are from their youth accustomed to strict reasoning, and to trace the dependence of any truth, in a long train of consequences, to its remote principles, and to observe its connection; and he that by frequent practice[1] has not been used to this employment of his understanding, it is no more wonder that he should not, when he is grown into years, be able to bring his mind to it, than that he should not be on a sudden able to grave or design, dance on the ropes, or write a good hand, who has never practiced either of them.
Nay, the most of men are so wholly strangers to this that they do not so much as perceive their want of it: they dispatch the ordinary business of their callings by rote, as we say, as they have learnt it, and if at any time they miss success they impute it to anything rather than want of thought or skill, that they conclude (because they know no better) they have in perfection: or if there be any subject that interest or fancy[2] has recommended to their thoughts, their reasoning about it is still after their own fashion; be it better or worse, it serves their turns, and is the best they are acquainted with, and therefore, when they are led by it into mistakes and their business succeeds accordingly, they impute it to any cross accident or default of others, rather than to their own want of understanding; that is what nobody discovers[3] or
- ↑ And he that by frequent practice, etc. Another illustration of careless grammatical construction.
- ↑ Interest or fancy. Cf. “Essay on the Human Understanding,” Bk. IV. ch. xx. § 12.
- ↑ That is what nobody discovers. Cf. the following from Rochefouscault: ‘“Tout le monde se plaint de sa mémoire, et personnene ne se plaint de son jugement.” “Everyone finds fault with his memory, and no one finds fault with his judgment.”
