Answer 1. To be good it ought to have a tendency to benefit the reader by improving his virtue or his knowledge. The method should be just, that is, it should proceed regularly from things known to things unknown, distinctly and clearly, without confusion. {412} The words used should be the most expressive that the language affords, provided they are the most generally understood. Nothing should be expressed in two words that can as well be expressed in one; i.e. no synonymes should be used or very rarely, but the whole be as short as possible, consistent with clearness. The words should be so placed as to be agreeable to the ear in reading. Summarily,—It should be smooth, clear, and short, For the contrary qualities are displeasing. But taking the query otherwise: An ill man may write an ill thing well; that is, having an ill design he may use the properest style and arguments (considering who are to be readers) to attain his ends. In this sense, that is best wrote which is best adapted for attaining the end of the writer. * * * * * Can a man arrive at perfection in this life, as some believe; or is it impossible, as others believe? Perhaps they differ in the meaning of the word perfection. I suppose the perfection of any thing to be only the greatest the nature of that thing is capable of. Thus a horse is more perfect than an oyster, yet the oyster may be a perfect oyster, as well as the horse a perfect horse. And an egg is not so perfect as a chicken, nor a chicken as a hen; for the hen has more strength than the chicken, and the chicken more life than the egg—yet it may be a perfect egg, chicken, and hen. If they mean a man cannot in this life be so perfect as an angel, it is true, for an angel by being incorporeal, is allowed some perfections we are at present incapable of, and less liable to some imperfections that we are liable to. If they mean a man is not capable of being so perfect here as he is capable of being in heaven, that may be true likewise. But that a man is not capable of being so perfect here as he is capable of being here, is not sense; it is as if I should say, a chicken in the state of a chicken is not capable of being so perfect as a chicken is capable of being in that state. In the above sense there may be a perfect oyster, a perfect horse, a perfect ship, why not a perfect man? that is, as perfect as his present nature and circumstances admit? * * * * * _Question_. Wherein consists the happiness of a rational creature? _Answer_. In having a sound mind and a healthy body, a sufficiency of the necessaries and conveniences of life, together with the favor of God and the love of mankind. _Q_. What do you mean by a sound mind?