13a 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[No. 278. 



sideratioa that makes conversation with the living 

 a thing much more desirable and useful, than 

 consulting the dead ; would the living but be in- 

 quisitive after truth, and apply their thoughts 

 with attention to the gaining of it, and be in- 

 differ. nt where it was found, so they could but 

 find it. 



The first requisite to the profiting by books, is 

 not to judge of opinions by the authority of the 

 writers ; none have the right of dictating but God 

 iimself, and that because he is truth itself. All 

 others have a right to be followed as far as I, i. e. 

 as far as the evidence of what they say convinces ; 

 and of that my own understanding alone must be 

 judge for me, and nothing else. If we made our 

 own eyes our guides, and admitted or rejected 

 opinions only by the evidence of reason, we should 

 neither embrace or refuse any tenet, because we 

 find it published by another, of what name or 

 character soever he was. 



You say you lose many things because they slip 

 from you : I have had experience of that myself, 

 but for that my Lord Bacon has provided a sure 

 remedy. For as I remember, he advises some- 

 where, never to go without pen and ink, or some- 

 thing to write with, and to be sure not to neglect 

 to write down all thoughts of moment that come 

 into the mind. I must own I have omitted it 

 often, and have often repented it. The thoughts 

 that come unsought, and as it were dropt into the 

 mind, are commonly the most valuable of any we 

 have, and therefore should be secured, because 

 they seldom return again. You say also, that you 

 lose many things, because your thoughts are not 

 steady aixl strong enough to pursue them to a just 

 issue. Give me leave to think, that herein you 

 mistake yourself and your abilities. Write down 

 your thoughts upon any subject as far as you have 

 at any time pursued them, and then go on again 

 some other time when you find your mind dis- 

 posed to it, and so till you have carried them as 

 far as you can, and you will be convinced, that, 

 if you have lost any, it has not been for want of 

 strength of mind to bring them to an issue, but 

 for want of memory to retain a long train of rea- 

 sonings, which the mind having once beat out, is 

 loth to be lit the pains to go over again ; and so 

 your connexion and train having slipped the 

 memory, the pursuit stops, and the reasoning is 

 neglected before it comes to the last conclusion. 

 If you have not tried it, you cannot imagin the 

 difference there is, in studying with, and without 

 a pen in your hand ; your ideas, if the connexions 

 of them that you have traced be set down, so that 

 ■without the pains of recollecting them in your 

 memory you can take an easy view of them again, 

 will lead you further than you expect. Try, and 

 tell me if it is not so. I say not this that I should 

 not be glad to have any conversation upon what- 

 ever points you shall employ your thoughts about. 



Propose what you have of this kind freely, and 

 do not suspect that it will interfere with my 

 affairs. 



Know that besides the pleasure that it is to 

 converse with a thinking man and a lover of truth, 

 I shall profit by it more than you. This you 

 would see by the frequency of my visits, if you 

 were within the reach of them. 



That which I think of Deut. 12. 15. is this, that 

 the reason why it is said, As the Koebuck and the 

 Hart, is because (Levit. 17.), to prevent idolatry, 

 in offering the blood to other gods, they were com- 

 manded to kill all the cattle that they eat, at the 

 door of the tabernacle, as a peace-offering, and 

 sprinkle the blood on the altar ; but wilde beasts 

 that were clean might be eaten though their blood 

 was not offered to God (v. 12.), because being 

 killed before they were taken, their blood could 

 not be sprinkled on the altar ; and therefore it 

 sufficed in such cases, to pour out their blood 

 wherever they were killed and cover it with dust. 

 And for the same reason, when the camp was 

 broken up, wherein the whole people were in the 

 neighbourhood of the tabernacle, during their 

 forty years' passage from Egypt to Canaan, and 

 the people were scattered in habitations through 

 all the land of promise ; those who were so far 

 from the Temple were excused (Deut. 12. 21.22.) 

 from killing their tame cattle at Jerusalem, and 

 sprinkling their blood on the altar. No more was 

 required of them than in killing a roebuck or any 

 other wilde beast ; they were only to pour out the 

 blood and cover it with dust, and so they might 

 eat of the flesh. These are my thoughts concern- 

 ing this passage. 



What you say about critics and critical inter- 

 pretations, particularly of the Scriptures, is not 

 only in my opinion true, but of great use to be 

 observed in reading learned commentators, who 

 not seldom make it their business to show in what 

 sense a word has been used by other authors ; 

 whereas the proper business of a commentator is 

 to show in what sense it was used by the author 

 in that place, which in the Scripture we have 

 reason to conclude was most commonly in the 

 ordinary vulgar sense of the word or phrase known 

 in that time, because the books are written, as you 

 rightly observe, and adapted to ,the people. If 

 critics had observed this, we should have in their 

 writings lesse ostentation and more truth, and a 

 great deal of darkness now spread on the Scrip- 

 tures had been avoided. I have a late proof of 

 this myself, who have lately found in some pas- 

 sages of Scripture a sense quite different from 

 what I understood tbcm in before, or from what I 

 found in commentators ; and yet it appears so 

 clear to me, that when I see you next, I shall 

 dare to appeal to you in it. But I read the Word 

 of God without prepossession or bias, and come 

 to it with a resolution to take my sense from it, 



