The improvement of the mind : containing a variety of remarks and rules for the attainment and communication of useful knowledge in religion, in the sciences, and in common life / by I. Watts.

Date:
MDCCLXXXV [1785]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The improvement of the mind : containing a variety of remarks and rules for the attainment and communication of useful knowledge in religion, in the sciences, and in common life / by I. Watts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    dels. An acquaintance alio with many of the Roman and Grecian affairs is needful to explain feveral texts of leripture in the New Telfament, to lead iincere enquirers into the true and genuine fenfe of the evangelifts and apoftles, and to guard their writings from the unreafonable cavils of men. XL. The art ofcriticifm is reckoned bv J fome as a diitindt part of philology ; but it is in truth nothing elfe than a more exact and accurate knowledge or (kill in the other parts of it, and a readinefs to apply that knowledge upon all occalions, in order to judge well of what relates to thefe fubjects, to explain what is ohfcure in the authors which we read, to fupply what is defective, and amend what is erroneous in manufcripts or ancient copies, to correct the miftakes of author.s and editors in the fenfe of the word's, to reconcile the Controverfies of .the learned, and by this means to fpread a jufter knowledge .of thefe things'among the in- quifitive part of mankind.-*' - * * Every man who pretends to the learned profeffions, if he doth not arife to be a cri- tic