Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

To chaffer for preferment with his gold,
Where bishoprics and sinecures are sold;

72 But duly watched his flock, by night and day;
And from the prowling wolf redeemed the prey,
And hungry sent the wily fox away.

The proud he tamed, the penitent he cheered: 76 Nor to rebuke the rich offender feared.

His preaching much, but more his practice wrought; (A living sermon of the truths he taught;) For this by rules severe his life he squared: 80 That all might see the doctrine which they heard. For priests, he said, are patterns for the rest; (The gold of heaven, who bear the God impressed;) But when the precious coin is kept unclean, 84 The sovereign's image is no longer seen. If they be foul on whom the people trust, Well may the baser brass contract a rust. The prelate for his holy life he prized; 88 The worldly pomp of prelacy despised. His Saviour came not with a gaudy show, Nor was his kingdom of the world below. Patience in want, and poverty of mind,

92 These marks of church and churchmen he designed,
And living taught, and dying left behind.

The crown he wore was of the pointed thorn;
In purple he was crucified, not born.

96 They who contend for place and high degree,
Are not his sons, but those of Zebedee.

Not but he knew the signs of earthly power Might well become Saint Peter's successor;

100 The holy father holds a double reign,

The prince may keep his pomp, the fisher must be plain. Such was the saint; who shone with every grace, Reflecting, Moses-like, his Maker's face.

104 God saw his image lively was expressed;

And his own work, as in creation, blessed.
The tempter saw him too with envious eye,
And, as on Job, demanded leave to try.
108 He took the time when Richard was deposed,
And high and low with happy Harry closed.

This Prince, though great in arms, the priest withstood,
Near though he was, yet not the next of blood.
112 Had Richard unconstrained resigned the throne,
A King can give no more than is his own;
The title stood entailed, had Richard had a son.
Conquest, an odious name, was laid aside;
116 Where all submitted, none the battle tried.
The senseless plea of right by Providence
Was by a flattering priest invented since;

JOHN

And lasts no longer than the present sway,
120 But justifies the next who comes in play.

The people's right remains; let those who dare
Dispute their power, when they the judges are.

He joined not in their choice, because he knew
124 Worse might and often did from change ensue.
Much to himself he thought; but little spoke;
And, undeprived, his benefice forsook.

Now, through the land, his cure of souls he stretched,
128 And like a primitive apostle preached.

Still cheerful; ever constant to his call;

By many followed, loved by most, admired by all.
With what he begged, his brethren he relieved!

182 And gave the charities himself received;

Gave, while he taught; and edified the more,

Because he showed by proof 'twas easy to be poor.
He went not with the crowd to see a shrine;

136 But fed us by the way with food divine.
In deference to his virtues, I forbear

To show you what the rest in orders were:
This brilliant is so spotless, and so bright,
140 He needs no foil, but shines by his own proper light.

JOHN LOCKE.

HN LOCKE (1632-1704), the father of English empirical philosophy, spent much of his life after 1667 as secretary and tutor in the house of Lord Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury. Ill-health at one time, and political reasons at another, induced him to live for many years in France (1675-1679) and in Holland (1683-1689). After the Revolution of 1688, he returned to England, and twice occupied political posts for brief periods. In 1700, he retired to a quiet country-seat at Oates, Essex, where he peacefully died in 1704.

Locke's chief work is the famous Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690), in which he holds that we have no innate ideas', but derive all our ideas, simple and complex, from sensation and reflection.

By this work Locke laid the foundation of modern empiricism, and made way for the idealism of Berkeley (1685-1753) and the scepticism of Hume (1711-1776). His Thoughts concerning Education (1693) play an important part in the history of pedagogics. Civil and religious liberty he advocated in Two Treatises of Government (1690) and Letters concerning Toleration (1689-1690). High as Locke's position is in the world of thought, he cannot claim an equally high place as a mere writer, as his style is decidedly monotonous and bare. But then he has the merit of writing with perfect clearness and in a language which is intelligible to every educated reader, because so free from technical terminology.

CAUSES OF WEAKNESS IN MEN'S UNDERSTANDINGS. [From Some Thoughts on the Conduct of the Understanding, publ. 1762]

There is, it is visible, great variety | respect, that art and industry would 5 in men's understandings, and their natural constitutions put so wide a difference between some men in this

never be able to master; and their very natures seem to want a foundation to raise on it that which other

men easily attain unto. Amongst 10 men of equal education there is a great inequality of parts. And the woods of America, as well as the schools of Athens, produce men of several abilities in the same kind. 15 Though this be so, yet I imagine most men come very short of what they might attain unto in their several degrees, by a neglect of their understandings. A few rules of logic are 20 thought sufficient in this case for those who pretend to the highest improvement; whereas I think there are a great many natural defects in the understanding capable of amendment, 25 which are overlooked and wholly neglected. And it is easy to perceive that men are guilty of a great many faults in the exercise and improvement of this faculty of the mind, which hinder 30 them in their progress, and keep them in ignorance and error all their lives. Some of them I shall take notice of, and endeavour to point out proper remedies for, in the following discourse. 35 Besides the want of determined

ideas, and of sagacity and exercise in finding out and laying in order intermediate ideas, there are three miscarriages that men are guilty of 40 in reference to their reason, whereby this faculty is hindered in them from that service it might do and was designed for. And he that reflects upon the actions and discourses of mankind, 45 will find their defects in this kind very frequent and very observable.

1. The first is of those who seldom reason at all, but do and think according to the example of others, 50 whether parents, neighbours, ministers, or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in, for the saving of themselves the pains and trouble of thinking and 55 examining for themselves.

2. The second is of those who put passion in the place of reason, and

being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments, neither use their own, nor hearken to other people's 60 reason, any further than it suits their humour, interest, or party; and these, one may observe, commonly content themselves with words which have no distinct ideas to them, though, in 65 other matters, that they come with an unbiassed indifferency to, they want not abilities to talk and hear reason, where they have no secret inclination that hinders them from being un- 70 tractable to it.

3. The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason, but for want of having that which one may call large, sound, round-about 75 sense, have not a full view of all that relates to the question, and may be of moment to decide it. We are all short-sighted, and very often see but one side of a matter; our views 80 are not extended to all that has a connexion with it. From this defect, I think, no man is free. We see but in part, and we know but in part, and therefore it is no wonder we 85 conclude not right from our partial views. This might instruct the proudest esteemer of his own parts how useful it is to talk and consult with others, even such as came short with 90 him in capacity, quickness, and penetration; for, since no one sees all, and we generally have different prospects of the same thing, according to our different, as I may say, posi- 95 tions to it, it is not incongruous to think, nor beneath any man to try, whether another may not have notions of things which have escaped him, and which his reason would make 100 use of if they came into his mind. The faculty of reasoning seldom or never deceives those who trust to it; its consequences from what it builds on are evident and certain; but that 105 which it oftenest, if not only, misleads

us in, is, that the principles from which we conclude, the grounds upon which we bottom our reasoning, are 110 but a part; something is left out which should go into the reckoning to make it just and exact.

...

In this we may see the reason why some men of study and thought, 115 that reason right, and are lovers of truth, do make no great advances in their discoveries of it. Error and truth are uncertainly blended in their minds, their decisions are lame and 120 defective, and they are very often mistaken in their judgments. The reason whereof is, they converse but with one sort of men, they read but one sort of books, they will not come 125 in the hearing but of one sort of notions; the truth is, they canton out to themselves a little Goshen in the intellectual world, where light shines, and, as they conclude, day 130 blesses them; but the rest of that vast expansum they give up to night and darkness, and so avoid coming near it. They have a petty traffic with known correspondents in some 135 little creek; within that they confine themselves, and are dexterous managers enough of the wares and products of that corner with which they content themselves, but will not ven140 ture out into the great ocean of knowledge, to survey the riches that nature hath stored other parts with,

no less genuine, no less solid, no less useful, than what has fallen to their lot in the admired plenty and suffi- 145 ciency of their own little spot, which to them contains whatsoever is good. in the universe. Those who live thus mewed up within their own contracted territories, and will not look 150 abroad beyond the boundaries that chance, conceit, or laziness has set to their inquiries, but live separate from the notions, discourses, and attainments of the rest of mankind, 155 may not amiss be represented by the inhabitants of the Marianne Islands, which, being separated by a large tract of sea from all communion with the habitable parts of the earth, thought 160 themselves the only people of the world. And though the straitness and conveniences of life amongst them. had never reached so far as to the use of fire, till the Spaniards, not 165 many years since, in their voyages from Acapulco to Manilla brought it amongst them, yet, in the want and ignorance of almost all things, they looked upon themselves, even after 170 that the Spaniards had brought amongst them the notice of variety of nations abounding in sciences, arts, and conveniences of life, of which they knew nothing, they look- 175 ed upon themselves, I say, as the happiest and wisest people in the universe.

READING.

Those who have read of every thing are thought to understand every thing too, but it is not always so. Reading furnishes the mind only with 5 materials of knowledge: it is thinking makes what we read ours. We are of the ruminating kind, and it is not enough to cram ourselves with a great load of collections; unless we chew 10 them over again, they will not give

us strength and nourishment. There are indeed in some writers visible instances of deep thought, close and acute reasoning, and ideas well pursued. The light these would give, 15 would be of great use, if their readers would observe and imitate them: all the rest, at best, are but particularly fit to be turned into knowledge; but that can be done only by our own 20

meditation, and examining the reach, force, and coherence of what is said; and then, as far as we apprehend and see the connexion of ideas, so 25 far is it ours; without that, it is but so much loose matter floating in our brain. The memory may be stored, but the judgment is little better, and the stock of knowledge not increased 30 by being able to repeat what others have said, or produce the arguments we have found in them. Such a knowledge as this is but knowledge by hearsay, and the ostentation of 35 it is at best but talking by rote, and very often upon weak and wrong principles. For all that is to be found in books, is not built upon true foundations, nor always rightly deduced 40 from the principles it is pretended to be built on. Such an examen as is requisite to discover that, every reader's mind is not forward to make; especially in those who have given 45 themselves up to a party, and only hunt for what they can scrape together, that may favour and support the tenets of it. Such men wilfully exclude themselves from truth, and from 50 all true benefit to be received by reading. Others of more indifferency often want attention and industry. The mind is backward in itself to be at the pains to trace every argu55 ment to its original, and to see upon what basis it stands, and how firmly; but yet it is this that gives so much the advantage to one man more than another in reading. The mind should, 60 by severe rules, be tied down to this, at first uneasy, task; use and exercise will give it facility, so that those who are accustomed to it, readily, as it were with one cast of the eye, take 65 a view of the argument, and presently, in most cases, see where it bottoms. Those who have got this faculty, one may say, have got the true key of books, and the clue to lead them

| through the mizmaze of a variety of 70 opinions and authors to truth and certainty. This young beginners should be entered in, and shewed the use of, that they might profit by their reading. Those who are strangers to 75 it, will be apt to think it too great a clog in the way of men's studies; and they will suspect they shall make but small progress, if, in the books they read; they must stand to examine 80 and unravel every argument, and follow it step by step up to its original.

I answer, this is a good objection, and ought to weigh with those whose 85 reading is designed for much talk and little knowledge, and I have nothing to say to it. But I am here inquiring into the conduct of the understanding in its progress towards know- 90 ledge; and to those who aim at that, I may say, that he who fair and softly goes steadily forward in a course that points right, will sooner be at his journey's end, than he that 95 runs after every one he meets, though he gallop all day full speed.

To which let me add, that this way of thinking on and profiting by what we read, will be a clog and 100 rub to any one only in the beginning; when custom and exercise has made it familiar, it will be dispatched, in the most occasions, without resting or interruption in the course of our 105 reading. The motions and views of a mind exercised that way are wonderfully quick; and a man used to such sort of reflections, sees as much at one glimpse, as would require a long 110 discourse to lay before another, and make out in an entire and gradual deduction. Besides that, when the first difficulties are over, the delight and sensible advantage it brings, 115 mightily encourages and enlivens the mind in reading, which, without this, is very improperly called study.

« ZurückWeiter »