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 fre quent exercise, and the observation of such rules as these.

I. "LABOUR by all means to gain an attentive and patient temper of mind," a power of confirming 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.

II. "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 s clear and just judgment about them.

III. 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

by patient attention and watchful observation, by the pursuit of clear ideas and regular method of thinking.

VI. ANOTHER means of acquiring this amplitude and capacity of mind, is a " perusal of difficult entangled questions, and of the solution of them in any science." Speculative and casuistical divinity will fur nish us with many such cases and controversies. There are some such difficulties in reconciling several parts of the epistles of St Paul relat ing to the Jewish law and the Christian gospel; a happy solution whereof will require such an extensive view of things, and the reading of these happy solutions will enlarge this faculty in younger students. In morals and political subjects, Puffendorf's Law of Nature and Nations, and several determinations therein, wil promote the same amplitude of mind. An attendance on public trials and arguments in the civil courts of justice, will be of good advantage for this purpose, and after a man has studied the general principles of the law of nature and the laws of England in proper books, the reading the reports of adjudged cases, collected by men of great sagacity and judgement, will richly im-prove his mind toward acquiring this desirable amplitude and extent of thought, and more especially in persons of that profession.

CHAP. XVII.

OP IMPROVING THE MEMORY,

MEMORY is a distinct faculty of the mind of man, very different

from perception, judgment and reasoning, and its other powers. Then we are said to remember any thing" when the idea of it arises in the mind with a consciousness at the same time that we have had this idea before." Our memory is our natural power of retaining what we learn, and of recalling it on every occasion. Therefore we can never be said to remember any thing, whether it be ideas or propositions, words or things, notions or arguments, of which we have not had some former idea or perception, either by "sense or imagination, thought or reflection;" but whatsoever we learn from observation, books or conversation, &. it must all be laid up and preserved in the memory, if we would make it really useful.

So necessary and so excellent a faculty is the memory of man, that all other abilities of the mind borrow from hence their beauty and perfection for other capacities of the soul are almost useless without this. To what purpose are all our labours in knowledge and wisdom, if we want memory to preserve and use what we have acquired? What signify all other intellectual or spiritual improvements, if they are lost as soon as they are obtained? It is memory alone that enriches the mind,

by preserving what our labour and industry daily collect. In a word, there can be neither knowledge, nor arts, nor sciences without memory: nor can there be any improvement of mankind in virtue or morals, or the practice of religion without the assistance and influence of this power. Without memory the soul of man would be but a poor destitute naked being with an everlasting blank spread over it, except the fleeting ideas of the present moment.

Memory is very useful to those who speak, as well as to those who learn. It assists the teacher and the orator, as well as the scholar or the hearer. The best speeches and instructions are almost lost, if those who hear them immediately forget them. And those who are called to speak in public are much better heard and accepted, when they can deliver their discourse by the help of a lively genius and a ready memory, than when they are forced to read all that they would communicate to their hearers. Reading is certainly a heavier way of the con→ veyance of our sentiments; and there are very few mere readers, who have the felicity of penetrating the soul and awakening the passions of those who hear, by such a grace and power of oratory, as the man who seems to talk every word from his very heart, and pours out the riches of his own knowledge upon the people round about him by the help of a free and copious memory. This gives life and spirit to every thing that is spoken, and has a natural tendency to make a deeper impression on the minds of men: it awakens the dullest spirits, causes them to receive a discourse with more affection, and pleasure, and adds a singular grace and excellency both to the person, and his ⚫ration.

A good judgment and a good memory are very different qualifications. A person may have a very strong, capacious, and retentive memory, where the judgment is very poor and weak; as sometimes it happens in those who are but one degree above an idiot, who have manifested an amazing strength and extent of memory, but have hardly been able to join or disjoin two or three ideas in a wise and happy manner, to make a solid rational proposition.

There have been instances of others who have had but a very tolerable power of memory, yet their judgment has been of a much superior degree, just and wise, solid and excellent.

Yet it must be acknowledged, that where a happy memory is found in any person, there is one good foundation laid for a wise and just judgment of things, wheresoever the natural genius has any thing of sagacity and brightness to make a right use of it. A good judgment must .always in some measure depend upon a survey and comparison of several things together in the mind, and determining the truth of

some doubtful proposition by that survey and comparison. When the mind has, as it were, set all those various objects present before it, which are necessary to form a true proposition or judgment concerning any thing, it then determines that such and such ideas are to be joined or disjoined, to be affirmed or denied; and this in a consistency and correspondence with all those other ideas or propositions which any way relate or belong to the same subject. Now there can be no such comprehensive survey of many things without a tolerable degree of memory; it is by reviewing things past we learn to judge of the future: and it happens sometimes, that if one needful or important object or idea be absent, the judgment concerning the thing inquired will thereby become false or mistaken.

You will inquire then, How comes it to pass, that there are some persons who appear in the world of business as well as in the world of learning, to have a good judgment, and have acquired the just character of prudence and wisdom, and yet have neither a very bright genius nor sagacity of thought, nor a very happy memory, so that they cannot set before their minds at once a large scene of ideas, in order to pass a judgment.

Now we may learn from Pensoroso some account of this difficulty. You shall scarcely ever find this man forward in judging and determining things proposed to him: but he always takes time, and delays, and suspends, and ponders things maturely, before he passes his judgment: then he practises a slow meditation, ruminates on the subject, and thus perhaps in two or three nights and days rouses and awakens those several ideas, one after another as he san, which are necessary in order to judge right of the thing proposed, and makes them pass before his review in succession; this he doth to relieve the want both of a quick sagacity of thought, and of a ready memory and speedy recollection; and this caution and practice, lays the foundation of his just judgment and wise conduct. He surveye well before he judges.

Whence I cannot but take occasion to infer one good rule of advice, to persons of higher as well as lower genius, and of large as well as narrow memories, viz. That they do not too hastily pronounce concerning matters of doubt or inquiry, where there is not an urgent necessity of present action. The bright genius is ready to be so forward as often betrays itself into great errors in judgment, speech and conduct, without a continual guard upon itself, and using the bridle of the tongue. And it is by this delay and precaution, that many a person of much lower natural abilities, shall often excel persons of the brightest genius in wisdom and prudence.

It is often found, that a fine genius has but feeble memory: for where the genius is bright, and the imagination vivid, the power of memory may be too much neglected and lose its improvment. An active fancy readily wanders over a multitude of objects, and is continually entertaining itself with new flying images; it runs throngh a number of new scenes or new pages with pleasure, but without due attention, and seldom suffers itself to dwell long enough upon any one of them to make a deep impression thereof upon the mind and commit it to lasting remembrance. This is one plain and obvious reason, why there are some persons of very bright parts and active spirits who have but short and narrow powers of remembrance; for having riches of their own, they are not solicitous to borrow,

And as such a quick and various fancy and invention may be some hindrance to the attention and memory, so a mind of a good retentive ability, and which is ever crowding its memory with things which it learns and reads continually, may prevent restrain and cramp the invention itself. The memory of Lectorides, is ever ready upon all occasions to offer to his mind something out of other men's writings or conversations, and is presenting him with the thoughts of other persons perpetually; thus the man who had naturally a good flowing invention, does not suffer himself to pursuehis own thoughts. Some persons who have been blest by nature with sagacity and no contemptible genius, have too often forbid the exercise of it, by tying themselves down to the memory of the volumes they have read, and the sentiments of ether men contained in them.

Where the memory has been almost constantly employing itself in scraping together new acquirements, and where there has not been a judgment sufficient to distinguish what things were fit to be recommended and treasured up in the memory, and what things were ide, useless, or needless, the mind has been filled with a wretched heap and hotch-potch of words or ideas, and the soul may be said to have had large possessions, but no true riches,

I have read in some of Mr Milton's writings a very beautiful simile, whereby he represents the books of the fathers, as they are called in the Christian church. Whatsoever, saith he, old Time, with his huge drag-net has conveyed down to us along the stream of ages, whether it be shells or shell-fish, jewels or rebbles, sticks or straws, sea- weeds or mud, these are the ancients, these are the fathers. The case is much the same with the memorial possessions of the greatest part of mankind. A few useful things perhaps, mixed and confounded with many trifles and all manner of rubbish, fill up their memories and compose their intellectual possessions. It is a great happiness thereM