1842 EARLY JOURNAL 19 



One object for which I have attempted to form an 

 arrangement of knowledge is that I may test the amount 

 of my own acquirements. I shall form an extensive list 

 of subjects on this plan, and as I acquire any one of them 

 I shall strike it out of the list. May the list soon get 

 black ! though at present I shall hardly be able, I am 

 afraid, to spot the paper. 



(A prophecy ! a prophecy, 1845 !) 



April 1842 introduces a number of quotations 

 from Carlyle's Miscellaneous Writings, "Character- 

 istics," some clear and crisp, others sinking into 

 Carlyle's own vein of speculative mysticism, e.g. 



"In the mind as in the body the sign of health is 

 un consciousness." 



" Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we 

 shape into articulate thought ; underneath the region of 

 argument and conscious discourse lies the region of 

 meditation." 



" Genius is ever a secret to itself." 



" The healthy understanding, we should say, is neither 

 the argumentative nor the Logical, but the Intuitive, for 

 the end of understanding is not to prove and find reasons 

 but to know and believe "(!) 



" The ages of heroism are not ages of Moral Philosophy. 

 Virtue, when it is philosophised of, has become aware of 

 itself, is sickly and beginning to decline." 



At the same time more electrical experiments are 

 recorded ; and theories are advanced with pros and 

 cons to account for the facts observed. 



The last entry was made three years later 



Oct. 1845. I have found singular pleasure having 

 accidentally raked this Btichlein from a corner of my 

 desk in looking over these scraps of notices of my past 



