Labour for labour sake is against nature.The understanding,as well as all the other faculties,chooses always the shortest way to its end,would presently obtain the knowledge it is about and then set upon some new enquiry.But this whether laziness or haste often misleads it and makes it content itself with improper ways of search and such as will not serve the turn.
Sometimes it rests upon testimony,when testimony of right has nothing to do,because it is easier to believe than to be scientifically instructed.
Sometimes it contents itself with one argument and rests satisfied with that,as it were a demonstration;whereas the thing under proof is not capable of demonstration and therefore must be submitted to the trial of probabilities,and all the material arguments pro and con be examined and brought to a balance.In some cases the mind is determined by probable topics in enquiries where demonstration may be had.All these and several others,which laziness,impatience,custom and want of use and attention lead men into,are misapplications of the understanding in the search of truth.In every question the nature and manner of the proof it is capable of should first be considered to make our enquiry such as it should be.This would save a great deal of frequently misemployed pains and lead us sooner to that discovery and possession of truth we are capable of.The multiplying variety of arguments,especially frivolous ones,such as are all that are merely verbal,is not only lost labour,but Numbers the memory to no purpose and serves only to hinder it from seizing and holding of the truth in all those cases which are capable of demonstration.
In such a way of proof the truth and certainty is seen and the mind fully possesses itself of it;when in the other way of assent it only hovers about it,is amused with uncertainties.In this superficial way indeed the mind is capable of more variety of plausible talk,but is not enlarged as it should be in its knowledge.It is to this same haste and impatience of the mind also that a not due tracing of the arguments to their true foundation is owing;men see a little,presume a great deal,and so jump to the conclusion.This is a short way to fancy and conceit and (if firmly embraced)to opiniatrety,but is certainly the furthest way about to knowledge.For he that will know must,by the connection of the proofs,see the truth and the ground it stands on;and therefore,if he has for haste skipped over what he should have examined,he must begin and go over all again,or else he will never come to knowledge.
