基本信息
me till their return for study, in which i made the greater progress, from that greater clearness of head and quicker apprehension which usually attend temperance in eating and drinking.
and now it was that, being on some occasion made asham'd of my ignorance in figures, which i had twice failed in learning when at school, i took cocker's book of arithmetick, and went through the whole by myself with great ease. i also read seller's and shermy's books of navigation, and became acquainted with the little geometry they contain; but never proceeded far in that science. and i read about this time locke on human understanding, and the art of thinking, by messrs. du port royal.
while i was intent on improving my language, i met with an english 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 inqu
