrète; elle s’efface, laissant la place d'honneur à la variété. Malgré leur unité, les Essais donnent au lecteur attentif une impression de diversité.

Il leur arrive de s’ouvrir par une définition en règle, comme dans Of Liberty :

The Liberty of a people consists in being governed by Laws which they made themselves, under whatsoever form it be of Government. The Liberty of a private man in being Master of his own Time and Actions, as far as may consist with the Laws of God and of his Country 28;

parfois aussi par une confidence d’où sort la discussion générale :

Ï am glad that you approve and applaud my design, of withdrawing my self from all the tumult and business of the world; and conseerating the little rest of my time to those studies, to which Nature had so Motherly inclined me, and from which Fortune, like a Stepmother has so long detained me 29;

ou bien par un souvenir de lectures :

Since we cannot attain to Greatness (saies the Sieur de Montagn), let’s have our revenge by raïling at it 30;

ou encore par une Comparaison qui amorce le sujet, en même temps qu’elle cause un agréable effet de surprise :

If you should see a man who were to cross from Dover to Calais,