custom and exercise has made it familiar, it will be dispatched in most occasions, without resting or interruption in the course of our reading. The motions and views of a mind exercised that way, are wonderfully quick; and a man used to such sort of reflections, sees as much at one glimpse, as would require a long discourse to lay before another, and make out an entire and gradual deduction. Be sides, that when the first difficulties are over, the delight and sensible advantages it brings, mightily encourages and enlivens the mind in reading, which, without this, is very improperly called study.

SECT. XXI.

INTERMEDIATE PRINCIPLES.

As an help to this, I think it may be proposed, that for the saving the long progression of the thoughts to remote and first principles in every case, the mind should provide itself several stages; that is to say, intermediate principles, which it might have recourse to in the examining those positions that come in its way. These, though they are not self-evident principles, yet, if they have been made out from them by a wary and unquestionable deduction, may be depended on as certain and infallible truths, and serve as unquestionable truths to prove other points depending on them, by a nearer and shorter view than remote and ge neral maxims. These may serve as land-marks to shew what lies in the direct way of truth, or is quite beside it. And thus mathematicians do,

who do not in every new problem run it back to the first axioms, through all the whole train of intermediate propositions. Certain theorems that they have settled to themselves upon sure demonstration, serve to resolve to them multitudes of propositions which depend on them, and are as firmly made out from thence, as if the mind went afresh over every link of the whole chain, that tie them to first self-evident principles. Only in other sciences great care is to be taken that they establish those intermediate principles, with as much caution, exactness, and indifferency, as mathematicians use in the settling any of their great theorems. When this is not done, but men take up the principles in this or that science upon credit, inclination, interest, &c. in haste, without due examination, and most unquestionable proof, they lay a trap for themselves, and as much as in them lies, captivate their understandings to mistake, falshood, and error.

SECT. XXII.

PARTIALITY.

As there is a partiality to opinions, which, as we have already observed, is apt to mislead the understanding; so there is often a partiality to studies, which is prejudicial also to knowledge and improvement. Those sciences which men are particularly versed in, they are apt to value and ex tol, as if that part of knowledge which every one has acquainted himself with, were that alone which was worth the having, and all the rest were

idle and empty amusements, comparatively of no use or importance. This is the effect of ignorance, and not knowledge; the being vainly puffed up with a flatulency, arising from a weak and narrow comprehension. It is not amiss that every one should relish the science that he has made his peculiar study; a view of its beauties, and a sense of its usefulness, carries a man on with the more delight and warmth, in the pursuit and improvement of it. But the contempt of all other knowledge, as if it were nothing in comparison of law or physic, of astronomy or chemistry, or perhaps some yet meaner part of knowledge wherein I have got some smattering, or am somewhat advanced, is not only the mark of a vain or little mind, but does this prejudice in the conduct of the understanding, that it coops it up within narrow bounds, and hinders it from looking abroad into other provinces of the intellectual world, more beautiful possibly, and more fruitful than that which it had until then laboured in; wherein it might find, besides new knowledge, ways or hints whereby it might be enabled the better to cultivate its own.

SECT. XXIII.

THEOLOGY.

THERE is indeed one science, (as they are now distinguished) incomparably above all the rest, where it is not by corruption narrowed into a trade or faction, for mean or ill ends, and secular interests; I mean theology, which containing the

knowledge of God and his creatures, our duty to him and his fellow-creatures, and a view of our present and future state, is the comprehension of all other knowledge directed to its true end: i. e. the honour and veneration of the Creator, and the happiness of mankind. This is that noble study which is every man's duty, and every one that can be called a rational creature is capable of. The works of nature, and the words of revelation, display it to mankind in characters so large and visi ble, that those who are not quite blind, may in them read, and see the first principles and most necessary parts of it; and from thence, as they have time and industry, may be enabled to go on to the more abstruse parts of it, and penetrate into those infinite depths filled with the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. This is that science

which would truly enlarge men's minds, were it studied, or permitted to be studied every where with that freedom, love of truth, and charity which it teaches, and were not made, contrary to its nature, the occasion of strife, faction, malignity, and narrow impositions, I shall say no more here of this, but that it is undoubtedly a wrong use of my understanding, to make it the rule and measure of another man's; a use which it is neither fit for, por capable of.

SECT. XXIV.

PARTIALITY.

THIS partiality, where it is not permitted an authority to render all other studies insignificant or

contemptible, is often indulged so far as to be relied upon, and made use of in other parts of knowledge, to which it does not at all belong, and wherewith it has no manner of affinity. Some men have so used their heads to mathematical figures, that giving a preference to the methods of that science, they introduce lines and diagrams into their study of divinity, or politic enquiries, as if nothing could be known without them; and others accustomed to retired speculations, run natural philosophy into metaphysical notions, and the abstract generalities of logic; and how often may one meet with religion and morality treated of in the terms of the laboratory, and thought to be improved by the methods and notions of chemistry. But he that will take care of the conduct of his understanding, to direct it right to the knowledge of things, must avoid these undue mixtures, and not by a fondness for what he has found useful and necessary in one, transfer it to another science, where it serves only to perplex and confound the understanding. It is a certain truth, that res nolunt male administrari, it is no less certain, res nolunt male intelligi. Things themselves are to be considered as they are in themselves, and then they will shew us in what way they are to be understood.

For to have right conceptions about them, we must bring our understandings to the inflexible natures, and unalterable relations of things, and not endeavour to bring things to any pre-conceived notions of our

own.

There is another partiality very commonly observable in men of study, no less prejudicial nor ridiculous than the former, and that is a fantastical