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;
or I imagine it to be so; or it is so, if I am not mistaken.
This habit, I believe, has been of great advantage to me when I
have had occasion to inculcate my opinions, and persuade men into
measures that I have been from time to time engag'd in promoting;
and, as the chief ends of conversation are to inform or to be informed,
to please or to persuade, I wish well-meaning, sensible men would
not lessen their power of doing good by a positive, assuming manner,
that seldom fails to disgust, tends to create opposition, and to
defeat every one of those purposes for which speech was given to us,
to wit, giving or receiving information or pleasure. For, if you
would inform, a positive and dogmatical manner in advancing your
sentiments may provoke contradiction and prevent a candid attention.
If you wish information and improvement from the knowledge of others,
and yet at the same time express yourself as firmly fix'd in your
present opinions, modest, sensible men, who do not love disputation,
will probably leave you undisturbed in the possession of your error.
And by such a manner, you can seldom hope to recommend yourself
in pleasing your hearers, or to persuade those whose concurrence
you desire. Pope says, judiciously:
"Men should be taught as if you taught them not,
And things unknown propos'd as things forgot;"
farther recommending to us
"To speak, tho' sure, with seeming diffidence."
And he might have coupled with this line that which he has coupled