424 LOGIC: on, THE RIGHT USE OP REASON. it, there is a set of false critics who decry it universally, and will allow no beauties there. This sort of prejudice is relieved by learning to distinguish things well, and not to judge in the lump. There is scarce any thing in the world of nature or art, in the world of morality or religion, that is perfectly uniform. There is a mixture of wis- dom and folly, vice and virtue, good and evil, both in men and things. We should remember that some persons have great wit and little judgment ; others are judicious, but not witty. Some are good humoured without compliment ; others have all the for- malities of complaisance but no good humour. We ought to know that one man may be vicious and learned, while another has virtue without learning. That many a man thinks admirably well, who has a poor utterance; while others have a charming manner of speech, but their thoughts are trifling and impertinent. Some are good neighbours and courteous, and charitable towards men, who have no piety towards God; others are truly religious but of morose natural tempers. Some excellent sayings are found in very silly books, and some silly thoughts appear in books of value. We should neither praise nor dispraise by wholesale, but separate the good from the evil, and judge of them apart ; the accuracy of a good judgment consists much in making such dis- tinctions. Yet let it be noted too, that in common. discourse we usually denominate persons and things according to the major part of their character. He is to be called a wise man who has but few follies; he is a good philosopher who knows much of nature, and for the most part reasons well in matters of human science; and . that book should be esteemed well written, which has more of good sense in it than it has of impertinence. IV. Though a thing be uniform in its own nature, yet the different lights in which it may be placed, and the different views in which it appears to us, will be ready to excite in us mistaken judgments concerning it. Let an erect cone beplaced on a horizon- tal plane, at a great distance from the eye, and it appears a plain triangle ; but we shall judge that very cone to be nothing but a flat circle, if its base be obverted towards us. Set a common round plate a little obliquely before our eyes afar off, and we shall think it an oval figure ; but if the very edge of it be turned towards us, we shall take it for a straight line. So when we view the several folds of a changeable silk, we pro- nounce this part red and that yellow, because of its different position to the light, though the silk laid smooth in one light appears all of one colour. When we survey the miseries of mankind, and think of the sorrows of millions, both on earth and in hell the divine govern- ment has a terrible aspect, and we may be tetnfled to think hardly
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