EXTRACT V.

Aids to the Acquisition of Knowledge.

LOCKE.

One thing, which is of great use for the clear conception of truth, is, if we can bring ourselves to it, to think upon things, abstracted and separate from words. Words, without doubt, are the great and almost only way of conveyance of one man's thoughts to another man's understanding; but when a man thinks, reasons, and discourses within himself, I see not what need he has of them. I am sure it is better to lay them aside, and have an immediate converse with the ideas of the things; for words are, in their own nature, so doubtful and obscure, their signification, for the most part, so uncertain and undetermined, which men even designedly have in their use of them increased, that if, in our meditations, our thoughts busy themselves about words, and stick at the names of things, it is odds but they are misled or confounded. This, perhaps, at first sight may seem but a useless nicety; and in the practice, perhaps, it will be found more difficult than one would imagine; but yet, upon trial, I dare say any one's experience will tell him it was worth while to endeavor it. He that would call to mind his absent friend, or preserve his memory, does it best and most effectually by reviving in his mind the idea of him, and contemplating that; and it is but a very faint imperfect way of thinking of one's friend barely to remember his name, and think upon the sound he is usually called by.

It is of great use in the pursuit of knowledge not to be too confident, nor too distrustful of our own judgment, nor to believe we can comprehend all things, nor nothing. He that distrusts his own judgment, in every thing, and thinks his understanding

not to be relied on in the search of truth, cuts off his own legs, that he may be carried up and down by others, and makes himself a ridiculous dependent upon the knowledge of others, which can possibly be of no use to him; for I can no more know any thing by another man's understanding, than I can see by another man's eyes. So much I know, so much truth I have got; so far I am in the right, as I do really know myself; whatever other men have, it is in their possession; it belongs not to me, nor can be communicated to me, but by making me alike knowing it is a treasure that cannot be lent or made over. On the other side, he that thinks his understanding capable of all things, mounts upon wings of his own fancy, though, indeed, nature never meant him any, and so venturing into the vast expanse of incomprehensible varieties, only makes good the fable of Icarus, and loses himself in the abyss. We are here in the state of mediocrity; finite creatures, furnished with powers and faculties very well fitted to some purposes, but very disproportionate to the vast and unlimited extent of things.

It would, therefore, be of great service to us to know how far our faculties can reach, that so we might not go about to fathom where our line is too short; to know what things are the proper objects of our inquiries and understanding, and where it is we ought to stop, and launch out no farther, for fear of losing ourselves or our labor. This, perhaps, is an inquiry of as much difficulty as any we shall find in our way of knowledge, and fit to be resolved by a man when he is come to the end of his study, and not to be proposed to one at his setting out; it being properly the result to be expected after a long and diligent research to determine what is knowable and what not, and not a question to be resolved by the guesses of one who has scarce yet acquainted himself with obvious truths. I shall therefore, at pre

sent, suspend the thoughts I have had upon this subject, which ought maturely to be considered of, always remembering that things infinite are too large for our capacity; we can have no comprehensive knowledge of them, and our thoughts are at a loss and confounded, when they pry too curiously into them. The essences also of substantial beings, are beyond our ken; the manner also how nature, in this great machine of the world, produces the several phenomena, and continues the species of things in a successive generation, is what, I think, lies also out of the reach of our understanding. That which seems to me to be suited to the end of man, and lie level to his understanding, is the improvement of natural experiments for the conveniences of this life, and the way of ordering himself so as to attain happiness in the other, -i. e. moral philosophy, which, in my sense, comprehends religion too, or a man's whole duty.

It is too obvious a thing to mention the reading only the best authors on those subjects we would inform ourselves in. The reading of bad books is not only the loss of time, and standing still, but going backwards, quite out of one's way; and he that has his head filled with wrong notions, is much more at a distance from truth, than he that is perfectly ignorant.

I will only say this one thing concerning books, that however it has got the name, yet converse with books is not, in my opinion, the principal part of study; there are two others that ought to be joined with it, each whereof contributes its share to our improvement in knowledge; and those are meditation and discourse. Reading, methinks, is but collecting the rough materials, amongst which a great deal must be laid aside as useless. Meditation is, as it were, choosing and fitting the materials, framing the timbers, squaring and laying the stones, and raising

the building; and discourse with a friend, (for wrangling in a dispute is of little use,) is, as it were, surveying the structure, walking in the rooms, and observing the symmetry and agreement of the parts, taking notice of the solidity or defects of the works, and the best way to find out and correct what is amiss; besides that it helps often to discover truths, and fix them in our minds, as much as either of the other two.

We all of us complain of the shortness of time, saith Seneca, and yet have much more than we know what to do with. "Our lives," says he, "are spent either in doing nothing at all, or in doing nothing to the purpose, or in doing nothing that we ought to do. We are always complaining our days are few, and acting as though there would be no end of them." That noble philosopher has described our inconsistency with ourselves in this particular, by all those various turns of expression and thought which are peculiar to his writings.

I often consider mankind as wholly inconsistent with itself in a point that bears some affinity to the former. Though we seem grieved at the shortness of life in general, we are wishing every period of it at an end. The minor longs to be at age, then to be a man of business, then to make up an estate, then to arrive at honors, then to retire. Thus, although the whole of life is allowed by every one to be short, the several divisions of it appear long and tedious. We are for lengthening our span in general, but would fain contract the parts of which it is com

posed. The usurer would be very well satisfied to have all the time annihilated that lies between the present moment and next quarter-day. The politician would be contented to lose three years in his life, could he place things in the posture which he fancies they will stand in after such a revolution of time. The lover would be glad to strike out of his existence all the moments that are to pass away before the happy meeting. Thus, as fast as our, time runs, we should be very glad, in the most part, of our lives, that it ran much faster than it does. Several hours of the day hang upon our hands; nay, we wish away whole years, and travel through time as through a country filled with many wild and empty wastes, which we would fain hurry over, that we may arrive at those several little settlements or imaginary points of rest, which are dispersed up and down in it.

If we divide the life of most men into twenty parts, we shall find that at least nineteen of them are mere gaps and chasms, which are neither filled with pleasure nor business. I do not however inIclude in this calculation the life of those men who are in a perpetual hurry of affairs, but of those only who are not always engaged in scenes of action; and I hope I shall not do an unacceptable piece of service to these persons, if I point out to them certain methods for the filling up their empty spaces of life. The methods I shall propose to them are as follows:

The first is the exercise of virtue, in the most general acceptation of the word. That particular scheme which comprehends the social virtues may give employment to the most industrious temper, and find a man in business more than the most active station of life. To advise the ignorant, relieve the needy, comfort the afflicted, are duties which fall in our way almost every day of our lives. A man