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time, one for one part of the day, and the other for the other; and these of as opposite a nature as possible, -as Euclid and Ariosto; Locke and Homer; Hartley on Man, and Voyages round the Globe; that the mind may be refreshed by change, and all the bad effects of lassitude avoided. There is one piece of advice, in a life of study, which I think no one will object to; and that is, every now and then to be completely idle, to do nothing at all: indeed, this part of a life of study is commonly considered as so decidedly superior to the rest, that it has almost obtained an exclusive preference over those other parts of the system, with which I wish to see it connected.

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It has been often asked whether a man should study at stated intervals, or as the fit seizes him, and as he finds himself disposed to study. To this I answer, that where a man can trust himself, rules are superfluous. If his inclinations lead him to a fair share of exertion, he had much better trust to his inclinations alone; where they do not, they must be controlled by rules. It is just the same with sleep; and with everything else. Sleep as much as you please, if your inclination lead you only to sleep as much as is convenient; if not, make rules. The system in everything ought to be, do as you please - so long as you please to do what is right. Upon these principles, every man must see how far he may trust to his inclinations, before he takes away their natural liberty. I confess, however, it has never fallen to my lot to see many persons who could be trusted; and the method, I believe, in which most great men have gone to work, is by regular and systematic industry.

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A little hard thinking will supply the place of a great deal of reading; and an hour or two spent in this manner sometimes lead you to conclusions, which it would require a volume to establish. The mind advances in its train of thought, as a restive colt proceeds on the

road in which you wish to guide him; he is always running to one side or the other, and deviating from the proper path, to which it is your affair to bring him back. I have asked several men what passes in their minds when they are thinking; and I never could find any man who could think for two minutes together. Everybody has seemed to admit that it was a perpetual deviation from a particular path, and a perpetual return to it; which, imperfect as the operation is, is the only method in which we can operate with our minds to carry on any process of thought. It takes some time to throw the mind into an attitude of thought, or into any attitude; though the power of doing this, and, in general, of thinking, is amazingly increased by habit. We acquire, at length, a greater command over our associations, and are better enabled to pursue one object, unmoved by all the other thoughts which cross it in every direction.

One of the best modes of improving in the art of thinking, is, to think over some subject, before you read upon it; and then to observe, after what manner it has occurred to the mind of some great master. You will then observe whether you have been too rash or too timid; what you have omitted, and in what you have exceeded; and by this process you will insensibly catch a great manner of viewing a question. It is right in study, not only to think when any extraordinary incident provokes you to think, but from time to time to review what has past; to dwell upon it, and to see what trains of thought voluntarily present themselves to your mind. It is a most superior habit of some minds, to refer all the particular truths which strike them, to other truths more general: so that their knowledge is beautifully methodised; and the general truth at any time suggests all the particular exemplifications ; or any particular exemplification, at once leads to the general truth. This kind of understanding has an im

mense and decided superiority over those confused heads in which one fact is piled upon another, without the least attempt at classification and arrangement. Some men always read with a pen in their hand, and commit to paper any new thought which strikes them; others trust to chance for its reappearance. Which of these is the best method in the conduct of the understanding, must, I should suppose, depend a great deal upon the particular understanding in question. Some men can do nothing without preparation; others, little with it some are fountains, some reservoirs. My very humble and limited experience goes to convince me, that it is a very useless practice; that men seldom read again what they have committed to paper, nor remember what they have so committed one iota the better for their additional trouble: on the contrary, I believe it has a direct tendency to destroy the promptitude and tenacity of memory, by diminishing the vigour of present attention, and seducing the mind to depend upon future reference: at least, such is the effect I have uniformly found it to produce upon myself; and the same remark has been frequently made to me by other persons, of their own habits of study. I am by no means contending against the utility and expediency of writing; on the contrary, I am convinced there can be no very great accuracy of mind without it. I am only animadverting upon that exaggerated use of it, which disunites the mind from the body; renders the understanding no longer portable, but leaves a man's wit and talents neatly written out in his common-place book, and safely locked up in the bottom drawer of his bureau. This is the abuse of writing. The use of it, I presume, is, to give perspicuity and accuracy; to fix a habitation for, and to confer a name upon, our ideas, so that they may be considered and reconsidered themselves, and in their arrangement. Every man is extremely liable to be deceived in his reflections till he has habituated himself to putting his

thoughts upon paper, and perceived from such a process, how often propositions that appeared before such development to be almost demonstrable, have vanished into nonsense when a clearer light has been thrown upon them. I should presume also, that much writing must teach a good order and method in the disposition of our reasonings; because the connection of any one part with the whole, will be made so much more evident than it can be before it is put into visible signs. Writing, also, must teach a much more accurate use of language. In conversation, any language almost will do; that is, great indulgence is extended to the language of talkers, because a talker is at hand to explain himself, and his looks and gestures are a sort of comment upon his words, and help to interpret them: but as a writer has no such auxiliary language to communicate his ideas, and no power of re-explaining them when once clothed in language, he has nothing to depend upon but a steady and careful use of terms.

The advantage conversation has over all the other modes of improving the mind, is, that it is more natural and more interesting. A book has no eyes, and ears, and feelings; the best are apt every now and then to become a little languid: whereas a living book walks about, and varies his conversation and manner, and prevents you from going to sleep. There is certainly a great evil in this, as well as a good; for the interest between a man and his living folio, becomes sometimes a little too keen, and in the competition for victory they become a little too animated towards, and sometimes exasperated against, each other: whereas a man and his book generally keep the peace with tolerable success; and if they disagree, the man shuts his book, and tosses it into a corner of the room, which it might not be quite so safe or easy to do with a living folio. It is an inconvenience in a book, that you cannot ask questions; there is no explanation: and a man is less guarded in conversation

than in a book, and tells you with more honesty the little niceties and exceptions of his opinions; whereas in a book, as his opinions are canvassed where they cannot be explained and defended, he often overstates a point for fear of being misunderstood; but then, on the contrary, almost every man talks a great deal better in his books, with more sense, more information, and more reflection, than he can possibly do in his conversation, because he has more time.

There are few good listeners in the world who make all the use that they might make, of the understandings of others, in the conduct of their own. The use made of this great instrument of conversation is the display of superiority, not the gaining of those materials on which superiority may rightfully and justly be founded. Every man takes a different view of a question as he is influenced by constitution, circumstances, age, and a thousand other peculiarities; and no individual ingenuity can sift and examine a subject with as much variety and success, as the minds of many men, put in motion by many causes, and affected by an endless variety of accidents. Nothing, in my humble opinion, would bring an understanding so forward, as this habit of ascertaining and weighing the opinions of others; - a point in which almost all men of abilities are deficient; whose first impulse, if they are young, is too often to contradict; or, if the manners of the world have cured them of that, to listen only with attentive ears, but with most obdurate and unconquerable entrails. I may be very wrong, and probably am so, but, in the whole course of my life, I do not know that I ever saw a man of considerable understanding respect the understandings of others as much as he might have done for his own improvement, and as it was just that he should do.

I touched a little, in my last Lecture, upon that habit of contradicting, into which young men, — and young men of ability in particular,

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are apt to fall; and

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