enlarging upon the difficulty of our duties, and providing rather
excuses for vice, than incentives to virtue.

7. But, since to most it will happen often, and to all sometimes, that
there will be a deviation towards one side or the other, we ought always
to employ our vigilance with most attention, on that enemy from which
there is the greatest danger, and to stray, if we must stray, towards
those parts from whence we may quickly and easily return.

8. Among other opposite qualities of the mind, which may become
dangerous, though in different degrees, I have often had occasion to
consider the contrary effects of presumption and despondency; of steady
confidence, which promises a victory without contest, and heartless
pusilanimity, which shrinks back from the thought of great undertakings,
confounds difficulty with impossibility, and considers all advancement
towards any new attainment, as irreversibly prohibited.

9. Presumption will be easily corrected. Every experiment will teach
caution, and miscarriages will hourly shew, that attempts are not always
rewarded with success. The most precipitate ardour will, in time, be
taught the necessity of methodical gradation, and preparatory measures;
and the most daring confidence be convinced, that neither merit nor
abilities can command events.

10. It is the advantage of vehemence and activity, that they are always
hastening to their own reformation; because they incite us to try
whether our expectations are well grounded; and therefore detect the
deceits which they are apt to occasion. But timidity is a disease of the
mind more obstinate and fatal; for a man once persuaded, that any
impediment is insuperable, has given it, with respect to himself, that
strength and weight which it had not before.

11. He can scarcely strive with vigour and perseverance, when he has no
hope of gaining the victory; and since he will never try his strength,
can never discover the unreasonableness of his fears.

12. There is often to be found in men devoted to literature, a kind of
intellectual cowardice, which whoever converses much among them, may
observe frequently to depress the alacrity of enterprise, and by
consequence to retard the improvement of science.

13. They have annexed to every species of knowledge, some chimerical
character of terror and inhibition, which they transmit, without much
reflection, from one to another; they first fright themselves, and then
propagate the pan