There is no Object, no Accident of Life but affords us matter of Instruction. GOD has so dispos’d all the Works of his Hands, all the Actings of his Providence, that every one of ’em ministers to our Improvement, if we will but Observe and Apply them. Indeed this Living _Ex Tempore_ which most of us are guilty of, our making no Reflections, our Gay and Volatile Humour which transports us in an Instant from one thing to another, e’re we have with the Industrious Bee suck’d those Sweets it wou’d afford us, frequently renders his gracious Bounty ineffectual. For as the Diligent-hand maketh Rich, whil’st the Slothful and Prodigal come to nothing, so the Use of our Powers improves and Encreases them, and the most Observing and Considerate is the Wisest Person: For she lays up in her Mind as in a Store-house, ready to produce on all Occasions, a Clear and Simple Idea of every Object that has at any time presented it self. And perhaps the difference between one Womans Reason and anothers may consist only in this, that the one has amass’d a greater number of such Ideas than the other, and dispos’d them more Orderly in her Understanding, so that they are at hand, ready to be apply’d to those Complex Ideas whose Agreement or Disagreement cannot be found out but by the means of some of ’em. But because Examples are more familiar than Precepts, as condescending to shew us the very manner of Practising them, I shall endeavour to make the matter in Hand as plain as I can by subjoining Instances to the following Rules, which Rules as I have not taken wholly on Trust from others, so neither do I pretend to be the Inventer of ’em. We have heard already that a Medium is necessary when we can’t discern the Relation that is between two or more Ideas by Intuition or a simple View. Could this alone procure us what we seek after, the addition of other Ideas wou’d be needless, since to make a shew of Wit by tedious Arguings and unnecessary Flourishes, does only Perplex and Incumber the Matter, Intuition being the Simplest, and on that account the best way of Knowing. _Rule_ I. And therefore we shou’d in the first place, _Acquaint our selves throughly with the State of the Question, have a Distinct Notion of our Subject whatever it be, and of the Terms we make use of, knowing precisely what it is we drive at_: that so we may in the second.