of the UNDERSTANDING.

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and should be particularly taken care of in education. The business Examine,whereof, in respect of knowledge, is not, as I think, to perfect a learnerin all or any one of the sciences, but to give his mind that freedom, thatdisposition, and those habits, that may enable him to attain any part ofknowledge he shall apply himself to, or stand in need of. in the futurecourse of his life.

This, and this only, is well principling, and not the instilling a reve-rence and veneration for certain dogma’s, under the specious title of prin-ciples, which are often so remote from that truth and evidence which be-longs to principles, that they ought to be rejected, as false and erroneous;and often cause men so educated, when they come abroad into the world,and find they cannot maintain the principles so taken up and rested in, tocast off all principles, and turn perfect fcepticks, regardless of knowledgeand virtue.

There are several weaknesses and defects in the understanding, eitherfrom the natural temper of the mind, or ill habits taken up, which hinderit in its progress to knowledge. Of these, there are as many, possibly, to befound, if the mind were thoroughly studied, as there are diseases of tirebody, each whereof clogs and disables the understanding to some degree,and therefore deserve to be looked after and cured. I shall set downsome few to excite men, especially those who make knowledge theirbusiness, to look into themselves, and observe whether they do not in-dulge some weaknesses, allow some miscarriages in the management oftheir intellectual faculty, which is prejudicial to them in the searchof truth.

§ 13. Particular matters of fact are the undoubted foundations on OS r erva-which our civil and natural knowledge is built: the benefit the under-standing makes of them, is to draw from them conclusions, which maybe as standing rules of knowledge, and consequently of practice. Themind often makes not that benefit it should of the information it receivesfrom the accounts of civil or natural historians, by being too forward ortoo stow in making observations on the particular facts recorded in them.

There are those who are very assiduous in reading, and yet do notmuch advance their knowledge by it. They are delighted with thestories that are told, and perhaps can tell them again, for they make allthey read nothing but history to themselves ; but not reflecting on it, not.making to themselves observations from what they read, they are verylittle improved by all that crowd of particulars, that either pals through,,or lodge themselves in their understandings. They dream on in a con-stant course of reading and cramming themselves; but not digesting anything, it produces nothing but an heap of crudities..

If their memories retain well, one may fay, they have the materials ofknowledge j but, like those for building, they are of no advantage, Ifthere be no other use made of them but to let them l : s heaped up to-gether. Opposite to these, there are others who lose the improvementthey should make of matters of fact by a quite contrary conduct. They7 are.