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Rh none at all, error doing to busy men much more harm than ignorance to the slow and sluggish. Between these, those seem to do best who, taking material and useful hints, sometimes from single matters of fact, carry them in their minds to be judged of by what they shall find in history to confirm or reverse their imperfect observations, which may be established into rules fit to be relied on when they are justified by a sufficient and wary induction of particulars. He that makes no such reflections on what he reads, only loads his mind with a rhapsody of tales, fit in winter nights for the entertainment of others; and he that will improve every matter of fact into a maxim, will abound in contrary observations that can be of no other use but to perplex and pudder him if he compares them, or else to misguide him if he gives himself up to the authority of that which for its novelty or for some other fancy best pleases him.

14. Bias.—Next to these we may place those who suffer their own natural tempers and passions they are possessed with to influence their judgments, especially of men and things that may any way relate to their present circumstances and interest. Truth is all simple, all pure, will bear no mixture of anything else with it. It is rigid and inflexible to any bye-interests, and so should the understanding be, whose use and excellency lie in conforming itself to it. To think of everything just as it is in itself, is the proper business of the understanding, though it be not that which men