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RV 14 (Chap. 4.) lie? In Desire and Aversion; that you may neither be disappointed of the one, nor incur the other; in exerting the Powers of Pursuit and Avoidance, that you may not be liable to fail; in Assent and Suspense, that you may not be liable to be deceived. The first and most necessary is the first Topic. But if you seek to avoid incurring your Aversion, trembling and lamenting all the while, at this rate how do you improve?

§. 4. Show me then your Improvement in this Point. As if I should say to a Wrestler, Show me your Shoulders; and he should answer me, "See my Poisers."—Do you and your Poisers look to that: I desire to see the Effect of them.

"Take the Treatise on the Subject of the active Powers, and see how thoroughly I have perused it."

I do not enquire into this, Wretch: but how you exert those Powers; how you manage your Desires and Aversions, how your Intentions and Purposes; how you are prepared for Events, whether conformably or contrary to Nature. If conformably, give me Evidence of that, and I will say you improve: if contrary, go your way, and not only comment on these Treatises, but write such yourself; and what Service will it do you? Do not you know that the whole Volume is sold for Half a Crown? Doth he who comments upon it, then, value himself at more than Half a Crown? Never look for your Business in one Thing, and for Improvement in another.

Where is Improvement, then?

If any of you, withdrawing himself from Externals, turns to his own Faculty of Choice, to exercise, and finish, and render it conformable to Nature; elevated, free, unrestrained, unhindered, faithful, decent if he hath learnt too, that whoever desires,