they offer themselves fast enough, and are usually entertained in such plenty and lodged so carefully, that the mind wants room or attention for others that it has more use and need of. To fit the understanding therefore for such reasoning as I have been above speaking of, care should be taken to fill it with moral and more abstract ideas; for these not offering themselves to the senses, but being to be framed to the understanding, people are generally so neglectful of a faculty they are apt to think wants nothing, that I fear most men's minds are more unfurnished with such ideas than is imagined. They often use the words, and how can they be suspected to want the ideas? What I have said in the third book of my essay, will excuse me from any other answer to this question. But to convince people of what moment it is to their understandings to be furnished with such abstract ideas steady and settled in them, give me leave to ask how any one shall be able to know whether he be obliged to be just, if he has not established ideas in his mind of obligation and of justice, since knowledge consists in nothing but the perceived agreement or disagreement of those ideas; and so of all others the like which concern our lives and manners. And if men do find a difficulty to see the agreement or disagreement of two angles which lie before their eyes, unalterable in a diagram, how utterly impossible will it be to perceive in it ideas that have no other sensible objects to represent them to the mind but sounds with which they have no manner of conformity, and therefore had need to be clearly setUed in the mind themselves, if we would make any clear judgment about them. This therefore is one of the first things the mind should be employed about in the right conduct of the understanding, without which it is impossible it should be capable of reasoning right about those matters. But in these and all other ideas, care must be taken that they harbour no inconsistences, and that they have a real existence where real existence is supposed, and are not mere chimeras with a supposed existence.
SECTION X.
PREJUDICE.
Every one is forward to complain of the prejudices that mislead other men or parties, as if he were free, and had none of his own. This being objected on all sides, it is agreed that it is a fault and an hindrance to knowledge. What now is the cure? No other but this, that every man should let alone others' prejudices and examine his own. No body is convinced of his by the accusation of another; he recriminates by the same rule, and is clear. The only way to remove this great cause of 3© OF THE CONDUCT 3© OF THE CONDUCT ignorance and error out of the world is for every one impartially to examine himself. If others will not deal fairly with their own minds, does that make my errors truths, or ought it to make me in love with them and willing to impose on myself? If others love cataracts on their eyes, should that hinder me from couching of mine as soon as I could? Every one declares against blindness, and yet who almost is not fond of that which dims his sight, and keeps the clear light out of his mind, which should lead him into truth and knowledge? False or doubtful positions, relied upon as unquestionable maxims, keep those in the dark from truth, who build on them. Such are usually the prejudices imbibed from education, party, reverence, fashion, interest, &c. This is the mote which every one sees in his brother's eye, but never regards the beam in his own. For who is there almost that is ever brought fairly to examine his own principles, and see whether they are such as will bear the trial? but yet this should be one of the first things every one should set about, and be scrupulous in, who would rightly conduct his understanding in the search of truth and knowledge.
To those who are willing to get rid of this great hindrance of knowledge — for to such only I write — to those who would shake off this great and dangerous impostor prejudice, who dresses up falsehood in the likeness of truth, and so dexterously hoodwinks men's minds as to keep them in the dark with a behef that they are more in the light than any that do not see with their eyes, I shall offer this one mark whereby prejudice may be known. He that is strongly of any opinion, must suppose (unless he be self-condemned) that his persuasion is built upon good grounds, and that his assent is no greater than what the evidence of the truth he holds forces him to, and that they are arguments and not inclination or fancy that make him so confident and positive in his tenets. Now if, after all his profession, he cannot bear any opposition to his opinion, if he cannot so much as give a patient hearing, much less examine and weigh the arguments on the other side, does he not plainly confess it is prejudice governs him? And it is not the evidence of truth, but some lazy anticipation, some beloved presumption that he desires to rest undisturbed in. For if what he holds be, as he gives out, well fenced with evidence, and he sees it to be true, what need he fear to put it to the proof? If his opinion be settled upon a firm foundation, if the arguments that support it and have obtained his assent be clear, good, and convincing, why should he be shy to have it tried whether they be proof or not? He whose assent goes beyond his evidence owes this excess of his adherence only to prejudice, and does, in effect, own it, when he refuses to hear what is offered against it; declaring thereby that it is not evidence he seeks, but the quiet enjoyment of the opinion he is fond of, with a forward condemnation of all that may stand in opposition to it, unheard and unexamined; which, what is it but prejudice? Qui aequum statuerit parte inauditd altera, etiam si aequum slatuerii, haud acquus fucrit. He that would acquit himself in this case as a lover of truth, not giving way to any preoccupation or bias that may mislead him, must do two things that are not very common nor very easy.
SECTION XI.
INDIFFERENCY.
First, he must not be in love with any opinion, or wish it to be true, till he knows it to be so, and then he will not need to wish it: for nothing that is false can deserve our good wishes, nor a desire that it should have the place and force of truth; and yet nothing is more frequent than this. Men are fond of certain tenets upon no other evidence but respect and custom, and think they must maintain them, or all is gone, though they have never examined the ground they stand on, nor have ever made them out to themselves, or can make them out to others. We should contend earnestly for the truth, but we should first be sure that it is truth, or else we fight against God, who is the God of truth, and do the work of the devil, who is the father and propagator of lies; and our zeal, though ever so warm, will not excuse us; for this is plainly prejudice.
SECTION XII.
EXAMINE.
Secondly, he must do that which he will find himself very averse to, as judging the thing unnecessary or himself incapable of doing it. He must try whether his principles be certainly true or not, and how far he may safely rely upon them. This, whether fewer have the heart or the skill to do, I shall not determine; but this I am sure, this is that which every one ought to do, who professes to love truth and would not impose upon him- OF THE UNDERSTANDTNG. 33 self which is a surer way to be made a fool of than by being exposed to the sophistry of others. The disposition to put any cheat upon ourselves works constantly, and we are pleased with it, but are impatient of being bantered or misled by others. The inability I here speak of is not any natural defect that makes men incapable of examining their own principles. To such, rules of conducting their understandings are useless, and that is the case of very few. The great number is of those whom the ill habit of never exerting their thoughts has disabled: the powers of their mincls are starved by disuse, and have lost that reach and strength which nature fitted them to receive from exercise. Those who are in a condition to learn the first rules of plain arithmetic, and could be brought to cast up an ordinary sum, are capable of this, if they had but accustomed their minds to reasoning: but they that have wholly neglected the exercise of their understandings in this way will be very far at first from being able to do it, and as unfit for it as one unpractised in figures to cast up a shopbook, and perhaps think it as strange to be set about it. And yet it must nevertheless be confessed to be a wrong use of our understandings to build our tenets (in things where we are concerned to hold the truth) upon principles that may lead, us into error. We take our principles at haphazard upon trust, and without ever having examined them, and then believe a w^hole system, upon a presumption that they are true and solid; and what is all this but childish, shameful, senseless credulity."* In these two things, namely, an equal indiffercncy for all truth, I mean the receiving it in the love of it as truth, but not loving it for any other reason before we know it to be true, and in the examination of our prin- D ciples, and not receiving any for such nor building on them till we are fully convinced, as rational creatures, of their solidity, truth, and certainty,.consists that freedom of the understanding which is necessary to a rational creature, and without which it is not truly an understanding. It is conceit, fancy, extravagance, any thing rather than understanding, if it must be under the constraint of receiving and holding opinions by the authority of any thing but their own, not fancied, but perceived, evidence. This was rightly called imposition, and is of all other the worst and most dangerous sort of it. For we impose upon ourselves, which is the strongest imposition of all others; and we impose upon ourselves in that part which ought with the greatest care to be kept free from all imposition. The world is apt to cast great blame on those who have an indifferency for opinions, especially in religion. I fear this is the foundation of great error and worse consequences. To be indifferent which of two opinions is true, is the right temper of the mind that preserves it from being imposed on, and disposes it to examine with that indifferency, till it has done its best to find the truth, and this is the only direct and safe way to it. But to be indifferent whether we embrace falsehood or truth or no, is the great road to error.
Those who are not indifferent which opinion is true are guilty of this; they suppose, without examining, that what they hold is true, and then think they ought to be zealous for it. Those, it is plain by their warmth and eagerness, are not indifferent for their own opinions, but methinks are very indifferent whether they be true or false, since they cannot endure to have any doubts raised or objections made against them; and it is visible they never have n.ade any themselves, and so, never having OF THE UNDERSTANDING. ^^ examined them, know not nor are concerned, as they should be, to know whether they be true or false.
These are the common and most general miscarriages which I think men should avoid or rectify in a right conduct of their understandings, and should be particularly taken care of in education. The business whereof in respect of knowledge is not, as I think, to perfect a learner in all or any one of the sciences, but to give his mind that freedom, that disposition, and those habits that may enable him to attain any part of knowledge he shall apply himself to, or stand in need of, in the future course of his life.
This and this only is well principling, and not the instilling a reverence and veneration for certain dogmas under the specious title of principles, which are often so remote from that truth and evidence which belongs to prmciples that they ought to be rejected as false and erroneous, and is often the cause, to men so educated, when they come abroad into the world, and find they cannot maintain the principles so taken up and rested in, to cast off all principles and turn perfect sceptics, regardless of knowledge and virtue.
There are several weaknesses and defects in the understanding, either from the natural temper of the mind or ill habits taken up, which hinder it in its progress to knowledge. Of these there are as many possibly to be found, if the mind were thoroughly studied, as there are diseases of the body, each whereof clogs and disables the understanding to some degree, and therefore deserves to be looked after and cured. I shall set down some few to excite men, especially those who make knowledge their business, to look into themselves, and observe ^\■helher they do not indulge some weakness, allow some miscarriages 2,6 OF THE CONDUCT in the management of their intellectual faculty, which is prejudicial to them in the search of truth.
SECTION XIII.
OBSERVATION.
Particular matters of fact are the undoubted foundations on which our civil and natural knowledge is built; the benefit the understanding makes of them is to draw from them conclusions, which may be as standing rules of knowledge, and consequently of practice. The mind often makes not that benefit it should of the information it receives from the accounts of civil or natural historians, in being too forward or too slow in making observations on the particular facts recorded in them.
There are those who are very assiduous in reading, and yet do not much advance their knowledge by it. They are delighted with the stories that are told, and perhaps can tell them again, for they make all they read nothing but history to themselves; but not reflecting on it, not making to themselves observations from what they read, they are very little improved by all that crowd of particulars that either pass through or lodge themselves in their understandings. They dream on in a constant course of reading and cramming themselves, but, not digesting any thing, it produces nothing but a heap of crudities.
If their memories retain well, one may say they have the materials of knowledge, but, like those for building, they are of no advantage, if there be no other use made of them but to let them lie heaped up together. Opposite to these there are others who lose the improvement they should make of matters of fact by a quite contrary conduct. They are apt to draw general conclusions, and raise axicjms from every particular they meet with. These make as little true benefit of history as the other, nay, being of forward and active spirits, receive more harm by it; it being of worse consequence to steer one's thoughts by a wrong rule than to have none at all, error doing to busy men much more harm than ignorance to the slow and sluggish. Between these, those seem to do best who taking material and useful hints, sometimes from single matters of fact, carry them in their minds to be judged of by what they shall find in history to confirm or reverse these imperfect observations; which may be established into rules fit to be relied on, when they are justified by a sufficient and wary induction of particulars. He that makes no such reflections on what he reads, only loads his mind with a rhapsody of tales fit in winter nights for the entertainment of others; and he that will improve every matter of fact into a maxim, will abound in contrary observations, that can be of no other use but to perplex and pudder him, if he compares them, or else to misguide him, if he gives himself up to the authority of that which for its novelty, or for some other fancy, best pleases him.
SECTION XIV.
BIAS.
SECTION XIV.
BIAS.
Next to these we may place those who suff'er their own natural tempers and passions they are possessed with to influence their judgments, especially of men and things that may any way relate to their present circumstances and interest. Truth is all sim})le, all pure, will bear no mixture of any thing else with it. It is rigid and inflexible to any bye interests; and so should the understanding be, whose use and excellency lies in conforming itself to it. To think of every thing just as it is in itself is the proper business of the understanding, though it be not that which men always employ it to. This all men, at first hearing, allow is the right use every one should make of his understanding. No body will be at such an open defiance with common sense, as to profess that we should not endeavour to know and think of things as they are in themselves, and yet there is nothing more frequent than to do the contrary. And men are apt to excuse themselves, and think they have reason to do so, if they have but a pretence that it is for God, or a good cause, that is, in effect, for themselves, their own persuasion, or party; for ttot those in their turns the several sects of men, esp>ecially in matters of religion, entitle God and a good cause. But God requires not men to wrong or misuse their faculties for Him, nor to lie to others or themselves for his sake; which they purposely do, who will not suffer their understandings to have right conceptions of the things proposed to them, and designedly restrain themselves from having just thoughts of every thing, as far as they are concerned to enquire. And as for a good cause, that needs not such ill helps, if it be good, truth will support it, and it has no need of fallacy or falsehood.
SECTION XV.
ARGUMENTS.
Very much of kin to this is the hunting after arguments to make good one side of a question, and wholly to neglect and refuse those which favour the other side.
What is this but wilfully to misguide the understanding? And [it] is so far from giving truth its due value, that it wholly debases it. [Men] espouse opinions that best comport with their power, profit, or credit, and then seek arguments to support them. Truth, light upon this way, is of no more avail to us than error; for what is so taken up by us may be false as well as true, and he has not done his duly who has thus stumbled upon truth in his way to preferment.
There is another, but more innocent way of collecting arguments, Vtry familiar among bookish men, which is to furnish themselves with the arguments they meet with pro and con in the questions they study. This helps them not to judge right, nor argue strongly, but only to talk copiously on either side, without being steady and settled in their own judgments: for such arguments gathered from other men's thoughts, floating only in the memory, are there ready indeed to supply copious talk with some appearance of reason, but are far from helping us to judge right. Such variety of arguments only distract the understanding that relies on them, unless it has gone farther than such a superficial way of examining; this is to quit truth for appearance, only to serve our vanity. The sure and only way to get true knowledge is to form in our minds clear settled notions of things, with names annexed to those determined ideas. These we are to consider, and with their several relations and habitudes, and not amuse ourselves with floating names, and words of indetermined signification, which we can use in several senses to serve a turn. It is in the perception of the habitudes and respects our ideas have one to another that real knowledge consists; and when a man once perceives how far they agree or disagree one with another, he will be able to judge of what other people say, and will not need to be led by the arguments of others, which are many of them nothing but plausible sophistry. This will teach him to state the question right, and see whereon it turns; and thus he will stand upon his own legs, and know by his own understanding. Whereas by collecting and learning arguments by heart, he will be but a retainer to others; and when any one questions the foundations they are built upon, he will be at a nonplus, and be fain to give up his implicit knowledge.
SECTION XVI.
HASTE.
Labour for labour['s] sake is against nature. The understanding, as well as all the other faculties, chooses always the shortest way to its end, would presently obtain the knowledge it is about, and then set upon some new inquiry. But this whether laziness or haste often misleads it, and makes it content itself with improper ways of search and such as will not serve the turn. Sometimes it rests upon testimony, when testimony of right has nothing to do, because it is easier to believe than to be scientifically instructed. Sometimes it contents itself with one argument, and rests satisfied with that, as it were a demonstration; whereas the thing under proof is not capable of demonstration, and therefore must be submitted to the trial of probabilities, and all the material arguments pro and con be examined and brought to a balance. In some cases the mind is determined by probable topics in inquiries, where demonstration may be had. All these, and several others, which laziness, impatience, custom, and want of use and attention lead men into, are misapplications of the understanding in the search of truth. In every question, OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 4I ihe nature and manner of the proof it is capable of should first be considered to make our inquiry such as it should be. This would save a great deal of frequently misemployed pains, and lead us sooner to that discovery and possession of truth we are capable of. The multiplyins; variety of arguments, especially frivolous ones, such as are all that are merely verbal, is not only lost labour, but cumbers the memory to no purpose, and serves only to hinder it from seizing and holding of the truth in all those cases which are capable of demonstration. In such a way of proof the truth and certainty is seen, and the mind fully possesses itself of it; when in the other way of assent, it only hovers about it, is amused with uncertainties. In this superficial way, indeed, the mind is capable of more variety of plausible talk, but is not enlarged as it should be in its knowledge., It is to this same haste and impatience of the mind also that a not due tracing of the arguments to their true foundation is owing; men see a little, presume a great deal, and so jump to the conclusion. \ This is a short way to fancy and conceit, and (if firmly embraced) to opiniatrity, but is certainly the farthest way about to knowledge. For he that will know must by the connection of the proofs see the truth, and the ground it stands on; and, therefore, if he has for haste skipt over what he should have examined, he must begin and go over all again, or else he will never come to knowledge. | SECTION XVII.
DESULTORY.
Another fault of as ill consequence as this, which proceeds also from laziness with a mixture of vanity, is the skipping from one sort of knowledge to another. Some men's tempers are quickly weary of any one thing. Constancy and assiduity is what they cannot bear: the same study long continued in is as intolerable to them, as the appearing long in the same clothes or fashion is to a court lady.
SECTION XVIII.
SMATTERING.
— Others, that they may seem universally knowing, get a little smattering in every thing. Both these may fill their heads with superficial notions of things, but are very much out of the way of attaining truth or knowledge.
SECTION XIX.
UNIVERSALITY.
I do not here speak against the taking a taste of every sort of knowledge; it is certainly very useful and necessary to form the mind, but then it must be done in a different way and to a different end. Not for talk and vanity to fill the head with shreds of all kinds, that he, who is possessed of such a frippery, may be able to match the discourses of all he shall meet with, as if nothing could come amiss to him, and his head was so well stored a magazine, that nothing could be proposed which he was not master of and was readily furnished to entertain any one on. This is an excellency indeed, and a great one too, to have a real and true knowledge in all or most of the objects of contemplation. But it is what the mind of one and the same man can hardly attain unto; and the instances are so few of those who have in any measure approached towards it, that I know not whether they are to be proposed as examples in the ordinary conduct of the understanding. For a man to understand fully the lousiness of his particular calling in the commonwealth, and of religion, which is his calling as he is a man in the world, is usually enough to take up his whole time; and there are few that inform themselves in these, which is every man's proper and peculiar business, so to the bottom as they should do. But though this be so, and there are very few- men that extend their thoughts towards universal knowledge, yet I do not doubt but if the right way were taken, and the methods of enquiry were ordered as they should be, men of little business and great leisure might go a great deal farther in it than is usually done. To return to the business in hand, the end and use of a little insight in those parts of knowledge, which are not a man's proper business, is to accustom our minds to all sorts of ideas and the proper ways of examining their habitudes and relations. This gives the mind a freedom, and the exercising the understanding in the several ways of inquiry and reasoning, which the most skilful have made use of, teaches the mind sagacity and wariness, and a suppleness to apply itself more closely and dexterously to the bents and turns of the matter in all its researches.
Besides, this universal taste of all the sciences, with an indifterency before the mind is possessed with any one in particular and grown into love and admiration of what is made its darling, will prevent another evil very commonly to be observed in those who ha\'e from the beginning been seasoned only by one part of knowledge. Let a man be given up to the contemplation of one sort of knowledge, antl that will become every thing. The mind will take such a tincture from a familiarity with that object, that every thing else, how remote soever, will be brought under the same view. A metaphysician will bring plowing and gardening immediately to abstract notions; the history of nature shall signify nothing to him. An alchymist, on the contrary, shall reduce divinity to the maxims of his laboratory, explain morality by Sal, Sulphur, and INIercury, and allegorize the scripture itself, and the sacred mysteries thereof, into the philosopher's stone. And I heard once a man, who had a more than ordinary excellency in music, seriously accommodate Moses' seven days of the first week to the notes of music, as if from thence had been taken the measure and method of the creation. It is of no small consequence to keep the mind from such a possession, which I think is best done by giving it a fair and equal view of the whole intellectual world, wherein it may see the order, rank, and beauty of the whole, and give a just allowance to the distinct provinces of the several sciences in the due order and usefulness of each of them.
If this be that which old men will not think necessary, nor be easily brought to, it is fit at least that it should be practised in the breeding of the young. The business of education, as I have already observed, is not, as I think, to make them perfect in any one of the sciences, but so to open and dispose their minds as may best make them capable of any, when they shall apply themselves to it. If men are for a long time accustomed only to one sort or method of thoughts, their minds grow stiff in it, and do not readily turn to another. It is therefore to give them this freedom, that I think they should be made to look into all sorts of knowledge, and exercise their understandings in so wide a variety and slock of knowledge. But 1 do not propose it as a variety and slock of know- OF THE UNDERSTANDTXG. 45 ledge, but a variety and freedom of thinking, as an increase of the powers and activity of the mind, not as an enlargement of its possessions.
SECTION XX.
RE.\niNG.