Words being intended for signs of my ideas to make them known unto others, not by any natural signification, but by a voluntary imposition, it is plain cheat and abuse when I make them stand sometimes for one thing and sometimes for another, the wilful doing whereof can be imputed to nothing but great folly or greater dishonesty. And a man, in his accounts with others, may, with as much fairness, make the characters of numbers stand sometimes for one and sometimes for another collection of units (e.g., this character 3 stands sometimes for 3, sometimes for 4, and sometimes for 8), as in his discourse or reasoning make the same words stand for different collections of simple ideas.

There is another yet more general, though perhaps less observed, abuse of words; and that is, that men having by a long and familiar use annexed to them certain ideas, they are apt to imagine so near and necessary a connection between the names and the signification they use them in, that they forwardly suppose one cannot but understand what their meaning is, and therefore one ought to acquiesce in the words delivered, as if it were past doubt, that in the use of these common received sounds the speaker and hearer had necessarily the same precise ideas. Whence presuming, that when they have in discourse used any term, they have thereby, as it were, set before others the very thing they talk of.

And so likewise, taking the words of others as naturally standing for just what they themselves have been accustomed to apply to them, they never trouble themselves to explain their own, or understand clearly others' meaning. From whence commonly proceed noise and wrangling without improvement or information; whilst men take words to be the constant regular marks of agreed notions, which in truth are no more than the voluntary and unsteady signs of their own ideas. And yet men think it strange if, in discourse or (where it is often absolutely necessary) in dispute, one may sometimes ask the meaning of their terms; though the arguings one may every day observe in conversation, make it

evident that there are few names of complex ideas which any two men use for the same just precise collection.

Life is a term; none more familiar. Any one almost would take it for an affront to be asked what he meant by it. And yet, if it comes to be a question whether a plant that lies ready formed in the seed have life, whether the embryo of an egg before incubation, or a man in a swoon, without sense or motion, be alive or no, it is easy to perceive that a clear, distinct, settled idea does not always accompany the use of so known a word as life is.

Some gross and confused conceptions men indeed ordinarily have, to which they apply the common words of their language, and such a loose use of their words serves them well enough in their ordinary discourses or affairs. But this is not sufficient for philosophical inquiries. Knowledge and reasoning require precise determinate ideas. And where truth and knowledge are concerned, I know not what fault it can be to desire the explication of words whose sense seems dubious, or why a man should be ashamed to own his ignorance in what sense another man uses his words, since he has no other way of certainly knowing it but by being informed.

For,

This abuse of taking words upon trust has nowhere spread so far nor with so ill effects as among men of letters. The multiplication and the obstinacy of disputes which have so laid waste the intellectual world, is owing to nothing more than to this ill use of words. though it be generally believed that there is great diversity of opinions in the volumes and variety in the controversies the world is distracted with, yet the most I can find that the contending learned men of different parties do in these arguings one with another, is this, that they speak different languages. For I am apt to imagine that, when any of them, quitting terms, think upon things, and know what they think, they think all the same, though perhaps what they would have be different.

ISAAC BARROW.

ISAAC BARROW (A.D. 1630-1677) was equally noted as a mathematician and a theologian, besides having no small reputation for knowledge of classical and general literature. He held the chairs of Greek and of geometry, was Master of Trinity College, Cambridge, and finally Vice-Chancellor of the University. Of his scientific works, the principal is his Treatise on Optics; and in addition to his Sermons, Expositions of the Creed, of the Lord's Prayer, and of the Sacraments, etc., he published two elaborate treatises on the Unity of the Church, and the Supremacy of the Pope.

REDEEMING THE TIME.

VIRTUE is not a mushroom that springeth up of itself in one night when we are asleep; but a delicate plant, that groweth slowly and tenderly, needing much pains to cultivate it, much care to guard it, much time to mature it, in our untoward soil, in this world's unkindly weather. Happiness is a thing too precious to be purchased at an easy rate; heaven is too high to come at without much climbing; the crown of bliss is a prize too noble to be won without a long and tough conflict.

Neither is vice a spirit that will be conjured down by a charm, or with a "presto" driven away; it is not an adversary that can be knocked down at a blow, or despatched with a stab.

Whoever shall pretend that at any time, easily and with a celerity, by a kind of legermain or by any mysterious knack, a man may be settled in virtue or converted from vice, common experience will abundantly confute him; which showeth, that a habit otherwise (setting miracles aside) cannot be produced or destroyed, than by a constant exercise of acts suitable or apposite thereto; and that such acts cannot be exercised without voiding all impediments and framing all principles of action, such as temper of body, judgment of mind, influence of custom to a compliance; that, who by temper is peevish or choleric, cannot without mastering that temper become

patient or meek; that, who is proud, cannot without considering away vain opinions, prove humble; that, who by custom is grown intemperate, cannot without weaning himself from that custom become sober; that, who from the concurrence of a sorry nature, fond conceits, mean breeding, and scurvy usage is covetous, cannot without draining off all those sources of his faults be turned into liberal.

The change in our mind is one of the greatest in nature, which cannot be compassed in any way or within any time we please; but it must proceed on leisurely and regularly, in such order, by such steps as the nature of things doth permit; it must be wrought by a resolute and laborious perseverance; by a watchful application of mind in voiding prejudices, in waiting for advantages, in attending to all we do; by forcibly wresting our nature from its bent, and swimming against the current of impetuous desires; by a patient disentangling of ourselves from practices most familiar and agreeable to us; by a wary fencing with temptations, and long struggling with manifold oppositions and difficulties; whence the holy Scripture termeth our practice a warfare wherein we are to fight many a battle with most redoubtable foes; a combat which must be managed with our best skill and utmost might; a race which we must pass through with incessant activity and swiftness.

If, therefore, we mean to be good or to be happy, it behoveth us to lose no time; to be presently up to our great task; to snatch all occasions, to embrace all means incident of reforming our hearts and lives. As those who have a long journey to go, do take care to set out early, and on their way make good speed lest the night overtake them before they reach home, so it being a great way from heaven, and seeing we must pass over so many obstacles, through so many paths of duty before we arrive thither, it is expedient to set forward as soon as we can, and to proceed with all expedition; the longer we stay, the more time we shall need, and the less we shall have.

JOHN DRYDEN.

JOHN DRYDEN (A.D. 1631-1700), poet laureate to Charles II., and author of numerous dramatic compositions which are now justly forgotten, claims the merit of a vigour of style in prose as masculine as that of his verse. Besides fugitive pieces, as prefaces, introductions, etc., he wrote an Essay on Dramatic Poetry, from which the quotation is taken. His chief poetical works are: Absalom and Achitophel, Ode on St. Cecilias' days, Hind and Panther, Annus Mirabilis.

THE ELIZABETHAN DRAMATISTS.

SHAKSPEARE was the man who, of all modern and perhaps ancient poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul. All the images of nature were still present to him, and he drew them not laboriously but luckily when he describes anything, you not only see it, you feel it too. Those who accuse him to have want of learning, give him the greater commendation; he was naturally learned; he needed not the spectacles of books to read nature, he looked inward and found her there.

I cannot say he is everywhere alike; were he so, I should do him injury to compare him with the greatest of mankind. He is many times flat and insipid, his comic wit degenerating into clenches, his serious, swelling into bombast. But he is always great, where some great occasion is presented to him; no man can say he ever had a fit subject for wit and did not then raise himself as high above the rest of poets,

"quantum lenta solent inter viburna cupressi."

The consideration of this made Mr. Hailes, of Eaton, say, that there was no subject of which any poet ever writ, but he would produce it better treated in Shakspeare; and however others are now generally preferred before him, yet the age wherein he lived, which had contemporaries with him, Fletcher and Jonson, never equalled them to him in their esteem. And in the last king's court, when Ben's reputation was at the highest, Sir John