42 MERE SENSATION. 



the purely mental act of perceiving relation, and the 

 mind's act through the senses in perceiving reality ; 

 and for that reason we generally use only half our 

 system work with half our strength. Not half of 

 it even no, not a tenth ; for the real power is in the 

 union of the two. 



When we use our senses, we do not think; and 

 so the object of those senses can be turned to no 

 profit, and give us no pleasure. If we do not think 

 at the same time, the appearances of objects have 

 no more effect upon our organs of sense than sun- 

 beams when they play on the snow-clad summit of 

 a lofty mountain ; they are reflected away in an in- 

 stant ; and that which would have warmed a more 

 genial place into life and beauty is gone wasted, 

 never to return. How, scorpion-like, a little bit of 

 the tail of some day spent in favourable places, but 

 spent thoughtlessly, will turn and sting us with the 

 remorse of how much we have lost, and lost never to 

 be recalled or replaced ! How often, even when the 

 most delightfully instructive prospects are before us, 

 have we reason to address ourselves in the words of 

 Macbeth to the ghost of his murdered friend : 



" Thou hast no speculation in these eyes 

 Which thou dost glare with." 



And we, too, are murderers, and murderers "red 

 hand" in the fact, and not in the remorse caused by 

 the dogging ghost of that which we are murdering. 

 We are murdering Time the means of all know- 

 ledge, and the measure of all enjoying ; and, inde- 

 pendently of the direct loss, which is irreparable, if 

 the ghost of murdered Time shall, at any period, rise 

 and haunt us, it is one of the most terrible of ghosts, 

 and we must abide its tormentings alone and unpitied. 

 This abuse of our time, and neglect of thinking, 

 instead of working its own cure, throws us into the 

 opposite fault; and, just because we have gazed 

 without thinking, we think without observing, and 

 Jose both the time and the thought ; and lose it in 



