an errant statesman, and as much superior to, as a man conversant about Whitehall and the court is to an ordinary shopkeeper. To carry this a little farther. Here is one muffled up in the zeal and infallibility of his own sect, and will not touch a book or enter into debate with a person that will question any of those things which to him are sacred. Another surveys our differences in religion with an equitable and fair indifference, and so finds probably that none of them are in every thing unexceptionable. These divisions and systems were made by men, and carry the mark of fallible on them; and in those whom he diiTcrs from, and, till he opened his eyes, had a general prejudice against, he meets with more to be said for a great many things than before he was aware of, or could have imagined. Which of these two now is most likely to judge right in our religious controversies, and to be most stored with truth, the mark all pretend to aim at? All these men that I have instanced in, thus unequally furnished with truth and advanced in knowledge, I sup- pose of equal natural parts; all the odds between them has been the different scope that has been given to their understandings to range in, for the gathering up of information, and furnishing their heads with ideas, notions and observations, whereon to employ their minds and forni their understandings.
It will possibly be objected, who is sufficient for ail this.' I answer, more than can be imagined. Everyone knows what his proper business is, and what, according to the character he makes of himself, the world may justly expect of him; and to answer that, he will find he will have time and opportunity enough to furnish himself, if he will not deprive himself by a narrowness of spirit of those helps that are at hand. I do not say to be a good 12 OF THE CONDUCT geographer that a man should visit every mountain, river, promontory and creek upon the face of the earth, view the buildings, and survey the land every where, as if he were going to make a purchase. But yet every one must allow that he shall know a country better that makes often sallies into it, and traverses it up and down, than he that like a mill horse goes still round in the same' track, or keeps within the narrow bounds of a field or two that delight him. He that will enquire out the best books in every science, and inform himself of the most material authors of the several sects of philosophy and religion, will not find it an infinite work to acquaint himself with the sentiments of mankind concerning the most'^w^eighty and comprehensive subjects. Let him exercise the free- dom of his reason and understanding in such a latitude as this, and his mind will be strengthened, his capacity enlarged, his faculties improved; and the light, which the remote and scattered parts of truth will give to one another, will so assist his judgment, that he will seldom be widely out, or miss giving proof of a clear head and a comprehensive knowledge. At least, this is the only way I know to give the understanding its due improvement to . the full extent of its capacity, and to distinguish the two most different things I know in the world, a logical chicaner from a man of reason. Only, he that would thus give the mind its flight, and send abroad his en- quiries into all parts after truth, must be sure to settle in his head determined ideas of all that he employs his thoughts about, and never fail to judge himself, and judge unbiassedly of all that he receives from others, either in their writings or discourses. Reverence or prejudice must not be suffered to give beauty or deformity to any of their opinions.
OF THE UNDERSTANDING. J 3 SECTION IV. PRACTICE AND HABITS.
\Vc are born with faculties and powers capable almost of any thing, such at least as would carry us farther than can easily be imagined: /but it is only the exercise of those powers which gives us ability and skill in any thing, and leads us towards perfection./ A middle-aged ploughman will scarce ever be brought to the carriage and language of a gentleman, though his body be as well proportioned, and his joints as supple, and hi^atural parts not any way inferior. The legs of a dancing master and the fingers of a musician fall as it were naturally, without thought or pains, into regular and admirable motions. Bid them change their parts, and they will in vain endeavour to produce like motions in the members not used.to them, and it will require length of time and long practice to attain but some degrees of a like ability. What incredible and astonishing actions do we find rope dancers and tumblers bring their bodies to; not but that sundry in almost all manual arts are as wonderful; but I name those which the world takes notice of for such, because on that very account they give money to see them. All these admired motions beyond the reach, and almost the conception, of unpractised spectators are nothing but the mere eflfects of use and industry in men, whose bodies have nothing peculiar in them from those of the amazed lookers on.
As it is in the body, so it is in the mind; practice makes it what it is, and most even of those excellences which are looked on as natural endowments will be found, when examined into more narrowly, to be the 14 OF THE CONDUCT • product of exercise, and to be raised to that pitch only by repeated actions. Some men are remarked for pleasant- ness in raillery; others for apologues and apposite divert- ing stories. This is apt to be taken for the effect of pure nature, and that the rather, because it is not got by rules, and those who excel in either of them never purposely set themselves to the study of it as an art to be learnt. But yet it is true that at first some lucky hit, which took with some body and gained him commendation, encouraged him to try again, inclined his thoughts and endeavours that way, till at last he insensibly got a facility in it without perceiving how; and that is attributed wholly to nature which was much more the effect of use and practice. I do not deny that natural disposition may often give the first rise to it; but that never carries a man far without use and exercise, and it is practice alone that brings the powers of the mind as well as those of the body to their perfection. Many a good poetic vein is buried under a trade, and never produces any thing for want of improve- ment. We see the ways of discourse and reasoning are very different, even concerning the same matter, at court and in the university. And he that will go but from Westminster-hall to the Exchange, will find a different genius and turn in their ways of talking, and yet one cannot think that all whose lot fell in the city were born with different parts from those who were bred at the university or inns of court.
To what purpose all this, but to shew that the difference, so observable in men's understandings and parts, does not arise so much from their natural faculties as acquired habits. lie would be laughed at that should go about to make a fine dancer out of a country hedger, at past fifty. And he will not have much better success, who shall OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 1 5 endeavour at that age to make a man reason well, or speak liandsomely, who has never been used to it, though you should lay before him a collection of all the best precepts of logic or oratory. No body is made any thing by hear- ing of rules, or laying them up in his memory; practice must settle the habit of doing without reflecting on the rule, and you may as well hope to make a good painter or musician extempore by a lecture and instruction in the arts of music and painting, as a coherent thinker or strict reasoner by a set of rules, shewing him wherein right reasoning consists.
This being so, that defects and weakness in men's understandings, as well as other faculties, come from want of a right use of their own minds, I am apt to think the fault is generally mislaid upon nature, and there is often a complaint of want of parts, when the fault lies in want of a due improvement of them. We see men fre- quently dexterous and sharp enoug i in making a bargain, who, if you reason with them about matters of religion, appear perfectly stupid.
SECTION V.
IDEAS.
I will not here, in what relates to the right conduct and improvement of the understanding, repeat again the getting clear and determined ideas, and the employing our thoughts rather about them than about sounds put for them, nor of settling the signification of words which we use with ourselves in the search of truth or with others in discoursing about it. Those hindrances of our under- standings in the pursuit of knowledge, I have sufficiently enlarged upon in another place; so that nothing more needs here to be said of those matters.
1 6 OF THE CONDUCT SECTION VI.
PRINCIPLES^ There is another fault that stops or misleads men in their knowledge, which I have also spoken something of, but yet is necessary to mention here again, that we may examine it to the bottom and see the root it springs from, and that is a custom of taking up with principles that are not self-evident and very often not so much as true. It is not unusual to see men rest their opinions upon founda- tions that have no more certainty and solidity than the propositions built on them and embraced for their sake. Such foundations are these and the like, namely: the founders or leaders of my party are good men, and therefore their tenets are true; it is the opinion of a sect that is erroneous, therefore it is false; it hath been long received in the world, therefore it is true; or it is new, and therefore false.
These, and many the like, which are by no means the measures of truth and falsehood, the generality of men make the standards by which they accustom their under- standing to judge. And thus they falling into a habit of determining truth and falsehood by such wrong measures, it is no wonder they should embrace error for certainly, and be very positive in things they have no ground for.
There is not any who pretends to the least reason, but, when any of these his false maxims are brought to the test, must acknowledge them to be fallible, and such as he will not allow in those that differ from him; and yet, after he is convinced of this, you shall see him go on in the use of them, and the very next occasion that offers OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 1 7 argue again upon the same grounds. Would one not be ready to think that men are willing to impose upon themselves and mislead their own understandings, who conduct them 1))' such wrong measures, even after they see they cannot be relied on? But yet they will not appear so blameable as may be thought at first sight; for I think there are a great many tliat argue thus in earnest, and do it not to impose on themselves or others. They are persuaded of what they say, and think there is weight in it, though in a like case they have been " convinced there is none; but men would be intolerable to themselves, and contemptible lo others, if they should embrace opinions without any ground, and hold what they could give no manner of reason for. True or false, solid or sandy, the mind must have some foundation to rest itself upon, and, as I have remarked in another place, it no sooner entertains any proposition, but it frequently hastens to some hypothesis to bottom it on; till then it is unquiet and unsettled. So much do our own very tempers dispose us to a right use of our understandings, if we would follow as we should the inclinations of our nature.
In some matters of concernment, especially those of religion, men are not permitted to be always wavering and uncertain, they must embrace and profess some tenets or other; and it would be a shame, nay, a contradiction too heavy for any one's mind to lie constantly under, for him to pretend seriously to be persuaded of the truth of any religion, and yet not to be able to give any reason of his belief, or to say any thing for his preference of this to any other opinion. And therefore they must make use of some principles or other, and those can be no other than such as they have and can manage; and to say they are not in earnest persuaded by them, and do not rest upon c l8 OF THE CONDUCT those they make use of, is contrary to experience, and to allege that they are not misled when we complain they are.
If this be so, it will be urged, why then do they not rather make use of sure and unquestionable principles, than rest on such grounds as may deceive them, and will, as is visible, serve to support error as well as truth?
To this I answer, the reason why they do not make use of better and surer principles, is because they cannot; but this inability proceeds not from want of natural parts (for those few whose case that is are to be excused) but for want of use and exercise. Few men are from their youth accustomed to strict reasoning, and to trace the depend- ence of any truth in a long train of consequences to its remote principles, and to observe its connection; and he that by frequent practice has not been used to this em- ployment of his understanding, it is no more wonder that he should not, when he is grown into years, be able to bring his mind to it, than that he should not be on a sudden able to grave or design, dance on the ropes, or write a good hand, who has never practised either of them.
Nay, the most of men are so wholly strangers to this, that they do not so much as perceive their want of it. They dispatch the ordinary business of their callings by rote, as we say, as they have learnt it, and, if at any time they miss success, they impute it to any thing rather than want of thought or skill; that they conclude (because they know no better) they have in perfection. Or if there be any subject that interest or fancy has recom- mended to their thoughts, their reasoning about it is still after their own fashion; be it better or worse, it serves their turns, and is the best they are acquainted with: and therefore when they are led by it into mistakes, and their business succeeds accordingly, they impute it to any cross OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 1 9 accident, or default of others, rather than to their own want of understanding; that is what no body discovers or complains of in himself Whatsoever made his busi- ness to miscarry, it was not want of right thought and judgment in himself: he sees no such defect in himself, but is satisfied that he carries on his designs well enough by his own reasoning, or at least should have done, had it not been for unlucky traverses not in his power. Thus being content with this short and very imperfect use of his understanding, he never troubles himself to seek out methods of improving his mind, and lives all his life without any notion of close reasoning in a continued connection of a long train of consequences from sure foundations, such as is requisite for the making out and clearing most of the speculative truths most men own to believe and are most concerned in. Not to mention here what I shall have occasion to insist on by and by more fully, namely, that in many cases it is not one series of consequences will serve the turn, but many different and opposite deductions must be examined and laid together, before a man can come to make a right judgment of the point in question. What then can be expected from men that neither see the want of any such kind of reasoning as this, nor, if they do, know they how to set about it, or could perform it? You may as well set a countryman who scarce knows the figures, and never cast up a sum of three particulars, to state a mer- chant's long account, and find the true balance of it.
What then should be done in the case? I answer, we should always remember what I said above, that the faculties of our souls are improved and made u^ful to us just after the same manner as our bodies are.\ Would you have a man write or paint, dance or fence well, or ZO OF THE CONDUCT ZO OF THE CONDUCT perform any other manual operation dexterously and with ease, let him have ever so much vigour and activity, sup- pleness and address naturally, yet no body expects this from him unless he has been used to it, and has em- ployed time and pains in fashioning and forming his hand or outward parts to these motions. Just so it is in the mind; would you have a man reason well, you must use him to it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the connection of ideas and following them in train. Nothing does this better than mathematics, which therefore I think should be taught all those who have the time and oppor- tunity, not so much to make them mathematicians as to make them reasonable creatures; for though we all call ourselves so, because we are born to it if we please, yet we may truly say nature gives us but the seeds of it; we are born to be, if we please, rational creatures, but it is use and exercise only that makes us so, and we are in- deed so no farther than industry and application has carried us. And therefore, in ways of reasoning which men have not been used to, he that will observe the conclusions they take up must be satisfied they are not tatt all rational. '' This has beeh~'the less taken notice of, because every one, in his private affairs, uses some sort of reasoning or other, enough to denominate him reasonable. But the mistake is, that he that is found reasonable in one thing is concluded to be so in all, and to think or say otherwise is thought so unjust an affront, and so senseless a cen- sure, that no body ventures to do it. It looks like the degradation of a man below the dignity of his nature. \ It is true that he that reasons well in any one thing has a mind naturally capable of reasoning well in others, and to the same degree of strength and clearness, and pos- OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 21 sibly much greater, had his understanding been so em- ployed. But it is as true that he, who can reason well to day about one sort of matters, cannot at all reason to day about others, though perhaps a year hence he may. But wherever a man's rational faculty fails him, and will not serve him to reason, there we cannot say he is rational, how capable soever he may be by time and exercise to become so.
Try in men of low and mean education, who have never elevated their thoughts above the spade and the plough, nor looked beyond the ordinary drudgery of a day labourer. Take the thoughts of such an one, used for many years to one track, out of that narrow compass he has been all his life confined to, you will find him no Tnore capable of reasoning than almost a perfect natural. \^Some one or two rules, on which their conclusions imme- diately depend, you will find in most men have governed all their thoughts; these, true or false, have been the maxims they have been guided by: take these from them, and they are perfectly at a loss, their compass and pole star then are gone, and their understanding is perfectly at a nonplus, and therefore they either immediately return to their old maxims again as the foundations of all truth to them, notwithstanding all that can be said to shew their weakness, or, if they give them up to their reasons, they with them give up all truth and further enquiry, and think there is no such thing as certainty. For if you would enlarge their thoughts, and settle them upon more remote and surer principles, they either can- not easily apprehend them, or, if they can, know not what use to make of them; for long deductions from remote principles is what they have not been used to, and cannot manage.
23 OF, THE CONDUCT What then, can grown men never be improved or enlarged in their understandings? I say not so, but this I think I may say, that it will not be done without in- dustry and application, which will require more time and pains than grown men, settled in their course of life, will allow to it, and therefore very seldom is done. And this very capacity of attaining it by use and exercise only brings us back to that which I laid down before, that it is only practice that improves our minds as well as bodies, and we must expect nothing from our under- standings any farther than they^are perfected by habits.
The Americans are not all born with worse under- standings than the Europeans, though we see none of them have such reaches in the arts and sciences. And among the children of a poor countryman, the lucky chance of education and getting into the world gives one infinitely the superiority in parts over the rest, who, con- tinuing at home, had continued also just of the same size with his brethren.
He that has to do with young scholars, especially in mathematics, may perceive how their minds open by degrees, and how it is exercise alone that opens them. Sometimes they will stick a long time at a part of a demonstration, not for want of will and application, but really for want of perceiving the connection of two ideas that, to one whose understanding is more exercised, is as visible as any thing can be. The same would be with a grown man beginning to study mathematics; the under- standing, for want of use, often sticks in very plain way, and he himself that is so puzzled, when he comes to see the connection, wonders what it was he stuck at in a case so plain.
OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 2$ SECTION VII.
MATHEMATICS.
I have mentioned mathematics as a way to settle in the mind a habit of reasoning closely and in train; not that I think it necessary that all men should be deep mathe- maticians, but that having got the way of reasoning, which that study necessarily brings the mind to, they might be able to transfer it to other parts of knowledge as they shall have occasion. For, in all sorts of reasoning, every single argument should be managed as a mathematical demonstration, the connection and dependence of ideas should be followed till the mind is brought to the source on which it bottoms and observes the coherence all along, though, in proofs of probability, fbne such train is not enough to settle the judgment as in demonstrative knowledge.
Where a truth is made out by one demonstration, there needs no farther enquiry, but in probabilities where there wants demonstration to establish the truth beyond doubt, there it is not enough to trace one argument to its source, and observe its strength and weakness, but all the argu- ments, after having been so examined on both sides, must be laid in balance one against another, and upon the whole the understanding determine its assent.
This is a way of reasoning the understanding should be accustomed to, which is so different from what the illiterate are used to, that even learned men oftentimes seem to have very little or no notion of it. Nor is it to be wondered, since the way of disputing in the schools leads them quite away from it, by insisting on one topical argument, by the success of which the truth or 34 OF THE CONDUCT falsehood of the question is to be determined and victory adjudged to the opponent or defendant; which is all one as if one should balance an account by one sum charged and discharged, when there are an hundred others to be taken into consideration.
This therefore it would be well if men's minds were accustomed to, and that early, that they might not erect their opinions upon one single view,^^vhen so many other are requisite to make up the account, and must come into the reckoning before a man can form a right judgment._J This would enlarge their minds, and give a due freedom to their understandings, that they might not be led into error by presumption, laziness or precipitancy; for 1 think no body can approve such a conduct of the under- standing as should mislead it from truth, though it be ever so much in fashion to make use of it.
To this perhaps it will be objected, that to manage the understanding, as I propose, would require every man to be a scholar, and to be furnished with all the materials of knowledge, and exercised in all the ways of reasoning. To which I answer, that it is a shame for those that have time and the means to attain knowledge, to want any helps or assistance for the improvement of their under- standings that are to be got, and to such I would be thought here chiefly to speak. Those methinks, who, by the industry and parts of their ancestors have been set free from a constant drudgery to their backs and their bellies, should bestow some of their spare time on their heads, and open their minds by some trials and essays in all the sorts and matters of reasoning. I have before mentioned mathematics, wherein algebra gives new helps and views to the understanding. If I propose these, it is not, as I said, to make every man a thorough mathema- OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 2.5 tician, or a deep algebraist; but yet I think the study of them is of infinite use even to grown men.