, I remained there
alone, and, despatching presently my light repast, which often was no
more than a bisket or a slice of bread, a handful of raisins or a tart
from the pastry-cook's, and a glass of water, had the rest of the time
till their return for study, in which I made the greater progress, from
that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually
attend temperance in eating and drinking.

And now it was that, being on some occasion made asham'd of my
ignorance in figures, which I had twice failed in learning when at
school, I took Cocker's book of Arithmetick, and went through the whole
by myself with great ease. I also read Seller's and Shermy's books of
Navigation, and became acquainted with the little geometry they
contain; but never proceeded far in that science. And I read about
this time Locke On Human Understanding, and the Art of Thinking, by
Messrs. du Port Royal.

While I was intent on improving my language, I met with an English
grammar (I think it was Greenwood's), at the end of which there were
two little sketches of the arts of rhetoric and logic, the latter
finishing with a specimen of a dispute in the Socratic method; and soon
after I procur'd Xenophon's Memorable Things of Socrates, wherein there
are many instances of the same method. I was charm'd with it, adopted
it, dropt my abrupt contradiction and positive argumentation, and put
on the humble inquirer and doubter. And being then, from reading
Shaftesbury and Collins, become a real doubter in many points of our
religious doctrine, I found this method safest for myself and very
embarrassing to those against whom I used it; therefore I took a
delight in it, practis'd it continually, and grew very artful and
expert in drawing people, even of superior knowledge, into concessions,
the consequences of which they did not foresee, entangling them in
difficulties out of which they could not extricate themselves, and so
obtaining victories that neither myself nor my cause always deserved.
I continu'd this method some few years, but gradually left it,
retaining only the habit of expressing myself in terms of modest
diffidence; never using, when I advanced any thing that may possibly be
disputed, the words certainly, undoubtedly, or any others that give the
air of positiveness to an opinion; but rather say, I conceive or
apprehend a thing to be so and so; it appears to me, or I should think
it so or so, for such and such reasons; o