Page:The Works of John Locke - 1823 - vol 03.djvu/354

 ] 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.

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 Common-Place-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. KY W, which are supplied by CIU, 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 Qu, provided it be done with any kind of distinction; but for more exactness a place may be assigned