On the other side there are others that depress their own minds,despond at the first difficulty,and conclude that the getting an insight in any of the sciences or making any progress in knowledge further than serves their ordinary business is above their capacities.These sit still,because they think they have not legs to go,as the others I last mentioned do,because they think they have wings to fly and can soar on high when they please.To these latter one may for answer apply the proverb,"Use legs and have legs."Nobody knows what strength of parts he has till he has tried them.And of the understanding one may most truly say that its force is greater generally than it thinks till it is put to it.Viresque acquirit eundo.
And therefore the proper remedy here is but to set the mind to work and apply the thoughts Rigorously to the business;for it holds in the struggles of the mind as in those of war,dum putant se sincere vicere.A persuasion that we shall overcome any difficulties that we meet with in the sciences seldom fails to carry us through them.Nobody knows the strength of his mind and the force of steady and regular application till he has tried.This is certain,he that sets out upon weak legs will not only go further but grow stronger too than one who,with a vigorous constitution and firm limbs,only sits still.
Something of kin to this men may observe in themselves when the mind frights itself (as it often does)with anything reflected on in gross and transiently viewed confusedly and at a distance.Things thus offered to the mind carry the show of nothing but difficulty in them and are thought to be wrapped up in impenetrable obscurity.But the truth is,these are nothing but spectres that the understanding raises to itself to flatter its own laziness.It sees nothing distinctly in things remote and in a huddle,and therefore concludes too faintly that there is nothing more clear to be discovered in them.It is but to approach nearer,and that mist of our own raising that enveloped them will remove;and those that in that mist appeared hideous giants not to be grappled with will be found to be of the ordinary and natural size and shape.Things that in a remote and confused view seem very obscure must be approached by gentle and regular steps,and what is most visible,easy and obvious in them first considered.Reduce them into their distinct parts,and then in their due order bring all that should be known concerning every one of those parts into plain and simple questions;and then what was thought obscure,perplexed and too hard for our weak parts will lay itself open to the understanding in a fair view and let the mind into that which before it was awed with and kept at a distance from as wholly mysterious.
I appeal to my reader's experience whether this has never happened to him,especially when,busy on one thing,he has occasionally reflected on another.I ask him whether he has never thus been scared with a sudden opinion of mighty difficulties,which yet have vanished when he has seriously and methodically applied himself to the consideration of this seeming terrible subject;and there has been no other matter of astonishment left,but that he amused himself faith so discouraging a prospect of his own raising about a matter which in the handling was found to have nothing in it more strange nor intricate than several other things which he had long since and with ease mastered.This experience should teach us how to deal with such bugbears another time,which should rather serve to excite our vigor than enervate our industry.
The surest way for a learner in this as in all other cases is not to advance be jumps and large strides;let that which he sets himself to learn next be indeed the next,i.e.as nearly conjoined with what he knows already as is possible;let it be distinct but not remote from it;let it be new and what he did not know before,that the understanding mas advance;but let it be as little at once as may be,that its advances may be clear and sure.All the ground that it gets this way it will hold.This distinct gradual growth in knowledge is firm and sure;it carries its own light faith it in every step of its progression in any easy and orderly train,than which there is nothing of more use to the understanding.And though this perhaps may seem a very slow and lingering way to knowledge,yet Idare confidently affirm that whoever will try it in himself or anyone he will teach shall find the advances greater in this method than they would in the same space of time hale been in any other he could have taken.
The greatest part of true knowledge lies in a distinct perception of things in themselves distinct.And some men give more clear light and knowledge as the bare distinct stating of a question than others by tallying of it in gross whole hours together.In this,they who so state a question do no more but separate and disentangle the parts of it one from another and lay them,when so disentangled,in their due order.This often,without any more ado,resolves the doubt and shews the mind Where the truth lies.The agreement or disagreement of the ideas in question,When they are once separated and distinctly considered,is in many cases presently perceived and thereby clear and lasting knowledge gained;whereas things in gross taken up together,and so lying together in confusion,can produce in the mind but a confused,which is in effect no,knowledge;or at least,when it comes to be examined and made use of,will prove little better than none.I therefore take the liberty to repeat here again what I have said elsewhere,that in learning anything as little should be proposed to the mind at once as is possible;and,that being understood and fully mastered,to proceed to the next adjoining part yet unknown,[a]simple,unperplexed proposition belonging to the matter in hand and tending to the clearing what is principally designed.
