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 in the objects without) can, by its own opinionatry, 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 the habitudes, correspondencies, and relations, keep the same to one another.

§ 27. Contrary to these, but by a like Resignadangerous excess, on the other side, are tion. 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 them; but, cameleon-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.

Practice.

$ 28. 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 ferre recusent, 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 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 up 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 difficulties, 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 difficulties, 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 offers 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 wellbeaten track.

§ 29. I have copiously enough spoken Words. 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 conduct their understandings right not to take any term, howsoever authorised 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 at

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tributed to it, than if it were affirmed 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 "substantial forms" and "intentional 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 be 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, "I know not what," should be considered "I know not when." Where men have any conceptions, they can, if they are never 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 headsabout it never so long. Whether we are able to comprehend all the operations of nature, and the manners of them, it matters not to inquire; 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 show something; where they are by those, who pretend to instruct, otherwise used, they conceal indeed something; but that that they conceal is nothing but the ignorance, error, or sophistry of the talker; for there is, in truth, nothing else under them.

Wandering.

§ 30. 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 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 inquiry, 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 I 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