Whether it be a love of that which brings the first light and information to their minds, and want of vigour and industry to enquire, or else that men content themselves with any appearance of knowledge, right or wrong, which, when they have once got, they will hold fast: this is visible, that many men give themselves up to OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 6\ the first anticipations of their minds, and are very tenacious of the opinions that first possess them; they are often as fond of their first conceptions as of their first born, and will by no means recede from the judgment they have once made, or any conjecture or conceit which they have once entertained. This is a fault in the conduct of the understanding, since this firmness or rather stiffness of the mind is not from an adherence to truth but a submission to prejudice. It is an unreasonable homage paid to prepossession, whereby we shew a reverence not to (what we pretend to seek) truth; but what by hap-hazard we chance to light on, be it what it will. This is visibly a preposterous use of our faculties, and is a downright prostituting of ttfe' mind to resign it thus, and put it under the power of the first comer. This can never be allowed or ought to be followed as a right way to knowledge, till the understanding (whose business it is to conform itself to what it finds on the objects without) can by its own opiniatrity change that, and make the unalterable nature of things comply with its own hasty determinations, which will never be. Whatever we fancy, things keep their course; and their habitudes, correspondences, and relations keep the same to one another.
SECTION XXVII.
RESIGNATION.
Contrary to these, but by a like dangerous excess on the other side, are those who always resign their judgment to the last man they heard or read. Truth never sinks into these men's minds, nor gives any tincture to 6a OF THE CONDUCT them, but, chameleon-like, they take the colour of what is laid before them, and as soon lose and resign it to the next that happens to come in their way. The order wherein opinions are proposed or received by us is no rule of their rectitude, nor ought to be a cause of their preference. First or last in this case is the effect of chance, and not the measure of truth or falsehood. This every one must confess, and therefore should, in the pursuit of truth, keep his mind free from the influence of any such accidents. A man may as reasonably draw cuts for his tenets, regulate his persuasion by the cast of a die, as take it up for its novelty, or retain it because it had his first assent and he was never of another mind. Well-weighed reasons are to determine the judgment; those the mind should be always ready to hearken and submit to, and by their testimony and suffrage entertain or reject any tenet indifferently, whether it be a perfect stranger or an old acquaintance.
SECTION XXVIII.
PRACTICE.
Though the faculties of the mind are improved by exercise, yet they must not be put to a stress beyond their strength. Quid valeant humeri, quid f err e recusefii, must be made the measure of every one's understanding, who has a desire not only to perform well, but to keep up the vigour of his faculties, and not to balk his understanding by what is too hard for it. The mind by being engaged in a task beyond its strength, like the body strained by lifting at a weight OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 6^ too heavy, has often its force broken, and thereby gets an unaptness or an aversion to any vigorous attempt ever after. A sinew cracked seldom recovers its former strength, or at least the tenderness of the sprain remains a good while after, and the memory of it longer, and leaves a lasting caution in the man not to put the part quickly again to any robust employment. So it fares in the mind once jaded by an attempt above its power; It either is disabled for the future, or else checks at any vigorous undertaking ever after, at least is very hardly brought to exert its force again on any subject that requires thought and meditation. The understanding should be brought to the difficult and knotty parts of knowledge, that try the strength of thought and a full bent of the mind, by insensible degrees; and in such a gradual proceeding nothing is too hard for it. Nor let it be objected, that such a slow progress will never reach the extent of some sciences. It is not to be imagined how far constancy will carry a man; however, it is better walking slowly in a rugged way, than to break a leg and be a cripple. He that begins with the calf may carry the ox; but he that will at first go to take up an ox, may so disable himself, as not [to] be able to lift a calf after that. When the mind, by insensible degrees, has brought itself to attention and close thinking, it will be able to cope with difiiculties, and master them without any prejudice to itself, and then it may go on roundly. Every abstruse problem, every intricate question will not baffle, discourage, or break it. But though putting the mind unprepared upon an unusual stress that may discourage or damp it for the future ought to be avoided, yet this must not run it, by an over great shyness of difBculties, into a lazy sauntering about ordinary and obvious things that demand no thought or application. This debases and enervates the understanding, makes it weak and unfit for labour. This is a sort of hovering about the surface of things, without any insight into them or penetration; and, when the mind has been once habituated to this lazy recumbency and satisfaction on the obvious surface of things, it is in danger to rest satisfied there, and go no deeper, since it cannot do it without pains and digging. He that has for some time accustomed himself to take up with what easily off"ers itself at first view, has reason to fear he shall never reconcile himself to the fatigue of turning and tumbling things in his mind to discover their more retired and more valuable secrets.
It is not strange that methods of learning, which scholars have been accustomed to in their beginning and entrance upon the sciences, should influence them all their lives, and be settled in their minds by an overruling reverence, especially if they be such as universal use has established. Learners must at first be believers, and, their masters' rules having been once made axioms to them, it is no wonder they should keep that dignity, and, by the authority they have once got, mislead those who think it sufficient to excuse them, if they go out of their way in a well beaten track.
SECTION XXIX.
WORDS.
I have copiously enough spoken of the abuse of words in another place, and therefore shall upon this reflection, that the sciences are full of them, warn those that would OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 6$ conduct their understandings right, not to take any term, liowsoever authorized by the language of the schools, to stand for any thing till they have an idea of it. A word may be of frequent use and great credit with several authors, and be by them made use of, as if it stood for some real being; but yet if he that reads cannot frame any distinct idea of that being, it is certainly to him a mere empty sound without a meaning, and he learns no more by all that is said of it or attributed to it, than if it were affumed only of that bare empty sound. They who would advance in knowledge, and not deceive and swell themselves with a little articulated air, should lay down this as a fundamental rule, not to take words for things, nor suppose that names in books signify real entities in nature, till they can frame clear and distinct ideas of those entities. It will not perhaps be allowed if I should set down suhstajitial forms and ijitentmial species, as such that may justly be suspected to be of this kind of insignificant terms. But this I am sure, to one that can form no determined ideas of what they stand for, they signify nothing at all; and all that he thinks he knows about them is to him so much knowledge about nothing, and amounts at most but to a learned ignorance. It is not without all reason supposed, that there are many such empty terms to be found in some learned writers, to which they had recourse to etch out their systems where their understandings could not furnish them with conceptions from things. But yet I believe the supposing of some realities in nature, answering those and the like words, have much perplexed some, and quite misled others in the study of nature. That which in any discourse signifies, / know noi what, should be considered / know noi when. Where men have any conceptions, they F can, if they are ever so abstruse or abstracted, explain them, and the terms they use for them. For our conceptions being nothing but ideas, which are all made up of simple ones, if they cannot give us the ideas their words stand for, it is plain they have none. To what purpose can it be to hunt after his conceptions, who has none, or none distinct? He that knew not what he himself meant by a learned term, cannot make us know any thing by his use of it, let us beat our heads about it ever so long. Whether we are able to comprehend all the operations of nature and the manners of them, it matters not to enquire; but this is certain, that we can comprehend no more of them than we can distinctly conceive; and therefore to obtrude terms where we have no distinct conceptions, as if they did contain or rather conceal something, is but an artifice of learned vanity, to cover a defect in an hypothesis or our understandings. Words are not made to conceal, but to declare and shew something: where they are by those, who pretend to instruct, otherwise used, they conceal indeed something, but that which they conceal is nothing but the ignorance, error, or sophistry of the talker, for there is, in truth, nothing else under them.
SECTION XXX.
WANDERING.
That there is a constant succession and flux of ideas in our minds, I have observed in the former part of this essay, and every one may take notice of it in himself. This I suppose may deserve some part of our care in the conduct of our understandings; and I think it may OF THE UNDERSTANDING. 6/ be of great advantage, if we can by use get that power over our minds as to be able to direct that train of ideas, that so, since there will new ones perpetually come into our thoughts by a constant succession, we may be able by choice so to direct them, that none may come in view, but such as are pertinent to our present enquiry, and in such order as may be most useful to the discovery we are upon; or at least, if some foreign and unsought ideas will offer themselves, that yet we might be able to reject them, and keep them from taking off our minds from its present pursuit, and hinder them from running away with our thoughts quite from the subject in hand. This is not, I suspect, so easy to be done as perhaps may be imagined; and yet, for aught 1 know, this may be, if not the chief, yet one of the great differences that carry some men in their reasoning so far beyond others, where they seem to be naturally of equal parts. A proper and effectual remedy for this wandering of thoughts I would be glad to find. He that shall propose such an one would do great service to the studious and contemplative part of mankind, and perhaps help unthijiking men to become thinking. I must acknowledge that hitherto I have discovered no 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 suppose would sooner reconcile and inure them to attention, than all those rougher methods which more distract their thought, and, hindering the application they would promote, 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 understanding. 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 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 consideration. For entity itself, that comprehends all things, as general as it is, may afford us clear and rational conceptions. 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 distinctions, which are to be taken only from a due contemplation 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, wherewith learned men's writings are often filled; and we sometimes find what they treat of so divided and subdivided, 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 copying 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 knowledge 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 consists 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 without 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 distinct 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 signification it distinguishes, is but a distinct name for a distinct idea. Where they are so, and men have clear and distinct 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, 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 methodto 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 plausible 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 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 conceived 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 mistaken 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 comprehend 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 metaphorical 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 no farther than simile and metaphor, we may assure ourselves we rather fancy than know, and are not yet penetrated 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.
It is not safe to play with error, and dress it up to ourselves 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 afterwards comes by use to usurp it, and what is recommended 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.