connected with Literature. -254 



a sudden and artificial increase* of action,) but 

 permanent strength and exhilaration should, 

 with equal care, be resorted to. 



But for the mental disorder, which has been 

 the subject of our discussion, we must look, 

 in the second place, for other remedies in the 

 mind itself, when considered abstractedly from 

 the body. 



Much benefit will be derived from conquer- 

 ing a sickly taste for light and desultory read- 

 ing, and abstaining from an immediate 

 application to the fine arts. When they, who 

 have indulged in such pursuits, engage in 

 studies of more solid utility, they find 

 the perusal of historic fagts, or the pro- 

 secution of philosophical arguments, perpe- 

 tually interrupted by the involuntary remem- 

 brance of their favourite and less ievere 

 employments. Mathematics is a science 

 worthy of being recommended to youth, 

 and, indeed, demanding the attention of all 

 whose habits are literary; not so much for its 

 own sake, or for that of the other sciences 

 which cannot be understood without a know- 

 ledge of it, as on account of its implanting 

 habits of abstraction and of bestowing the 

 ability to fasten the powers of the mind upon 



