Besides the want of determined ideas and of sagacity and exercise in finding out and laying in order intermediate ideas,there are three miscarriages that men are guilty of in reference to their reason,whereby this faculty is hindered in them from that service it might do and was designed for.And he that reflects upon the actions and discourses of mankind will find their defects in this kind very frequent and very observable.
(i)The first is of those who seldom reason at all,but do and think according to the example of others,whether parents,neighbors,ministers or who else they are pleased to make choice of to have an implicit faith in for the saving of themselves the pains and trouble of thinking and examining for themselves.
(ii)The second is of those w ho put passion in the place of reason and,being resolved that shall govern their actions and arguments,neither use their own nor hearken to other people's reason any further than it suits their humour,interest or party;and these,one may observe,commonly content themselves with words which have no distinct ideas to them,though in other matters that they come with an unbiased indifference to they want not abilities to talk and hear reason,where they have no secret inclination that hinders them from being tractable to it.
(iii)The third sort is of those who readily and sincerely follow reason but,for want of having that which one may call large,sound,roundabout sense,have not a full view of all that relates to the question and may be of moment to decide it.We are all shortsighted and very often see but one side of a matter;our views are not extended to all that has a connection with it.From this defect I think no man is free.We see but in part and we know but in part,and therefore it is no wonder we conclude not right from our partial views.This might instruct the proudest esteemer of his own parts how useful it is to talk and consult with others,even such as came short of him in capacity,quickness and penetration;for since no one sees all and we generally have different prospects of the same thing according to our different,as I may say,positions to it,it is not incongruous to think nor beneath any man to try whether another may not have notions of things which have escaped him and which his reason would make use of if they came into his mind.The faculty of reasoning seldom or never deceives those who trust to it;its consequences from what it builds on are evident and certain;but that which it oftenest,if not only,misleads us in is that the principles from which we conclude,the grounds upon which we bottom our reasoning are but a part;something is left out which should go into the reckoning to make it just and exact.Here we may imagine a vast and almost infinite advantage that angels and separate spirits may have over us,who in their several degrees of elevation above us may be endowed with more comprehensive faculties and some of them perhaps have perfect and exact views of all finite beings that come under their consideration,can,as it were,in the twinkling of an eye collect together all their scattered and almost boundless relations.A mind so furnished,what reason has it to acquiesce in the certainty of its conclusions!
In this we may see the reason why some men of study and thought that reason right and are lovers of truth do make no great advances in their discoveries of it.
Error and truth are uncertainly blended in their minds;their decisions are lame and defective,and they are very often mistaken in their judgments;the reason whereof is,they converse but with one sort of men,they read but one sort of books,they will not come in the hearing but of one sort of notions;the truth is,they canton out to themselves a little Goshen in the intellectual world where light shines and,as they conclude,day blesses them;but the rest of that vast expansion they give up to night and darkness and so avoid coming near it.