The next remedies in this universal cure of the Mind are to be applyed to the Memory, and they are to consist of such Directions as may inform us, what things are best to be stor’d up for our purpose, and which is the best way of so disposing them, that they may not only be kept in safety, but ready and convenient, to be at any time produc’d for use, as occasion shall require.  But I will not here prevent my self in what I may say in another Discourse, wherein I shall make an attempt to propose some Considerations of the manner of compiling a Natural and Artificial History, and of so ranging and registring its Particulars into Philosophical Tables, as may make them most useful for the raising of Axioms and Theories.

The last indeed is the most hazardous Enterprize, and yet the most necessary; and that is, to take such care that the Judgment and the Reason of Man (which is the third Faculty to be repair’d and improv’d) should receive such assistance, as to avoid the dangers to which it it by nature most subject.  The Imperfections, which I have already mention’d, to which it is lyable, do either belong to the extent, or the goodness of its knowledge; and here the difficulty is the greater, least that which may be thought a remedy for the one should prove destructive to the other, least by seeking to inlarge our Knowledge, we should render it weak, and uncertain; and least by being too scrupulous and exact about every Circumstance of it, we should confine and streighten it too much.

In both these the middle wayes are to be taken, nothing it to be_ omitted_, and yet every thing to pass a mature deliberation:  No Intelligence from Men of all Professions, and quarters of the World, to be slighted, and yet all to be so severely examin’d, that there remain no room for doubt or instability; much rigour in admitting, much strictness in comparing, and above all, much slowness in debating, and shyness in determining, is to be practised.  The Understanding is to order all the inferiour services of the lower Faculties; but yet it is to do this only as a lawful Master, and not at a Tyrant. It must not incroach upon their Offices, nor take upon it self the employments which belong to either of them.  It must watch the irregularities of the Senses, but it must not go before them, or prevent their information.  It must examine, range, and dispose of the bank which it laid up in the Memory:  but it must be sure to make distinction between the sober and well collected heap, and the extravagant Ideas, and mistaken Images, which there it may sometimes light upon.  So many are the links, upon which the true Philosophy depends, of which, if any one be loose, or weak, the whole