VI. CHA P. lations which are lefs effential: and accordingly this is the history of the intellectual progress, in by far the greater number of individuals. In confequence of this, the difficulty of metaphysical researches is undoubtedly much increased; for the mind being constantly occupied in the earlier part of life about the properties and laws of matter, acquires habits of inattention to the subjects of consciousness, which are not to be furmounted, without a degree of patience and perseverance of which few men are capable: but the inconvenience would evidently have been greatly increased, if the order of nature had, in this respect, been reverfed, and if the curiofity had been excited at as early a period, by the phenomena of the intellectual world, as by thofe of the material. Of what would have happened on this fuppofition, we may form a judgment from those men who, in confequence of an exceffive indulgence in metaphyfical pursuits, have weakened, to an unnatural degree, their capacity of attending to external objects and occurrences. Few metaphyficians, perhaps, are to be found, who are not deficient in the power of observation: for, although a tafte for such abftract fpeculations is far from being common, it is more apt, perhaps, than any other, when it has once been formed, to take an exclufive hold of the mind, and to shut up the other fources of intellectual improvement. As the metaphysician carries within himself the materials of his reasoning, he is not under a neceffity of looking abroad for subjects of speculation or amufement; and unless he be very careful to guard against the effects of his favourite purfuits, he is in more danger than literary men of any other denomination, to lose all interest about the common and proper objects of human curiofity. To VI. To prevent any danger from this quarter, I apprehend that CHA P. the study of the mind should form the last branch of the education of youth; an order which nature herself seems to point out, by what I have already remarked, with respect to the developement of our faculties. After the understanding is well stored with particular facts, and has been conversant with particular scientific purfuits, it will be enabled to fpeculate concerning its own powers with additional advantage, and will run no hazard of indulging too far in fuch inquiries. Nothing can be more abfurd, on this as well as on many other accounts, than the common practice which is followed in our universities, of beginning a course of philosophical education with the study of logic. If this order were completely reversed; and if the ftudy of logic were delayed till after the mind of the student was well stored with particular facts in phyfies, in chemistry, in natural and civil hiftory; his attention might be led with the most important advantage, and without any danger to his power of obfervation, to an examination of his own faculties; which, befides opening to him a new and pleasing field of speculation, would enable him to form an estimate of his own powers, of the acquifitions he has made, of the habits he has formed, and of the farther improvements of which his mind is fufceptible. In general, wherever habits of inattention, and an incapacity of obfervation, are very remarkable, they will be found to have arifen from fome defect in early education. I already remarked, that, when nature is allowed free scope, the curiofity, during early youth, is alive to every external object, and to every external occurrence, while the powers of imagination and reflexion VI. CHA P. do not display themselves till a much later period; the former till about the age of puberty, and the latter till we approach to manhood. It fometimes, however, happens that, in consequence of a peculiar difpofition of mind, or of an infirm bodily conftitution, a child is led to feek amusement from books, and to lose a relish for those recreations which are fuited to his age. In such instances, the ordinary progress of the intellectual powers is prematurely quickened; but that beft of all educations is loft, which nature has prepared both for the philofopher and the man of the world, amidst the active sports and the hazardous adventures of childhood. It is from thefe alone, that we can acquire, not only that force of character which is fuited to the more arduous fituations of life, but that complete and prompt command of attention to things external, without which the highest endowments of the understanding, however they may fit a man for the folitary fpeculations of the closet, are but of little use in the practice of affairs, or for enabling him to profit by his perfonal experience. WHERE, however, fuch habits of inattention have unfortunately been contracted, we ought not to despair of them as perfectly incurable. The attention, indeed, as I formerly remarked, can feldom be forced in particular inftances; but we may gradually learn to place the objects we wish to attend to, in lights more interefting than thofe in which we have been accustomed to view them. Much may be expected from a change of scene, and a change of pursuits; but, above all, much may be expected from foreign travel. The objects which we meet with excite our furprise by their novelty; and in this manner, we not only gradually gradually acquire the power of observing and examining them with attention, but, from the effects of contraft, the curiofity comes to be roused with refpect to the correfponding objects in our own country, which, from our early familiarity with them, we had formerly been accuftomed to overlook. In this refpect the effects of foreign travel, in directing the attention to familiar objects and occurrences, is fomewhat analogous to that which the study of a dead or of a foreign language produces, in leading the curiosity to examine the grammatical structure of our own. CONSIDERABLE advantage may alfo be derived, in overcoming the habits of inattention, which we may have contracted to particular subjects, from studying the fyftems, true or false, which philofophers have proposed for explaining or for arranging the facts connected with them. By means of these systems, not only is the curiosity circumscribed and directed, instead of being allowed to wander at random, but, in confequence of our being enabled to connect facts with general principles, it becomes interested in the examination of those particulars which would otherwise have escaped our notice. С НА Р. SECTION VIII. Of the Connection between Memory and philofophical Genius. IT ON a fuperficial view of the fubject, indeed, the common opinion has fome appearance of truth; for, we are naturally led, in confequence of the topics about which converfation is ufually employed, to estimate the extent of memory, by the impreffion which trivial occurrences make upon it; and these in general escape the recollection of a man of ability, not because he is unable to retain them, but because he does not attend to them. It is probable, likewife, that accidental affociations, founded on contiguity in time and place, may make but a flight impreffion on his mind. But it does not therefore follow, that his stock of facts is fmall. They are connected together in his memory by principles of affociation, different from those which prevail in ordinary minds; and they are on that very account the more useful: for as the affociations are founded upon real connexions among the ideas, (although they may be less conducive to the fluency, and perhaps to the wit of converfation,) 2 |