notions, and the opinions of others, examine, with a perfect indifferency, the question in its source, without any inclination to either side, or any regard to his or others' unexamined opinions. This I own is no easy thing to do, but I am not enquiring the easy way to opinion, but the right way to truth; which they must follow who will deal fairly with their own understandings and their own souls.
OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 8 1 SECTION XXXVI.
QUESTION.
The indiflferency that I here propose will also enable them to state the question right, which they are in doubt about, without which they can never come to a fair and t lear decision of it.
SECTION XXXVII.
PERSEVERANCE.
Another fruit from this indifferency and the considering things in themselves, abstract from our own opinions and other men's notions and discourses on them, will be that each man will pursue his thoughts in that method which will be most agreeable to the nature of the thing and to his apprehension of what it suggests to him; in which he ought to proceed with regularity and constancy, until he come to a well-grounded resolution wherein he may acquiesce. If it be objected that this will require every man to be a scholar, and quit all his other business, and betake himself wholly to study; I answer, I propose no more to any one than he has time for. Some men's state and condition requires no great extent of know- ledge; the necessary provision for life swallows the great- est part of their time. But one man's want of leisure is no excuse for the oscitancy and ignorance of those who have time to spare; and every one has enough to get as much knowledge as is required and expected of him, and he that does not that is in love with ignorance, and is accountable for it.
G 8a OF THE CONDUCT SECTION XXXVIII.
PRESUMPTION.
The variety of distempers in men's minds is as great as of those in their bodies; some are epidemic, few escape them, and every one too, if he would look into himself, would find some defect of his particular genius. There is scarce any one without some idiosyncrasy that he suflfers by. This man presumes upon his parts, that they will not fail him at time of need, and so thinks it superfluous labour to make any provision before hand. His understanding is to him like Fortunatus's purse, which is always to furnish him without ever putting any thing into it before-hand; and so he sits still satisfied, without endeavouring to store his understanding with knowledge. It is the spontaneous product of the country, and what need of labour in tillage? Such men may spread their native riches before the ignorant; but they were best not come to stress and trial with the skilful. We are born ignorant of every thing. The superficies of things that surround them make impressions on the negligent, but no body penetrates into the inside without labour, attention, and industry. Stones and timber grow of themselves, but yet there is no uniform pile with symmetry and conveni- ence to lodge in without toil and pains. God has made the intellectual world harmonious and beautiful without us; but it will never come into our heads all at once; we must bring it home piecemeal, and there set it up by our own industry, or else we shall have nothing but dark- ness and a chaos within, whatever order and light there be in things without us.
OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 83 SECTION XXXIX.
DESPONDENCY.
On the other side, there are others that depress their own minds, despond at the first difficulty, and conclude that the getting an insight in any of the sciences or making any progress in knowledge, farther than serves their ordinary business, is above their capacities. These sit still, because they think they have not legs to go; as the others I last mentioned do, because they think they have wings to fly, and can soar on high when they please. To these latter one may for answer apply the proverb. Use legs and have legs. No body knows what strength of parts he has till he has tried them. And of the understanding one may most truly say, that its force is greater generally than it thinks, till it is put to it. Viresqtie acquirit ewido.
And therefore the proper remedy here is but to set the mind to work, and apply the thoughts vigorously to the business; for it holds in the struggles of the mind, as in those of war, Dum putaitt se vincere, vicere; a per- suasion that we shall overcome any difficulties that we meet with in the sciences seldom fails to carry us through them. No body knows the strength of his mind and the force of steady and regular application, till he has tried. This is certain, he that sets out upon weak legs will not only go farther, but grow stronger too than one who, with a vigorous constitution and firm limbs, only sits still.
Something of kin to this men may observe in them- selves, when the mind frights itself (as it often does) with 84 OF THE CONDUCT any thing reflected on in gross, and transiently viewed confusedly and at a distance. Things, thus offered to the mind, carry the shew of nothing but difficulty in them, and are thought to be wrapped up in impenetrable obscurity. But the truth is, these are nothing but spectres that the understanding raises to itself to flatter its own laziness. It sees nothing distinctly in things remote and in a huddle, and therefore concludes too faintly that there is nothing more clear to be discovered in them. It is but to approach nearer, and that mist of our own raising that enveloped them will remove; and those that in that mist appeared hideous giants, not to be grappled with, will be found to be of the ordinary and natural size and shape. Things that in a remote and confused view seem very obscure, must be approached by gentle and regular steps; and what is most visible, easy, and obvious in them first considered. Reduce them into their distinct parts; and then in their due order bring all that should be known concerning every one of those parts into plain and simple questions; and then what was thought ob- scure, perplexed, and too hard for our weak parts, will lay itself open to the understanding in a fair view, and let the mind into that which before it was awed with and kept at a distance from, as wholly mysterious. I appeal to my reader's experience, whether this has never hap- pened to him, especially when, busy on one thing, he has occasionally reflected on another. I ask him, whether he has never thus been scared with a sudden opinion of mighty difficulties, which yet have vanished, when he has seriously and methodically applied himself to the consideration of this seeming terrible subject; and there has been no other matter of astonishment left, but that he amused himself with so discouraging a prospect of his own rais- OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 85* ing about a matter, which in the handling was found to have nothing in it more strange nor intricate than several other things which he had long since and with ease mas- tered? Tiiis experience should teach us how to deal with such bugbears another time, which should rather serve to excite our vigour than enervate our industry. The surest way for a learner, in this as in all other cases, is not to advance by jumps and large strides; let that which he sets himself to learn next be indeed the next, i. e. as nearly conjoined with what he knows already as is pos- sible; let it be distinct but not remote from it; let it be new and what he did not know before, that the understanding may advance; but let it be as little at once as may be, that its advances may be clear and sure. All the ground that it gets this way it will hold. This distinct gradual growth in knowledge is firm and sure, it carries its own light with it in every step of its progres- sion in an easy and orderly train, than which there is nothing of more use to the understanding. And thougli this perhaps may seem a very slow and Imgering way to knowledge, yet I dare confidently affirm tliat whoever will try it in himself, or any one he will teach, shall find the advances greater in this method, than they would in the same space of time have been in any other he could have taken. The greatest part of true knowledge lies in a distinct perception of things in themselves distinct. And some men give more clear light and knowledge by the bare distinct stating of a question, than others by talking of it in gross whole hours together. In this, they who so state a question do no more but separate and disen- tangle the parts of it one from another, and lay them, when so disentangled, in their due order. This often, without any more ado, resolves the doubt, and shews 86 OF THE CONDUCT the mind where the truth lies. The agreement or disa- greement of the ideas in question, when they are once separated and distinctly considered, is, in many cases, presently perceived, and thereby clear and lasting know- ledge gained; whereas things in gross taken up together, and so lying together in confusion, can produce in the mind but a confused, which in effect is no knowledge, or at least, when it comes to be examined and made use of, will prove little better than none. I therefore take the liberty to repeat here again what I have said else- where, that, in learning any thing, as little should be proposed to the mind at once as is possible; and, that being understood and fully mastered, to proceed to the next adjoining part yet unknown, simple, unperplexed pro- position belonging to the matter in hand, and tending to the clearing what is principally designed.
SECTION XL.
ANALOGY.
Analogy is of great use to the mind in many cases, especially in natural philosophy, and that part of it chiefly which consists in happy and successful experiments. But here we must take care that we keep ourselves within that wherein the analogy consists. For example, the acid oil of vitriol is found to be good in such a case, therefore the spirit of nitre or vinegar may be used in the like case. If the good eff^ect of it be owing wholly to the acidity of it, the trial may be justified; but if there be something else besides the acidity in the oil of vitriol, which pro- duces the good we desire in the case, we mistake that OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 87 lor analogy, which is not, and suffer our understanding to be misguided by a wrong supposition of analogy where there is none.
SECTION XLI.
ASSOCIATION'.
Though I have, in the second book of my Essay con- i crning Human Understanding, treated of the association of ideas; yet having done it there historically, as giving- a view of the understanding in this as well as its several other ways of operating, rather than designing there to enquire into the remedies [that] ought to be applied to it: it will, under this latter consideration, afford other matter of thought to those who have a mind to instruct themselves thoroughly in the right way of conducting their understandings; and that the rather, because this, if I mistake not, is as frequent a cause of mistake and error in us as perhaps any thing else that can be named, and is a disease of the mind as hard to be cured as any; it being a very hard thing to convince any one that things are not so, and naturally so, as they constantly appear to him.
By this one easy and unheeded miscarriage of the understanding, sandy and loose foundations become in- fallible principles, and will not suffer themselves to be touched or questioned: such unnatural connections be- come by custom as natural to the mind, as sun and light. Fire and warmth go together, and so seem to carry with tliem as natural an evidence as self-evident truths them- selves. And where then shall one with hopes of success begin the cure '^ INIany men firmly embrace fiilsehood for truth; not only because they never thought otherwise, but 88 OF THE CONDUCT 88 OF THE CONDUCT also because, thus blinded as they have been from the beginning, they never could think otherwise; at least without a vigour of mind able to contest the empire of habit, and look into its own principles, a freedom which few men have the notion of in themselves, and fewer are allowed the practice of by others; it being the great art and business of the teachers and guides in most sects, to suppress, as much as they can, this fundamental duty which every man owes himself, and [which] is the first steady step towards right and truth in the whole train of his actions and opinions. This would give one reason to suspect that such teachers are conscious to themselves of the falsehood or w-eakness of the tenets they profess, since they will not suffer the grounds whereon they are built to be examined; whereas those who seek truth only, and desire to own and propagate nothing else, freely expose their principles to the test, are pleased to have them examined, give men leave to reject them if they can, and, if there be any thing weak and unsound in them, are willing to have it detected, that they themselves, as well as others, may not lay any stress upon any received proposition beyond what the evidence of its truth will warrant and allow.
There is, I know% a great fault among all sorts of people of principHng their children and scholars; which at last, when looked into, amounts to no more, but making them imbibe their teachers' notions and tenets by an implicit faith, and firmly to adhere to them whether true or false. What colours may be given to this, or of what use it may be when practised upon the vulgar, destined to labour and given up to the service of their bellies, I will not here enquire. But as to the ingenuous part of mankind, whose condition allows them leisure, OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 89 and letters, and enquiry after truth, I can sec no other right way of principling them, but to take heed, as much as may be, that, in their tender years, ideas that have no natural cohesion come not to be united in their heads, and that this rule be often inculcated to them to be their guide in the whole course of their lives and studies, viz. that they never suflfer any ideas to be joined in their understandings in any other or stronger combination than what their own nature and correspondence give them; and that they often examine those that they find linked together in their minds, whether this association of ideas be from the visible agreement that is in the ideas them- selves, or from the habitual and prevailing custom of the mind joining them thus together in thinking.
This is for caution against this evil, before it be thoroughly riveted by custom in the understanding; but he that would cure it, when habit has established it, must nicely observe the very quick and almost imperceptible motions of the mind in its habitual actions. What I have said in another place about the change of the ideas of sense into those of judgment may be proof of this. Let any one not skilled in painting be told when he sees botdes and tobacco pipes, and other things so painted, as they are in some places shewn, that he does not see protuberances, and you will not convince him but by the touch: he will not believe that, by an instantaneous leger- demain of his own thoughts, one idea is substituted for the other. How frequent instances may one meet with of this in the arguings of the learned, who not seldom, in two ideas that they have been accustomed to join in their minds, substitute one for the other; and, I am apt to think, often without perceiving it themselves. This, whilst they are under the deceit of it, makes them incapable of 90 OF THE coy DUCT 90 OF THE coy DUCT conviction, and they applaud themselves as zealous cham- pions for truth, when indeed they are contending for error. And the confusion of two different ideas, which a customary connection of them in their minds hath made to them almost one, fills their heads with false views, and their reasonings with false consequences.
SECTION XLII.
FALLACIES.
Right understanding consists in the discovery and adherence to truth, and that in the perception of the visible or probable agreement or disagreement of ideas, as they are affirmed and denied one of another. From whence it is evident that the right use and conduct of the understanding, whose business is purely truth and nothing else, is, that the mind should be kept in a perfect indifferency, not inclining to either side, any farther than evidence settles it by knowledge, or the overbalance of probability gives it the turn of assent and belief; but yet it is very hard to meet with any discourse, wherein one may not perceive the author not only maintain (for that is reasonable and fit) but inclined and biassed to one side of the question, with marks of a desire that that should be true. If it be asked me, how authors who have such a bias and lean to it may be discovered, I answer, by observing how, in their writ- ings or arguings, they are often led by their inclinations to change the ideas of the question, either by changing the terms, or by adding and joining others to them, whereby the ideas under consideration are so varied as to be more serviceable to their purpose, and to be thereby OF THE UNDERSTANDING. Qf brought to an easier and nearer agreement or more visible and remoter disagreement one with another. This is plain and direct sophistry; but I am far from thinking that, wherever it is found, it is made use of with design to deceive and mislead the readers. It is visible that men's prejudices and inclinations by this way impose often upon themselves; and their affections for truth, under their prepossession in favour of one side, is the very thing that leads them from it. Inclination suggests and slides into their discourse favourable terms, which introduce favourable ideas, till at last, by this means, that is concluded clear and evident, thus dressed up, which taken in its native state, by making use of none but the precise determined ideas, would find no admit- tance at all. The putting these glosses on what they affirm, these, as they are thought, handsome, easy, and graceful explications of what they are discoursing on, is so much the character of what is called and esteemed writing well, that it is very hard to think that authors will ever be persuaded to leave what serves so well to propagate their opinions and procure themselves credit in the world, for a more jejune and dry way of writing, by keeping to the same terms precisely annexed to the same ideas, a sour and blunt stiffness tolerable in ma- thematicians only, who force their way and make truth prevail by irresistible demonstration.
But yet if authors cannot be prevailed with to quit the looser, though more insinuating, ways of writing, if they will not think fit to keep close to truth and instruction by unvaried terms and plain unsophisticated arguments, yet it concerns readers not to be imposed on by fallacies and the prevailing ways of insinuation. To do this, the surest and most effectual remedy is, to 9Z OF THE CONDUCT fix in the mind the clear and distinct ideas of the question stripped of words; and so Ukewise, in the train of argu- mentation, to take up the author's ideas, neglecting his words, observing how they connect or separate those in the question. He that does this will be able to cast off all that is superfluous; he will see what is pertinent, what coherent, what is direct to, what slides by the question. This will readily shew him all the foreign ideas in the discourse, and where they were brought in; and though they perhaps dazzled the writer, yet he will perceive that they give no light nor strength to his reasonings.
This, though it be the shortest and easiest way of reading books with profit, and keeping one's self from being misled by great names or plausible discourses, yet, it being hard and tedious to those who have not accus- tomed themselves to it, it is not to be expected that every one (amongst those few who really pursue truth) should this way guard his understanding from being imposed on by the wilful or, at least, undesigned sophistry, which creeps into most of the books of argument. They that write against their conviction, or that next to them are resolved to maintain the tenets of a party they are engaged in, cannot be supposed to reject any arms that may help to defend their cause, and therefore such should be read with the greatest caution. And they who write for opinions they are sincerely persuaded of, and believe to be true, think they may so far allow themselves to indulge their laudable affection to truth, as to permit their esteem of it to give it the best colours, and set it off with the best expressions and dress they can, thereby to gain it the easiest entrance into the minds of their readers and fix it deepest there.
One of those being the state of mind we may justly OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 93 suppose most writers to be in, it is fit their readers, who apply to them for instruction, should not lay by that caution which becomes a sincere pursuit of truth and should make them always watchful against whatever might conceal or misrepresent it. If they have not the skill of representing to themselves the author's sense by pure ideas separated from sounds, and thereby divested of the false liglits and deceitful ornaments of speech, this yet they should do, they should keep the precise question steadily in their minds, carry it along with them through the whole discourse, and suffer not the least alteration in the terms, either by addition, subtraction, or substituting any other. This every one can do who has a mind to it: and he that has not a mind to it, it is plain makes his understanding only the warehouse of other men's lumber; I mean, false and unconcluding reasonings, rather than a repository of truth for his own use, which will prove substantial and stand him in stead when he has occasion for it. And whether such an one deals fairly by his own mind, and conducts his own understanding right, I leave to his own understanding to judge.
SECTION XLIII.
FUNDAMENTAL VERITIES.
The mind of man being very narrow, and so slow in making acquaintance with things and taking in new truths that no one man is capable, in a much longer life than ours, to know all truths; it becomes our prudence, in our search after knowledge, to employ our thoughts about fundamental and material questions, carefully avoiding those that are trifling, and not suffering our- 94 OF THE CONDUCT selves to be diverted from our main even purpose by those that are merely incidental. How much of many young men's time is thrown away in purely logical enquiries, I need not mention. This is no better than if a man, who was to be a painter, should spend all his time in examining the threads of the several cloths he is to paint upon, and counting the hairs of each pencil and brush he intends to use in the laying on of his colours. Nay, it is much worse than for a young painter to spend his apprenticeship in such useless niceties; for he, at the end of all his pains to no purpose, finds that it is not painting, nor any help to it, and so is really to no pur- pose. Whereas men designed for scholars have often their heads so filled and warmed with disputes on logical questions, that they take those airy useless notions for real and substantial knowledge, and think their under- standings so well furnished with science that they need not look any farther into the nature of things, or descend to the mechanical drudgery of experiment and inquiry. This is so obvious a mismanagement of the under- standing, and that in the professed way to knowledge, that it could not be passed by; to which might be joined abundance of questions, and the way of handling them in the schools. What faults in particular of this kind every man is, or may be guilty of, would be infinite to enu- merate; it suffices to have shewn that superficial and slight discoveries and observations that contain nothing of moment in themselves, nor serve as clues to lead us into farther knowledge, should be lightly passed by, and never thouglit worth our searching after. There are fundamental truths that lie at the bottom, the basis upon which a great many others rest, and in which they have their consistency. These are teeming truths, rich in