CHAPTER Xl*'. 93 thoughts, what sort of subjects we should meditate ón, and in what manner we should regulate our studies, and how we may improve our judgment, so as in the most effectual andcompendi- ous way to attain such knowledge as maybe most useful for every man in his circumstancesof life, and particularly for those of the learned professions. II. The first direction for youth is this, learn betimes to dis- tinguish between words and things. Get clear and plain ideas of the things you are set to study. Do not content yourselves with mere words and, names, lest your laboured improvements only amass a heap of unintelligible phrases, and you feed upon húsks instead of kernels. This rule is of unknown use in every sci, ence. But the greatest and mostcommon danger is in the sacred science of theology, where settled terms and phrases have been pronounced divine and orthodox, which yet have had no mean- ing in them. The scholastic divinity would furnish us with nu- merous instances of this folly : and yet for many ages all truth and all heresy have been determinedby such senseless tests, and by words without ideas : such Shibboleths as these have decided the secular fates of men ; and bishoprics or burning, mitres or faggots have been the rewards of different persons, according as they pronounced these consecrated syllables or not,pronounced them. To defend them, was all piety and pomp and triumph ; to despise them, to doubt or deny them, was torture and death. A thousand thank-offerings are due to that providence which has delivered our age and our nation from these absurd iniquities ? Q that every specimen and shadow of this madness were banished from our schools and churches in every shape ! III; Let not young students apply themselves to search out deep, dark and abstruse matters, far above their reach, or spend their labour in any peculiar subjects, for which they have not the advantages of necessary antecedent learning, or books, or ob- servations. Let them not be too hasty to know things above their present powers, nor plunge their enquiries at once into the depths of knowledge nor begin to study any science in the mid- dle of it; this will confound rather than enlighten the under- standing : such practices may happen to discourage and jade the mind by an attempt above its power, it may balk the understand- ing, and createan aversion to future diligence, and perhaps by despair may forbid the pursuit of that subject for ever after- wards; as a limb overstrained by lifting a weight above its power, may never recover its former agility and vigour ; or if it does, the man may be frighted from ever exerting his strength again. IV. Nor yet let any student on the other hand fright him- self at every turn with insurmountable difficulties, nor imagine that the truth is wrapt up in impenetrable darkness. These are
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