Let me give a plain instance for the illustration of this matter. Mario kills a dog, which, considered merely in itself, seems to be an indifferent action: now the dog was Timon's, and not his own; this makes it look unlawful. But Timon bid him do it; this gives it an appearance of lawfulness again. It was done at church, and in time of divine service: these circumstances added, cast on it an air of irreligion. But the dog flew at Mario, and put him in danger of his life; this relieves the seeming impiety of the action. Yet Mario might have escaped by flying thence; therefore the action appears to be improper. But the dog was known to be mad; this further circumstance makes it almost necessary that the dog should be slain, lest he might worry the assembly, and do much mischief. Yet again, Mario killed him with a pistol, which he happened to have in his pocket since yesterday's journey; now hereby the whole congregation was terrified and discomposed, and divine service was broken off: this carries an appearance of great indecency and impropriety in it: but after all, when we consider a further circumstance, that Mario, being thus violently assaulted by a mad dog, had no way of escape, and had no other weapon about him, it seems to take away all the colours of impropriety, indecency, or unlawfulness, and to allow that the preservation of one or many lives will justify the act as wise and good. Now all these concurrent appendices of the action ought to be surveyed, in order to pronounce with justice and truth concerning it.

There are a multitude of human actions in private life, in domestic affairs, in traffic, in civil government, in courts of justice, in schools of learning, &c. which have so many complicated circumstances, aspects, and situations, with regard to time and place, persons and things, that it is impossible for any one to pass a right judgment concerning them, without entering into most of these circumstances, and surveying them extensively, and comparing and balancing them all aright.

Whence by the way I may take occasion to say, how many thousands are there who take upon them to pass their censures on the personal and the domestic actions of others, who pronounce boldly on the affairs of the public,

and determine the justice or madness, the wisdom or folly of national administrations, of peace and war, &c. whom neither God nor men ever qualified for such a post of judgment! They were not capable of entering into the numerous conquering springs of action, nor had they ever taken a survey of the twentieth part of the circumstances which were necessary for such judgments or

censures.

It is the narrowness of our minds, as well as the vices of the will, that oftentimes prevents us from taking a full view of all the complicated and concurring appendices that belong to human actions: thence it comes to pass that there is so little right judgment, so little justice, prudence, or decency, practised among the bulk of mankind; thence arise infinite reproaches and censures, alike foolish and unrighteous. You see, therefore, how needful and happy a thing it is to be possessed of some measure of this amplitude of soul, in order to make us very wise, or knowing, or just, or prudent, or happy.

I confess this sort of amplitude or capacity of mind is in a great measure the gift of nature, for some are born with much more capacious souls than others.

The genius of some persons is so poor and limited, that they can hardly take in the connexion of two or three propositions, unless it be in matters of sense, and which they have learned by experience: they are utterly unfit for speculative studies; it is hard for them to discern the difference betwixt right and wrong in matters of reason on any abstracted subjects; these ought never to set up for scholars, but apply themselves to those arts and professions of life which are to be learned at an easier rate, by slow degrees and daily experience.

Others have a soul a little more capacious, and they can take in the connexion of a few propositions pretty well; but if the chain of consequences be a little prolix, here they stick and are confounded. If persons of this make ever devote themselves to science, they should be well assured of a solid and strong constitution of body, and well resolved to bear the fatigue of hard labour and diligence in study: if the iron be blunt, King Solomon tells us, we must put more strength,

But, in the third place, there are some of so bright and happy a genius, and so ample a mind, that they can take in a long train of propositions, if not at once, yet in a very few moments, and judge well concerning the dependence of them. They can survey a variety of complicated ideas without fatigue or disturbance; and a number of truths offering themselves as it were in one view to their understanding, doth not perplex or confound them. This makes a great man.

Now, though there may be much owing to nature in this case, yet experience assures us, that even a lower degree of this capacity and extent of thought may be increased by diligence and application, by frequent exercise, and the observation of such rules as these:

1. Labour by all means to gain an attentive and patient temper of mind, a power of confining and fixing your thoughts so long on any one appointed subject, till you have surveyed it on every side and in every situation, and run through the several powers, parts, properties, and relations, effects and consequences of it. He whose thoughts are very fluttering and wandering, and cannot be fixed attentively to a few ideas successively, will never be able to survey many and various objects distinctly at once, but will certainly be overwhelmed and confounded with the multiplicity of them. The rules for fixing the attention in the former chapter are proper to be consulted here.

2. Accustom yourself to clear and distinct ideas in every thing you think of. Be not satisfied with obscure and confused conceptions of things, especially where clearer may be obtained: for one obscure or confused. idea, especially if it be of great importance in the question, intermingled with many clear ones, and placed in its variety of aspects towards them, will be in danger of spreading confusion over the whole scene of ideas, and thus may have an unhappy influence to overwhelm the understanding with darkness and pervert the judgment. A little black paint will shamefully tincture and spoil twenty gay colours.

Consider yet further, that if you content yourself frequently with words instead of ideas, or with cloudy and confused notions of things, how impenetrable will that

darkness be, and how vast and endless that confusion, which must surround and involve the understanding, when many of these obscure and confused ideas come to be set before the soul at once; and how impossible will it be to form a clear and just judgment about them.

3. Use all diligence to acquire and treasure up a large store of ideas and notions: take every opportunity to add something to your stock; and by frequent recollection fix them in your memory: nothing tends to confirm and enlarge the memory like a frequent review of its possessions. Then the brain being well furnished with various traces, signatures, and images, will have a rich treasure always ready to be proposed or offered to the soul, when it directs its thought towards any particular subject. This will gradually give the mind a faculty of surveying many objects at once, as a room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great variety of pictures strikes the eye almost at once with all that variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: this makes it habitual and more easy to the inhabitants to take in many of those painted scenes with a single glance or two.

Here note, that by acquiring a rich treasure of notions, I do not mean only single ideas, but also propositions, observations, and experiences, with reasonings and arguments upon the various subjects that occur among natural and moral, common or sacred affairs; that when you are called to judge concerning any question, you will have some principles of truth, some useful axioms and ob servations, always ready at hand to direct and assist your judgment.

4. It is necessary that we should as far as possible entertain and lay up our daily new ideas in a regular order, and range the acquisitions of our souls under proper heads, whether of divinity, law, physics, mathematics, morality, politics, trade, domestic life, civility, decency, &c. whether of cause, effect, substance, mode, power, property, body, spirit, &c. We should inure our minds to method and order continually; and when we take in any fresh ideas, occurrences, and observations, we should dispose of them in their proper places, and see

how they stand and agree with the rest of our notions on the same subjects: as a scholar would dispose of a new book on a proper shelf among its kindred authors; or as an officer at the post-house in London disposes of every letter he takes in, placing it in the box that belongs to the proper road or county.

In any of these cases, if things lay all in a heap, the addition of any new object would increase the confusion; but method gives a speedy and short survey of them with ease and pleasure. Method is of admirable advantage to keep our ideas from a confused mixture, and to preserve them ready for every use. The science of ontology, which distributes all beings, and all the affections of being, whether absolute or relative, under proper classes, is of good service to keep our intellectual acquisitions in such order as that the mind may survey them at once.

5. As method is necessary for the improvement of the mind, in order to make your treasure of ideas most useful, so in all your further pursuits of truth and acquirements of rational knowledge, observe a regular progressive method. Begin with the most simple, easy, and obvious ideas; then by degrees join two, and three, and more of them together: thus the complicated ideas growing up under your eye and observation, will not give the same confusion of thought as they would do if they were all offered to the mind at once, without your observing the original and formation of them. An eminent example of this appears in the study of arithmetic. If a scholar just admitted into the school observes his master performing an operation in the rule of division, his head is at once disturbed and confounded with the manifold comparisons of the numbers of the divisor and dividend, and the multiplication of the one and subtraction of it from the other; but if he begin regularly at addition, and so proceed by subtraction and multiplication, he will then in a few weeks be able to take in an intelligent survey of all those operations in division, and to practise them himself with ease and pleasure, each of which at first seemed all intricacy and confusion.

An illustration of the like nature may be borrowed from geometry and algebra, and other mathematical practices: