Page:Works of the Late Doctor Benjamin Franklin (1793).djvu/30

20 a bunch of raiſins, or a bun from the paſtrycook’s, with a glaſs of water, I had the reſt of the time, till their return, for ſhudy; and my progreſs therein was proportioned to that clearneſs of ideas, and quickneſs of conception, which are the fruit of temperance in eating and drinking.

It was about this period that, having one day been put to the bluſh for my ignorance in the art of calculation, which I had twice failed to learn while at ſchool, I took Cocker's Treatiſe of Arithmetic, and went through it by myſelf with the utmoſt eaſe. I alſo read a book of Navigation By Seller and Sturmy, and made myſelf maſter of the little geometry it contains, but I never proceeded far in this ſcience. Nearly at the ſame time I read Locke on the Human Underſtanding, and the Art of Thinking by Meffrs. du Port Royal.

While labouring to form and improve my ſtyle, I met with an Engliſh Grammar, which I believe was Greenwood's, having at the end of it two little eſſays on rhetoric and logic. In the latter I found a model of diſputation after the manner of Socrates. Shortly after I procured Xenophon's work, entitled, Memorable Things of Socrates, in which are various examples of the ſame method. Charmed to a degree of enthuſiaſm with this mode of diſputing; I adopted it, and renouncing blunt contradiction, and direct and poſitive argument, I aſſumed the character of a humble queſtioner. The peruſal of Shaftſbury and Collins had made me a ſceptic; and being previouſly ſo as to many doctrines of Chriſtianity, I found Socrates's method to be both the ſaſeſt for myſelf, as well as the moſt embarraſſing to thoſe againſt whom I employed it. It ſoon afforded me ſingular pleaſure; I inceſſantly practiſed it; and became very adroit in obtaining, even from perſons of ſuperior underſtanding, conceſſions of