thing is worse than that assertion and decision should precede
knowledge and perception."--Cicero, Acad., i. 13.]

Aristarchus said that anciently there were scarce seven sages to be found
in the world, and in his time scarce so many fools: have not we more
reason than he to say so in this age of ours? Affirmation and obstinacy
are express signs of want of wit. This fellow may have knocked his nose
against the ground a hundred times in a day, yet he will be at his Ergo's
as resolute and sturdy as before. You would say he had had some new soul
and vigour of understanding infused into him since, and that it happened
to him, as to that ancient son of the earth, who took fresh courage and
vigour by his fall;

"Cui cum tetigere parentem,
jam defecta vigent renovata robore membra:"

["Whose broken limbs, when they touched his mother earth,
immediately new force acquired."--Lucan, iv. 599.]

does not this incorrigible coxcomb think that he assumes a new
understanding by undertaking a new dispute? 'Tis by my own experience
that I accuse human ignorance, which is, in my opinion, the surest part
of the world's school. Such as will not conclude it in themselves, by so
vain an example as mine, or their own, let them believe it from Socrates,
the master of masters; for the philosopher Antisthenes said to his
disciples, "Let us go and hear Socrates; there I will be a pupil with you";
and, maintaining this doctrine of the Stoic sect, "that virtue was
sufficient to make a life completely happy, having no need of any other
thing whatever"; except of the force of Socrates, added he.

That long attention that I employ in considering myself, also fits rile
to judge tolerably enough of others; and there are few things whereof I
speak better and with better excuse. I happen very often more exactly to
see and distinguish the qualities of my friends than they do themselves:
I have astonished some with the pertinence of my description, and have
given them warning of themselves. By having from my infancy been
accustomed to contemplate my own life in those of others, I have acquired
a complexion studious in that particular; and when I am once interit upon
it, I let few things about me, whether countenances, humours,
or discourses, that serve to that purpose, escape me. I study all,
both what I am to avoid and what I am to follow. Also in my friends,
I discover by their productions thei