CHAP. I. General Rules for the improvement of Knowledge *. I. RULE. DEEPLY possess your mind with the vast importance of a good judgement, and the rich and inestimable advantage of right reasoning. Review the instances of your own misconduct in life; think seriously with yourselves how many follies and sorrows you had escaped, and how much guilt and misery you had prevented, if, from your early years, you had but taken due pains to judge aright concerning persons, times, and things. This will awaken you with lively vigour to address yourselves to the work of improving your reasoning powers, and seizing every opportunity and advantage for that end. II. Rule. CONSIDER the weaknesses, frailties, and mistakes of human nature in general, which arise from the very constitution of a soul united to an animal body, and subjected to many inconveniences thereby. Consider the many additional weaknesses, mistakes, and frailties, which are derived from our original apostasy and fall from a state of innocence; how much our powers of understanding are yet more darkened, enfeebled, and imposed upon by our senses, our fancies, and our unruly passions, &c. Consider the depth and difficulty of many truths, and the flattering appearances of falsehood, whence arises an infinite variety of dangers to which we are exposed in our judgement of things. Read with greediness those authors that treat of the doctrine of prejudices, prepossessions, and springs of error, on purpose to make your soul watchful on all sides, that it suffer not Though the most of these following rules are chiefly addressed to those whom their fortune or their station require to addict themselves to the peculiar improvement of their minds in greater degrees of knowledge, yet every one who has leisure and opportunity to be acquainted with such writings as these may find something among them for their own use. not itself as far as possible to be imposed upon by any of them. See more on this subject, Logic, part II. chap. 3. and part III. chap. 3. III. Rule. A SLIGHT view of things so romentous is not sufficient. You should therefore contrive and tactise some proper methods to acquaint yourself with your own ignorance, and to impress your mind with a deep and painful sense of the low and imperfect degrees of your present knowledge, that you may be incited with labour and activity to pursue after greater measures. Among others you may find some such methods as these successful. 1. Take a wide survey now and then of the vast and unlimited regions of learning. Let your meditations run over the names of all the sciences, with their numerous branches, and innumerable particular themes of knowledge; and then reflect how few of them you are acquainted with in any tolerable degree. The most learned of mortals will never find occasion to act over again what is fabled of Alexander the Great, that when he had conquered what was called the Eastern World, he wept for want of more worlds to conThe worlds of science are immense and endless. 2. Think what a numberless variety of questions and difficulties there are belonging even to that particular science you have made the greatest progress, and how few of them there are in which you have arrived at a final and undoubted certainty; excepting only those questions in the pure and simple mathematics, whose theorems are demonstrable, and leave scarcely any doubt; and yet, even in the pursuit of some few of these, mankind have been strangely bewildered. quer. in which 3. Spend a few thoughts sometimes on the puzzling inquiries concerning vacuums and atoms, the doctrine of infinites, indivisibles, and incommensurables in geometry, wherein there appear some insolvable difficulties: Do this on purpose to give you a more sensible impression of the poverty of your understanding, and the imperfection of your knowledge. This will teach you what a vain thing it is to fancy fancy that you know all things; and will instruct you to think modestly of your present attainments, when every dust of the earth, and every inch of empty space surmounts your understanding, and triumphis over your presumption. Arithmo had been bred up to accounts all his life, and thought himself a complete master of numbers. But when he was pushed hard to give the square root of the number 2, he tried at it, and laboured long in millesimal fractions, until he confessed there was no end of the inquiry; and yet he learnt so much modesty by this perplexing question, that he was afraid to say it was an impossible thing. It is some good degree of improvement when we are afraid to be positive. 4. Read the accounts of those vast treasures of knowledge which some of the dead have possessed, and some of the living do possess. Read and be astonished at the almost incredible advances which have been made in science. Acquaint yourselves with some persons of great learning, that by converse among them, and comparing yourselves with them, you may acquire a mean opinion of your own attainments, and may be thereby animated with new zeal to equal them as far as possible, or to exceed: thus let your diligence be quickened by a generous and laudable emulation. If Vanillus had never met with Scitorio and Polydes, he had never imagined himself a mere novice in philosophy, nor ever set himself to study in good earnest. Remember this, that if, upon some few superficial acquirements, you value, exalt, and swell yourself, as though you were a man of learning already, you are thereby building a most impassable barrier against all improvement; you will lie down and indulge idleness, and rest yourself contented in the midst of deep and shameful ignorance. Multi ad scientiam pervenissent, si se illuc pervenisse non putassent. IV. Rule. PRESUME not too much upon a bright genius, a ready wit, and good parts; for this, without labour and study, will never make a man of knowledge and wisdom. This has been an unhappy temptation to persons of a vigorous and gay fancy to despise learning and study. They have been acknowledged to shine in an assembly, and sparkle in discourse upon common topics, and thence they took it into their heads to abandon reading and labour, and grow old in ignorance; but when they had lost the vivacities of animal nature and youth, they became stupid and sottish even to contempt and ridicule. Lucidas and Scintillo are young men of this stamp: they shine in conversation; they spread their native riches before the ignorant; they pride themselves in their own lively images of fancy, and ima gine themselves wise and learned; but they had best avoid the presence of the skilful, and the test of reasoning; and I would advise them once a-day to think forward a little, what a contemptible figure they will make in age. The witty men sometimes have sense enough to know their own foible, and therefore they craftily shun the attacks of argument, or boldly pretend to despise and renounce them; because they are conscious of their own ignorance, and inwardly confess their want of acquaintance with the skill of reasoning. V. Rule. As you are not to fancy yourself a learned man because you are blessed with a ready wit, so neither must you imagine that large and laborious reading, and a strong memory, can denominate you truly wise. What that excellent critic has determined when he decided the question, whether wit or study makes the best poet, may well be applied to every sort of learning Ego nec studium sine divite vena, Nec rude quid possit video ingenium: alterius sic Thus made English: HOR. de Art. Poet, Concerning poets there has been contest, Ne. No art without a genius will avail, And parts without the help of art will fail: Or verse will never shine with a transcendent light. OLDHAM. It is meditation and studious thought, it is the exercise of your own reason and judgement upon all you read, that gives good sense even to the best genius, and affords your understanding the truest improvement. A boy of strong memory may repeat a whole book of Euclid, yet be no geometrician; for he may not be able perhaps to demonstrate one single theorem. Memorino has learnt half the Bible by heart, and is become a living concordance, and a speaking index to theological folios, and yet he understands little of divinity. A well furnished library, and a capacious memory, are indeed of singular use towards the improvement of the mind; but if all your learning be nothing else but a mere amassment of what others have written, without a due penetration into their meaning, and without a judicious choice and determination of your own sentiments, I do not see what title your head has to true learning above your shelves. Though you have read philosophy and theology, morals and metaphysics in abundance, and every other art and science, yet if your memory is the only faculty employed, with the neglect of your reasoning powers, you can justly claim no higher character but that of a good historian of the sciences. Here note, many of the foregoing advices are more peculiarly proper for those who are conceited of their abilities, and are ready to entertain a high opinion of themselves. But a modest humble youth of a good genius should not suffer himself to be discouraged by any of these considerations. They are designed only as a spur to diligence, and a guard against vanity and pride. VI. Rule. BE not so weak as to imagine that a life of learning is a life of laziness and ease: dare not give up yourself |