TEMPORARY INABILITY. CCCclix 



Of inability to acquire particular sorts of knowledge he Particular 

 was scarcely conscious. He was interested in all truths, and, 

 by investigations in his youth upon subjects from which he 

 was averse, he wore out the knots and stonds of his mind, 

 and made it pliant to all inquiry, (a) He contemplated 



Principio sedes apibus statioque petenda 

 Quo neque sit ventis aditus, &c. Bacon. 



We are not to indulge ourselves in excuses from study ; for if we think 

 we never are to apply to it, but when we are vigorous, in high spirits, and 

 free from all manner of other care, we shall always find pretexts to excuse 

 us to ourselves. Let us always therefore find food for meditation, whether 

 we are in a crowd, upon a journey, at table, or even amidst a tumult. 



Silence, retirement, and a perfect tranquillity of mind, are indeed the 

 greatest friends to study, but they do not always fall to a man s share. If 

 therefore we should sometimes be interrupted, we are not immediately to 

 throw away our papers, and give our time up for lost : no, we ought to get 

 the better of difficulties, and to acquire such a habit as to surmount all 

 impediments by resolution and application. For if you resolve and apply 

 in earnest, and with the whole force of your mind to what you are about, 

 that which may offend your eyes or ears never can disorder your under 

 standing. Does it not often happen, that an accidental thought throws us 

 into so profound a train of study, that we do not see the people we meet, 

 and sometimes wander out of our way ? May not this always be our case, 

 especially when our study is not the effect of accident but of determination. 



Quintillian. 



() Rule. Engage in studies opposite to the favourite pursuit. Histories 

 make men wise; poetry, witty; the mathematics, subtle; natural phi 

 losophy, deep, moral, grave; logic and rhetoric, able to contend. Abeunt 

 studia in mores. Nay, there is no stond or impediment in the wit, but 

 may be wrought out by fit studies. Like as diseases of the body may have 

 appropriated exercises : bowling is good for the stone and reins ; shooting 

 for the lungs and breast; gentle walking for the stomach; riding for the 

 head, and the like. So if a man s wit be wandering, let him study the mathe 

 matics ; for in demonstrations, if his wit be called away never so little, he 

 must begin again : if his wit be not apt to distinguish or find differences, 

 let him study the schoolmen; for they are Cymini sectores: if he be not 

 apt to beat over matters, and to call up one thing to prove and illustrate 

 another, let him study the lawyer s cases : so every defect of the mind may 

 have a special receipt. 



Rule. Master your mind by continually investigating subjects from which 

 you are averse. Let the mind be daily employed upon some subject from 



