ch. v.] THE TWO METHODS. 137 



ceedings going on about him in the intellectual world. He 

 utterly neglected not only newspapers, but also contemporary 

 works on science, and even scientific periodicals, and devoted 

 himself almost exclusively to music and to aesthetic 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 contemporaiy specula- 

 tion, he called " cerebral hygiene." It should rather be 

 regarded as a source of mental 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 studying 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 which 

 he is expounding. It is the man who by long years of patient 

 thinking has completely mastered the system, and has it so 

 thoroughly elaborated in his mind that he can sit down and 

 write it out of the fulness of his knowledge, without needing 

 to look at books. And in such cases it is no doubt desirable 

 to shut oneself up and allow nothing to distract the mind 

 until the work is accomplished. So far, Comte was doubtless 

 wistr in doing as he did. But beyond this point, there is no 

 wisdom in keeping aloof from contemporary matters. As 

 soon as writing is done, reading should begin again ; every 

 conclusion should be carefully verified, and every statement 

 revised in the light of the newest science. Otherwise room 

 \s left for the subjective method to enter, and opportunity is 

 given the mind to tickle itself with the belief that it has 

 reached finality on some points. There is no safety for the 



