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of genius. Great men have always been remarkable for the power of concentrating all the energies of their soul on their favourite subject. Newton attributed his own greatness to the power which he had of "keeping a subject constantly in his mind." The mathematician, absorbed day after day in the investigation of the properties of lines and symbols, gives evidence of this continuous attention. The philosopher, who shuts himself out from the gay world, denies himself the ordinary enjoyments of existence, and curbs the kindly sympathies of his nature, to live in a world of abstractions-the world of his own thoughts-he too gives evidence of this remarkable power. Genius seems to be impelled by an irresistible law to deny itself everything which lies without the sphere of its action, and to live upon the impalpable essences of its own creation. Such men are scarcely to be envied, they too often become martyrs to their application, or unhappy victims to the intensity of their own power. In concluding these observations, we venture to give

A short digression on thought, language, and genius.

Who can measure the pulsations of thought? even our mightiest thoughts come and go like flashes of the subtile lightning. Language retards the passage of thought, as imperfect conductors impede the passage of electricity. Thought is something very different from language, yet we find it difficult to separate the one from the other. We may have an exuberance of language with a poverty of thought; and we may have thoughts which language but poorly conveys. Ordinary thinkers are never at a loss for words; but original thinkers often feel the insufficiency of language-their ideas have to struggle their way into the world of expression. Commonplace thoughts are easily expressed, but language often fails to transmit some of our higher conceptions. There are thoughts to which language never yet gave expression, just as there are systems whose light has not yet reached our world. Writings of genius are not so much valued

for the mere knowledge which they contain, as for the marvellous power which they have in creating thought. Thoughts of genius are always new, they are always suggestive, they awaken fresh trains of thought in every mind that seeks to interpret them; this is no doubt chiefly owing to the inadequacy of the language to give a sufficiently full expression to the vastness or intricacy of the thought, so that there is always something like indefiniteness about the language. The truth is, language cannot comprehend the length and breadth and depth of a great conception; for the language is but the shadow of the substance. Ever since the dawn of creation, the sun has shed his light upon the host of planets which surround him, yet he has lost nothing of his original splendour; so in like manner the glorious productions of creative genius have shed their light, age after age, upon the world, yet they still shine on with undiminished brilliancy and lustre. How exhaustless are the works of genius! that god-like power which creates a world for the study of generations of ordinary men. Newton affirmed that the diamond was inflammable, but four generations had passed away before the conception was confirmed by experiment; and his law of gravitation has not yet attained its full development. After the lapse of three centuries, the conceptions of Shakspeare have lost nothing of their virgin freshness and bloom.

Slight circumstances often determine the peculiar bent of genius. The swinging of a chandelier in a ballroom led Galileo to the invention of the pendulum : the great philosopher heard not the inspiring music, saw not the gay glittering throng with which he was surrounded, felt no rapture at the smile of beauty; his attention was concentrated on the synchronism of the vibrations of the chandelier; thousands had age after age looked upon the same thing, without having caught hold of the grand idea which it was calculated to suggest. While in the act of bathing, Archimedes was led to the conception of specific gravity; his attention was awakened by feeling the buoyancy of his body when submerged in the water. The falling of an apple, it is said, led Newton to the

discovery of gravitation. Had none before him asked the question —why does the apple fall? Doubtless many had asked the question, but to them nature had given no satisfactory response, she had only echoed back the inquiry; but the simple fact became, in the mind of the prince of philosophers, the first link in the chain of induction, which led him to the great principle which animates the material universe. Our greatest philosopher was knighted: does the name of Newton appear less illustrious by being shorn of its title of nobility? Newton might do honour to the title, but it could confer no honour upon him. No public monument has yet been reared to bear testimony to a nation's gratitude for the achievements of her greatest son: everywhere we meet with statues and towers and triumphal pillars, erected to record the existence of our monarchs, or to commemorate the deeds of our statesmen and warriors; but, as if conscious of the insufficiency of such a tribute, we have reared no monument to him, whose fame is as far above that of kings, or statesmen, or heroes, as heaven is above earth. Foolish conception ! raise a monument of stone and mortar to perpetuate the memory of Newton! his monument is the temple of the universe, and his name is written in imperishable characters in the great laws which he discovered. The pyramids of Egypt will moulder and decay; empires, which at present rule the world, will one day appear as little specks upon the stream of time; old ocean will change its channel; but, secure amid the wreck of time, the fame of Newton will be seen towering in growing majesty and grandeur, for the laws which he discovered will have then received a fuller development. The superhuman genius of Newton appeared at its proper epoch, that is, when the laws of gravitation had to be revealed to humanity. No physical law has been discovered out of which such vast results have been evolved; indeed, it is difficult to conceive that there actually remains to be discovered any law of nature more comprehensive than that of gravitation,—which enables us at once to look back upon the past history of the solar

system, and forward to the aspect which it will present at any given future period,-which enables us to determine the existence, position, and magnitude of planetary bodies, which had eluded the searching power of the telescope, which carries our intelligence into those regions of space where the human eye has not penetrated, or over which the light of our sun has not yet travelled. Upon what apparently trifling circumstances great discoveries often depend! Long before the present seas had rolled, or the present vegetation had covered the earth, a huge monster fortuitously left its footprints upon a plastic strand, which in the lapse of cycles of ages became hardened and covered over with rocks and clays; but the geologist excavates these imprints, and in his hands they become the medals of creation, telling of its vast antiquity, and of the races which had been time after time swept away from the face of the globe before it attained its present condition of perfect maturity. How marvellous are the discoveries of modern philosophy! truly the human race is but in its infancy.

CHAP. IV.

CULTIVATION OF THE INTELLECTUAL FACULTIES, CONTINUED.
CULTIVATION OF MEMORY AND RECOLLECTION.

THE art of memory, says a distinguished writer, is the art of attention; so that, in fact, the cultivation of memory reduces itself to the cultivation of the habit of attention. If we take care to engage the attention, we may safely leave the memory to take care of itself.

There is, however, a great difference between simple memory and that modification of it which we call recollection. Memory is a receptive faculty, and seems to act, in some measure, independently of the will; it is perhaps more subject to physical conditions than any other intellectual faculty, and being considered, in itself,

more a natural than an acquired gift, it almost entirely lies without the sphere of the educator. On the other hand, recollection is to a great extent a voluntary power, which grows with our intellectual growth, and therefore admits of the highest degree of culture.

The power of remembering facts in the exact order in which they transpired, or of remembering words in the order in which they were spoken or printed, may be called a mere local memory, where no judgment is exercised by the individual in the selection or arrangement of the materials; but that kind of memory which is based upon a proper classification of the ideas, and not upon mere local or incidental relations, may be called a philosophical memory-the recollective faculty in its highest sense; for while it constitutes a distinguishing feature of the truly cultivated mind, it must at the same time be regarded as one of the most important instruments in the formation of the intellectual character. Teachers are too apt to overrate the value of a mere local memory: the truth is, the boy with a ready parrotlike memory pleases everybody, whereas the boy who has to cogitate and con over what he wishes to remember, rarely stands high in popular estimation.

There are great original differences in the power of memory amongst boys: some boys have naturally a quick as well as a retentive memory; others readily receive knowledge, but as quickly lose it; indeed, a quick memory is not generally a retentive one, for we find that what we readily learn we easily forget, and what we are at some pains to acquire we never lose. Some schoolmasters consider that the best kind of memory is that which simply retains the greatest number of ideas for the longest time; others, with more discrimination, prefer the recollective, reflective, kind of memory, which selects and arranges the facts and ideas as they are committed to the intellectual treasury for future use. A great verbal or local memory has hitherto been too much regarded as the sign and seal of intellectual superiority. A good memory is what everybody can appreciate, but the higher powers of intellect cannot be tested by a

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