fources of intellectual improvement. As the meta. phyfician carries within himself the materials of his reasoning, he is not under a neceffity of looking abroad for fubjects of fpeculation or amusement; and unless he be very careful to guard against the effects of his favourite purfuits, he is in more danger than literary men of any other denomination, to lofe all interest about the common and proper objects of human curiofity.

To prevent any danger from this quarter, I apprehend that the study of the mind fhould form the last branch of the education of youth; an order which nature herself seems to point out, by what I have already remarked, with respect to the developement of our faculties. After the understanding is well stored with particular facts, and has been converfant with particular scientific pursuits, it will be enabled to speculate concerning its own powers with additional advantage, and will run no hazard of indulging too far in fuch inquiries. Nothing can be more abfurd, on this as well as on many other accounts, than the common practice which is followed in our univerfities, of beginning a courfe of philofophical education with the study of logic. If this order were completely reverfed; and if the study of logic were delayed till after the mind of the ftudent was well stored with particular facts in phyfics, in chemistry, in natural and civil history; his attention might be led with the most important advantage, and without any danger to his power of observation, to an examination of his own faculties; which, befides opening to him a new and pleafing field of fpeculation, would enable him to form

an estimate of his own powers, of the acquifitions he has made, of the habits he has formed, and of the farther improvements of which his mind is fufceptible.

In general, wherever habits of inattention, and an incapacity of obfervation, are very remarkable, they will be found to have arisen from fome defect in early education. I already remarked, that, when nature is allowed free fcope, the curiofity, during early youth, is alive to every external object, and to every external 'occurrence, while the powers of imagination and reflexion do not difplay themselves till a much later period; the former till about the age of puberty, and the latter till we approach to manhood. It fometimes, however, happens that, in confequence of a peculiar difpofition of mind, or of an infirm bodily constitution, a child is led to seek amusement from books, and to lose a relish for those recreations which are fuited to his age. In fuch inftances, the ordinary progress of the intellectual powers is prematurely quickened; but that beft of all educations is loft, which nature has prepared both for the philofopher and the man of the world, amidst the active sports and the hazardous adventures of childhood. It is from these alone, that we can acquire, not only that force of character which is fuited to the more arduous fituations of life, but that complete and prompt. command of attention to things external, without which the highest endowments of the understanding, however they may fit a man for the folitary fpeculations of the clofet, are but of little ufe in the practice of affairs, or for enabling him to profit by his perfonal experience.

Where,

Where, however, fuch habits of inattention have unfortunately been contracted, we ought not to defpair of them as perfectly incurable. The attention, indeed, as I formerly remarked, can feldom be forced in particular inftances; but we may gradually learn to place the objects we wish to attend to, in lights more interesting than those in which we have been accuftomed to view them. Much may be expected from a change of scene, and a change of pursuits; but above all, much may be expected from foreign travel. The objects which we meet with excite our furprise by their novelty; and in this manner we not only gradually acquire the power of obferving and examining them with attention, but, from the effects of con. trast, the curiosity comes to be roused with respect to the corresponding objects in our own country, which, from our early familiarity with them, we had formerly been accustomed to overlook. In this refpect the ef fects of foreign travel, in directing the attention to familiar objects and occurrences, is fomewhat analogous to that which the ftudy of a dead or of a foreign language produces, in leading the curiofity to examine the grammatical structure of our own.

Confiderable advantage may also be derived, in overcoming the habits of inattention, which we may have contracted to particular fubjects, from ftudying the fystems, true or falfe, which philofophers have propofed for explaining or for arranging the facts connected with them. By means of these systems, not only is the curiofity circumfcribed and directed, instead of being allowed to wander at random, but, in confequence of our being enabled to connect facts with general principles,

Hh 4

principles, it becomes interested in the examination of thofe particulars which would otherwise have escaped

our notice.

SECTION VIII

Of the Connection between Memory and philofophical Genius.

IT

is commonly fuppofed, that genius is feldom united with a very tenacious memory. So far, however, as my own obfervation has reached, I can fcarcely recollect one perfon who poffeffes the former of thefe qualities, without a more than ordinary fhare of the latter.

On a fuperficial view of the subject, indeed, the common opinion has fome appearance of truth; for, we are naturally led, in confequence of the topics about which converfation is ufually employed, to estimate the extent of memory, by the impreffion which trivial occurrences make upon it; and these in general escape the recollection of a man of ability, not because he is unable to retain them, but because he does not attend to them. It is probable, likewife, that accidental affociations, founded on contiguity in time and place, may make but a flight impreffion on his mind. But it does not therefore follow, that his ftock of facts is fmall. They are connected together in his memory by principles of affociation, different from those which prevail in ordinary minds; and they are on that very account the more useful for as the affociations are founded upon real, connexions among the ideas, (although they

may be less conducive to the fluency, and perhaps to RE. the wit of converfation,) they are of incomparably greater use in fuggefting facts which are to ferve as a foundation for reafoning or for invention.

It frequently happens too, that a man of genius, in consequence of a peculiarly strong attachment to a particular fubject, may first feel a want of inclination, and may afterwards acquire a want of capacity of attending to common occurrences. But it is probable that the whole ftock of ideas in his mind, is not inferior to that of other men; and that however unprofitably he may have directed his curiofity, the ignorance which he discovers on ordinary fubjects does not arife from a want of memory, but from a peculiarity in the felection which he has made of the objects of his study.

Montaigne* frequently complains in his writings, of his want of memory; and he indeed gives many very extraordinary instances of his ignorance on fome of the moft ordinary topics of information. But it is obvious to any person who reads his works with attention, that this ignorance did not proceed from an original defect of memory, but from the fingular and whimfical direction which his curiofity had taken at an early period of life. "I can do nothing," fays he, " without

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my memorandum book; and fo great is my dif"ficulty in remembering proper names, that I am "forced to call my domestic fervants by their offices. "I am ignorant of the greater part of our coins in

ufe; of the difference of one grain from another,

* Il n'eft homme á qui il fiefe fi mal de fe mefler de parler de memoire. Car je n'en recognoy quafi trace en moy; et ne penfe qu'il y en ait au monde une autre fi marveilleuse en defaillance. Efais de MONTAIGNE, liv. i. ch. 9. "both