other way to keep our thoughts close to their business, but the endeavouring as much as we can, and by frequent attention and application getting the habit of attention and application. He that will observe children, will find that, even when they endeavour their uttermost, they cannot keep- their minds from straggling. The way to cure it, I am satisfied, is not angry chiding or beating, for that presently fills their heads with all the ideas that fear, dread, or confusion can offer to them. To bring back gently their wandering thoughts, by leading them 6S OF THE CONDUCT into the path and going before them in the train they should pursue, without any rebuke, or so much as taking notice (where it can be avoided) of their roving, I sup- pose would sooner reconcile and inure them to attention, than all those rougher methods which more distract their thought, and, hindering the application they would pro- mote, introduce a contrary habit.
SECTION XXXI.
DISTINCTION.
Distinction and division are (if I mistake not the import of the words) very different things: the one being the perception of a difference that nature has placed in things; the other our making a division where there is yet none. At least, if I may be permitted to consider them in this sense, I think I may say of them, that one of them is the most necessary and conducive to true knowledge that can be, the other, when too much made use of, serves only to puzzle and confound the under- standing. To observe every the least difiference that is in things argues a quick and clear sight, and this keeps the understanding steady and right in its way to knowledge. But though it be useful to discern every variety that is to be found in nature, yet it is not convenient to consider every difference that is in things, and divide them into distinct classes under every such difference. This will run us, if followed, into particulars (for every individual has something that differences it from another), and we shall be able to establish no general truths, or else at least shall be apt to perplex the mind about them. The collection of several thinars into several classes gives the OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 69 mind more general and larger views; but we must take care to unite them only in that, and so far as they do agree, for so far they may be united under the considera- tion. For entity itself, that comprehends all things, as general as it is, may afford us clear and rational con- ceptions. If we would well weigh and keep in our minds what it is we are considering, that would best instruct us when we should or should not branch into farther dis- tinctions, which are to be taken only from a due contem- plation of things; to which there is nothing more opposite than the art of verbal distinctions, made at pleasure, in learned and arbitrarily invented terms to be applied at a venture, without comprehending or conveying any distinct notions, and so altogether fitted to artificial talk or empty noise in dispute, without any clearing of difficulties or advance in knowledge. Whatsoever subject we examine and would get knowledge in, we should, I think, make as general and as large as it will bear; nor can there be any danger of this, if the idea of it be settled and determined: for, if that be so, we shall easily distinguish it from any other idea, though comprehended under the same name. For it is to fence against the entanglements of equivocal words, and the great art of sophistry which lies in them, that distinctions have been mukiplied, and their use thought necessary. But had every distinct abstract idea a distinct known name, there would be little need of these multiplied scholastic distinctions, though there would be nevertheless as much need still of the mind's observing the differences that are in things, and discriminating them thereby one from another. It is not therefore the right way to knowledge, to hunt after, and fill the head with, abundance of artificial and scholastic distincdons, where- with learned men's writings are often filled; and we 70 OF THE CONDUCT sometimes find what they treat of so divided and sub- divided, that the mind of the most attentive reader loses the sight of it, as it is more than probable the writer himself did; for in things crumbled into dust it is in vain to affect or pretend order, or expect clearness. To avoid confusion by too few or too many divisions, is a great skill in thinking as well as writing, which is but the copy- ing our thoughts; but what are the boundaries of the mean between the two vicious excesses on both hands, I think is hard to set down in words: clear and distinct ideas is all that I yet know able to regulate it. But as to verbal distinctions received and applied to common terms, i.e. equivocal words, they are more properly, I think, the business of criticism and dictionaries than of real know- ledge and philosophy, since they, for the most part, explain the meaning of words, and give us their several significations. The dexterous management of terms, and being able to /end and prove with them, I know has and does pass in the world for a great part of learning; but it is learning distinct from knowledge, for knowledge con- sists only in perceiving the habitudes and relations of ideas one to another, which is done without words; the intervention of a sound helps nothing to it. And hence we see that there is least use of distinctions where there is most knowledge; I mean in mathematics, where men have determined ideas with known names to them; and so there being no room for equivocations, there is no need of distinctions. In arguing, the opponent uses as comprehensive and equivocal terms as he can, to involve his adversary in the doubtfulness of his expressions: this is expected, and therefore the answerer on his side makes it his play to distinguish as much as he can, and thinks he can never do it too much; nor can he indeed in that OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 7'!
way wherein victory may be had without truth and with- out knowledge. This seems to me to be the art of disputing. Use your words as captiously as you can in your arguing on one side, and apply distinctions as much as you can, on the other side, to every term, to nonplus your opponent; so that in this sort of scholarship, there being no bounds set to distinguishing, some men have thought all acuteness to have lain in it; and therefore in all they have read or thought on, their great business has l)een to amuse themselves with distincdons, and multiply to themselves divisions, at least more than the nature of the thing required. There seems to me, as I said, to be no other rule for this, but a due and right consideration of things as they are in themselves. He that has settled in his mind determined ideas, with names affi.xed to them, will be able both to discern their differences one from another, which is really distinguishing; and, where the })enury of words affords not terms answering every dis- tinct idea, will be able to apply proper distinguishing terms to the comprehensive and equivocal names he is forced to make use of. This is all the need I know of distinguishing terms; and, in such verbal distinctions, each term of the distinction, joined to that whose signifi- cation it distinguishes, is but a distinct name for a distinct idea. Where they are so, and men have clear and dis- tinct conceptions that answer their verbal distinctions, they are right, and are pertinent as far as they serve to clear any thing in the subject under consideration. And this is that which seems to me the proper and only measure of distinctions and divisions; which he that will conduct his understanding right must not look for in the acuteness of invention, nor the authority of writers, but will find only in the consideration of things themselves, 72 OF THE CONDUCT whether they are led into it by their own meditations or the information of boolcs.
An aptness to jumble things together, wherein can be found any likeness, is a fault in the understanding on the other side, which will not fail to mislead it, and, by thus lumping of things, hinder the mind from distinct and accurate conceptions of them.
SECTION XXXII.
SIMILES.
To which let me here add another near of kin to this, at least in name, and that is, letting the mind, upon the suggestion of any new notion, run immediately after similes to make it the clearer to itself; which, though it may be a good way and useful in the explaining our thoughts to others, yet it is by no means a right method- to settle true notions of any thing in ourselves, because similes always fail in some part, and come short of that exactness which our conceptions should have to things, if we would think aright. This indeed makes men plaus- ible talkers; for those are always most acceptable in discourse, who have the way to let their thoughts into other men's minds with the greatest ease and facility. Whether those thoughts are well formed and correspond with things, matters not; few men care to be instructed but at an easy rate, f They who in their discourse strike the fancy, and take the hearers' conceptions along with them as fast as their words flow, are the applauded talkers, and go for the only men of clear thoughts. Nothing contributes so much to this as similes, whereby men think they themselves understand better, because OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 73 they are Ijeltcr understood. ]iut it is one thing to think light, and another thing to know the right way to lay our thoughts before others with advantage and clearnesis, be they right or wrong!>j Well chosen similes, metaphors and allegories, with method and order, do this the best of any thing, because, being taken from objects already known and familiar to the understanding, they are con- ceived as fast as spoken; and, the correspondence being concluded, the thing they are brought to explain and elucidate is thought to be understood too. Thus fancy passes for knowledge, and what is prettily said is mis- taken for solid.X I say not this to decry metaphor, or with design to take away that ornament of speech; m\' business here is not with rhetoricians and orators, but with philosophers and lovers of truth; to whom I would beg leave to give this one rule whereby to try whether, in the application of their thoughts to any thing for the improvement of their knowledge, they do in truth com- prehend the matter before them really such as it is in itself The way to discover this is to observe whether, in the laying it before themselves or others, they make use only of borrowed representations and ideas foreign to the thing, which are applied to it by way of accmomodation, as bearing some proportion or imagined likeness to the subject under consideration. Figured and meta- phorical expressions do well to illustrate more abstruse and unfamiliar ideas which the mind is not yet thoroughly accustomed to; but then they must be made use of to illustrate ideas that we already have, not to paint to us those which we yet have not. Such borrowed and allusive ideas may follow real and solid truth, to set it off when found, but must by no means be set in its place and taken for it. If all our search has yet reached 74 OF THE CONDUCT no farther than simile and metaphor, we may assure our- selves we rather fancy than know, and are not yet pene- trated into the inside and reality of the thing, be it what it will, but content ourselves with what our imaginations, not things themselves, furnish us with.
SECTION XXXIII.
ASSENT.
In the whole conduct of the understanding, there is nothing of more moment than to know when, and where, and how far to give assent, and possibly there is nothing harder. It is very easily said, and no body questions it, that giving and withholding our assent, and the degrees of it, should be regulated by the evidence which things carry with them; and yet we see men are not the better for this rule; some firmly embrace doctrines upon slight grounds, some upon no grounds, and some contrary to appearance. Some admit of certainty, and are not to be moved in what they hold: others waver in every thing, and there want not those that reject all as uncertain. What then shall a novice, an enquirer, a stranger do in the case? I answer, use his eyes. There is a correspondence in things, and agreement and disagreement in ideas, discernible in very different degrees, and there are eyes in men to see them if they please, only their eyes may be dimmed or dazzled, and the discerning sight in them impaired or lost. Interest and passion dazzle, the custom of arguing on any side, even against our persuasions, dims the understanding, and makes it by degrees lose the faculty of discerning clearly between truth and falsehood, and so of adhering to the right side.
OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 75 It is not safe to play with error, and dress it up to our- selves or others in the shape of truth. The mind by degrees loses its natural relish of real solid truth, is reconciled insensibly to any thing that can but be dressed up into any faint appearance of it; and, if the fancy be allowed the place of judgment at first in sport, it after- wards comes by use to usurp it, and what is recom- mended by this flatterer (that studies but to please) is received for good. There are so many ways of fallacy, such arts of giving colours, appearances, and resemblances by this court dresser, the fancy, that he who is not wary to admit nothing but truth itself, very careful not to make his mind subservient to any thing else, cannot but be caught. He that has a mind to believe, has half assented already; and he that, by often arguing against his own sense, imposes falsehoods on others, is not far from believing himself. This takes away the great distance there is betwixt truth and falsehood; it brings them almost together, and makes it no great odds, in things that approach so near, which you take; and when things are brought to that pass, passion or interest, &c. easily, and without being perceived, determine which shall be the right.
• SECTION XXXIV.
INDIFFERENCY.
I have said above that we should keep a perfect indif- ferency for all opinions, not wish any of them true, or try to make them appear so; but, being indifferent, receive and embrace them according as evidence, and that alone, yG OF THE CONDUCT gives the attestation of truth. They that do thus, i.e. keep their minds indifferent to opinions, to be determined only by evidence, will always find the understanding has perception enough to distinguish between evidence or no evidence, betwixt plain and doubtful; and if they neither give nor refuse their assent but by that measure, they will be safe in the opinions they have. Which being perhaps but few, this caution will have also this good in it, that it will put them upon considering, and teach them the necessity of examining more than they do; without which the mind is but a receptacle of inconsistences, not the storehouse of truths. They that do not keep up this indifferency in themselves for all but truth, not supposed, but evidenced in themselves, put coloured spectacles before their eyes, and look on things through false glasses, and then think themselves excused in following the false appearances, which they themselves put upon them. I do not expect that by this way the assent should in every one be proportioned to the grounds and clear- ness wherewith every truth is capable to be made out, or that men should be perfectly kept from error: that is more than human nature can by any means be advanced to. I aim at no such unattainable privilege. I am only speaking of what they should do who would deal fairly with their own minds, and make a right use of their faculties in the pursuit of truth. We fail them a great deal more than they fail us. It is mismanagement more than want of abilities that men have reason to complain of, and which they actually do complain of in those that differ from them. He that, by an indifferency for all but truth, suffers not his assent to go faster than his evidence, nor beyond it, will learn to examine and examine fairly instead of presuming, and no body will be at a loss or in OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 77 danger for want of embracing those truths \vhich are necessary in his station and circumstances. In any other way but this, all the world are born to orthodoxy: they imbibe at first the allowed opinions of their country and party, and so, never questioning their truth, not one of a hundred ever examines. They are applauded for pre- suming they are in the right. He that considers is a foe to orthodoxy, because possibly he may deviate from some of the received doctrines there. And thus men, without any industry or acquisition of their own, inherit local truths (for it is not the same every where), and are inured to assent without evidence. This influences farther than is thought; for what one of a hundred of the zealous bigots in all parties ever examined the tenets he is so stiff in, or ever thought it his business or duty so to do? It is suspected of lukewarmness to suppose it necessary, and a tendency to apostacy to go about it. And if a man can bring his mind once to be positive and fierce for positions whose evidence he has never once examined, and that in matters of greatest concernment to him, what shall keep him from this short and easy way of being in the right in cases of less moment.? Thus we are taught to clothe our minds as we do our bodies after the fashion in vogue, and it is accounted fantasticalness, or something worse, not to do so. This custom (which who dares oppose?) makes the short-sighted bigots, and the warier sceptics, as far as it prevails. And those that break from it are in danger of heresy; for, taking the whole world, how much of it doth truth and orthodoxy possess together? Though it is by the last alone (which has the good luck to be every where) that error and heresy are judged of; for argument and evidence signify nothing in the case, and excuse no where, but are sure to be borne down in all 7 8 OF THE CONDUCT societies by the infallible orthodoxy of the place. Whether this be the way to truth and right assent, let the opinions, that take place and prescribe in the several habitable parts of the earth, declare. I never saw any reason yet why truth might not be trusted to its own evidence; I am sure, if that be not able to support it, there is no fence against error, and then truth and falsehood are but names that stand for the same things. Evidence therefore is that by which alone every man is (and should be) taught to regulate his assent, who is then and then only in the right way when he follows it.
Men deficient in knowledge, are usually in one of these three states: either wholly ignorant; or as doubting of some proposition they have either embraced formerly, or at present are inclined to; or, lastly, they do with assur- ance hold and profess, without ever having examined and been convinced by well grounded arguments.
The first of these are in the best state of the three, by having their minds yet in their perfect freedom and indif- ferency, the likelier to pursue truth the better, having no bias yet clapped on to mislead them.
SECTION XXXV.
IGNORANCE WITH INDIFFERENCY.
For ignorance with an indifferency for truth is nearer to it, than opinion with ungrounded inclination, which is the great source of error; and they are more in danger to go out of the way who are marching under the conduct of a guide, that it is a hundred to one will mislead them, than he that has not yet taken a step and is likelier to be pre- vailed on to enquire after the right way.
OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 79 The last of the three sorts are in the worst con- dition of all; for if a man can be persuaded and fully assured of any thing for a truth, without having examined, what is there that he may not embrace for truth? And if he has given himself up to believe a lie, what means is there left to recover one who can be assured without examining? To the other two this I crave leave to say, that as he that is ignorant is in the best state of the two, so he should pursue truth in a method suitable to that state, i.e. by enquiring directly into the nature of the thing itself, without minding the opinions of others, or troubling himself with their ques- tions or disputes about it, but to see what he himself can, sincerely searching after truth, find out. He that proceeds upon other principles in his enquiry into any sciences, though he be resolved to examine them and judge of them freely, does yet at least put himself on that side, and post himself in a parly which he will not quit till he be beaten out; by which the mind is insensibly engaged to make what defence it can, and so is unawares biassed. I do not say but a man should embrace some opinion when he has examined, else he examines to no purpose; but the surest and safest way is to have no opinion at all till he has examined, and that without any the least regard to the opinions or systems of other men about it. For example, were it my business to understand physic, would not the safer and readier way be to consult nature herself, and inform myself in the history of diseases and their cures, than espousing the principles of the dogmatists, methodists, or chymists, engage in all the disputes con- cerning either of those systems, and suppose it to be true, till I have tried what they can say to beat me out of it. Or, supposing that Hippocrates, or any other book.
8o OF THE CONDUCT infallibly contains the whole art of physic, would not the direct way be to study, read and consider that book, weigh and compare the parts of it to find the truth, rather than espouse the doctrines of any party, who, though they acknowledge his authority, have already interpreted and wiredrawn all his text to their own sense; the tincture whereof when I have imbibed, I am more in danger to misunderstand his true meaning, than if I had come to him with a mind unprepossessed by doctors and commentators of my sect, whose reasonings, interpreta- tion, and language, which I have been used to, will of course make all chime that way, and make another and perhaps the genuine meaning of the author seem harsh, ' strained, and uncouth to me. For words, having natu- rally none of their own, carry that signification to the hearer, that he is used to put upon them, whatever be the sense of him that uses them. This, I think, is visibly so; and if it be, he that begins to have any doubt of any of his tenets, which he received without ex- amination, ought, as much as he can, to put himself wholly into this state of ignorance in reference to that question, and throwing wholly by all his former