I spent the remainder of my youth in
traveling, in visiting courts and armies, in holding intercourse with men
of different dispositions and ranks, in collecting varied experience, in
proving myself in the different situations into which fortune threw me,
and, above all, in making such reflection on the matter of my experience
as to secure my improvement. For it occurred to me that I should find
much more truth in the reasonings of each individual with reference to the
affairs in which he is personally interested, and the issue of which must
presently punish him if he has judged amiss, than in those conducted by a
man of letters in his study, regarding speculative matters that are of no
practical moment, and followed by no consequences to himself, farther,
perhaps, than that they foster his vanity the better the more remote they
are from common sense; requiring, as they must in this case, the exercise
of greater ingenuity and art to render them probable. In addition, I had
always a most earnest desire to know how to distinguish the true from the
false, in order that I might be able clearly to discriminate the right
path in life, and proceed in it with confidence.
It is true that, while busied only in considering the manners of other
men, I found here, too, scarce any ground for settled conviction, and
remarked hardly less contradiction among them than in the opinions of the
philosophers. So that the greatest advantage I derived from the study
consisted in this, that, observing many things which, however extravagant
and ridiculous to our apprehension, are yet by common consent received and
approved by other great nations, I learned to entertain too decided a
belief in regard to nothing of the truth of which I had been persuaded
merely by example and custom; and thus I gradually extricated myself from
many errors powerful enough to darken our natural intelligence, and
incapacitate us in great measure from listening to reason.
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