COSMIC PHILOSOPHY 



save in a few of his favourite poets. Still later 

 in life he erected this practice into a general 

 principle of action, and as a matter of con- 

 science refused to take any note of the pro- 

 ceedings going on about him in the intellectual 

 world. He utterly neglected not only news- 

 papers, but also contemporary works on science, 

 and even scientific periodicals, and devoted 

 himself almost exclusively to music and to aes- 

 thetic or devotional literature, such as Homer, 

 Dante, Thomas a Kempis, St. Augustine and 

 Bossuet, Moliere, Fielding and Lesage. This 

 holding aloof from the course of contemporary 

 speculation he called " cerebral hygiene." It 

 should rather be regarded as a source of men- 

 tal one-sidedness than as a source of mental 

 health. I have no intention of depreciating 

 the vast amount of invaluable food for thought 

 which is to be obtained from the study of such 

 books as those just named. Without study- 

 ing Homer and Dante and Moliere and the 

 rest, one can get but a very meagre notion of 

 human history as concretely revealed in the 

 thoughts of past generations. Nor can it be 

 denied that there was much that was truly 

 sensible in Comte's plan of leaving off study 

 when about to write. The successful expositor 

 of a system of thought is not the man who is 

 always cramming, and who perhaps keeps but 

 a few weeks in advance of the particular theme 

 202 



