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them from others; be acquainted with Men as well as Books; learn all things as much as you can at firft Hand; and let as many of your Ideas as poffible be the Representations of Things, and not merely the Representations of other Mens Ideas: Thus your Soul, like fome noble Building, fhall be richly furnish'd with original Paintings, and not with mere Copies.

Direct. II. Use the most proper Methods to retain that Treasure of Ideas which you have acquired; for the Mind is ready to let many of them flip, unless fome Pains and Labour be taken to fix them upon the Memory.

And more especially let those Ideas be laid up and preferv'd with the greatest Care, which are moft directly fuited, either to your eternal Welfare as a Chriftian, or to your particular Station and Profeffion in this Life; for tho' the former Rule recommends an univerfal Acquaintance with Things, yet it is but a more general and fuperficial Knowledge that is required or expected of any Man, in Things which are utterly foreign to his own Business; but it is neceffary you fhould have a more particular and accurate Acquaintance with those things that refer to your peculiar Province and Duty in this Life, or your Happiness

in another.

There are some Perfons who never arrive at any deep, folid, or valuable Knowledge in any Science or any Bufinefs of Life, because they are perpetually fluttering over the Surface of Things in a curious and wandring Search of infinite Variety; ever hearing, reading, or afking after fomething new, but impatient of any Labour to lay up and preferve the Ideas they have gained: Their Souls may be compar'd to a Looking-Glafs,

that

that wherefoever you turn it, it receives the Images of all Objects, but retains none.

In order to preserve your Treasure of Ideas and the Knowledge you have gain'd, pursue these Advices, especially in your younger Years.

1. Recollect every Day the things you have seen, or beard, or read, which may have made any Addition to your Understanding: Read the Writings of God and Men with Diligence and perpetual Reviews Be not fond of hastning to a new Book, or a new Chapter, till you have well fix'd and eftablish'd in your Minds what was useful in the laft: Make use of your Memory in this manner, and you will fenfibly experience a gradual Improvement of it, while you take Care not to load it to excess.

2. Talk over the things which you have seen, beard or learnt with fome proper Acquaintance; this will make a fresh Impreffion upon your Memory; and if you have no fellow Student at hand, none of equal Rank with yourselves, tell it over to any of your Acquaintance, where you can do it with Propriety and Decency; and whether they learn any thing by it or no, your own Repetition of it will be an Improvement to yourself: And this Practice alfo will furnish you with a Variety of Words and copious Language, to express your Thoughts upon all Occafions.

3. Commit to writing fome of the moft confiderable Improvements which you daily make, at leaft fuch Hints as may recall them again to your Mind, when perhaps they are vanish'd and loft. And here I think Mr. Locke's Method of Adverfaria or common Places, which he defcribes in the End of the firft Volume of his pofthumous Works, is the best; ufing no learned Method at all, fetting down things as they occur, leaving a dif

tinct Page for each Subject, and making an Index

to the Pages.

At the End of every Week, or Month, or Year you may review your Remarks for thefe Reafons: First, to judge of your own Improvement, when you fhall find that many of your younger Collections are either weak and trifling; or if they are just and proper, yet they are grown now fo familiar to you, that you will thereby fee your own Advancement in Knowledge. And in the next Place what Remarks you find there worthy of your riper Obfervation, you may note them with a marginal Star, inftead of tranfcribing them, as being worthy of your fecond Year's Review, when the others are neglected.

To shorten fomething of this Labour, if the Books which you read are your own, mark with a Pen, or Pencil, the most confiderable Things in them which you defire to remember. Thus you may read that Book the fecond Time over with half the Trouble, by your Eye running over the Paragraphs which your Pencil has noted. It is but a very weak Objection against this Practice to fay, I fhall spoil my Book; for I perfuade myself that you did not buy it as a Bookfeller to fell it again for Gain, but as a Scholar to improve your Mind by it; and if the Mind be improved, your Advantage is abundant, though your Book yields lefs Money to your Exe

cutors.

Note, This Advice of Writing, Marking, and Reviewing your Marks, refers chiefly to thofe occafional Notions you meet with either in Reading or in Converfation: But when you are directly and profeffedly pursuing any Subject of Knowledge in a good Syftem in your younger Years. The System ic felf is your common Place-Book, and must be entirely review'd. The fame may be faid concerning any Treatife which closely, fuccinctly and accurate 1 handles any particular Theme.

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Direct. III. As you proceed both in Learning and in Life, make a wife Observation what are the Ideas, what the Difcourfes and the Parts of Knowledge that have been more or less useful to yourself or others. In our younger Years, while we are furnishing our Minds with a Treasure of Ideas, our Experience is but small, and our Judgment weak; it is therefore impoffible at that Age to determine aright concerning the real Advantage and Usefulness of many things we learn. But when Age and Experience have matured your Judgment, then you will gradually drop the more ufelefs part of your younger Furniture, and be more follicitous to retain that which is moft neceffary for your Welfare in this Life, or a better. Hereby you will come to make the fame Complaint that almost every learned Man has done after long Experience in Study, and in the Affairs of human Life and Religion; Alas! how many Hours, and Days, and Months, have I loft in pursuing fome Parts of Learning, and in reading fome Authors, which have turned to no other Account but to inform me, that they were not worth my Labour and Purfuit! Happy the Man who has a wife Tutor to conduct him through all the fciences in the first Years of his Study; and who has a prudent Friend always at Hand to point out to him from Experience how much of every Science is worth his Purfuit! And happy the Student that is fo wife as to follow fuch Advice!

Direct. IV. Learn to acquire a Government over your Ideas and your Thoughts, that they may come when they are called, and depart when they are bidden. There are fome Thoughts that rife and intrude upon us while we fhun them; there are

others

others that fly from us, when we would hold and fix them.

If the Ideas which you would willingly make the Matter of your prefent Meditation are ready to fly from you, you must be obftinate in the Purfuit of them by an Habit of fixed Meditation; you must keep your Soul to the Work, when it is ready to ftart afide every Moment, unless you will abandon yourself to be a Slave to every wild Imagination. It is a common, but it is an unhappy and a fhameful thing, that every Trifle that comes across the Senses or Fancy fhould divert us, that a buzzing Fly should teize our Spirits, and scatter our beft Ideas: But we must learn to be deaf and regardless of other things, befides that which we make the prefent Subject of our Meditation: And in order to help a wandering and fickle Humour, it is useful to have a Book or Paper in our Hands, which has fome proper Hints of the Subject that we defign to pursue. We must be refolute and laborious, and fometimes conflict with ourselves if we would be wife and learned.

Yet I would not be too fevere in this Rule: It must be confeffed there are Seasons when the Mind, or rather the Brain is overtir'd or jaded with Study or Thinking; or upon fome other Accounts animal Nature may be languid or cloudy, and unfit to affift the Spirit in Meditation; at fuch Seafons (provided that they return not too often) it is better fometimes to yield to the prefent Indifpofition; for if Nature intirely refift, nothing can be done to the Purpose, at leaft in that Subject or Science. Then you may think it proper to give yourself up to fome Hours of Leifure and Recreation, or ufeful Idleness; or if not, then turn your Thoughts to fome other alluring Subjects, and pore

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