310.

The furthest stretch of reason is, to know that there is an infinite number of things which utterly surpass it; and it must be very feeble indeed, if it reach not SO far as to know this.

It is fit we should know how to doubt where we ought; to be confident where we ought; and to submit where we ought. He who is deficient in these respects, does not yet understand the powers of reason.

Yet there are men who err against each of these principles: either, considering every thing as demonstrated, because they are unacquainted with the nature of demonstration; or, doubting of every thing, because they know not where to submit; or, submitting to every thing, because they know not where they ought to judge. -Pascal.

311.

One great object of our endeavours should be, to know the limits of our mental powers, to know why they are so limited, and why certain things are hidden from us: this we may do, and this knowledge is perhaps the highest, and certainly, is the most useful and satisfactory that we can attain. It will teach us the value of those communications, which supply any defect they may have in informing our reason, by the impression they are calculated to make upon our feelings.-W. Danby.

312.

Is it not a proof of the limited power of the human mind, that it can state a difficulty which it cannot solve? Does not this imply a sort of imperfect comprehension ? - W. Danby.

313.

There are three forms of speaking, which are, as it were, the style and phrase of imposture.

The first kind is of them who, as soon as they have gotten any subject or matter, do straight cast

it into an art, reducing all into divisions and distinctions; thence drawing assertions or positions, and so framing oppositions by questions and anHence issueth the cobwebs and clatterings

swers.

of the Schoolmen.

The second kind is of them who, out of the vanity of their wit, (as church poets) do make and devise all variety of tales, stories, and examples, whereby they may lead men's minds to a belief; from whence did grow the legends and infinite fabulous inventions and dreams of the ancient heretics.

The third kind is of them who fill men's ears with mysteries, high parables, allegories, and illusions, which mystical and profound form, many of the heretics also made choice of.

By the first kind of these, the capacity and wit of man is fettered and entangled; by the second, it is trained on and inveigled; by the third, it is astonished and enchanted; but by every of them the while it is seduced and abused. --Bacon.

314.

If we demand not good security for truth, we give advantage to impostors and cheats. --Dr Which

cote.

315.

Impressions independent of the will, whether produced directly through the senses, or by trains of association within the mind, gradually lose their power by repetition; but habits, whether of mind or body depending on a previous determination of the will, gain strength by their very exercise, so as at length to become a part of ourselves, and an element of our happiness. --Professor Sedgwick.

316.

Habits are lost by forbearing those acts which are connatural to them, and conservative of them.Dr Whichcote.

317.

Habit, if wisely and skilfully formed, becomes truly a second nature (as the common saying is); but unskilfully and unmethodically directed, it will be, as it were, the ape of nature, which imitates nothing to the life, but only clumsily and awkwardly. -Bacon.

318.

We examine not how long one has been doing a work, but if it be well done, that only makes it valuable. Fast and slow are accidents which are unknown and forgotten, whereas well is permanent. -Dr T. Fuller.

319.

In our conduct, we are, for the most part, determined at once, and by an impulse, which is the effect and energy of pre-established habits. Paley.

320.

We ought to know, that it is not easy for a man to form a principle of action, unless he daily speaks and hears the same things; and, at the same time, accommodates them to the use of life.Epictetus.

321.

Then you have heard a thing often enough, when what you have heard, is passed into a principle, and makes a constitution of mind, and is seen in practice. Dr Whichcote.

322.

It always gives perfection to have the exercise harder than the ordinary use. --Bacon.

323.

Amidst the great diversities of temper, and probably of capacities, which are to be found in individuals, the most cautious and discerning enquirer must acknowledge it extremely difficult to form any

general estimate at once convincing by its clearness, and applicable from its precision. We do, indeed, know, that from the very moment any human creature begins to act, he shews both wrong propensities which may be controlled, and right ones which may be confirmed, by the aid of instruction. We also know that children are incapable of long foresight, or nice discrimination; that they consider what is agreeable, rather than what is useful; that habits of every kind are contracted insensibly; that vicious habits are not subdued without great difficulty, and that virtuous habits require frequent assistance and encouragement.

The same laws seem to pervade the vegetable, the animal, and the moral world. Nurture is experimentally found in all of them to ward off exterior danger, and to strengthen every internal capacity of improvement, to prevent untimely blasts, and to secure a lasting and vigorous maturity. We observe, too, that every good quality is alike destroyed by excessive care, or by total neglect; and that the same causes give a quicker growth and a more incurable malignity to such qualities as are bad. To habit, indeed, may be applied the well-known description of fame:-Timorous at first, and puny in its size, it shrinks from the slightest breath of opposition; but disregarded or cherished, it rears aloft its head, it spreads its bulk, it quickens its pace, and in every stage of its progression acquires new strength and new boldness.

The first operation of all our faculties is owing to some inconsiderable impulse. They are called into action by incidents which we sometimes cannot control, and sometimes do not observe. They produce effects which were at the beginning, minute and transient; and when these effects, from their permanence or magnitude, attract our attention, the causes which give rise to them, either elude our

efforts to discover them, or when discovered, they are counteracted only by repeated trials and after many mortifying disappointments. Dr Parr.

324.

In every thing which refers to practice we must make up our accounts as to what is in our power, and what not. For, in the former, alteration is allowed, but in the latter, application merely. The husbandman hath no power over either the nature of the soil or the weather; nor the physician over the natural frame and constitution of the patient, or the variety of accidents. But in the cultivation of the mind, and the healing of its disorders, three things come under consideration; the different characters of dispositions, the ailments, and remedies: as also in the treatment of bodily diseases, these three things are brought under our notice; the habit or constitution of the patient, the disease, and the cure. But of those three, the last only is in our power, not so the two first. But we must make no less careful enquiry into those matters which are beyond our power, than into those which are within it. For a distinct and accurate knowledge of them must form the basis of a doctrine respecting the remedies, in order that these may be applied more skilfully and successfully.-Bacon.

325.

Talk to a blind man-he knows he wants the sense of sight, and willingly makes the proper allowances. But there are certain internal senses, which a man may want, and yet be wholly ignorant that he wants them. It is most unpleasant to converse with such persons on subjects of taste, philosophy, or religion. Of course there is no reasoning with them : for they do not possess the facts, on which the reasoning must be grounded. Nothing is possible, but a naked dissent, which implies a sort of unsocial contempt; or, what a man of kind dispositions is