tion, but it presently hastens to some hypothesis to bottom it on, till then it is unquiet and unsettled. So much do our own very tempers dispose us to a right use of our understandings, if we would follow as we should the inclinations of our nature.

In some matters of concernment, especially those of religion, men are not permitted to be always wavering and uncertain, they must embrace and profess some tenets or other; and it would be a shame, nay a contradiction too heavy for any one's mind to lie constantly under, for him to pretend seriously to be persuaded of the truth of any religion, and yet not be able to give any reason of his belief, or to say any thing for his preference of this to any other opinion; and therefore they must make use of some principles or other, and those can be no other than such as they have and can manage and to say they are not in earnest persuaded by them, and do not rest upon those they make use of, is contrary to experience, and to allege that they are not misled when we complain they are.

If this be so, it will be urged, why then do they not make use of sure and unquestionable principles, rather than rest on such grounds as may deceive them, and will, as is visible, serve to support error as well as truth?

To this I answer, the reason why they do

not make use of better and surer principles, is because they cannot but this inability proceeds not from want of natural parts (for those few whose case that is are to be excused) but for want of use and exercise. Few men are from their youth accustomed to strict reasoning, and to trace the dependence of any truth in a long train of corsequences to its remotest principles, and to observe its connection; and he that by frequent practice has not been used to this employment of his understanding, it is no more wonder that he should not, when he is grown into years, be able to bring his mind to it, than that he should not be on a sudden able to grave or design, dance on the ropes, or write a good hand, who has never practised either of them.

Nay, the most of men are so wholly strangers to this, that they do not so much as perceive their want of it; they despatch the ordinary business of their callings by rote, as we say, as they have learned it; and if at any time they miss success, they impute it to any thing rather than want of thought or skill; that they conclude (because they know no better) they have in perfection; or if there be any subject that interest or fancy has recommended to their thoughts, their reasoning about it is still after their own fashion; be it better or worse, it serves their turns, and

is the best they are acquainted with; and therefore when they are led by it into mistakes, and their business succeeds according ly, they impute it to any cross accident, or default of others, rather than to their own want of understanding; that is, what nobody discovers or complains of in himself. Whatsoever made his business to miscarry, it was not want of right thought and judgment in himself he sees no such defect in himself, but is satisfied that he carries on his designs well enough by his own reasoning, or at least should have done, had it not been for unlucky traverses not in his power. Thus being content with this short and very imperfect use of his understanding, he never troubles himself to seek out methods of improving his mind, and lives all his life without any notion of close reasoning, in a continued connection of a long train of consequences from sure foundations, such as is requisite for the making out and clearing most of the speculative truths most men own to believe and are most concerned in. Not to mention here what I shall have occasion to insist on by and by more fully, viz. that in many cases it is not one series of consequences will serve the turn, but many different and opposite deductions must be examined and laid together, before a man can come to make a right judgment of the point in question. What

then can be expected from men that neither see the want of any such kind of reasoning as this: nor, if they do, know how to set about it, or could perform it? You may as well set a countryman, who scarce knows the figures, and never cast up a sum of three particulars, to state a merchant's long account, and find the true balance of it.

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What then should be done in the case? answer, we should always remember what I said above, that the faculties of our souls are improved and made useful to us just after the same manner as our bodies are. Would you have a man write or paint, dance or fence well, or perform any other manual operation dexterously and with ease; let him have ever so much vigour and activity, suppleness and address naturally, yet nobody expects this from him, unless he has been used to it, and has employed time and pains in fashioning and forming his hand, or outward parts to these motions. Just so it is in the mind: would you have a man reason well, you must use him to it betimes, exercise his mind in observing the connexion of ideas, and following them in train. Nothing does this better than mathematics, which, therefore, I think should be taught all those who have the time and opportunity; not so much to make them mathematicians, as to make them reasonable creatures; for though we all call ourselves so, because

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we are born to it, if we please; yet we may truly say, nature gives us but the seeds of it: we are born to be, if we please, rational creatures; but it is use and exercise only that make us so, and we are, indeed, so no farther than industry and application have carried us. And, therefore, in ways of reasoning, which men have not been used to, he that will observe the conclusions they take up, must be satisfied they are not all rational.

This has been the less taken notice of, because every one, in his private affairs, uses some sort of reasoning or other, enough to denominate him reasonable. But the mistake is, that he that is found reasonable in one thing, is concluded to be so in all, and to think or to say otherwise is thought so unjust an affront, and, so senseless a censure, that nobody ventures to do it. It looks like the degradation of a man below the dignity of his nature. It is true, that he that reasons well in any one thing has a mind naturally capable of reasoning well in others, and to the same degree of strength and clearness, and possibly much greater, had his understanding been so employed. But it is as true that he who can reason well to-day about one sort of matters, cannot at all reason to-day about others, though perhaps a year hence he may. But wherever a man's rational faculty fails him, and will not serve him to reason, there we