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cated arguments, yet it concerns readers not to be impofed on by fallacies, and the prevailing ways of infinuation. To do this, the fureft and most effectual remedy, is to fix in the mind the clear and distinct ideas of the queftion ftripped of words; and fo likewife in the train of argumentation, to take up the author's ideas, neglecting his words, obferving how they connect or feparate thofe in the queftion. He that does this will be able to caft off all that is fuperfuous; he will fee what is pertinent, what coherent, what is direct to, what flides by, the question. This will readily fhow him all the foreign ideas in the difcourfe, and where they were brought in; and though they perhaps dazzled the writer, yet he will perceive that they give no light nor ftrength to his reafonings. This, though it be the fhorteft and eafieft way of reading books with profit, and keeping one's felf from -being milled by great names or plaufible difcourses, yet it being hard and tedious to those who have not faccustomed themfelves to it, it is not to be expected that every one (amongst those few who really purfue truth) fhould this way guard his understanding from being impofed on by the wilful, or at leaft undefigned fophitry, which créeps into most of the books of ar gument. They that write against their conviction, For that, next to them, 'ate refolved to maintain the tenets of a party they are engaged in, cannot be supi pofed to reject any arms that may help to defend their caufe, and therefore fuch fhould be read with the greatest caution; and they who write for opinions they are fincerely perfuaded of, and believe to be true, think they may fo far allow themselves to indulge their laudable affection to truth, as to permit their esteem of it to give it the best colours, and fet it off with the best expreflions and drefs they can, thereby to gain it the eafieft entrance into the minds of their readers, and fix it deepest there.

One of those being the ftate of mind we may juftly fuppofe most writers to be in, it is fit their readers, who apply to them for inftruction, fhould hot la

that caution which becomes a fincere pursuit of trath, and should make them always watchiul against whatever might conceal or mifreprefent it. If they have not the kill of reprefenting to themfelves the author's fenfe, by pure ideas feparated from founds, and thereby diveited of the talie lights and deceitful ornaments of fpeech, this yet they thould do, they thould keep the precife question feadily in their minds, carry it along with them through the whole difcourfe, and fuffer not the leaft alteration in the terms, either by addition, fubtraction, or fubftituting 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 underlanding only the warehouse of other mens lamber; I mean falle and unconcluding reafoning, rather than a repofitory of truth for his own ufe, which will prove fabitantial, and ftand him in flead, when he has occafion for it. And whether fuch an one deals fairly by his own nånd, and conducts his own understanding right, I leave to his own understanding to judge.

$42. Fundamental Verities.

THE mind of man being very narrow, and fo flow 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 fearch after knowledge, to employ car thoughts about fundamental and naterial queftions, carefully avoiding those that are trifling, and not fuffering ourfelves to be diverted from our main even purpofe, by thofe that are merely incidental. How much of many young mens time is thrown away in purely logical inquiries, I need not mention. is no better than if a man, who was to be a painter, fhould fpend all his time in examining the threads of the feveral cloths he is to paint upon, and counting the hairs of each pencil and brufh he intends to ufe in the laying on of his colours. Nay, it is much worfe than for a young painter to spend his apprenticeship in fuch useless niceties; for he, at the end of all his pains to no purpose, finds that it' is not painting, hor.

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any help to it, and fo is really to no purpose: Whereas men defigned for fcholars have often their heads fo filled and warmed with difputes on logical questions, that they take thofe airy ufelefs notions for real and fubftantial knowledge, and think their underlandings fo well furnished with science, that they need not lock any farther into the nature of things, or defcend to the mechanical drudgery of experiment and inquiry. This is fo obvious a mifmanagement of the understanding, and that in the profeffed way to knowledge, that it could not be paffed 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 enumerate; it fuffices to have fhown, that fuperficial and flight difcoveries and obfervations that contain nothing of moment in themfelves, nor ferve as clues to lead us into farther knowledge, fhould not be thought worth our fearching after,

There are fundamental truths, that lie at the bottom, the bafis upon which a great many others reft, and in which they have their confiftency. These are teeming truths, rich in ftore, with which they furnish the mind, and like the lights of heaven, are not only beautiful and entertaining in, then felves, but give light and evidence to other things, that without them could not be feen or known. Such is that admhable difcovery of Mr. Newton, that all bodies gravitate to one another, which may be counted as the basis of natural philofopby; which of what ufe it is to the understanding of the great frame of our folar fyftem, he has to the aftonishment of the learned world shown, and how much farther it would guide us in other things, if rightly purfued, is pot yet known. Our Saviour's great rule, that we fould love our neighbour as ourselves, is fuch a fundamental truth for the regu lating human fociety, that, I think, by that alone one might without difficulty determine all, the cafes and doubts in focial morality. Thiefe, and fuch as

thefe, are the truths we should endeavour to find out, and store our minds with; which leads me to another thing in the' conduct of the understanding that is no lefs neceffary, viz..

$43. Bottoming.

To accustom ourselves in any question propofed, to examine and find out upon what it bottoms. Moft di the difficulties that come in our way, when well confidered and traced, lead us to fome propofition, which known to be true, clears the doubt, and gives an eafy folution of the question, whilst topical and fuperficial arguments, of which there is ftore to be found on both fides, filling the head with variety of thoughts, and the mouth with copious discourse, ferve only to amule the understanding, and entertain company, without coming to the bottom of the question, the only place of rest and ftability for an inquifitive mind, whofe tendency is only to truth and knowledge.

For example, if it be demanded, whether the Grand Signior can lawfully take what he will from any of his people? This queftion cannot be refolved without coming to a certainty, whether all men are naturally equal; for upon that it turns, and that truth well fettled in the understanding, and carried in the mind through the various debates concerning the various rights of men in fociety, will go a great way in putting an end to them, and fhowing on which fide the truth is.

44. Transferring of Thoughts.

THERE is fcarce any thing more for the improvement of knowledge, for the ease of life, and the difpatch of bufinefs, than for a man to be able to dispose of his own thoughts; and there is fcarce any thing harder in the whole conduct of the understanding than to get a full maftery over it. The mind, in a waking man, has always fome object that it applies itfelf to; which, when we are lazy or unconcerned, we can eafily change, and at pleasure transfer our thoughts to ano thes, and from thence to a third, which has no relation to either of the former. Hence men forwardly

conclude, and frequently fay, nothing is fo free as thought; and it were well it were fo; but the contrary will be found true in feveral inftances; and there are many cafes wherein there is nothing more refty and ungovernable than our thoughts; they will not be directed what objects to purfue, nor be taken off from thofe they have once fixed on, but run away with a man in purfuit of thofe ideas they have in view, let him do what he can.

I will not here mention again what I have above taken notice of, how hard it is to get the mind, narrowed by a custom of thirty or forty years ftanding to a fcanty collection of obvious and common ideas, to enlarge itself to a more copious flock, and grow into an acquaintance with thofe that would afford more abundant matter of useful contemplation; it is not of this I am here fpeaking: The inconveniency I would here reprefent and find a remedy for, is the difficulty there is fometimes to transfer our minds from one fubject to another, in cafes where the ideas are equally familiar to us.

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Matters that are recommended to our thoughts by any of our paffions, take poffeffion of our minds with a kind of authority, and will not be kept out or diflodged; but as if the paffion that rules were for the time the flieriff of the place, and came with all the poffe, the understanding is feized and taken with the object it introduces, as if it had a legal right to be alone confidered there. There is fearce any body, I think, of fo calm a temper, who hath not fome time found this tyranny on his understanding, and fuffered under the inconvenience of it. Who is there almoft, whofe mind, at fome time or other, love or anger, fear or grief, has not fo faftened to fonie clog, that it could not turn itself to any other object? I call it a clog, for it hangs upon the mind fo as to hinder its vigour and activity in the purfuit of other contemplations, and advances itself little or not at all in the knowledge of the thing which it fo clofely hugs and conftantly pores од. Men thus poffeffed, are fometimes as if the