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Rh This, I think, is visibly so; and if it be, he that begins to have any doubt of any of his tenets, which he received without examination, ought as much as he can, to put himself wholly into this state of ignorance in reference to that question; and throwing wholly by all his former notions, and the opinions of others, examine, with a perfect indifferency, the question in its source, without any inclination to either side or any regard to his or others’ unexamined opinions. This I own is no easy thing to do; but I am not inquiring the easy way to opinion, but the right way to truth, which they must follow who will deal fairly with their own understandings and their own souls.

36. Question.—The indifferency that I here propose will also enable them to state the question right which they are in doubt about, without which they can never come to a fair and clear decision of it.

37. Perseverance.—Another fruit from this indifferency, and the considering things in themselves abstract from our own opinions and other men’s notions and discourses on them, will be, that each man will pursue his thoughts in that method which will be most agreeable to the nature of the thing, and to his apprehension of what it suggests to him, in which he ought to proceed with regularity and constancy, until he come to a well-grounded resolution wherein he may acquiesce. If it be objected that this will require every man to be a scholar, and quit all his other business and betake himself wholly to study, I answer, I propose no more to anyone than he has time for. Some men’s state and condition require no great extent of knowledge; the necessary provision for life swallows the greatest part of their time. But one man’s want