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 feems 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 converfant with particular scientific pursuits, it will be enabled to speculate 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 reverfed; and if the study 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 observation, to an examination of his own faculties; which, befides opening to him a new and pleasing field of fpeculation, would enable him to form an eftimate 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 difplay 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 confequence of a peculiar difpofition of mind, or of an infirm bodily constitution, a child is led to seek amusement from books, and to lofe a relish for thofe recreations which are fuited to his age. In fuch 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 these 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 speculations of the closet, are but of little use in the practice of affairs, or for enabling him to profit by his personal 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 interesting than those 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 respect to the corresponding objects in our own country, which, from our early familiarity with them, we had formerly been accustomed to overlook. In this respect 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 curiofity 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 curiofity circumfcribed and directed, inftead 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. CHA P. SECTION VIII. Of the Connection between Memory and philofophical Genius. IT T is commonly fuppofed, that genius is feldom united with a very tenacious memory. So far, however, as my own obfervation has reached, I can scarcely recollect one person who poffeffes the former of these qualities, without a more than ordinary share of the latter. 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 eftimate the extent of memory, by the impreffion which trivial occurrences make upon it; and these in general. efcape 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 lefs conducive to the fluency, and perhaps to the wit of con VI. verfation,) they are of incomparably greater ufe in fuggefting CHA P. facts which are to ferve as a foundation for reafoning or for invention. But Ir frequently happens too, that a man of genius, in confequence of a peculiarly strong attachment to a particular subject, may first feel a want of inclination, and may afterwards acquire a want of capacity of attending to common occurrences. it is probable that the whole ftock of ideas in his mind, is not inferior to that of other men; and that however unprofitably he may have directed his curiofity, the ignorance which he difcovers on ordinary subjects does not arise from a want of memory, but from a peculiarity in the selection which he has made of the objects of his study. * MONTAIGNE frequently complains, in his writings, of his want of memory; and he indeed gives many very extraordinary inftances of his ignorance on fome of the most ordinary topics of information. But it is obvious to any person who reads his works with attention, that this ignorance did not proceed from an original defect of memory, but from the fingular and whimsical direction which his curiosity had taken at an early period of life. "I can do nothing," fays he, "without my memorandum book; and fo great is my difficulty "in remembering proper names, that I am forced to call my "domeftic fervants by their offices. I am ignorant of the * Il n'eft homme à qui il fiese fi mal de se mesler de parler de memoire. Car je n'en recognoy quafi trace en moy; et ne penfe qu'il y en ait au monde une autre fi marveilleuse en defaillance. Effais de MONTAIGNE, liv. i. ch. 9.. greater 302 |