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Untitled Article
train of thought , or entering upon a department of study . We are aware that this rule does not hold universally . The natural philosopher who proposes to devote a course of years to his studies , acts " rightly in carrying on Bis experiments , and pursuing a train of inquiry without proposing to himself an express ohject . But it is nearly certain that in that science , valuable discoveries will be elicited by protracted inquiry , though their nature and importance cannot even be conjectured be fore-hand . But those who , like
our readers , have no other design than their own improvement , should be careful to expend their time and pains only where some calculation may be made of the probable gain . It should-be their endeavour to form those habits of mind which shall be most serviceable in the discharge of their particular offices , and to acquire those kinds of knowledge which may be brought into use , and the pursuit of which may be facilitated by their situation in life . An ample field will yet be left for the excursions of the mind , while its powers will not be wasted or its energy exhausted by blind or illdirected efforts after unattainable objects .
The knowledge which is to be gained by reading is , of course , infinitely more extensive than that which can be obtained by any other means ; but it is worth little where the mind is unprepared to receive and assimilate it . If we passively adopt the opinions we meet with in books , or remember the facts they relate without any endeavour to reflect upon them , or to judge of their relation to other facts , we might almost as well not read at all . We may gain knowledge , such as it is ; but , at the same time , that knowledge
will impede instead of strengthening the operations of our intellects , and the load of facts will lie like a heavy weight under which the motions of the reasoning power will become more and more feeble , till at length they stop . Our opinions ( if they may be called our own ) will be unstable and mutually contradictory ; our faculty of observation will , in time , become indolent ; our ideas will be deposited a as they are received ^ in the order of time , and the whole mind will be in a state of hopeless confusion . Far wiser is the
cottager who has formed habits of quick and accurate observation , even though he may never have learned his alphabet , than the mere reader who is ever accumulating , but never gaining . The former derives valuable lessons from the experience of life , from intercourse with his kind , from notices which reach him from every quarter , of what is going on in the world of nature and of society ; and the information thus obtained is ever made subservient to his further improvement , till in his mind is concentrated a higher wisdom than boolss 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 , arid 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 an « I judgment is as necessary with respect to the knowledge we obtain from bo ^ ks 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 Ihis be done , if ^ e inedii ate , compare , choose , and reject , where opinions are in questioii ^^ ttoggB 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 , ihe mental powers of digestion arc unlimited ; and the stature of the intellectual is not bounded like that
Untitled Article
750 Essays on the Art t > f Hunking :
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Nov. 2, 1829, page 750, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2578/page/6/
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