ï' 42 THE IMPROVEMENT OF 'T8 MIND; strange to them, their understandings are greatly entertained and improved by the occurrence of many things which were tin- known to them before, they admire the treatise, and commend the author at once; whereas, if they had but attained a good degree of skill in that science, perhaps they would find that the author had written very poorly, that neither his sense nor his method was just and proper, and that he had nothing in him but what was very common or trivial in his discourses on that subject. Hence it comes to pass, that Cairo and Faber who were both bred up to labour and unacquainted with the sciences, shall admire one of the weekly papers, or a little pamphlet that talks pertly on some critical or learned theme, because the matter is all strange and new to them, and they join to extol the writer to the skies; and for the same reason a young academic shall dwell upon a Journal or an ohservator that treatsof trade and politics in a dictatorial style, and shall be lavish in praise of the author. While at the same time, persons well skilled in those different subjects hear the impertinent tattle with ajust contempt; for they know how weak and aukward many of those little di- minutive discourses are ; and that those very papers of science, politics, or trade, which were so much admired by the ignorant, are perhaps, but verymean performances ; though it must be also confessed, there are some excellent essays in those papers, and that upon science as well as trade. V. But there is a danger of mistake in our judgments of bookson the other hand also : for when we have made ourselves masters of any particular theme of knowledge, and surveyed it longon all sides, there is perhaps scarce any writer on that sub- ject who much entertains and pleases us afterwards, because we find little or nothing new in him ; and yet in a true judgment perhaps, his sentiments are most proper and just, his explications clear, and his reasonings strong, and all the parts of the discourse are well connected and set in a happy light ; but we knew most of those things before, and therefore they strike us not, and we are in danger of discommending them. Thus the learnedand the unlearned, have their several die- tinct dangers and prejudices ready to attend them in their judg- ment of the writings of men. These which 1 have mentioned are a specimen of them, and indeed but a mere specimen; for the prejudices that warp our judgment aside from truth, are almost nfinite and endless. Yet I cannot forbear to point out two or three more of these follies, that I may attempt something toward the correction of them, or at least, to guard others against them. There are some persons of a forward and lively temper, and who are fond to intermeddle with all appearances of knowledge,
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