and fuperficial knowledge that is required or expected of any man, in things which are utterly foreign to his own bufinefs; but it is neceflary you fhould have a more particular and accurate acquaintance with those things that refer to your peculiar province and duty ins this life, or your happiness in another.

There are fome perfons who never arrive at any deep, folid, or valuable knowledge in any fcience, or any bufinefs of life; becaufe they are perpetually flut-tering over the furface of things in a curious and wandering fearch of infinite variety: ever hearing, reading, or afking after fomething new, but impatient of. labour to lay up and preferve the ideas they have gained their fouls may be compared to a looking-glafs, that wherefoever you turn it, it receives the images of all objects, but retains none..

any

In order to preserve your treasure of ideas and the knowledge you have gained, pursue thefe advices, efpe-cially in your younger years..

1. Recollect every day the things you have feen, or heard, 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 haftening to a new book, or a new chapter, till you have well fixed and established. in your minds what was useful in the laft: make ufe of your memory in this manner, and you will fenfibly experience a gra-dual improvement of it, while you take care not to load it to excess.

2. Talk over the things which you have feen, heard or learned with fome proper acquaintance; this will make a fresh impreffion npon your memory; and if you have no fellow-ftudent 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 exprefs your thoughtsupon all occafions.

3. Commit to writing fome of the most confiderable

improvements which you daily make, at least fuch hints as may recal them again to your mind, when perhaps they are vanished 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; using no learned method at all, fetting down things as they occur, leaving a distinct 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 these reasons; 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 juft 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 obfervations, you may note them with a marginal ftar, inftead of tranfcribing them, as being worthy of your fecond year's review, when the others are neglected.

To fhorten 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 second 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 say, I fhall fpoil my book; for I perfuade myself, that you did not buy it as a bookfeller, to fell it again for gain, but as a fcholar to improve your mind by it; and if the mind be improved, your advantage is. abundant, though your book yields lets money to your

executors.

Direct. III. As you proceed both in learning and in

*Note, this advice of writing, marking, and reviewing your marks, refer chiefly to thofe occafional notions you meet with either in read. ing or in converfation; but when you are directly and profeffedly purfuing any fubject of knowledge in a good fyftem in your younger years, the fyftem itself is your common place book, and must be entirely reviewed. The fame may be faid concerning any treatife which clofely, fuccinctly, and accurately handles any particular theme..

life, make a wife obfervation what are the ideas, what the difcourfes and the parts of knowledge that have been more or lefs ufeful to your felf or others. In our younger years,. while we are furnishing our minds with a treasure of. ideas, our experience is but fmall, and our judgmentweak; it is therefore impoffible at that age to deter-minate aright concerning the real advantage and ufefulness of many things we learn. But when age and experience have matured your judgment, then you will gradually drop the more useless part of your younger furniture, and be more folicitous to retain that which is more 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 experi- ence in study, and in the ftudy 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 sciences 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 ftudent 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 rise and intrude upon us, while we fhun them; there are others that fly from us; when we would hold and fix them.>

If the ideas which you would willingly make the: matter of your present meditation are ready to fly from you, you must be obftinate in the pursuit of them by an habit of fixed meditation; you must keep your foul. to the work, when it is ready to start at every moment, unless you will abandon yourself to be a flave to every wild imagination. It is a common, but it is an unhappyand a shameful thing, that every trifle that comes across › the fenfes or fancy should divert us, that a buzzing fly fhould teaze our fpirits, and fcatter our beft ideas; but

we must learn to be deaf and regardless of other things, befides that which we make the prefent fubject of our meditation and in order to help a wandering and fickle humour, it is useful to have a book of paper in our hands, which has fome proper hints of the fubject that we defign to purfue. We must be refolute and laborious, and fometimes, conflict with ourselves if we would be wife and learned.

Yet I would not be too severe in this rule; it must be confeffed there are seasons when the mind, or rather the brain is overtired or jaded with ftudy or thinking;, or upon fome other accounts animal nature may be languid or cloudy, and unfit to affift the fpirit in medi tation; at such seasons (provided that they return not too often) it is better fometimes to yield to the present indifpofition; for if nature entirely refift, nothing can be done to the purpose, at leaft in that fubject or science.. Then you may think it proper to give yourself up to fome hours of leifure and recreation, or useful idlenefs; or if not, then turn your thoughts to fome other alluring fubject, and pore no longer upon the first, till fome brighter or more favourable moments arife. A ftudent fhall do more in one hour, when all things, concur to invite him to any special study, then in four hours, at a dull and improper season.

I would alfo give the fame advice, if fome vain or worthless, or foolish idea will crowd itself into your thoughts, and if you find. that all your labour and wrestling cannot defend yourself from it, then divert the importunity of that which offends you by turning your thoughts to fome entertaining fubject, that may amufe a little and draw you off from the troublesome and im pofing gueft; and many a time alfo in fuch a cafe, when, the impertinent and intruding ideas would divert from: prefent duty, devotion and prayer have been very fuccefsful to overcome fuch obftinate troublers of the peace and profit of the foul.

If the natural genius and temper be too volatile, fickle and wandering, fuch perfons ought in a more efpecial manner to apply themselves to mathematical learning, and to begin their ftudies with arithmetic. and geometry; wherein new truths, continually arifing

to the mind out of the plaineft and eafieft principles, will allure, the thoughts with incredible pleafure in the purfuit; this will give the student fuch a delightful taste of reafoning, as will fix his attention to the fingle fubject which he purfues, and by degrees will cure the habitual levity of his fpirit; but let him not indulge and pursue these fo far, as to neglect the prime ftudies of his defigned profeffion..

CHAP. VI.

SPECIAL RULES TO DIRECT OUR CONCEPTIONS OF

A

GREAT part of what has been already written: is defigned to lay a foundation for thofe rules,. which may guide and regulate our conceptions of things, this is our main business and defign in the first part of logic. Now if we can but direct our thoughts to a juft and happy manner in forming our ideas of things,. the other operations of the mind will not fo easily be perverted; because moft of our errors in judgment,. and the weakness, fallacy and mistake of our argumentation, proceed from the darkness, confufion, defect,, or, fome other irregularity in our conceptions.

The rules to affist and direct our conceptions are thefe,

1. Conceive of things clearly and distinctly in their

own natures..

2. Conceive of things, completely in all their parts.. 3. Conceive of things comprehensively in all their properties and relations.

4 Conceive of things extenfively in all their kinds.. 5. Conceive of things orderly, or in a proper me thod..