cessary, but let your modesty and patience, and a friendly temper, be as conspicuous as your zeal.

XI. WHEN a man speaks with much freedom and ease, and gives his opinion in the plainest language of common sense, do not presently imagine you shall gain nothing by his company. Sometimes you will find a person who, in his conversation or his writings, delivers his thoughts in so plain, so easy, so familiar and perspicuous a manner, that you both understand and assent to every thing he saith as fast as you read or hear it hereupon some hearers have been ready to conclude in haste, Surely this man says none but common things, I knew as much before, or I could have said all this myself.' This is a frequent mistake. Pellucido was a very great genius; when he spoke in the senate he was wont to convey his ideas in so simple and happy a manner, as to instruct and convince every hearer, and to enforce the conviction through the whole illustrious assembly; and that with so much evidence, that you would have been ready to wonder that every one who spoke had not said the same things: but Pellucido was the only man that could do it, the only speaker who had attained this art and honour. Such is the writer of whom Horace would say,

--- Ut sibi quivis,

Speret idem, sudet multum, frustraque laboret
Ausus idem.

De. Art. Poet.

Smooth be your style, and plain and natural,
To strike the sons of Wapping or Whitehall.
While others think this easy to attain,

Let them but try, and with their utmost pain,
They'll sweat and strive to imitate in vain.

}

XII. IF any thing seem dark in the discourse of your companion, so that you have not a clear idea of what is spoken, endeavour to obtain a clearer conception of it by a decent manner of inquiry. Do not charge the speaker

with obscurity either in his sense or his words, but entreat his favour to relieve your own want of penetration, or to add an enlightening word or two, that you may take up his whole meaning.

If difficulties arise in your mind, and constrain your dissent to the things spoken, represent what objections some persons would be ready to make against the sentiments of the speaker, without telling him you oppose. This manner of address carries something more modest and obliging in it, than to appear to raise objections of your own by way of contradiction to him that spoke.

XIII. WHEN you are forced to differ from him who delivers his sense on any point, yet agree as far as you can, and represent how far you agree; and if there be any room for it, explain the words of the speaker in such a sense to which you can in general assent and so agree with him: or at least, by a small addition or alteration of his sentiments, shew your own sense of things. It is the practice and delight of a candid hearer to make it appear how unwilling he is to differ from him that speaks. Let the speaker know that it is nothing but truth constrains you to oppose him, and let that difference be always expressed in few and civil and chosen words, such as give the least offence.

And be careful always to take Solomon's rule with you, and let your correspondent fairly finish his speech before you reply; "for he that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him," Prov. xviii. 13.

A little watchfulness, care, and practice in younger life, will render all these things more easy, familiar, and natural to you, and will grow into habit.

XIV. As you should carry about with you a constant and sincere sense of your own ignorance, so you should not be afraid nor ashamed to confess this ignorance, by taking all proper opportunities to ask and inquire for farther information; whether it be the meaning of a word, the nature of a thing, the reason of a proposition, the custom of a nation, &c. never remain in ignorance for want of asking. Many

Many a person had arrived at some considerable degree of knowledge, if he had not been full of self-conceit, and imagined that he had known enough already, or else was ashamed to let others know that he was unacquainted with it. God and man are ready to teach the meek, the humble, and the ignorant; but he that fancies himself to know any particular subject well, or that will not venture to ask a question about it, such an one will not put himself into the way of improvement by inquiry and diligence. "A fool may

be wiser in his own conceit than ten men who can render a reason," and such a one is very likely to be an everlasting fool; and perhaps also it is a silly shame renders his folly incurable.

Stultorum incurata pudor malus ulcera celat.

Hor. Epist. 16. Lib. i.

In English thus ;

If fools have ulcers, and their pride conceal'em ;
They must have ulcers still, for none can heal’em.

XV. BE not too forward, especially in the younger part of life, to determine any question in company with an infallible and peremptory sentence, nor speak with assuming airs, and with a decisive tone of voice. A young man, in the presence of his elders, should rather hear and attend, and weigh the arguments which are brought for the proof or refutation of any doubtful proposition: and when it is your turn to speak, propose your thoughts rather in way of inquiry. By this means your mind will be kept in a fitter temper to receive truth, and you will be more ready to correct and improve your own sentiments, where you have not been too positive in affirming them. But if you have magisterially decided the point, you will find a secret unwillingness to retract, though you should feel an inward conviction that you were in the wrong.

XVI. Ir is granted indeed that a season may happen, when some bold pretender to science may assume haughty and positive airs to assert and vindicate a gross and dangerous error, or to renounce and vilify some very important truth and if he has a popular talent of talking, and there be no remonstrance made against him, the company may be tempted too easily to give their assent to the impudence and infallibility of the presumer. They may imagine a proposition so much vilified can never be true, and that a doctrine, which is so boldly censured and renounced, can never be defended. Weak minds are too ready to persuade themselves that a man would never talk with so much assurance unless he were certainly in the right, and could well maintain and prove what he said. By this means truth itself is in danger of being betrayed or lost, if there be no opposition made to such a pretending talker.

Now, in such a case, even a wise and modest man may assume airs too, and repel insolence with its own weapons. There is a time, as Solomon, the wisest of men, teaches us, when a fool should be answered according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit, and lest others too easily yield up their faith and reason to his imperious dictates. Courage and positivity are never more necessary than on such an occasion. But it is good to join some argument with them of real and convincing force, and let it be strongly pronounced too.

When such a resistance is made, you shall find some of these bold talkers will draw in their horns, when their fierce and feeble pushes against truth and reason are repelled with pushing and confidence. It is pity indeed that truth should ever need such sort of defences; but we know that a triumphant assurance hath sometimes supported gross falsehoods, and a whole company have been captivated to error by this means, till some man with equal assurance has rescued them. It is pity that any momentous point of doctrine should happen to fall under such reproaches, and require such a mode of vindication: though, if I happen to hear it,

I

I ought not to turn my back, and to sneak off in silence, and leave the truth to lie baffled, bleeding, and slain. Yet I must confess I should be glad to have no occasion ever given me to fight with any man at this sort of weapons, even though I should be so happy as to silence his insolence, and obtain an evident victory.

XVII. BE not fond of disputing every thing pro and con, nor indulge yourself to shew your talent of attacking and defending. A logic which teaches nothing else is little worth. This temper and practice will lead you just so far out of the way of knowledge, and divert your honest inquiry after the truth which is debated or sought. In set disputes, every little straw is often laid hold on to support our own cause; every thing that can be drawn in any way to give colour to our argument is advanced, and that perhaps with vanity and ostentation. This puts the mind out of a proper posture to seek and receive the truth.

.. XVIII. Do not bring a warm party-spirit into a free conversation, which is designed for mutual improvement in the search of truth. Take heed of allowing yourself in those self-satisfied assurances, which keep the doors of the understanding barred fast against the admission of any new sentiments. Let your soul be ever ready to hearken to further discoveries, from a constant and ruling consciousness of our present fallible and imperfect state; and make it pear to your friends that it is no hard task for you to learn and pronounce those little words, I was mistaken, how hard soever it be for the bulk of mankind to pronounce them.

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XIX. As you may sometimes raise inquiries for your own instruction and improvement, and draw out the learning, wisdom, and fine sentiments of your friends, who perhaps may be too reserved or modest, so, at other times, if you perceive a person unskilful in the matter of debate, you may, by questions aptly proposed in the Socratic me-thod, lead him into a clearer knowledge of the subject: then you become his instructor in such a manner as may not appear to make yourself his superior.