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CHAPTER XIV.

Of study, or meditation.

I. IT has been proved and established in some of the foregoing chapters, that neither our own observations, nor our reading the labours of the learned, nor the attendance on the best lectures of instruction, nor enjoying the brightest conversation, can ever make a man truly krowing and wise, without the labours of his own reason in surveying, examining and judging concerning all subjects upon the best evidence he can acquire. A good genius, or sagacity of thought, a happy judgment, a capacious memory, and large opportunities of observation and converse, will do much of themselves towards the cultivation of the mind, where they are well improved: but where the advantage of learned lectures, living instructions, and well chosen books, diligence and study are superadded, this man has all human aids concurring to raise him to a superior degree of wisdom and knowledge.

Under the preceding heads of discourse it has been already declared how our own meditation and reflection should examine, cultivate and improve all other methods and advantages of enriching the understanding. What remains in this chapter is to give some further occasional hints how to employ our own thoughts, what sort of subjects we should meditate on, and in what manner we should regulate our studies, and how we may improve our judgment, so as in the most effectual and compendi

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ous way to attain such knowledge as may be most useful for every man in his circumstances of life, and particu-. larly for those of the learned professions.

II. The first direction for youth is this, learn betimes to distinguish between words and things. Get clear and plain ideas of the things you are set to study. Do not content yourselves with mere words and names, lest your laboured improvements only amass a heap of unintelligible phrases, and you feed upon husks instead of kernels. This rule is of unknown use in every science.

But the greatest and most common danger is in the sacred science of theology, where settled terms and phrases have been pronounced divine and orthodox, which yet have no meaning in them. The scholastic divinity would furnish us with numerous instances of this folly: and yet for many ages all truth and all heresy have been determined by such senseless tests, and by words without ideas: such shibboleths as these have decided the secular fates of men; and bishoprics or burning, mitres or faggots have been the rewards of different persons, according as they pronounced these consecrated syllables, or not pronounced them. To defend them was all piety and pomp and triumph; to despise them, to doubt or deny them, was torture and death. A thousand thankofferings are due to that providence which has delivered our age and our nation from these absurd iniquities! O that every specimen and shadow of this madness were banished from our schools and churches in every shape!

III. Let not young students apply themselves to search out deep, dark and abstruse matters, far above their

reach, or spend their labour in any peculiar subjects, for which they have not the advantages of necessary antecedent learning, or books, or observations. Let them not be too hasty to know things above their present powers, nor plunge their enquiries at once into the depths. of knowledge, nor begin to study any science in the middle of it; this will confound rather than enlighten the understanding; such practices may happen to discourage and jade the mind by an attempt above its power, it may baulk the understanding, and create an aversion to future diligence, and perhaps by despair may forbid the pursuit of that subject for ever afterwards; as a limb overstrained by lifting a weight above its power, may never recover its former agility and vigour or if it does, the man may be frighted from ever exerting his strength again.

IV. Nor yet let any student on the other hand fright himself at every turn with unsurmountable difficulties, nor imagine that the truth is wrapt up in impenetrable darkness. These are formidable speetres which the understanding raises sometimes to flatter its own laziness. Those things which in a remote and confused view seem very obscure and perplexed, may be approached by gentle and regular steps, and may then unfold and explain themselves at large to the eye. The hardest problems in geometry, and the most intricate schemes or diagrams may be explicated and understood step by step: every great mathematician bears a constant witness to this observation.

V. In learning any new thing there should be as little as possible first proposed to the mind at once, and that

being understood and fully mastered, proceed then to the next adjoining part yet unknown. This is a slow, but safe and sure way to arrive at knowledge. If the mind apply itself first to easier subjects and things near akin to what is already known, and then advance to the more remote and knotty parts of knowledge by slow degrees, it will be able in this manner to cope with great difficulties, and prevail over them with amazing and happy

success,

Mathon happened to dip into the last two chapters of a new book of geometry and mensurations; as soon as he saw it, and was frighted with the complicated diagrams which he found there, about the frustums of cones and pyramids, &c. and some deep demonstrations among conic sections; he shut the book again in despair, and imagined none but a Sir Isaac Newton was ever fit to read it. But his tutor happily persuaded him to begin the first pages about lines and angles; and he found such surprising pleasure in three weeks time in the victories he daily obtained, that at last he became one of the chief geometers of his age.

VI. Engage not the mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once; especially such as have no relation to one another. This will be ready to distract the understanding, and hinder it from attaining perfection in any one subject of study. Such a practice gives a slight smattering of several sciences without any solid and substantial knowledge of them, and without any real and valuable improvement; and though two or three sorts of study may be usefully carried on at once, to entertain the mind with variety, that it may not be over,

tired with one sort of thoughts, yet a multitude of subjects will too much distract the attention, and weaken the application of the mind to any one of them.

Where two or three sciences are pursued at the same time, if one of them be dry, abstracted, and unpleasant, as logic, metaphysics, law, languages, let another be more entertaining and agreeable, to secure the mind from weariness and aversion to study. Delight should be intermingled with labour as far as possible, to allure us to bear the fatigue of dry studies the better. Poetry, practical mathematics, history &c. are generally esteemed entertaining studies, and may be happily used for this purpose. Thus while we relieve a dull and heavy hour by some alluring employments of the mind, our very diver sions enrich our understandings, and our pleasure is turned into profit.

VII. In the pursuit of every valuable subject of knowledge keep the end always in your eye, and be not diverted from it by every pretty trifle you meet with in the way. Some persons have such a wandering genius, that they are ready to pursue every incidental theme or occasional idea, till they have lost sight of their original subject. These are the men who when they are engaged in conversation prolong their story by dwelling on every incident, and swell their narrative with long parentheses, till they have lost their first design; like a man who is sent in quest of some great treasure, but he steps aside to gather every flower he finds, or stands still to dig up every shining pebble he meets with in his way, till the treasure is forgotten and never found.

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