Content
Do not content yourselves with obscure and confused ideas, where clearer are to be attained.
Isaac Watts
Hymn writer and theologian, 1674-1748
Cited as I. Watts. — 119 quotations
Awful
A weak and awful reverence for antiquity.
Bandy
Let not obvious and known truth be bandied about in a disputation.
Bright
That he may with more ease, with brighter evidence, and with surer success, draw the bearner on.
Compendium
A short system or compendium of a science.
Complexion
Though the terms of propositions may be complex, yet . . . it is properly called a simple syllogism, since the complexion does not belong to the syllogistic form of it.
Compose
A few useful things . . . compose their intellectual possessions.
Composition
View them in composition with other things.
Composure
When the passions . . . are all silent, the mind enjoys its most perfect composure.
Compound
Compound substances are made up of two or more simple substances.
Conceive
Conceive of things clearly and distinctly in their own natures.
Concise
Where the author is . . . too brief and concise, amplify a little.
Concrete
Concrete terms, while they express the quality, do also express, or imply, or refer to, some subject to which it belongs.
Conformation
The conformation of our hearts and lives to the duties of true religion and morality.
Conscious
Some are thinking or conscious beings, or have a power of thought.
Contest
Leave all noisy contests, all immodest clamors and brawling language.
Continuative
To these may be added continuatives; as, Rome remains to this day; which includes, at least, two propositions, viz., Rome was, and Rome is.
Contraries
If two universals differ in quality, they are contraries; as, every vine is a tree; no vine is a tree. These can never be both true together; but they may be both false.
Corroborate
As any limb well and duly exercised, grows stronger, the nerves of the body are corroborated thereby.
Critic
When an author has many beauties consistent with virtue, piety, and truth, let not little critics exalt themselves, and shower down their ill nature.
Cross
A hunted hare . . . crosses and confounds her former track.
Daub
If a picture is daubed with many bright and glaring colors, the vulgar admire it is an excellent piece.
Deistic
The deistical or antichristian scheme.
document
Learners should not be too much crowded with a heap or multitude of documents or ideas at one time.
Drunkenness
The Lacedemonians trained up their children to hate drunkenness by bringing a drunken man into their company.
duplicity
Do not affect duplicities nor triplicities, nor any certain number of parts in your division of things.
Felicitate
What a glorious entertainment and pleasure would fill and felicitate his spirit.
Fellow-creature
Reason, by which we are raised above our fellow-creatures, the brutes.
Fiery
And fiery billows roll below.
Finery
Don't choose your place of study by the finery of the prospects.
Flutist
His thoughts are very fluttering and wandering.
Frame
How many excellent reasonings are framed in the mind of a man of wisdom and study in a length of years.
Grace
That day of grace fleets fast away.
Impress
Impress the motives of persuasion upon our own hearts till we feel the force of them.
Improve
How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour.
Indistinct
When we come to parts too small four our senses, our ideas of these little bodies become obscure and indistinct.
Inference
These inferences, or conclusions, are the effects of reasoning, and the three propositions, taken all together, are called syllogism, or argument.
Inferior
A thousand inferior and particular propositions.
Infinite
O God, how infinite thou art!
Inflexible
The nature of things is inflexible.
Injury
Many times we do injury to a cause by dwelling on trifling arguments.
Inquisitive
A young, inquisitive, and sprightly genius.
Insurmountable
Hope thinks nothing difficult; despair tells us that difficulty is insurmountable.
Intellectual
Logic is to teach us the right use of our reason or intellectual powers.
Intent
Be intent and solicitous to take up the meaning of the speaker.
Intrude
Some thoughts rise and intrude upon us, while we shun them; others fly from us, when we would hold them.
jocose
All . . . jocose or comical airs should be excluded.
Latter
The difference between reason and revelation, and in what sense the latter is superior.
Look
Observe how such a practice looks in another person.
Loose
Vario spends whole mornings in running over loose and unconnected pages.
Meanly
We can not bear to have others think meanly of them [our kindred].
Moroseness
Learn good humor, never to oppose without just reason; abate some degrees of pride and moroseness.
Multitude
It is a fault in a multitude of preachers, that they utterly neglect method in their harangues.
Narrow
Our knowledge is much more narrowed if we confine ourselves to our own solitary reasonings.
Notice
How ready is envy to mingle with the notices we take of other persons!
Notion
That notion of hunger, cold, sound, color, thought, wish, or fear which is in the mind, is called the “idea” of hunger, cold, etc.
Obscene
Words that were once chaste, by frequent use grew obscene and uncleanly.
Observation
In matters of human prudence, we shall find the greatest advantage in making wise observations on our conduct.
Obvert
If its base be obverted towards us.
Occurrence
Voyages detain the mind by the perpetual occurrence and expectation of something new.
Pass
Our own consciousness of what passes within our own mind.
Plenary
A treatise on a subject should be plenary or full.
Plunge
We shall be plunged into perpetual errors.
Position
Let not the proof of any position depend on the positions that follow, but always on those which go before.
Present
Lectorides's memory is ever . . . presenting him with the thoughts of other persons.
Province
Other provinces of the intellectual world.
Prudential
Many stanzas, in poetic measures, contain rules relating to common prudentials as well as to religion.
Pure
A guinea is pure gold if it has in it no alloy.
Quibble
Quibbles have no place in the search after truth.
Rank
Ranking all things under general and special heads.
Reciprocal
These two rules will render a definition reciprocal with the thing defined.
Recur
When any word has been used to signify an idea, the old idea will recur in the mind when the word is heard.
Redundant
Where an suthor is redundant, mark those paragraphs to be retrenched.
Regard
Persuade them to pursue and persevere in virtue, with regard to themselves; in justice and goodness with regard to their neighbors; and piefy toward God.
Relatively
Consider the absolute affections of any being as it is in itself, before you consider it relatively.
Remember
We are said to remember anything, when the idea of it arises in the mind with the consciousness that we have had this idea before.
Render
Logic renders its daily service to wisdom and virtue.
Restrain
Not only a metaphysical or natural, but a moral, universality also is to be restrained by a part of the predicate.
Revolve
If the earth revolve thus, each house near the equator must move a thousand miles an hour.
Run
In the middle of a rainbow the colors are . . . distinguished, but near the borders they run into one another.
Salad
Leaves eaten raw are termed salad.
Sanction
The strictest professors of reason have added the sanction of their testimony.
Scanty
In illustrating a point of difficulty, be not too scanty of words.
Sedate
Disputation carries away the mind from that calm and sedate temper which is so necessary to contemplate truth.
Signature
The brain, being well furnished with various traces, signatures, and images.
Single
Simple ideas are opposed to complex, and single to compound.
Singular
The idea which represents one . . . determinate thing, is called a singular idea, whether simple, complex, or compound.
Skim
They skim over a science in a very superficial survey.
Sly
Envy works in a sly and imperceptible manner.
Something
Something of it arises from our infant state.
Sophism
When a false argument puts on the appearance of a true one, then it is properly called a sophism, or “fallacy”.
Special
A special is called by the schools a “species”.
specific
Specific difference is that primary attribute which distinguishes each species from one another.
specification
This specification or limitation of the question hinders the disputers from wandering away from the precise point of inquiry.
Squabble
The sense of these propositions is very plain, though logicians might squabble a whole day whether they should rank them under negative or affirmative.
start
Keep your soul to the work when ready to start aside.
Steal
Variety of objects has a tendency to steal away the mind from its steady pursuit of any subject.
Stir
They fancy they have a right to talk freely upon everything that stirs or appears.
Subject
The subject of a proposition is that concerning which anything is affirmed or denied.
Substantial
The rainbow [appears to be] a large substantial arch.
Subterfuge
Affect not little shifts and subterfuges, to avoid the force of an argument.
Syllogize
Men have endeavored . . . to teach boys to syllogize, or frame arguments and refute them, without any real inward knowledge of the question.
System
The best way to learn any science, is to begin with a regular system, or a short and plain scheme of that science well drawn up into a narrow compass.
Systematic
Now we deal much in essays, and unreasonably despise systematical learning; whereas our fathers had a just value for regularity and systems.
Take
This man always takes time . . . before he passes his judgments.
Teachable
We ought to bring our minds free, unbiased, and teachable, to learn our religion from the Word of God.
Temperature
Memory depends upon the consistence and the temperature of the brain.
Therapeutic
Medicine is justly distributed into “prophylactic,” or the art of preserving health, and therapeutic, or the art of restoring it.
Thrive
Diligence and humility is the way to thrive in the riches of the understanding, as well as in gold.
Tincture
A little black paint will tincture and spoil twenty gay colors.
Top
The buds . . . are called heads, or tops, as cabbageheads.
Topful
[He] was so topful of himself, that he let it spill on all the company.
Unconformable
Moral evil is an action unconformable to it [the rule of our duty].
Unit
Units are the integral parts of any large number.
Vindicate
When the respondent denies any proposition, the opponent must directly vindicate . . . that proposition.
Ward
It instructs the scholar in the various methods of warding off the force of objections.
Whiffle
A person of whiffing and unsteady turn of mind can not keep close to a point of controversy.
While
Use your memory; you will sensibly experience a gradual improvement, while you take care not to overload it.
Wholesale
Some, from vanity or envy, despise a valuable book, and throw contempt upon it by wholesale.