Improvement of the mind by Watts Isaac 1674-1748 & Fellows Stephen Norris 1830-1908

Author:Watts, Isaac, 1674-1748 & Fellows, Stephen Norris, 1830-1908
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Education, Logic, Self-culture
Publisher: New York : A. S. Barnes & Company
Published: 1885-04-22T05:00:00+00:00

OF STUDY OK :MEDTTATI0N-. lO.'i

V. In learning any new thing, there should be as little as possible first proposed to the mind at once, and that being understood and fully mastered, i)roc('ed then to the next adjoininij,- i)art yet unknown. This is a slow, but safe and sure way to arrive at knowledge. If the mind apply itself at first to easier subjects, and things near akin to what is already known, and then advance to the more remote and knotty parts of knowledge by slow degrees, it would be able in this manner to cope with great difficulties, and prevail over them with amazing and happy success.

INlathon liapponcMl to dip into the last two chapters of a now book of f^e()]m>try and mensuration as soon as he saw it, and was frisjhtened witli tlie eomjilicated diagrams whieh he found tiK'i-(>, ai)<)Ut tlie frustums of cones and pyramids, et<-., and some deep demonstrations among conic sections; he shut the book again in despair and imagined none but a Sir Isaac Newton wasever tit (oread it. Jiut his tutor happily persuaded liini to begin tlie tirst pagi's about lines and an.iihs; juid he found such surprising pleasure in three weeks' time in the victories he daily ol)tained, that at last he became one of the chief geometers of his age.

VI. Engage not the mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once ; especially such as have no relation to one another. This will be ready to distract the understanding and hinder it from attaining perfection in any one subject of study. Snch a practice gives a slight smattering of several sciences, without any soli«l and substantial knowledge of them, and without any real and valuable improvement; and though two or three sorts of study may be usefully carried on at once, to entertain th(i mind with varietj^, that it may not be overtire(l with one sort of thoughts, yet a multitude of subjects will lo > much distract the attention and weaken the application of the mind to any one of them.

Where two or three sciences are pursued at the same time, if one of them be dry, abstracted, and unpleasant,

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