obtained is ever made subservient to his further improvement, till in his mind is concentrated a higher wisdom than books alone can teach. The latter, meanwhile, can tell what this author believes, and another teaches, and a third attests; but he has no opinions of his own, and gradually loses the power of forming any. While he lends his house to be filled with other men's furniture, he suffers it to go to ruin, and sees not that it needs repair.

The exercise of comparison and judgment is as necessary with respect to the knowledge we obtain from books as to that with which observation supplies us. The ideas which we receive should be examined and arranged with equal care in both cases, and their relations with each other and with those previously received, diligently explored, and cautiously admitted. If this be done, if we meditate, compare, choose, and reject, where opinions are in question; arrange and apply where facts are the subject of inquiry, we cannot read too much for our intellectual improvement. The mind will hold all the knowledge that can ever be put into it, if it be well chosen, and properly introduced. Unlike the physical, the mental powers of digestion are unlimited; and the stature of the intellectual is not bounded like that of the corporeal frame. The capacity of the mind should be continually enlarging, so that sublime ideas may be received with less and less pain and difficulty, new and strange notions be contemplated without surprise or aversion, and a judgment be formed with a continually increasing accuracy, from a wider and a wider survey of the worlds of matter and of mind. The natural and happy consequences of such enlargement of capacity in fitting us for further improvement, we shall hereafter endeavour to show. Shadowy and bounded as is our view of the future, and awful as is the faint conception of the extent of those regions of science which remain to be explored, we may yet attain to sufficient assurance to pro

nounce that there is not a wider intellectual difference between the new-born infant and such a philosopher as Newton, than between a man of weak and neglected mind, and him, however circumstanced externally, whose "large discourse," whose power of "looking before and after," afford some intimation of the ultimate destination of that being who is empowered to became "so noble in reason, so infinite in faculties; in action, so like an angel, in apprehension, so like a God!"

ESSAYS ON THE ART OF THINKING.

V.

THE modes in which the mind may be employed upon the information which the senses bring to it are various; and are commonly (though improperly) included in one class, under the term Meditation.

When trains of ideas are allowed to enter and depart, while the understanding remains passive, the mind cannot properly be said to be engaged in meditation, but is rather amused in reverie. Though this is the very lowest intellectual occupation, it is the one we all spend the most time in, and like the best. The most active thinkers have ever lamented the loss of time and power which their tendency to reverie has occasioned; and those who are less aware of the existence of the evil, are in the habit of making yet greater sacrifices to intellectual sloth. We should all be ashamed of sitting at a window, for hours of every day, to gaze idly on what was passing without; yet we indulge our minds in indolence of a similar kind to an awful extent, unconscious or regardless of the danger of losing all power

over our thoughts, and of enervating every faculty we posBy the law of association, every idea entertained in the mind introduces other ideas, which, in their turn, bring

sess.

in more. This law we cannot suspend; but it is in our power to control its operation, and to make choice of the mode in which our ideas shall be combined. By voluntary power, ideas may be recalled in the order in which they were first presented, which is an act of the memory; as when we wish to fix in our minds a conversation with a friend, or the contents of a book we have been reading. By voluntary power we may combine ideas in a new series, as we never combined them before. This is an act of imagination; as when we think of our friend placed among new scenes, and plan what his conduct will be in untried circumstances. Either of these operations may be made useful to the mind by enabling it to lay a firmer hold on knowledge previously gained, or to derive refreshment from a change of occupation; but if the processes are indiscriminately mixed, or if the memory be employed on unworthy objects, or the imagination indulged to an undue degree, it would have been better for the faculties to have been suspended in sleep than thus wasted and impaired. There may be more folly hidden under a grave exterior than displayed in outward mirth; and it sometimes happens that a child is employing his mind more usefully amidst his noisy sports, than his parent while seemingly absorbed in meditation. Let it not be supposed that continual effort is requisite to make our reflections, or even our reveries, conducive to our intellectual improvement. This would be too hard a condition of excellence. The effort is unremittingly necessary only during the formation of our habits of mind, only while setting the machine in motion. The subsequent task of keeping its parts in repair, and removing the obstacles to their action, will be comparatively easy. The effort is often painful, it is true; but labor is the condition of

attainment in this life; and no labor can be better bestowed than in the regulation of the intellectual powers, which are themselves the instruments by which every solid good is to be obtained. Some few are so happy as to have been early trained to intellectual as well as moral self-control; but the greater number are obliged to form the habit for themselves as they advance in life, or to forego the advantages it confers; and such are qualified mournfully to sympathize with the pious man who blushed to think that, if his very prayers were written down, and interlined with the irrelevant ideas which presented themselves in the midst of his devotions, what a crowd of incoherences and degrading associations. they would present. It is probable that we are all painfully sensible of our transgressions in this respect; if not, it would be well to attempt for once the tedious task of writing down the ideas (as well as we could recollect them) which have passed through our minds during any two minutes of any reverie. But one experiment would be necessary to convince us of the waste of time and power which takes place every day from the want of intellectual control. The night affords time enough for dreaming; and the sports of imagination can be sufficiently indulged during the intervals of serious thought which every day affords. Because they are salutary, they should not only be allowed, but exalted and cherished; but, because they are so delightful as to be engrossing, they should be carefully restrained.

When the attention is fixed on an idea, or on a series of ideas, contemplating their relations and circumstances so closely that other thoughts are excluded, the mind is engaged in meditation. This act is the most efficacious by which our knowledge can be converted into wisdom. By this exercise, more than by any other, is the power of the intellect increased, and its capacity enlarged. By this exercise alone can the wealth of other minds be transferred to our

own, and the extent of our mental resources be ascertained. The secret which Newton disclosed respecting his marvellous achievements, cannot be too widely known, or too carefully attended to. He declared that his intellectual power was not derived from any peculiar endowment, but from a habit of patient thought. On another occasion, when questioned respecting his method of beginning a train of inquiry, he replied, "I waited for thought." He placed the object of inquiry before his mind, and (as some degree of excitement must always precede vigorous and profound thought,) he observed the qualities and relations of the object in view, excluded all irrelevant ideas, and thus kept his mind open for the reception of all suggestions, and free from the influence of all perversions. He was not only remarkably exempt from the moral imperfections which overcloud the understanding, from selfishness, (including fear) and prejudice, but from the intellectual perversions to which almost every man is subject. His faculty of observation was perfectly obedient to his will. He could employ it on external or internal objects, excite or suspend it as he pleased. When any purpose was to be answered by observation, not a motion of a straw or a feather escaped his notice; when his business was to calculate or reason, he became, in a moment, as regardless of all external circumstances as if every sense had at once been annihilated.

The principal object which is to be attained by the exercise of reflection is the deduction of general principles from the facts which observation furnishes; and in the application of these general principles to the elucidation of new facts, we see the means by which every increase of knowledge affords the power of a further augmentation.

It is, therefore, of the utmost importance that these principles should be ascertained to be just and true; as a defect in them will necessarily vitiate all our subsequent reasonings.