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; ufing no learned method at all, fetting down things as they occur, leaving a distinct page for each fubject, 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; firit, 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 moft 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 fpoil my book; for I perfuade myfelf, 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 lefs 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 rending 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 itfelf is your common place book, and mult be entire ly reviewed. The fame may be faid concerning any treatise 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 useful to yourself or others. In our younger years, while we are furnishing our minds with a treasure of ideas, our experience is but fmall, and our judgment weak; it is therefore impoffible at that age to determinate aright concerning the real advantage and use. fulness 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 ftudy, and in the study 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 pursuit ! 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 rife 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 prefent 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 unhappy and a fhameful thing, that every trifle that comes across the fenfes or fancy fhould divert us, that a buzzing fly fhould teaze our fpirits, and scatter our best ideas; but

we must learn to be deaf and regardless of other things, befides that which we make the present subject 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 subject that we defign to purfue. We must be refolute and laborious, and fometimes conflict with ourfelves if we would be wife and learned.

Yet I would not be too fevere in this rule; it must be confeffed there are feafons 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 meditation ;. at fuch feafons (provided that they return not too often) it is better fometimes to yield to the prefent indifpofition; for if nature entirely refift, nothing can be done to the purpose, at least in that fubject or science. Then you may think it proper to give yourself up to fome hours of leifure and recreation, or ufeful 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 feafon.

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 yourfelf 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 case, 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 especial 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 ftudent fuch a delightful taste of reasoning, as will fix his attention to the fingle fubject which he pursues, 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

THINGS..

CONCEPTIONS OF

A

GREAT part of what has been already written is defigned to lay a foundation for those rules, which may guide and regulate our conceptions of things this is our main business and design in the first part of logic. Now if we can but direct our thoughts to a just and happy manner in forming our ideas of things, the other operations of the mind will not fo easily be perverted; becaufe 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 aflift and direct our conceptions are these,

1. Conceive of things clearly and diftinctly in their

own natures.

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

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

THE

SECT. I.

Of gaining clear and distinct Ideas.

HE firft rule is this, feek after a clear and distinct conception of things as they are in their own nature, and do not content yourselves with obfcure and confufed ideas, where clearer are to be attained.

There are fome things indeed whereof diftinct ideas are fcarce attainable, they feem to furpass the capacity of the understanding in our prefent ftate; fuch are the notions of eternal, immenfe, infinite whether this infinity. be applied to number, as an infinite multitude; to quantity, as infinite length, breadth, to powers and perfections, as ftrength, wisdom, or goodnefs infinite, &c. Though mathematicians in their way demonftrate feveral things in the doctrine of infinites, yet there are ftill fome infolvable difficulties that attend the ideas of infinity, when it is applied to mind or body; and while it is in reality but an idea ever growing, we cannot have fo clear and diftinct a conception of it as to fecure us from mistakes in fome of our reasonings about it.

There are many other things that belong to the ma- . terial world, wherein the fharpeft philofophers have not yet arrived at clear and diftinct ideas, fuch as the particular fhape, fituation, contexture, motion of the Imall particles of minerals, metals, plants, &c. whereby their very natures and effences are diftinguifhed from each other. Nor have we either fenfes or inftrument fufficiently nice and accurate to find them out. There are other things in the world of fpirits wherein our ideas are very dark and confufed, fuch as their union with animal nature, the way of their action on material beings, and their converfe with each other. And though it is a laudable ambition to fearch what may be known of these matters, yet it is a vaft hindrance to the enrichment of our understandings, if we spend too much of our time and pains among infinites and unfearchables, and thofe things for the inveftigation whereof we are not furnished with proper facul