Page:Of the conduct of the understanding (IA ofconductofunder00lock).pdf/122

116 tenets by an implicit faith, and firmly to adhere to them whether true or false. What colors may be given to this, or of what use it may be when practiced upon the vulgar, destined To labor, and given up to the service of their bellies, I will not here inquire. But as to the ingenuous part of mankind, whose condition allows them leisure, and letters, and inquiry after truth, I can see no other right way of principling them, but to take heed, as much as may be, that in their tender years, ideas that have no natural cohesion come not to be united in their heads; and that this rule be often inculcated to them to be their guide in the whole course of their lives and studies, viz., that they never suffer any ideas to be joined in their understandings in any other or stronger combination than what their own nature and correspondence give them; and that they often examine those that they find linked together in their minds, whether this association of ideas be from the visible agreement that is in the ideas themselves, or from the habitual and prevailing custom of the mind joining them thus together in thinking.

This is for caution against this evil, before it be thoroughly riveted by custom in the understanding; but he that would cure it when habit has established it, must nicely observe the very quick and almost imperceptible motions of the mind in its habitual actions. What I have said in another place about the change