Compl, sets Clock 2-2-37 33511 THE On the PURSUIT and ACQUISITION of KNOWLEDGE: With a beautiful FRONTISPIECE, defigned by Haward, and engraved by Tookey. Science! thou fair effufive ray From the great fource of mental day, IT T is an acknowledged truth, that many votaries of science have impaired their health by a continual courfe of literary purfuits, without any proportionable returns of pleasure or improvement. They read, indeed, because they confider it as a duty, or because they wish to be qualified for some particular profeffion; but they often confefs, that the whole tenour of their studies is one continued toil, and that the pleasure which refults from them is a very inadequate reward for exhausted spirits and frequent melancholy, AKENSIDE. Students of this defcription are commonly obferved to be virtuous and amiable; and it would be a happy circumftance were they to attend to a few hints, by which their ftudies may be rendered more pleafing and advan tageous. One of the first and most important objects then, in order to derive the proper advantage from our ftudies, muft be to render reading itfelf, not a task, but a pleafing employment. Such is the conftitution of human na ture, that no practice will be conti. nued long and regularly, which is not A 2 attended attended with fome degree of pleasure. Upon a study which is irklome and unpleafing we enter with reluctance; our attention to it is fuperficial; and we are apt to relinquish the fubject, without reflecting upon it in a degree fufficient for the purposes of improvement. Inftead of thinking fteadily upon it, we drive it from our minds as a fource of uneafy fenfations. But the heart and affections, the imagination and the memory, co-operate with the, understanding, in deriving the greatest advantages from our favourite study. It is of the utmost confequence, therefore, to form a ftrong attachment to fuch parts of fcience, and to fuch books, as our judgment may impel us to ftudy. To this end various methods are conducive; but of thefe, none, perhaps, are more effectual, than that of converfing with men of fenfe and genius on the books we would read, and the fubjects we propofe to ftudy. In converfation there is a warmth and fpirit, which renders thofe fubjects interefting and animated, which might otherwife appear cold and infipid. When we are again alone, we are naturally inclined to fee what has been faid in books on the fubjects that have been difcuffed; and the light obtained by the converfation that has juft paffed, is an excellent introduction to our enquiries. As foon as we have obtained, by actual reading, a competent knowledge of a particular book, or fubject, it will contribute much to animate us in proceeding fill further, if we talk of it either with our equals in literary knowledge, or with the learned and experienced. We advance au opinion; our felf-love renders us folicitous to maintain it; we feek the affiftance of a book as an auxiliary, and we read it, therefore, with attention and earneftness. Perhaps, moreover, it will be found difficult to avoid loving that which we attend to frequently and early. Indeed, if we can once fix our attention very clofely to a good book, nothing more will be neceffary to make us love it. As in nature, when two bodies approximate, they are united by the attraction of cohefion; fo, when the mind attaches itself clofely to any fubject whatever, it becomes, as it were, united to it, and gravitates toward it with a fpontaneous velocity. Indeed, there is no fubject fo dry, but by fixing our attention upon it, we may at last find it productive of great pleasure. Metaphyfics and mathematics, even in their moft abftrufe parts, are known to give the attentive ftudent a very exalted fatisfaction. Thofe parts, then, of human learning, which in their nature are more entertaining, cannot fail of being liked, in a very high degree, when the mind is clofely and conftantly applied to them. In order to acquire the power and habit of fixing the attention, it will be neceffary, at first, to fummon a very confiderable degree of refolution. In beginning the study of a new language, or of any book or fcience, which prefents ideas totally ftrange, the mind cannot but feel fome degree of reluctance. But if the fludent perfevere, in a very fhort time the reluctance will vanifh, and he will be rewarded with entertainment. Till this take place, let him make it an inviolable rule, however difagrecable, to read a certain quantity, or for a certain time, and he will unqueftionably find, that what he began as a talk, he will continue as an amufe ment. The ufe of common-place books has been recommended by Mr. Locke, and others of high authority. But Dr. Knox, who to theoretical enquiries must be fuppofed to have added fufficient experience in the practical part of education, ftrongly condemns them: There are many ftudents,' fays he, who spend their days in extracting paffages from authors, and fairly tranfcribing them in their commonplace book; a mode of ftudy truy wretched, which feldom repays the ftudent either with profit or pleafure, which waftes his time, and wears out his eyes and his conftitution. I mot feriously advife all thofe unhappy ftudents, who have been led to think, that the exercife of the hand can imprefs ideas in the brain; who interrupt their attention by copying; who torture themselves in abridging; and who think, by filling their pocketbooks, that they fhall enrich their understandings, to stop while they have eyes to fee, or fingers to write. They have totally mistaken the road to learning; and, if they proceed in the way too long a time, they may fuffer fuch injuries in it as fhall difable them from returning, or feeking a better. After many years spent in this wretched labour, it is no wonder that they close their books, and make the old complaint of vanity and vexation. Nothing really ferves us in reading, but what the mind makes its own by reflection and memory. That which is tranfcribed is not in the leaft more appropriated than when it flood in the printed page. It is an error, if any fuppofe, that by the act of marking the words on paper with a pen, the ideas are more clearly marked on the brain than by attentive reading. The best method of extracting and epitomizing, is to exprefs. the author's ideas, after fhutting his book, in our own words. In this exercise the memory is exerted, and the ftyle improved. We make what we write our own; we think; we are active; and we do not condemn ourselves to an employment merely manual and mechanical. But, after all, whatever a few may fay, write, or think, it is certain, that the greatest scholars were content with reading, without making either extracts or epitomes. They were fatisfied with what remained in their minds after a diligent perufal, and when they wrote, they wrote their own. Reading is, indeed, moft juftly called the food of the mind. Like food, it must be digested and affimilated; it must fhew its nutritive power by promoting growth and ftrength, and by enabling the mind to bring forth found and vigorous productions. It must be converted in fuccum et fanguinem, into juice and blood, and not make its appearance again in the form in which it was originally imbibed. It is indeed true (and the inftance may be brought in oppofition to my doctrine) that Demofthenes tranfcribed Thucydides eight times with his own hand; but it should be remembered, that Demofthenes flourished before printing was difcovered, and that he was induced to tranfcribe Thucydides, not only for the fake of improvement, but alfo for the fake of multiplying copies of a favourite author.' A due degree of variety will contribute greatly to render reading agreeable. For, although it be true, that not more than one or two books fhould be read at once, yet, when they are finifhed, it will be proper, if any weariness be felt, to take up an author who writes in a different style, or on a different fubject; to change from poetry to profe, and from profe to poetry; to intermix the moderns with the ancients; alternately to lay down the book and to take up the pen; and fometimes to lay them both down, and enter with alacrity into agreeable company or public diverfions. The mind, after a little ceffation, will return to books with all the voracious eagerness of literary hunger. The intermiffions must not be long; or fo frequent as to form a habit of indolence or diffipation. He who would read with pleafure (and it may be repeated, that all who read with real profit muft read with pleasure) will attend to the times of the day, and the feafons of the year. The morning has been univerfally acknowledged to be the best time for ftudy: the afternoon may be most advantageoufly spent in improving converfation. The very faculties which, before dinner, are capable of engag ing in the moft acute and fublime difquifitions, are found, by general experience, to be comparatively dull and itupid after it. I know not how it is, faid a celebrated writer, but all my my philofophy, in which I was fo warmly engaged in the morning, appears like nonfenfe as foon as I have dined.' Very hot weather is particularly unfavourable to reading. The months of July, Auguft, and September, are by no means the feasons in which the fruits of the mind arrived at maturity. Perhaps, a rigid philofopher will maintain, that the mental faculties are not to be affected by the viciffitudes of cold and heat; but who will liften to philofophy, who is already convinced by actual experience? It is indeed remarkable, that these months are felected for vacation in the houfes of legislature, in the courts of law, and in the feats of learning. In cold and inclement weather, when we are driven to the fire-fide for comfort, we find that delight in our books, which, in the vernal and autumnal feafon, we fought in the funshine, and in the fweets of rural fcenery. We no longer roam, we collect our fcattered ideas, and find, in the exercife of our faculties, that delight, which is the confequence and reward of exerting, in a proper way, the natural energies of the divine particle that breathes within us. But at all hours, and in all feafons, if we can reftrain the licentious rovings of the fancy, footh the paffions of the heart, and command our attention, fo as to concentrate it on the fubject we examine, we fhall be fure to find our attention amply rewarded. Attend closely, and clofe attention to almost any worthy object will always produce folid fatisfaction. In reading, in particular, it may be depended upon as an approved truth, that the degree of profit, as well as pleasure, will ever be proportioned to the degree of attention. An Account of the CLIMATE in the WEST INDIES; with interefting Defcriptions of the Beauty and Singularity of the Vegetable and Animal Creation in thofe Islands. [From The Hiftory, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the Weft Indies,' in two Vol. 4to. by Bryan Edwards, Efq.] MOST of the countries of which I propose to treat being fituated beneath the tropic of cancer, the circumftances of climate, as well in regard to general heat, as to the periodical rains and confequent variation of feasons, are nearly the fame throughout the whole. The temperature of the air varies indeed confiderably according to the elevation of the land; but, with this exception, the medium degree of heat is much the fame in all the countries of this part of the globe. A tropical year feems properly to comprehend but two diftinct feafons; the wet and the dry; but as the rains in these climates conftitute two great periods, I fhall defcribe it, like the European year, under four divifions. The vernal season, or fpring, may be faid to commence with the month of May, when the foliage of the trees evidently becomes more vivid, and the parched favannas begin to change their ruffet hue, even previous to the first periodical rains, which are now daily expected, and generally fet in about the middle of the month. These, compared with the autumnal rains, may be faid to be gentle showers. They come from the fouth, and commanly fall every day about noon, and break up with thunder-ftorms; creating a bright and beautiful verdure, and a rapid and luxuriant vegetation. The thermometer at this feason varies confiderably; commonly falling fix or eight degrees immediately after the diurnal rains: its medium height may be ftated at 75°. After thefe rains have continued about a fortnight, the weather becomes dry, fettled, and falutary; and the tropical fummer reigns in fuil glory. |