Ir we would improve our minds by conversation, it is a great happiness to be acquainted with persons wiser than ourselves. It is a piece of useful advice, therefore, to get the favour of their conversation frequently, as far as circumstances will allow and if they happen to be a little reserved, use all obliging methods to draw out of them what may increase your own knowledge. : II. WHATSOEVER company you are in, waste not the time in trifle and impertinence. If you spend some hours amongst children, talk with them according to their capacity; mark the young buddings of infant reason; observe the different motions and distinct workings of the animal and the mind as far as you can discern them; take notice by what degrees the little creature grows up to the use of his reasoning powers, and what early prejudices beset and endanger his understanding. By this means you will learn how to address yourself to children for their benefit, and perhaps you may derive some useful philosophemes or theorems for your own entertainment. III. If you happen to be in company with a merchant or. a sailor, a farmer or a mechanic, a milk-maid or a spinster, lead them into a discourse of the matters of their own peculiar province or profession; for every one knows, or should know, his own business best. In this sense a common mechanic is wiser than a philosopher. By this means you may gain some improvement in knowledge from every one you meet. IV. CONFINE not yourself always to one sort of company, or to persons of the same party or opinion, either in matters of learning, religion, or the civil life, lest if you should happen to be nursed up or educated in early mistake, you should be confirmed and established in the same mistake, by conversing only with persons of the same sentiments. A free and general conversation with men of very various countries, and of different parties, opinions, and practices, (so far as it may be done safely), is of excellent use to undeceive us in many wrong judgements which we may have framed, and to lead us into juster thoughts. It is said, when the king of Siam, near China, first conversed with some European merchants, who sought the favour of trading on his coast, he inquired of them some of the common appearances of summer and winter in their country; and when they told him of water growing so hard in their rivers, that men, and horses, and laden carriages, passed over it, and that rain sometimes fell down almost as white and light as feathers, and sometimes almost as hard as stones, he would not believe a syllable they said: for ice, snow, and hail, were names and things utterly unknown to him, and to his subjects in that hot climate; he renounced all traffic , with such shameful liars, and would not suffer them to trade with his people. See here the natural effects of gross ignorance. Conversation with foreigners on various occasions has a happy influence to enlarge our minds, and to set them free from many errors and gross prejudices we are ready to imbibe concerning them. Domicillus has never travelled five miles from his mother's chimney, and he imagines all outlandish men are Papishes, and worship nothing but a cross. Tityrus, the shepherd, was bred up all his life in the country, and never saw Rome; he fancied it to be only a huge village, and was therefore infinitely surprised to find such palaces, such streets, such glittering treasures, and gay magnificence, as his first journey to the city shewed him, and with wonder he confesses his folly and mistake. So Virgil introduces a poor shepherd, Urbem, quam dicunt Romam, Melibae, putavi Thus Thus Englished: Fool that I was, I thought imperial Rome Conversation would have given Tityrus a better notion of Rome, though he had never happened to travel thither. V. IN mixed company, among acquaintance and strangers, endeavour to learn something from all. Be swift to hear, but be cautious of your tongue, lest you betray your ignorance, and perhaps offend some of those who are present./ The scripture severely censures those who speak evil of the things they know not. Acquaint yourself, therefore, sometimes with persons and parties which are far distant from your common life and customs: this is a way whereby you may form a wiser opinion of men and things. "Prove all things, and hold fast that which is good," is a divine rule, and it comes from the Father of light and truth. But young persons should practise it indeed with due limitation, and under the eye of their elders. VI. BE not frightened nor provoked at opinions different from your own. Some persons are so confident they are in the right, that they will not come within the hearing of any notions but their own: they canton out to themselves a little province in the intellectual world, where they fancy the light shines, and all the rest is darkness. They never venture into the ocean of knowledge, nor survey the riches of other minds, which are as solid and as useful, and perhaps are finer gold than what they ever possessed. Let not men imagine there is no certain truth but in the sciences which they study, and amongst that party in which they were born and educated. VII. BELIEVE that it is possible to learn something from persons much below yourself. We are all short-sighted creatures; our views are also narrow and limited; we often see but one side of a matter, and do not extend our sight far and F 4 and wide enough to reach every thing that has a connexion with the thing we talk of: we see but in part, and know but in part; therefore it is no wonder we form not right conclusions, because we do not survey the whole of any subject or argument. Even the proudest admirer of his own parts might find it useful to consult with others, though of inferior capacity and penetration. We have a different pro•spect of the same thing (if I may so speak) according to the different position of our understandings toward it ; a weaker man may sometimes light on notions which have escaped a wiser, and which the wiser man might make a happy use of, if he would condescend to take notice of them. VIII. IT is of considerable advantage, when we are pursuing any difficult point of knowledge, to have a society of ingenious correspondents at hand, to whom we may propose it: for every man has something of a different genius and a various turn of mind, whereby the subject proposed will be shown in all its lights, it will be represented in all its forms, and every side of it be turned to view, that a juster judgement may be framed. IX. To make conversation more valuable and useful, whether it be in a designed or accidental visit, among persons of the same or of different sexes, after the necessary salutations are finished, and the stream of common talk begins to hesitate, or runs flat and low, let some one person take a book which may be agreeable to the whole company, and, by common consent, let him read in it ten lines, or a paragraph or two, or a few pages, till some word or sentence gives an occasion for any of the company to offer a thought or two relating to that subject. Interruption of the reader should be no blame, for conversation is the business; whether it be to confirm what the author says, or to improve it, to enlarge upon or to correct it, to object against it, or to ask any question that is a-kin to it; and let all who incline, add their opinion, and promote the conversation. When the discourse sinks again, or diverts to trifles, let him that reads pursue the page, and read on further paragraphs paragraphs or pages, till some occasion is given by a word or sentence for a new discourse to be started, and that with the utmost ease and freedom. Such a method as this would prevent the hours of a visit from running all to waste; and by this means, even among scholars, they will seldom find occasion for that too just and bitter reflection, I have lost my time in the company of the learned.' By such practice as this young ladies may very honourably and agreeably improve their hours; while one applies herself to reading, the others employ their attention even among the various artifices of the needle: but let all of them make their occasional remarks or inquiries. This will guard a great deal of that precious time from modish trifling, impertinence or scandal, which might otherwise afford matter for painful repentance. Observe this rule in general, whensoever it lies in your power to lead the conversation, let it be directed to some profitable point of knowledge or practice, so far as may be done with decency; and let not the discourse and the hours be suffered to run loose without aim or design: and when a subject is started, pass not hastily to another, before you have brought the present theme of discourse to some tolerable issue, or a joint consent to drop it. X. ATTEND with sincere diligence while any one of the company is declaring his sense of the question proposed; hear the argument with patience, though it differ ever so much from your sentiments, for you yourself are very desirous to be heard with patience by others who differ from you. Let not your thoughts be active and busy all the while to find out something to contradict, and by what means to oppose the speaker, especially in matters which are not brought to an issue. This is a frequent and unhappy temper and practice. You should rather be intent and solicitous to take up the mind and meaning of the speaker, zealous to seize and approve all that is true in his discourse; por yet should you want courage to oppose where it is ne cessary, |