MICROFE.MED 1991 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the 'Toundations of Western Civilization Preserv^ation Project" Funded bv the NATION.\L ENDOWMENT FOR THE HL-^IANITIES Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University^ Library COP^^IGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States -- Title 17, United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material.., Columbia University^ Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfhlment of the order would involve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: TITLE : ART OF EMPLOYING TIME TO THE ... JL m^/jL \^ mJj • LONDON DA TE : 1822 COLUMBIA UNIVliKSilY !.lHR/vRIi£S I^RESERVAllON DEPARTMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIC MIC ROLORM 1 ARCLT Original iMaienal as I'lliiicd - lixislmg Bibiiograpliic Kecoixi Mas ter Neg alive # Restrictions on Use; 1 f\r\ o 2 ."^oloVn^q Tirme to L .. ,y— ^_ -- o c o T jnapprncbb... n 1611' 1 1 \I' ~~ -p- TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA RLDUCTION RATIO: FILM SIZE: „^^J^_m IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA i IIA lii II!} . DATE FILMED:^ ^^^OzJ^^^ : ' ' ' - INI F I A L S _k^«^uXici\^_ HLMED BY: RFSEAI^CI 1 P UBLICATiONS, INC WOODBRIDGE, CT W X c Association for Information and image iManagement 1100 Wayne Avenue, Suite 1100 Silver Spring, Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 mm Uii Uii nil iiiilii 1 II ilii 1 II iliiii iiiiliiii ml III ml III iiiilmiliii im III lull iiiiliiii 1 nil iiilu nil II Mil nil mil T1 IT JUT T T T "rrrrTV i 1 '( ri TV fTl 1 in f'l' "1 rr 1 II Mill Inches 1.0 111^ Ilia IM 1 71 2.8 IM 2.5 2.2 I.I ■ 80 II 4.0 ■ »0 ^m II 1.25 1.4 2.0 1.8 1.6 MPNUFflCTURED TO RUM STfiNDfiRDS BY fiPPLIED IMPIGEp INC. \T4- ar7 ^olxxnxbiix Collc^ii^ tit the (Citu of il^nr IJorU gilxritrx). ^ ' '/ ' \ / •. ^ >^ r ' THE ART \ ^ \ OF EMPLOYING TIME TO THE GREATEST ADVANTAGE, > - THE TRUE SOURCE OF HAPPINESS. J Dost thou love life— then do not squander Time, For that is the stuff life is made of. FRANKLIN. LONDON : HENRY COLEURN AND CO. PUBLIC LIBRARY, CONDUIT STREET. I 1822. 4* h PREFACE. LONDON : PRINTED BY B. CLARKE, WELL STRtET. HI i oo CO M*-- The object of this work is to inculcate a me- thod of deriving the utmost possible advantage from Time, and consequently of living to better purpose than the great majority of mankind, who waste, often wilfully, or from indolence, thought- lessness, or incapacity, many hours, days, months, and even years, and then, with the strangest inconsistency, complain of the shortness of human life. As the fruit of his own experience, the author presents this work to the public, and especially to parents and the heads of families ; to those who are engaged in the important duty of cultivating and training the vouthful mind ; and to such young persons as begin to feel the value of time, a3 183945 yi PREFACE. and to have it at their disposal. He aspires to no hiffher reward than he shall find in the con- viction that it will prove the means of opening a happier career to some of his fellow-creatures, and of assuring to them a larger portion of vir- tue, tranquillity, and inward content, than they would otherwise have enjoyed. CONTENTS. PAfiE Introduction j First general Law. Law of the Point of Support. ^ Point of Support is requisite in every Thing 5 Second general Law. Law of Generation or Causes. There is no Effect without Cause g Third general Law. Law of the Universal Chain. All Things in the World are connected ig Fourth general Law. The Law of Gradation. All is Series and Gradation 26 Fifth general Law. Law of Division and Re-union. Di- vision and Re-union are two generating Principles j which must be combined^ and act simultaneously^ in order to be productive 3-^ Sixth general Law. Law of Exchanges, or of Associa- tion and Concurrence. Exchanges are a necessary Prir¥- ciple of Creation, and there is nothing but Eachange be- tween Men and all other Beings ;{g Seventh general Law. Law of Equilibrium, or of the Due Mean. A Just Medium should be observed in all Things. . 49 Eighth general Law. Law of Action and Re-action, or of the universal alternate Motion. In Nature all is Action and Re-action 52 Ninth general Law. Law of the universal Mixture of Good and Evil. Every Thing here below is made up of Good and Evil 55" Tenth general Law. Law of Obstacles. All Inconveni- ences and Obstacles may be converted into Elements and Means of Success , . , (jg y\\\ CONTENTS. PAGE Eleventh general Law. Law of Proportions or Harmo- nies. All Things are relative ' ^ T>vELFrH GENERAL Law. Law of Aims. In all Things there mmt be an Aim, End, or Object 91 97 Conclusion Application of the Twelve preceding General Laws to the particular Conduct of Life ; for the Use of young „ 100 Persons Analytical Table ^^^ THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. I. Of Happiness -.—the grand Aim of Education, and Life Of the Elements of which it is composed 1 1 1 II. Of the Fundamental Principle of Education and Mo- rality, or the first Law of Nature, which binds all Men together by their reciprocal Interests 115 III. Of three Powers or Faculties, which may be distin- guished in Man, and the Development and perfect Harmony of which are necessary for his Happiness ... 116 IV. Of the three Points of View in which the Employment of Life ought to be considered ^ ^^ V. Of the term Education, in its most limited and most comprehensive Signification 1*9 VI. Of the Value and Economy of Time, considered as an Instrument bestowed on Man by Nature. Utility of a Method which would enable him to derive the greatest possible Advantage from it 1-1 VII. First Condition proposed for regulating the due Em- ployment of Time. Previous Question which it is necessary to ask ourselves before we think or act: *• What End will it answer ?" *— CONTENTS. ^x page VIII. Second Condition. — A daily Examination made regu- larly every Morning and Evening of the Employment of the preceding Day • • • • 124 IX. Third Condition. — A written Summary of the daily Account of Deeds and Words, or Use of an Analytical Journal 126 X. Recapitulation of the three Parts or Conditions of the proposed Method 129 XI. Of three principal Advantages which the Practice of this Method cannot fail to produce • • «*• XII. Of several excellent Habits also resulting from the Use of this Method, and tending to the Improvement of Man in the three Ways above mentioned 132 XIII. Of two accessory Conditions for rendering the Method more essentially useful and beneficial. First Condition : —The Practice of keeping three distinct and separate Accounts, and entering in them as they occur to the Mind all the useful Observations relative to either of the three Faculties which Man ought to improve 134 XIV. Of the two Portions of Time, distinct in their Appli- cation, of which Life is composed 135 XV. Necessity of profiting by Circumstances and Men.— Advantages that must accrue, in this respect, from the Practice of keeping three separate Accounts for the Insertion of the Observations collected in Reading, in Company, in the Events of Life, and Reflection 137 XVI. Of the Physical Journal or Account 139 XVII. Of the Moral Journal or Account 144 XVIII. Of three particular Accounts, supplementary to the Moral Account, viz 1^^ 1. The Economical Account 157 2. The Historical Account 159 3. The Necrological Account 160 X CONTENTS. PAOC XIX. Of the Intellectual Journal, or Account devoted to the Improvement of the Mind 161 XX. Of three particular Journals auxiliary to the general Intellectual Journal, viz . . 174 1. Obligatory Occupations ib. 2. Optional Occupations 175 3. Bibliographic Account 176 XXI. Of certain particular Accounts attached to the Ana- lytical Journal, and not belonging exclusively to any of the three Journals, physical, moral, and intellec- tual, viz 1 79 1. Use and Construction of the Daily Memorial, properly so called ib. 2. Special Account for the Employment of Time, considered in general 180 3. Various Notes and Memorandums 181 XXII. Second and last auxiliary Condition, serving as a Complement to the proposed Method for regulating the useful Employment of Time.— Choice of a sincere and severe Friend, to whom to submit the Statement of our physical, moral, and intellectual Situation, every three or six Months, or only once a-year 182 XXIII. General Observation on the Mode of digesting the Daily Journal, the particular Accounts, and the Ana- lytical Statements of a Person's individual Situation, to be drawn up every six months, or every year 188 XXIV. Objections foreseen and refuted. Inconveniencies to be avoided in the keeping of the different Accounts . 189 XXV. Of an ancient Custom of the Pythagorean School, and of a Practice followed and recommended by Frank- lin 215 XXVI. Of several eminent Men who have successfully practised the Art of Employing Time 217 CONTENTS. XI PAGE XXVII. Of a General Division of the various Employments of Time during each interval of twenty-four hours .... 231 XXVIII. Destination of Man 235 XXIX. Destination of certain Individuals— Employment of Men 240 XXX. Of the Progress of the Human Mind 244 XXXI. Duties of a Father of a Family. 247 XXXII. Noble Emulation that ought to inspire the Young 251 XXXIII. General Results of the uninterrupted Practice of the proposed Method for regulating the Employment of ^'^^ 252 Notes on the Art of emploving Time. I. Description of the Method of forming a Common-Place Book on the Plan recommended and practised by John Locke, the celebrated Author of the Essay on the Human Understanding 257 II. Account of a particular Method (invented and practised by the Author) for reading, studying, and analysing scientific and historical Works, with a View to the sav- ing of Time in reading and study 261 Scientific Works 263 1. Definition of the Science, or concise Explanation of its Object 264 2. History of the Science ,j 3. Geography and Topography of the Sciences, and of each Science in particular, considered within its peculiar Limits 265 4. Legislation of the Sciences in general, and of each Science in particular fj. 5. External, and, as it were. Commercial Relations of one Science with the others 266 CONTENTS. PAGE 6. Logic of the Sciences, or Art of directing them ; Tactics of the Sciences, or Method to be pur- sued for promoting their Advancement, and Conquests to be made by those who cultivate them in the different Regions of the Intellectual World 266 7. Bibliography of the Sciences, and Methodical Col- lection of the Productions of the Human Mind, relative to each of the Branches of Knowledge . . 267 8. Biography of Men of Science and Philosophers •who have contributed to the Advancement of the Arts and Sciences 268 9. Analytical Table to facilitate References to the particular Accounts above mentioned, which may be made up into one Book or Journal i6. Historical Works 269 1. Education ; or, the Art of forming Men 275 2. Politics ; or, (according to Aristotle's admirable Definition) the Art of rendering Men happy. . . ib. 3. Social Advancement ; or, Social Progressions. . . . 276 4. Obstacles to Public Prosperity «*• 5. Great Men compared together 278 6. Influence of Women considered among all Nations and in all Ages »*• 7. Religions and Institutions 281 Application of the proposed Method «*. Ill- Plan of Dr. Benjamin Franklin for attaining Moral Perfection, and regulating the Employment of Time.. 287 IV. On the Progress and Effects of Civilisation 305 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. INTRODUCTIOX. Principles once discovered and established, says Bacon, form by their combination the pri- mary pliilosophy, which is in fact nothing more than a receptacle and collection of the principles common to all the arts and sciences. Guided by this fertile idea, 1 have been en- abled, as I conceive, to distinguish and to de- termine a certain number of fundamental truths, or general law>, some of which had been pre- viously discovered and pointed out, though none had yet received that extension of which all of them seem susceptible, and which moreover had never been represented as foiming, by their com- bination, a magnificent whole, a sort of universal code, metaphysical, philosophical, and moral. B 2 THE ART OF These general laws, which are applicable to every thing in nature, form by their union, as it were, a vast reservoir whence flow njimberless luminous facts, important consequences, new and valuable observations, productive experiments, and useful applications of every kind. A modern writer has asserted, that k is not ab- stract and universal ideas which constitute the power of the mind ; that they are supports of weakness, not evidences of power. To this ob- jection I reply, that these general ideas, being the essence of a great number of facts, and forming a sort of chain which connects them, are the necessary result of the operations and progress of the human mind ; that they are at the same time supports of weakness and evidences and means of power. They are, moreover, imperatively de- manded by the very nature of our intellectual faculties. They permit us either to rise to con- siderations of a higher order, and to soar in thought over the universe ; or to descend to the minutest details ; and by the light of certain es- tablished and acknowledged principles, to traverse with confidence the labyrinth of infinitely diver- sified facts, which it is advantageous to us to observe, for the purpose of comparing the new with the old, by seizing the analogies which con- } EMPLOYING TIME. 3 nect them, of illustrating the one by the other, and of knowing and improving ourselves. 1 readily admit that these general truths, pre- sented separately, and in an unconnected form, are susceptible of being reduced to a smaller number, of being blended together, and perhaps of being concentrated into one universal prin- ciple, if we were to take a more general and comprehensive point of view, and to ascend to their common source. But this point of view belongs to those geniuses who have been more highly favoured by nature, who are more deeply imbued with the substance of the sciences, and placed in a more lofty sphere. It was, besides, my intention in adapting my plan to my ability, and treating specifically of Time, as an instrument to be taken into account in all human combina- tions, to write more particularly for youth, to whom it would be dangerous to offer too abstract considerations, and who will, like me, more readily comprehend truths of a simpler kind, ex- hibited in succession, and applied before their faces. A system of employing time, which this work is designed to explain, pursued with perseverance and benefit for more than seven yeai*s, and the salutary habit of collecting daily during that b2 1 4 THE ART OF long period whatever seemed capable of fur- nishing either materials for erudition and obser- vation, or food for meditation, led to the fre- quendy accidental discovery, and afterwards to the investigation and combination, of these truths or general laws. I shall here confine myself to the exhibition of them in the natural order of their connection and bearings. For the frequent quotations, which the nature of my subject justifies, or rather demands, it is scarcely necessary to apologize. Expatiating in the different provinces of the sciences, to verify all my general laws by numerous and diversified experiments, I could not help appealing to the authority of men who had made those sciences their particular study. Accordingly I have sue- cessively consulted naturalists and physiologists, physicians and metaphysicians, soldiers, moralists, and political writers, and sought in the scattered fragments with which their works supplied me, a warrant for my opinion respecting the general nature of the laws which I lay down. On this head 1 feel so confident, that I have no hesitation to invite scholars, philosophers, moralists, and young people of observation, to apply my general principles, either in their ac- tions and their intercourse with other men, or EMPLOYING TIME. in their studies and reading, in history, morals, politics, and the sciences. These principles or laws may thus become points of support and useful guides to youth ; and it appears the more suitable to prefix them to this Essay on the Art of Emploj/ing Time^ because on the one hand they have been discovered and verified, as 1 have just stated, by means of the method here developed, and on the other several of these principles are repeated, quoted, and applied in the course of the work. FIRST GENERAL LAW. LAW OF THE POINT OF SUPPORT. A Point oj Support is requisite in every Thing. "Give me a point of support," said Archi- medes, "and I will move heaven a.nd eartlu" This luminous and fertile principle, borrowed from natural philosophj/^ mechanics^ hydraulics, architecture, anatomi/, particularly in the action of the locomotive organs of the animal machine, and from the physical arts and sciences, is not less ap- plicable, from an exact analogy in expressions, to metaphysics, morals and politics, to legislation^ b5 6 THE ART OF PI education^ rhetoric, logic, the conduct of life, general philosophy, and all the sciences. " In logic, as in trigonometry," observes a French writer, " the first operation must be to lay down a base." From the law of the point of support result the utility and necessity of all the methods which assist and uphold the human mind. Methods are to the sciences what instruments and ma- chines are to the arts, a kind of rules, compasses, levers, telescopes, quadrants, &c. which make amends for human weakness, and furnish it with assistants and auxiliaries. The progress of all the sciences depends much more than may be supposed on the invention and improvement of methods, instruments, and points of support, destined to increase their activity. The human mind has need of fixed and unerring rules to faci- litate, guide, and rectify all its operations. This fir?^t principle once established leads us in search of others, which themselves become points of support, and have general applications, the extent and consequences of which are unlimited. In morals we admit, that in all conditions and in all the actions of life, a man should have a certain firmness of character and will, which is a point of support that upholds his conducts A EMPLOYING TnviE. 7 weak mind is always vacillating in irresolution and uncertainty : it is tossed by the billows of human opinions, and becomes the sport of extra- neous influences, frequently pernicious, inimical, and adverse to one another. It knows not how to keep a due medium, falls into extremes, and always fails of attaining its end. * In morals an enlightened conscience and mind furnish points of support, like the methods in me- taphi/sics ; the levers, ladders, and machines of all kinds, in mechanics; the foundations laid by architecture to ensure the solidity of an edifice; the general rules fixed by legislation for the government of society ; the conventions and treaties in diplomacy and in commercial and political relations; the arguments in logic; and the rules, of every kind, laid down by taste or custom in the arts and sciences. * " If the mind," observes a philosophic writer, "be neglect- ed in childhood, and we suifer it to pass from wants to passions, without availing ourselves of the interregnum to plant in it cer- tain powerful ideas that shall fix it for life, it will soon be hurried away by the torrent of the world." Religion is therefore, in many respects, a necessary point of support, which it behoves education, morality, legislation, and politics, to employ, for the purpose of fixing the opinions and actions of men on more solid bases. 8 THE ART OF A method of emploi/ing time is di point of sup" port ill the conduct of life. 7 he law of the point of support deserves to be examined, observed and applied in all parts of the physical, moral, intel- lectual, social, and political world. Luminous and productive facts of all kinds are the real points of support^ on which repose observation and meditation^ those two great intellectual powers which alone are capable of advancing the sciences. SECOND GENERAL LAW. LAW OF GENERATION OR CAUSES. There is no Effect uithout Cause, The word cause^ in its most extensive signi- fication, denotes whatever contributes to the production of a thing. The terms cause and fffect convey to the mind an idea of a certain succession of facts arising out of one another. The principle which connects them together is most frequently unknown. It is useful nevertheless to study this order of succession, that we may know from experience in what manner certain facts are linked together in a chain of mutual dependence, and how some produce those which iiabitually 1 EMPLOYING TIME. V and necessarily spring from them, and must be considered a3 their causes, while the otl>ers are the results, produce, or effects of the former. It is necessary to enquire into causes, in order to obtain points of support, and to deduce effects. This law, of general application, is the true law of generation of the sciences, or of creation, which puts us into a track that leads to disco- veries. It ought to be taken for a guide in all the sciences in which the investigation of causes, and the accurate observation of the effects result- ing from them, are the necessary principle of their improvement and progress. The enquiry into, and the knowledge of, causes, furnish man with the true means of extending his empire over nature. Felix qui potuit rcrura cognoscerc causas ! No science can advance without a more precise observation of the facts belonging to it, whence results the facility of ascending to the generating causes of those facts, and of producing a repeti- tion of the facts observed, or new phaenomena of the same nature. Science properly directed, therefore, is really and solely a search after causes tending to some end. Every science may be defined in a general b5 10 THE ART OF CxMPLOYlNG TIME. 11 I way : — a collection of observations of phcenomena and facts^ and comparisons of the identities or differences remarked between them, which tend to lead us to as positive a determination as possible of certain causes and certain effects.* Agriculture observes the causes which render the earth more fertile, the crops more abundant, the trees more productive. From this observa- tion spring the arts — I, of tilling the ground witli different kinds of animals and implements: 2, of dunging and manuring the soil after it has been broken up, and varying the species of the manures and crops : 3, of sowing, planting, engrafting, and pruning trees : 4, of watering plants and gardens, and irrigating meadows and pastures : 5, lastly, all the processes which render the earth more profuse of its favors to man. Astronomy studies the causes of the motions of the stars, ofeciipses, and of the tides, and the causes of the succession of the seasons; and in this point of view it presides with meteorology ower the labors of the husbandman. It observes the revolutions of the celestial bodies, their constant or variable progress, the mutual dependence which connects * Nature," says Bacon, " cannot otherwise be comniauded but by obeying her laws." * > the one with the other, and the laws of their ascension and direction. A better knowledge of these causes dispels the frequently mischievous prejudices which spring from ignorance. The science of astronomy, thus founded on a more correct knowledge of the causes connected with its researches, conducts the navigator and mer- chant with surer guides into distant and unknown oceans. It promotes manufactures and the ex- change of their productions, which causes new productions,* and the intercourse between the inhabitants of the different regions of the globe. Mechanics and dynamics seek the causes and the laws either of the solidity of bodies set in equilibrium and in harmony,f or those of motion and its communication, and of the power which attracts bodies to one another. Architecture^ by the application of these same laws, renders them subservient to the construction and arrangement of our buildings, and descends from the exami- nation of the causes which the two other sciences liave indicated, to the practice and improvement of the means of erecting for us more solid, con- venient, and agreeable habitations. * See the sixth law, that of Exchanges. t See the seventh law, or Equilibrium, or a due Medium. 'I ]2 THE ART OF Phi/stcs, general and particular, and chemistrj/^ whiqh devotes its especial attention to the ele- mentary particles of bodies, study, with diflferent views, the causes and principles of the reciprocal action either of bodies in the aggregate or of their particles considered separately,* and lastly those of their different properties, general or individual. Natural history considers from a single point of view all the natural bodies, and the general result of all their actions in the grand whole of na- ture. It investigates the causes capable of altering their species, and producing varieties in them. Medicine seeks the causes of diseases, for the purpose of preventing them, or that, from a more intimate acquaintance with their nature, it may be able to administer remedies for their removal. Logic^ moralitj/y legislation, poUlicSj and rhe- toric, search for the hidden springs that produce in the human heart all the movements and all the impressions of which it is susceptible; that from a thoroughknowledgeof these moving ccfwse^ of our feelings, passions, and actions, they may operate upon it with the more powerful effect. t * See the fifth and eighth laws of Division and Re-union, and Action and Re-action. t All the secondary or accessary causes which wc observe in il EMPLOYING TIME. 13 In the physical, moral and intellectual, social and political world, and in all the sciences, causes duly studied and appreciated are means of ad- vancement and creation, or of the extension of the power of man. Means, says Bacon, being in practice what causes are in theorj/, so long as we are ignorant of the causes, we are destitute of means y and can produce no effects. Our law of causes, or o^ generation, is therefore an absolute generality, highly useful in its appli- cations, and prolific in consequences. It is con- nected with most of the laws which we are about the world convince us of the necessity of a first and all-pow- erful cause, which conscience and reason seem to reveal to man by a secret and irresistible testimony. This ^rs< and universal cause, termed Providence or God, is manifested in all its workf. Into the thinking atom which it has placed on this earth it has infused an emanation of itself, an immortal soul, the ex- istence of which is attested by the boldness of our conceptions, the loftiness of our sentiments, the energy of our passions, and the very insatiability of our desires. All nature, in the magni- ficent and diversified scenery which she every where exhibits to our view, and in the alternate succession of day and night, of the seasons and of years, confirms to us, by public and solemn evidence, these consolatory truths, which all religions proclaim and too frequently distort. The phaenomena of the earth and heavens are demonstrations of God and immortality : a sincere and persevering study of nature necessarily leads to the Author of nature. 14 THE ART OF to develop, and in the first place with the law of the point of support^ of which we have already treated : effects accurately observed are but points of support, which assist us in ascending to their causes^ and the causes, discovered and ascertained, become in their turn points of support to aid us in producing effects. It is connected with the law of the chain,* since it exhibits the relations which unite effects to causes, and xice versa. It is equally connected with the law of gradation, or the universal scale of beings, \ which determines the natural and necessary progress of the human mind, continually advancing from the known to the unknown. It teaches us to watch all be- trinnings with attention, that we may discover the principles and elements of things and of the sci- ences : hence arises a new connection between it and that principle of gradation, which likewise recommends to us the most careful examination of every shade and every degree of the series or pro- gression of a thing, considered from its first origin, that we may not suffer any of the links of the chain to escape our notice, but be able to ascend * See the third law, the Law of the Chain— all things are con- nected, t See the fourth law, the Law of Gradation, EMPLOYING TlME. is without interruption from effects to causes, or to descend again from causes to effects. Lastly, it is connected with the law of ends,* since it enjoins us in all the sciences to keep in view a specific end — the investigation of the causes of the effects and phaenomena which we observe. Bacon frequently insists on the utility of the search after and discovery of forms and causes. According to him, the luminous, productive, and truly philosophical facts are such as are calculated to unfold the laws of nature, or causes, and to enrich practice by this knowledge. The power of man consists entirely in his knowledge. Knowledge and power are therefore in reality one and the same thing. The art of inventing is, according to Bacon, the art of extracting principles or causes from experience or observation, and deducing from these principles new observations and new ex- periences. Genius with bold and correct eye embraces causes and results : it applies the one and creates the other. A good method of employing time is a fertile cause of pleasures and advantages, and a medium of happiness. * See the twelfth law, the Law of Ends, 16 THE ART OF ( THIRD GENERAL LAW. LAW OF THE UNIVERSAL CHAIN. Jll Things in the World are connected. EMPLOYING TIME. 17 We will first examine the law of the chain pro- perly so called, and then tlie law o^ gradation y which springs out of it, and is perhaps but a sub- division and a consequence of the former. The study of the relations existing among all beings (which may be considered as a kind of universal, physical, metaphysical, philosophical, and moml chemistry), and the observation of the successive degrees of which the great scale of beings consists^ and of which we shall treat sepa- rately, are intimately connected with the search after causes^ already proposed, according to Bacon, as the real aim of the sciences, and as the creative principle, or the productive and genera- tive medium of discoveries. The art of observa- tion requires strict continuity. It is necessary to observe without the slightest interruption, and to follow every operation without once losing sight of it. Relations are to be found between all the sciences, and even between things apparently the most opposite. All things are connected.* These relations serve as points of support for one ano- ther, and constitute the materials of exchanges, whence result means of creation. The law of exchanges, to which we shall come presently (see the sixth law), is not less fertile in consequences than those of the chain and of gradation, and the two foregoing laws of the point of suppo?'l and of causes. Good forms an immense chain, all the links of which are connected ; and the same is the case with evil. One truth leads to others : it is a fruitful seed, that springs up and produces more. Errors have, in some respects, the same property of fecundity. It is therefore of the utmost importance to keep our hearts and minds as much as possible within the bounds of the good and true, for then principles invariably pure produce consequences, opinions, actions, and * The cultivation of the sense of beauty in literature, and in the arts, extends and improves the human understanding, the enlargement of which cannot be neglected without a kind of DHitilation of a principal part of the faculties conferred by nature upon man. In this point of view, numberless facts with which we are acquainted in geometry, astronomy, and other sciences, cannot but be regarded as highly interesting, though we are not aware of their immediate connection with things useful in the concerns of ordinary life. 18 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 19 results, which have the same character. We have then a fixed base; we have within ourselves a noble and exalted principle, whence spring effects corresponding with their cause. Our law of the universal chain is more par- ticularly applicable in education^ or the art of re- gulating and employing life, the three grand di- visions, or the physical, moral, and intellectual branches of which are closely and necessarily con- nected. Health, morals, instruction, are bound together by secret, indissoluble, and indivisible ties, and cannot be separated with impunity. The study of the sciences, by enlightening the mind, disposes the heart to virtue : when generally diffused and encouraged, it tends to soften the manners, and contributes to individual happiness, and to the public prosperity. " Those who de- vote themselves to the peaceful study of nature," observes a philosopher, who confirms his opinion by his example,* " have but little temptation to launch out upon the tempestuous sea of ambition ; they will scarcely be hurried away by the brutal or cruel passions, the ordinary failings of those hot-headed persons who cannot control their * Cuvier, the celebrated French naturalist. Preface to his Traitc elementaire de V tlist, Nat, dea Jnimaux. conduct : but, pure as the objects of their re- searches, they will feel for every thing about them the same kindness which they see nature display towards all her productions." This close connection between morality and the sciences, judiciously observed by philosophic historians, allows them to compare with greater benefit, for the instruction of princes, heads of societies and nations, the times of barbarism and the periods of civilisation, the progress of know- ledge and of virtue, and their reciprocal influence. Aristippus, cast by shipwreck upon an unknown island, perceived geometrical figures traced upon the beach, and congratulated himself that the gods had not thrown him among barbarians. He was aware that ferocity of mannei-s is incom- patible with the cultivation of the arts and sciences, which polish mankind. The same natural and necessary connection of morality with the sciences, and of all the sciences with one another, leads to the beautiful and fer- tile idea of the unity and community of the sciences: an idea caught and suggested by Bacon, and executed and applied, though yet but im- perfectly, in our Encyclopaedias. Politics and Medicine have the same object as morals ; that is, preservation. Medicine is con- nected in numberless ways with the different 1 . so THE ART OF theories of the liberal and mechanical arts, and with the observations of the physical sciences. The latter will no doubt some day remove the veil drawn over the relations between the phases of the moon and the crises of human diseases. The influence of the solar phases, on alterations of health, was long since ascertained and indi- cated by the father of medicine. There is a cor- responding succession of seasons and diseases. All the sciences form a magnificent empire, between the different provinces of which there must be channels for communication, commerce, exchange, and transport, for their respective pro- ductions. Let us look back at ancient Britain covered with forests : agriculture, commerce, and manu- factures, were unknown. Ferocious Druids, amid the gloom of their impenetrable retreats, reigned, by means of terror, over savage tribes. Men weie sacrificed to pretended deities ; human blood was spilt upon the altars ; a sanguinary religion exalted murder into an act of virtue. The peo- ple lived in poverty, misery, and guilt. Igno- rance, crimes, calamities, and ruin, always go hand in hand.* \ EMPLOYING TIME. 21 ♦ Knowledge and information, great and generous actions, all kinds of prosperity, and preservation, the essential aim of The genius of civilisation appeared. Means of communication were opened, roads constructed, canals dug. Printing, carriages, the steam-en- gine, the conveyance of letters by post, and num- berless improvements in the machinery employed in agriculture, manufactures, and the useful arts, were successively invented. Navigation opened routes across the seas. The mariner's compass enabled man to explore them in all directions; and when forsaken by earth he found guides in the heavens. The barriers which separated continents were overthrown. Hospitality, agriculture, manufactures, commerce, arts, sciences, and travel, refined the manners. Productions of all kinds were multiplied and exchanged. The banks of the Thames were adoi ned and enriched by the assemblage of the natives and of the productions of the remotest countries. the species and the individual, are likewise linked together in an indissoluble chain. But while the arts and letters have polished nations, enlightened the understanding, and refined the manners, governments have not been able to prevent the vices of men from turning part of these salutary remedies into poisons. It is alike the duty and the interest of sovereigns to direct the progress of the arts and sciences to a noble and useful end, and to make them subservient to the prosperity of their subjects. 22 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 23 Some inconveniences, and some abuses, min- gled with all human things, in which evil is always found associated with good (which forms another general law ; see the ninth law), cannot prevent us from duly appreciating the incontest- able benefits and advantages of civilisation : it is in fact the natural state of the human species, whose distinguishing characteristic is sociability ;* whose noblest privilege, which constitutes its right to the dominion over beasts, is perfeciibilifi/ ^ But this development of human perfectibility and sociability could not, and cannot still take place, otherwise than slowly and progressively : it must be the work of ages; for every thing in natjre involves succession and gradation ;f and every beincy, every revolution, must traverse the links of the chain, or the successive steps of the ladder. It is the same with sciences as with societies. Several sciences still languish in the state of seclusion, in which individuals and small savage tribes existed in the infancy of nations. They are in some respects separated from one ano- ther by vast deserts, or by barriers hitherto insur- * The more man lives among his kind the more truly he i« man. Rousseau himself acknowledged and proclaimed the pre-eminence of the social man to the savage. t See the fourth law, the Law of Gradation* > k mountable.* The multitude of books obstructs the different routes. More easy and more nume- rous communications should be established be- tween them, the exchange of their productions should be encouraged, and they should be en- livened and fecundated by the magic influence of an active commerce and a rapid circulation. Each cultivator of the art? and sciences ouofht. without neglecting the peculiar branch which he has chosen, and which he designs more especially to improve, to make excursions into the other provinces of the intellectual world, for the purpose of collecting and carrying back into his particular district or domain such productions as are adapted to it. All the parts of the civilized world concur in supplying each other's wants. We enrich our native land by collections formed in foreign coun- tries : in like manner, an enlightened philosophy, the true philosophj/ of the sciences, ought to create in their empire, and in its different provinces, the * Such are, among others, chemistry and politics^ one of which improves the useful arts and manufactures, which it is the duty of the other to stimulate and encourage, as the essential ^eans of prosperity. The wider diffusion of the study of the ma- thematics cannot fail to have a powerful influence on the pro- gress of the military art, and on the improvement of artillery. 24 THE ART OF ExMPLOYING TIME. 25 same prodigies, and tlie same results of meliora- tion and improvement, as the genius of civilisa- tion has begun to create in the world. Let us judge from the efforts and success of our ancestors what we are capable of performing, and the success which we may reasonably hope to obtain. Let us equally beware of admiring too warmly and of undervaluing the faculties of the human mind- It is of importance to keep a due medium between two opposite errors. The road to wisdom always lies \>etween two rocks, between two contrary excesses : this truth I shall have oc- casion to repeat in treating of the law of equili- brium^ or the due mean (see the seventh law). This extravagant admiration, and this unjust con- tempt of the human powers, are prejudices and obstacles; it is our duty to convert them into means of success, * A sound and judicious appreciation of all that the human mind has produced, and an admiration of its works confined within due bounds, are mo- tives of encouragement, powerful agents, points of support, levers which raise and uphold us, gener- ous food, which nourishes the consciousness we ouo-ht to have of our strength. A prudent distrust ) of our powers, if not carried too far, becomes a medium for directing them to better purpose, for applying them with more economy and discern- ment ; in short, for increasing and rendering them more productive. This is free-thinking, unconfined to parts, To send the soul, on curious travel bent, llirouffh all the provinces of human thought ; To dart her flight through the whole sphere of man; Of this vast universe to make the tour ; In each recess of space and time at home ; Familiar with their wonders, diving deep, And like a prince of boundless interests there, Still most ambitious of the most remote ; To look on truth unbroken and entire ; Truth in the system, the full orb, where truths By truths enlightcn'd and sustain'd, afford An arch-like, strong foundation, to support Th' incumbent weight of absolute, complete Conviction. * Young's Mght Thoughts^ Night;.' * See the tenth law, the Law of Obstacles. * Wliile I have this poet before me, I shall quote another passage from the same work : Look nature through, 'tis revolution all. All change, no death ; all to reflourish fades; As in a wheel all sinks to re-ascend. Emblems of man, who passes, not expires. C X THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 27 FOURTH GENERAL LAW. THE LAW OF GRADATION. Ml is Series and Gradation, The law of gradation is, in some measure, com- prised in the law of the chain, and may even be said to be the same law, considered in a different point of view. This general principle, all is series and gradation, proves the source of a multitude of important observations and valuable truths. The acorn requires a long time before it is ex- panded into the majestic oak, which covers us with its shade. Plants, trees, animals, and all other beings, have but a slow and progressive growth. Each minute, each hour, each day, taken separately, seem to produce no change, no modification in the state of that infant in the cradle, which in a few years will grow up to man- The world of matter, with its various forms. All dies into new life. Life born from death Rolls the vast mass, and shall for ever roll. Can it be Matter immortal ? And shall spirit die ? Young's Night ThoughtSy Night 6. I hood ; and proceeding step by step through the different periods of life, at length arrive at the de- crepitude of age. His physical, moral, and intel- lectual development is slow and imperceptible. In him, as in nature, every thing is progressive; and progression or gradation is a compound of tints so delicate as scarcely to be distinguished. We may act upon these tints by taking them in detail, by modifying them as fast as they are formed, though we cannot operate upon the whole coUectivelv : but in this manner we make ourselves masters of the whole, the parts of which we have detached, taken separately, and consi- dered one after another. This great truth may be applied with particular advantage hy education^ moralit?/y and politics. The law of gradation, common to all beings, and every where set before our eyes, warns us to watch with care in all things over their beginning and progress ; to reform without delay in educa- tion, defects, bad habits, and wrong notions ; evils and abuses, in legislation, administration, and society; errors and faulty processes in the arts and sciences; prejudices and mistakes in philosophi/, and in metaphysical, moral, and po- litical discussions ; to extirpate them in their origin ; to attack them one after another, like the c 2 28 THE ART OF Roman who vanquished the Curiatii ; to pluck them up, as it were, hair by hair, like the tail of Sertorius's horse, instead of foolishly attempting to overturn and alter all at once, and in a single moment, what we find established. It was dis- regard of this tru'h that produced all the cala- mities of the French Revolution, in which fiery, impatient, imprudent, and inconsiderate spirits expected to mature institutions in a hot-house. This law of gradation warns us also to hasten slowly, without suffering ourselves to be disheart- ened, and to imitate the gradual and regular pro- gress of Nature, which expands the faculties and reason of the individual at the same time with his body, and is never in a hurry to accomplish her end. As we are obliged to admit a certain necessary order of progression, and of continuous concate- nation which pervades all things, we ought never to be too hasty and precipitate. AVe should learn to wait, to prepare, to seize the frequently delicate and imperceptible point of maturity and possibi- lity. This is one of the distinguishing character- istics of genius, which, according to Buffbn, is but a superior aptitude to patience. Festina leniCy hasten slowly, was a maxim of the ancient sages. Patience and perseverance will always triumph in the end. EMPLOYING TIME. 29 i f ^ 'I Principiis ohsta^ oppose or correct beginnings. The gradation once begun, you will not be equally able to check or to direct its course. It is to the first operations, says Bacon, that we ought to pay particular attention; but this does not relieve us from the necessity of attending to those which follow. If the first operations are good, we ob- tain a base and sl point of support ; we are in the right track ; and the gradation or progression, in a direction that is known to be proper and salu- tary, cannot but be advantageous. Our general law of gradation indicates also the natural and necessary course which the human mind must pursue in order to acquire knowledge. It must keep advancing by a continuous chain, by an ascending ladder, from link to link, fi-om step to step, from the known to the unknown. The known serves it for sl base awd a point of sup- port. It is often from the visible that it learns to judge of the invisible. The ladder of the under- standing, described by Bacon, is one of the most important points of general philosophy, and of the science of education in particular. The proo-ressive state is natural to man. He is characterised by a thirst of knowledge. His mind desires to be incessantly extending the sphere of his ideas and of his power over nature. This c3 30 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 31 restless and insatiable desire, whicli ferments in the heart of man, seems to be the feeling of his immortalityj and to reveal to him his final destina- tion.* * Man ill at ease Sighs on for something- more when most enjoy'd. Were man to live coeval with the sun, The patriarch pupil would be learning still. Yet dying, leave his lesson half unlearn'd. Man must soar ; An obstinate activity within, An insuppressive spring will toss him up. In spite of fortune's load. To love and know in man Is boundless appetite and boundless power, And these demonstrate boundless objects too. Knowledge, lore. As light and heat essential to the sun. These to the soul. Look nature through, 'tis near gradation all. By what minute degrees her scale ascends ! Each middle nature join'd at each extreme. To that above it join'd, to that beneath. Parts into parts reciprocally shot, Abhor divorce. What love of union reigns ! But how preser\'ed The chain unbroken upward to the realms Of incorporeal life ! Grant a make Half mortal, half immortal, earthly part And part ethereal ; grant the soul of man Eternal, or in man the series ends. • f The general law of gradation, like that of the chain, which embraces and unites all the sciences, is alike applicable to natural history, cosmogra- phi/, natural philosophy, chemistri/, and to all the physical and natural sciences ; to astronomy, and the observation of the courses of the celestial bodies ; and to agriculture, which studies the pro- gress of the seasons, the gradations and variations of temperature, as well as the successive degrees of the growth and development of plants and of a certain number of animals. It belongs likewise to mechanics and to hydrau- lics, to the mathematics and to geometry, to the military art and to tactics, which, to draw up a well-arranged military line, forms with it a kind of ladder, all the parts and all the steps of which mutually support one another, so that each bat- talion, when attacked, is flanked by the company of the next battalion. The same law is to be found in all the mecha- nical arts, and in the fine arts; in architecture, in 'J Wide yawns the gap ; connection is no more ; Check'd reason halts, her next step wants support ; Striving to climb, she tumbles from her scheme, A scheme analogy pronounced so true. Analogy, man's surest guide below. Y^oung's Nighi Thoughts. c 4 II 32 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 33 sculpture, in painting, and in poetri/, which are composed of slight and delicate shades, of varied gradations, that skill and taste ought to be able to combine; in the erection of an edifice, as in the organisation of a society ; in the management of a garden or nursery, as in the direction of a state or an army ; in plans laid down for study or occupation ; in experiments in the arts and sci- ences; m the search after causes, which, if judi- ciously conducted, must lead to discoveries ; in legislation, and all the moral and political sciences ; in moral philosophy, which should operate im- perceptibly and progressively upon the soul, as medicine does upon the body ; in lo^^ic and rhe- toric, which ought so to govern and combine the progress of argumentation and eloquence, as, from their united effect upon an assembly, to insinuate themselves dexterously into the mind, and pene- trate to the heart ; in education and instruction, which guide and gradually develop all the human faculties ; lastly, in the good use of time, or the manner of regulating the employment of all our moments, with order, economy, and discernment ; and in the whole conduct of life, with respect to our own interest, welfare, and happiness, and to our intercourse with other men and with society. FIFTH GENERAL LAW. LAW OF DIVISION AND RE-UNION. Division and Re-union are two generating Principles, which must be combined, and act simultaneously, in order to be productive. Since all is gradation, it is necessaiy to take the elements of each thing, one by one, and to combine them, if we would form a whole. In order to create we must knozo how to divide and re-unite. This principle is a consequence of the preceding, and connects with our first four laws? of the point of support, o^ causes, of the chain, and o^ gradation. It is by combining the double action of first dividing and then re-uniting, of taking singly each of the facts and principles of a science, for the purpose of connecting and arranging them, that we succeed in creating a compact whole, in erecting a solid edifice. Such is the general law which I term the law of division and re-union. From this law spring, in philosophy, the two grand methods known by the names of analysis and synthesis, which have, perhaps, been too much employed separately, instead of being com- bined. Synthesis sets out from particular facts, c5 THE ART OF for the purpose of ascending to the general fact and principle : analj/sis decomposes the elements of the general fact, in order to descend to the par- ticular facts. " To generalize and to particu- larize," says a philosopher " are two alternate actions necessary to moral and intellectual life."* Division and re-union^ skilfully combined, can alone enable the hand or the mind of man to pro- duce in the end works whose beauty and durabi- lity seem to stamp upon them the character of creations of a divine hand or intelligence. Look at the Ihad, in which all the individual beauties are so moulded together by the genius of Homer, as to compose a magnificent whole. Look at the master-pieces of the drama, where the varieti/ of characters and events developed in them harmo- nizes with the uniti/ of interest and action re- quired in tragedy, as in the epic poem and in all the productions of the arts. Observe, lastly, the continued and regular action of nature in the details and in the totality of her operations for the preservation of the universe. He who merely knows how to divide loses him- self in tlie details, and has no general views ; whilst he whose sole study is to re-unite finds * See the eighth law, the Law of Action and Re-action, EMPLOYING TIME. 35 nothing but masses, and is ignorant of the con- stituent principles of the bodies or things which he ought to employ. A due mean in all things is therefore necessary, and this truth accordingly forms the subject of a general law. A judicious combination, a happy mixture of these two ac- tions of dividing and re-uniting, produce the same result as the difference and association of the two sexes, which approach each other, and unite for the purpose of creating. It is impossible to produce a new being in the physical, moral, intel- lectual, social, and political world, but by the judicious application of the two principles of division and union. Discordia concors : herein consists the germ of life, the soul of the world. The division of labour, of men, of sciences, of social professions, of states or bodies politic, &c. a luminous and productive principle, a law of general application, and their assemblage, their combination, their fusion, the necessary conse- quence of the exchanges which result from the division, and which become in their turn an active and fertile cause, especially in the organization of societies, and in all that comes within the sphere o^ political economi/^ are found operating with the same power in all the physical and mathematical sciences. Mechanics and hi/draulics employ sue- ^" THE ART OF cessively springs and wheels, more or less simple or complicated, to produce an action ; and first divide their means for the j3Uipose of afterwards combining them, and making them concur to one common end. Military tactics, which Guibert, animated with the warmest enthusiasm for his art, styles the stupendous and super-human science of working an army, of giving battle, of forming and directing the plan of a campaign, by turns divides an army into several parts and unites it again into a single body, simplifies its marches, combines the movements of dijfferent corps, expands or draws them close together, manages one hundred thou- sand men as easily as ten thousand, and thus sub- stitutes method for routine, and combinations for chance. Geometry, physics, optics, mineralogy, chemistry, which alternately divides or decom- poses and re-unites the elements and particles of bodies; botany, which studies the individuals of the great family of vegetables, for the purpose of classing them in species and genera, according to their different individual and common qualities, observed separately and compared with each other ; architecture, whose different ordei-s depend on particular modes of dividing and re-uniting; painting and sculpture, which cannot combine in a single figure the beautifiil forms of individual EMPLOYING TIME. 37 parts, which it selects from various models, unless by blending them into a homogeneous whole • music, which produces from a series of modula- tions a whole of exquisite beauty, each modula- tion which precedes calling forth that which follows, so that their variety is thus reduced to unity; the mechanical, as well as the fine arts; the moral and political sciences ; legislation and jurisprudence, which take up one by one the fa- culties and actions of men, to form the general code of their rights and duties; literature, rhetoric, poetry, which combine and vary the different ele- ments of language according to special rules pe- culiar to each; lastly, writing, arithmetic, and printing, which, by the combination of certain cha.YSicters, formed separately and joined together embody human thought and its most abstract and sublime conceptions, and communicate to them, in some measure, a physical and material existence more durable than that of man himself: all these arts, all these sciences, cannot obtain results in their respective spheres unless by the judicious application of this law. The organization and arrangement of a vast administration, a great army, a magnificent edi- fice, a superb library, a museum, as well calculated for the instruction of artists and the advancement 38 THE ART OF of the arts, as was the beautiful gallery of Flo- rence, of a fine performance of any kind, a poem, a picture, a concert, or even a ball or an enter- tainment, consist solely in the two-fold merit of the details and of the whole together , in division and re-union^ properly combined and properly applied. These two creating causes require to be em- ployed by skilful hands capable of turning them to advantage. SIXTH GENERAL LAW. LAW OF EXCHANGES, OR OF ASSOCIATION AND CONCURRENCE. Exchanges are a necessary Principle of Creation^ and there is nothing hut "Exchange between Men and all other Beings, Exchanges result from drcision^ the equally general influence of which seemed to entitle it to form the subject of a distinct and separate law. In the social order, as in the moral and intel- lectual world, and in all the sciences, they are an essential and necessary medium of reproduction. Concurrence, or the result of exchanges, is a principle of strength. Natural philosophi/^ che- mistri/^ botany^ agriculture^ medicine y morals •, EMPLOYING "^-IME. 39 politics^ legislation^ and the militari/ art^ alike fur- nish applications of this truth. The union of small powers, as we have shown in treating of the law of division and re-union, becomes the principle of great ones. It is from a judicious combination of individual labours and efforts, directed, though in different spheres, and with infinite modifications, to one general and central end (in all the sciences, in mechanics, in the militari/ art, and in all the useful arts and trades) that we may obtain a mass of powers cal- culated to extend the dominion of man over nature, or to produce great and useful results. L«et us first consider our law of exchans:es with reference to commerce, to which it seems to liave the most immediate and the most natural appli- cation. We may afterwards examine it, and cal- culate its action and effects in civil society, in military tactics, in the arts and sciences, in the republic of letters, and in the intellectual as well as in the social and political world. Two persons reciprocally exchange the produce of their labour. Every kind of exchange pre-sup- poses two things, superabundant production on the one hand, consumption on the other: super- abundant production, because I can only exchange what I can dispense with, or w^hat is superfluous to me ; consumption, because I cannot exchange 40 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 41 my surplus except with a person who needs it for his use. Without the factiltt/ of exchanging^ each would be labouring solely for the supply of his direct and personal wants, and the most industrious man would not be able to provide for more than an inconsiderable part of his consumption. With the greatest sum of toil and fatigue he would possess but a very small sum of advantages. By means of exchange, whilst he is working for others, all his wants are abundantly supplied by them. His labour is diminished ; and his means of existence and comfort are increased. Thus, then, without exchanges^ which form the bond of society, there would be neither division of labour, nor concurrence of operations to one general end. Now, division is an essential and necessary principle of creation and improvement in the sciences, in every branch of industry, and in all human things, as we have observed in treat- ing of the law of division and re-union. Concur- rewce, the produce of exchanges, and the necessary principle of power, can alone remove one of the great obstacles to the progress of the human mind, that which results from the individual weakness of man.* I In consequence of the division of labour, to which nothing but exchanges can give rise, what one man makes, collects, or possesses, frequently bears no proportion, either in kind or in quantity, to his personal wants and consumption. It is by means of exchanges that every consumable thing seeks out the necessity or the luxury which it is destined to satisfy. The immediate effect, therefore, of exchanges is to encourage each individual to make, collect, and acquire, what he does not want for his con- sumption, and to afford to each the advantage of being able to consume such things as he neither makes nor collects. Since the condition which renders a commodity exchangeable or marketable is, that this com- modity be superfluous to the seller and con- sumable by the buyer, it follows that, in an ex- change, instead of giving equal value for equal value, each of the contracting parties really gives a less for a greater value. This truth, which appears to be contrary to the current notions, according to which it is presumed that exchanges are in- variably made with equivalent objects, serves to demonstrate more clearly the immense advantages accruing to society from the multiplication of See the tenth law, the Laus of Obstacles. 42 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 43 exchanges, or the extension and activity of com- merce.* Every exchange is profitable to the two con- tracting parties, since each of them receives what he most needs, and gives what is less useful or less agreeable to him. Every exchange is pro- fitable also to the society in which it takes place, since it is rich only in the wealth of the individuals who compose it, and all exchanges stimulate to labour^ which is the universal agent of the creation of wealth. It will be asked how commerce can augment the mass of wealth, if it consists only in exchanges, and if the mere exchange of one thing for another seems incapable of producing any thing; or, per- haps, how it can happen that in an exchange, one of the contracting parties, instead of giving equal value for equal value, really gives less and receives more, while the other also receives more and gives less ; which cannot but establish and prove the influence of exchanges or of commerce on the augmentation of the mass of wealth. •See Adam Smith's profound work on the Causes of the Wealth of Nations; Condillac's excellent treatise on the Relations bettceen Commerce and Government ; and Turgot's essay on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth, 4. I I It is of importance here to observe, that the science of political economy considers only ex- changeable values, or values of relative utility It distinguishes three causes of the value of a thing : its utilitj/, its raritj/, and the labour re- quisite for procuring it. Let us now suppose two men ; the one living in a country abounding in muddy water, which he cannot use till it is filtered through sand, of which this tract is totally destitute; the other residing a few miles off in a dry sandy district, in which not a drop of water is to be found. The former sends to the latter some of the water of which he has a superabundance ; and the latter supplies him in exchange with sand, of which he has a much greater quantity than he needs. It is clear, that be who has too much water and wants sand gives less for more; while he who has too much sand and wants water likewise receives more and gives less. In like manner, the draper who sells me his cloth for a price agreed upon between us, consi- ders the money which he receives as worth more to him than the cloth of which he has a super- abundant quantity : while I, who have money with which I cannot clothe myself, and am in need of cloth, value the cloth which I thus obtain 44 EMPLOYING TIME. 45 THE ART OF more highly than the money which I am obliged to give in exchange for it. I give less to receive more. Were not both of us to reason in this manner with ourselves, he would keep his cloth, I my money, and no exchange would take place between us. In exchanges, a thing passes from hand to hand only inasmuch as it acquires increased value; and as every superfluity becomes wealth, the result is a constantly increasing reproduction, because each person, in creating superfluities, is certain of being able to exchange them for things which he stands in need of. The more frequent, then, and the more easy exchanges are, the more productions multiply: commerce or exchanges consequently concur in causing them to be produced : they augment the mass of wealth. It is wise, therefore, to encourage and favour all the means of exchanoje and communication amon^r mankind : as hio^h-roads and cross-roads, canals, public conveyances, the transmission of letters by post, bills of exchange, navigation and printing, which, according to the observation of Bacon, perpetuates all discoveries, or carries them to all parts of the globe, communicates the wis- dom and knowledge of each nation to all, and 'i Tenders the wisdom and knowledge of all tlie pro- perty of each. All obstructions that tend to cramp, retard, or check these communications and means of exchange ought to be removed. Such is the magic operation of exchanges in commerce ; we shall find it equally powerful in the social and political organization. The govern- ment ensures to each citizen or subject the advan- tages resulting from order and harmony — peace, security, property. Each individual contributes to procure in exchange for the chief magistrate wealth, honour, the conveniences and luxuries of life, consideration, authority, fortune, glory. This voluntary exchange between the government and the nation constitutes one of the elements of the social machine. The different conditions and professions of so- ciety are also making continual exchanges from which their reciprocal well-being results. Prac- tical and theoretical men mutually enlighten and assist each other. The husbandman supplies the scholar and the philosopher with the bread which supports their life and strength : the philosopher gives in exchange the result of his studies and meditations. The produce of the labour of the former, placed at the disposal of the latter, ena- bles him to pursue his observations and medita- tions freely and without molestation ; and he 46 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 47 in return furnishes the individual; by whose toil he is fed, with the means of improving his con- dition, his habitation, his apparel, and his imple- ments of agriculture. In the military organization, the different kinds of troops, infantry, light horse, heavy horse and artillery, instead of being jealous of each other, or setting up individual claims to superiority, ought to consider themselves as intimately connected, and to lend one another mutual aid by the ex- change of their respective strength and means, and by their judicious association and combination. We discover the law of exchanges not only in our social institutions, and in the transactions between man and man, in our armies, and in all the arts, but likewise in nature, and between all beings. The plants, observes a philosophic physician, placed among us to purify the air we breathe, derive in their turn from animal emanations the most essential elements of their growth and vege- tation. This reciprocal commerce of influence, this continual interchange of restorative benefits between the two Organised kingdoms, is one of the most delightful spectacles to the philosopher, who views nature with an eye worthy of contem- plating her operations. The husbandman commits his seed to the ground 'I VI which he cultivates, and which returns it to him with usury. The atmosphere gives water to the ocean, and pumps it up again in the form of vapours. The earth supplies us with our food, and we restore to the earth our mortal remains. The wrecks of death become the germs of life. This law of exchanges^ observed throughout the globe, a law of absolute generality, and most fer- tile in its applications, is more particularly con- nected with morals, with beneficence, and with love, which is the soul of the universe. Man himself is the result of a real exchange be- tween the two beings to whom he owes his exist- ence. All his steps in life and in society are mark- ed by so many exchanges. The first instructions which he receives are repaid by his first caresses. His whole education consists in giving in order to receive, and in receiving that he may one day give — (Action and re-action; see the eighth law.) He ought also to be made sensible by daily experience that no person ever does ill to others, but sooner or later, directly or indirectly, evil results from it to himself. The good that is done recoils in like manner on its author. The law of exchanges^ duly understood and ap- plied, is the principle of general virtue and prac- 48 THE ART OF tical morality, which embrace all the social rela- tions.* A father of a family cannot with impunity separate his happiness from that of his children, nor a monarch his prosperity from that of his sub- jects. Whatever interests humanity ought not to be foreign to any man. That egotism which is wrapt up in its own self-sufficiency, and adoptino" a certain negative, false and anti-social philosophy, insulates and envelops itself in a system of indo- lence, inactivity and nullity, studies its exclusive advantage, and strives to draw every thin<>- from others without making any return, is but the result of an error, a prejudice, a false calculation, a mistake. Mistakes^ the primary cause of the crimes and miseries which embitter human life, and which spring from a wrong way of viewing things, vull furnish, in the examination of one of our general laws, matter for considerations, important in them- selves and fertile in consequences. f * Do not to another what you would not wish to be done to you. t See the ninth law, the Lave of the Universal Mixture of Good and Evil, i: emploting time. 49 SEVENTH GENERAL LAW. LAW OF EQUILIBRIUM, OR OF THE DUE MEAN. ,1 just Medium should be observed in all Things. The operation which takes place in an exchange may be compared with the oscillation of a ba- lance, the two scales of which at length stand still at the point of equilibrium. The consummation of the act which I call eXihange, which results from the discus-ion between the seller and the buyer, and terminates that discussion, forms the point of equiUhrium, or of the due mean, which exists in like manner in all human concerns. This general principle, the applications and conse- quences of which are very numerous and infi- nitely diversified, is connected in some respects with the law of the point of support, and belongs as well to methonics and hj/drauliiS, which are always obliged to establish a just (quilihrium be- tween the powers they employ ; to optics, to as- IronomT/, to geometri/, to architedure, to all the physical and mathematical sciences ; to anatomj/ and physiology ; to medicine and to gj/mnaslics, which preserve the health of man, merely by keep, ing his powers and humo\ns in a kind of equili- D 50 THE ART OF hrium ; to moralitj/ and to politics^ which study to balance and reconcile the frequently contrary movements of our passions ; to political economy -, which works the different wheels of the social or- ganisation in such a manner that they harmonize together, and mutually support each other; to legislation ^ind jurisprudence^ whose province it is to weigh our duties and our rights in an impartial balance, whence results public morality ; and lastly to metapht/sics and general philosophy. In mineralogi/ and chemistry^ the law of equili- hrium is observed in the union of various sub- stances, in consequence of their mutual attrac- tions. When all the affinities are satisfied, the combination stops, and there is established a point of equilibrium^ which determines particular forms and properties. In political economy^ it is an acknowledged principle, that productions of all kinds naturally find the level of the wants of the consumers. Such is also the case with the social professions, which proportion themselves to the wants of the inhabitants of a district or town, without needing the interference of the legislature or local autho- rities for the increase or diminution of their num- ber : there is a constant tendency to an equili- hrium among them. EMPLOYING TIME. 61 In literature and in poetry it is necessary to guard equally against meanness, bombast, and every kind of exaggeration. In the dramatic art the distances of the times and places to which the action is assigned must not be too widely extended : and the tragic poet ought never to carry the feelings of pity or terror beyond that point at which the heart finds those emotions agreeable. In morals^ every virtue, courage, modesty, jus- tice, prudence, nay, even moderation itself, is placed between two extremes. An extreme de- gree of an agreeable quality borders on the first degree of a quality which is displeasing. In philosophy y we ought, according to Bacon, to presei*ve a due medium between the dogmatism of the peripatetics, which begins where it ought to end (with certainty)^ and the vacillating doctrine of the sceptics, which ends where it would be sufficient to begin (with doubt). If we would make any progress in the sciences, we must avoid these two extremes : on the one hand, the frequently imprudent boldness of those who lose themselves among systems ; on the other, the pusillanimous timidity of indo- lent or grovelling minds, which have no wish to pass the limits of that which immediately surrounds d2 I 59 THE ART OP EMPLOYING TIME. 55 them. We should also bear in mind the precept of Horace : Nil admirari — not to conceive an un- due admiration or esteem for any object whatever. In militari/ tactics^ and in the disposition of an army on a march, a general should not make his columns too numerous and too weak, which might render their movements too complicated ; nor should they be too strong, as they would then be less manageable, and more tardy in their evolutions. The law of the due mean deserves to be atten- tively considered in every department of the phy- sical, moral and intellectual, social and political world. It manifests itself in the general action of nature, which, according to the expression of a philosopher, balancing the exuberance of repro- duction and life by death, keeps the population of the globe within proper limits. EIGHTH GENERAL LAW. LAW OF ACTION AND RE-ACTION, OR OF THE UNIVERSAL ALTERNATE MOTION. In Nature all is Avtion and Rc-aclion, The perfect state o^ equilibrium, which belongs to the general law that we have just examined, and which may be observed in natural pJiilosophi/y mechanics, medicine, morals, and politics, is the constant result of an alternate motion, or a kind of balancing, to which every thing in nature is subject. All is action and re-action — every thing has, like the sea, its flood and ebb. The application of this general principle is found in all the sciences : in astronomy, and in the observation of the laws of the motions of the heavenly bodies ; in phj/sics^ in chemistrj/, and in individual bodies, or their particles, as in the mechanism of the universe; in medicine^ anatomy, and ph?/siologj/, which con- sider the actions and re-actions of our humours and solids ; in the alternate motions in which the circulation of tlie blood consists ; and, lastly, in the social and political body, as in the human body; in the revolutions of empires, in the moral and political sciences, in nature, and in the arts. It is connected with all the other general laws already treated of. In mechanics, the equilibrium is the result of a perfect equality of powers, in the action and re- action of two bodies, acting one against the other. The same principle manifests itself in phi/sio- log}/ and medicine. The different parts of the body enjoy that perfect equilibrium which consti- tutes the state of health, only inasmuch as the d3 i 54 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 55 action and re-action between the solids and fluids are then performed with the greatest facihty and regularity, and as the parts farthest from the cen- tre of life then possess exactly that degree of energy which suits their destination. Anatomists consider the osseous system, espe- cially in the skull, as sometimes acting upon the softer parts, at others as being acted upon by them, and in short as alternately influencing and influenced. In education every thing ought to be alternate and progressive. It is necessary to vary, to alter- nate, to graduate the habits and exercises of every kind relating to each of the three branches of education, which have a reciprocal action and re-action upon one another. In metaphysics^ every action of things upon the senses seems to be invariably followed by a re- action of the feeling experienced ; and vke versa. In morals^ the action and re-action of adverse propensities and passions produce, if nicely ba- lanced, what we term virtue^ which always pre- serves the medium between two extremes— S^int of domestic union. Each of these has viewed the thing which interests and engages him merely in profile, and not in full face. He has taken from it all that was dangerous, but not ex- tracted whatever it contained of good and useful, for the purpose of turning it to his advantage. If we will be honest with ourselves, we shall be obliged to admit, upon a review of our lives, that we have never been very miserable but through our own &ult, and that our complaints and re- proaches respecting our situation ought more fre- quently to be addressed to ourselves than to the Deity, to nature, or to fortune. O youth, about to launch into the world, and to take in hand the guidance of thy destiny, let me entreat thee to meditate seriously on this im- 64 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 65 portant truth 1 Look at those wlio are overwheltned with distress of every kind ; seek the cause, the orionn of their sorrows, and thou wilt discover that ahnost invariably they were themselves the authors of them. Thou wilt thus learn to avoid most of the evils by which the rest of mankind are tormented. . The consideration of mistakes warns us to judge by the reality, not the appearance of things, to penetrate into the interior of them, if I may be allowed the expression, and not to stop at the bark and the outside. How many men, thrown amid the tempests of revolutions into adverse parties and under hostile banners, have been ready to cut one another's throats, who had in reality one and the same object, but misconceived each other's views ; who were equally solicitous for the prosperity of their country, but imagined that they discovered it, some of them in a particular form of government, the advantages of which they considered exclu- sively; others in a different form: these in the selection or elevation, those in the disgrace and fall of such and such persons. Their hearts really harmonized find tended by means of a secret instinct to one common end, the public interest^ which is composed of the union of all the private interests, well underetood and duly calculated : but their understandings, not being rightly directed, were lost in a labyrinth of false and crude opinions, which were destitute of points of support, which did not spring out of one another, which were not connected together by a continuous chain, and were not pointed to a particular end. These baneful misconceptions soon gave birth to ferocious passions ; anil, for want of a mutual understanding, they devoted each other to proscription and death. In revolutions, in factions, in societies, there is always a mixture of the good and the bad ; and it is generally in consequence of strange mistakes that they are associated together. We ought never to generalize, but to respect varieties and fchades in opinions, to examine with care such as we purpose to adopt; not merely to look at a tiling in profile, or only on one side, but first on one side, then on another, then in front, and by turns in every point of view\ In this manner we qualify ourselves to form sound opinions, to ap- preciate causes, to calculate effects, and to per- ceive and seize all the intermediate and successive links of the chain which unites them. The constant observation and due consideration 4)f mistakes necessarily leads a man to the senti- I 66 THE AllT OF EMPLOYING TIME. 67 ments of toleration and indulgence, with which an elevated mind, that soars above the thick and contagious atmosphere of vulgar opinions, inspires a generous heart. Prudence, or the art of go- verning ourselves, and of judging with discern- ment and impartiality of men and things, likewise results from the application of this truth. Men in general are not naturally wicked ;♦ but they are anxious to promote their personal interest, and sometimes pursue it to the injury of others. It is the effect of a real mistake^ which educa- tion, morality, and legislation, ought in the first instance to prevent, but which afterwards it is right to repress and punish, if it leads to perni- cious and criminal actions. " Virtue," says Young, " is true self-interest pursued" — " 'tis virtue to pursue our good su- preme." Nothing, therefore, but mistakes can cause us to deviate from the path of virtue and happiness. * There certainly are exceptions. Some persons are bom with reeJly wicked or vicious dispositions. The difference of innate characters is equally incontestable with that of constitutions and understandings. It is necessary to observe a due medium be- tween the system of Helvetius, which attributes every thing to education, and that of Dr. Gall, which is censured for allowing it too little influence. i " And what is vice ?" exclaims the same phi- losophic poet — " Self-love in a mistake,'^ In ano- ther place he describes it as " mere want of com- pass in our thought." Vir malus puer robust us — the bad man is a headstrong child..* The man who has the strength requisite for doing evil, without possessing suffi- cient intelligence to perceive that the evil whicli he does must necessarily recoil upon himself, is for this very reason a child, the real sport, dupe, and victim of a mistake , the result of ignorance and error. Morals, the social relations, habits, studies, the arts and sciences, the physical, moral, intellectual, social, and political world, furnish then alike useful and numerous applications of the law of the univer- salmixture of good and evily and of the particular consideration of mistakes, which is one of the keys to the human mind ; a beacon to enlighten and keep it on its guard, amid the tempestuous ocean of erroi-s, prejudices, and passions ; a compass and a guide ; a point of support, and a medium of direction in study and in the conduct of life. Mistakes are prejudices, or false and hasty opi- nions, errors of which the human mind rids itself ■#M * Hobbes. I'i 6S THE ART OP much more easily than may be imagined, if it . seeks truth with sincerity, with an upright heart and pure intentions, which enlighten and rectify the judgment. The grand and fertile idea, that all crimes are real mistakes^ mistakes of the mind, which mislead and corrupt the heart, is a moral and philosophic basis, in common life and in society, in legislation, in politics, and in the sci- ences, and tends to dispose men conlinually to the search after and love of truth, and, to the practice of virtue. TENTH GENERAL LAW. LAW OF OBSTACLES. All Inconveniences and Obstacles may he converled into Elements and Means of Success, The law of obstacles converted into means of success springs, like the particular consideration o£ mistakes, fiom the law of the universal mixture of good and evil. Since everi/ thing is com- pounded of good and evil, we ought, whenever we meet with a difficulty or an obstacle, to study how to overcome it, for the purpose of converting it into a medium of success. This is one of the i EMPLOYING TIME. 69 great sc crets of wisdom, and a distinguishing cha- racteristic of genius. This law is not less general than the others, nor less fertile in consequences and results. It be- longs alike to the physical sciences, to natural history, natural philosophy/, mechanics, chemistry, agriculture, and medicine, and to the metaphy- sical, moral, and political sciences ; to education, legislation, rhetoric, diplomactj, the conduct of life, or the art of employing time, things, and men; to politics, or the art of governing and ren- dering states flourishing and mankind happy, and lastly to tactics and the military art. Nature herself pursues a similar course : she grasps with mighty hand all the obstacles that seem to throw themselves in her way, and trans- forms them into so many germs of creation : she employs the wrecks of death for the reproduction of life. The law of obstacles is susceptible of numerous applications in the different branches of natural history. In mechanics, whatever resists an impelling power is termed an obstacle. The impulse re- ceived by the obstacle removes it from one place to another, and concurs in the effect which art is desirous of producing. In agricult?ire we consume with fire the bushes V 70 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 71 and briars that cover an uncultivated and barren soil, which their ashes enrich and fertihze. Pri- mary matters, which are useless or pernicious, are converted into a different substance that is nou- rishing and productive. It is to the inundations of the Nile that its favoured banks owe their as- tonishing fertility. A cause of ruin is transformed, through the bounty of nature, into a medium of reproduction* Chemistry and mineralogy teach medicine to convert active poisons into remedies and means of preservation.* In morals, the passions, too frequently the pa- rents of vices, become, by means of a due direc- tion, and by the practical application of a wise philosophy, wholesome excitements, and produce acts of heroism and virtue. Think not our passions from corruption sprung, Though to corruption now they lend their wings. All reason justly deems divine. I see, I feel a grandeur in the passions too, Which speaks their high descent and glorious end. Which speaks them rays of an eternal fire. Yodng's Night Thoughts. *' These poisons, in order to become salutary remedies, must be combined in dixxe proportions into certain doses according to the lav} of equilibrium, OT the due mean. I li ) According to the purposes for which they are employed, the passions are either obstacles to happiness or means of embellishing life. The thought of death, which is often so great a drawback on our pleasures, ought to teach us to live well, and to direct our actions to a good and useful purpose. If man is wise, he should find his remedy in the very cause of his calamities.* A wise polic?/, maintaining a constant control * The mortifications, the persecutions, the afflictions of evQry kind, which more and more beset us, during our brief residence on earth, and which frequently crush with their weight those who are endowed with the noblest and purest souls and the rarest virtues, furnish a powerful motive for admitting, with a tho- rough conviction, the cheering doctrine of a future life and the immortality of the soul. The sense of the love of order, the principle of which is implanted in our hearts, and which seems to be born with us, causes us to feel the want of a better world, where virtue shall be compensated and rewarded for the priva- tions and sacrifices which arc imposed upon it in this. Thus our law of obstacles converted into means of success teaches us, even while smarting under afflictions, to derive from morality and religion the hope of some time seeing the end of them, and obtaining a due compensation. This future compensation, which a secret instinct, a happy disposition of the mind of man, com- mon to almost all the individuals of his species, and which seems to be inherent in his nature, enable us to discover beyond the grave, ought in some measure to absolve Providence, whose justice, the transient triumph of the wicked and the too often unhappy destiny ol the good would otherwise seem to arraign. 79 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 73 oxer oJ atachs, makes advei"se parties and factions concur in its designs. In the imUtnri/ arty as in morals and politics^ an able general seizes obstacles for the purpose of turning them to his advantage. The inronvc- mencics resulting from his position, the country in which he happens to be, the time, the season, or the spirit of his army, are converted by him into the nuaus of victory. In legislatior^ and in the general progress of empires and nations, the multiplication and ex- tension of social relations, and the advancement of civilization, are accompanied with abuses, which the skilful legislator turns to advantage. He ouiiht to seize the evil in order to convert it into good. Instead of constantly demolishing and delighting in ruins, he ought, by a magic influ- ence, to fecundate and vivify whatever he touches. As we see an architect avail himself of all the materials capable of rendering service, and apply- ing the wreck of ancient buildings to the embel- lishment of a new edifice, so, by the skill of a v/ise and judicious legislator, the most baneful customs and prejudices are re-moulded, as it were, adapted to the institutions which he is desirous of esta- blishing, and at length receive (agreeably to the application of the law of gradation) insensible i i; iH I' modifications which alter their form and effects without destroying them. Political econo7ni/y which recognises in luxury^ when ill-directed and carried to excess, a source of calamity and a cause of ruin to states, points out the means of giving to it a useful direction, and of converting it, when restrained within due bounds, into a principle of increase^ both of po- pulation and prosperity. In the sciences^ obstacles may in like manner be skilfully turned to advantage. Errors, duly ob- served, contribute to the triumph of truth. The most dangerous evils in physics, physiology, me- dicine, morals, and politics, frequently carry with them the remedies adapted to their cure. In the career of discovery, many consider as impossible whatever has not yet been executed. " No man ever attempted such a thing," says a pusillanimous mind. This observation, which is an insurmountable obstacle to the timid and the shallow, is an encouragement and a pledge of success to the man of superior genius, patience, and courage. This superior genius also finds in his very modesty, and in a certain distrust of his powers, which is not incompatible with the consciousness he ought to have of them, the E 74 THE ART OP EMPLOYING TIME. 73 principle of the continual increase of those powers.* " As nature," obseiTCS a French metaphysician, '^ presents to us nothing but units, or rather indi- viduals, and our ideas themselves are successive, how should man have attained the conception of numbers, had he not experienced the plague of confusion, that is, the necessity of introducing order within and without him, of making himself master of the multitude of bodies, of their dura- tion and all their movements ; in a word, of count- incT ? The science of calculation^ like all the other sciences, sprung from the very obstacles which the genius of man has encountered, and which his perseverance has overcome. The most inge- nious inventions are owing, in some respects, as much to the weakness as to the strength of the human mind."+ * In the sciences, and in all pursuits, obstaclesy universally susceptible of being converted into lyieans of sjwcess, become springs, levers, and powerful engines, to stimulate and upUold courage, industry-, and perseverance. t This assertion, that inventions are owing to the natural weakness of the human mind, to the inadequacy of its re- sources, and the necessity of making up for it, is not, perhaps, quite correct. A man cannot carry above three hundred pounds weight. He invents a lever, which enables him to move three " If we have ships," continues the same writer, " it is because we should be unable to walk upon the sea ; if we count, because units, or individuals, escape us J if we have clocks, the reason is, that we could not master time by thought ; if we con- struct so many instruments and machines, it is to make up for our own weakness and insufficiency. Thus the arts, the sciences, and all our inventions, are but resources, which, the more ingenious they are, the more strongly they prove our embarrass- ment. In man, strength has truly sprung from weakness, and light from darkness. We are born limited; but our limits are moveable; while those of the irrational animals are almost immoveable." All the obstacles to the progress of the sciences, and of the human mind, ought therefore to be studied and meditated upon : they will then furnish resources for the advancement of the sciences. War is an obstacle to the advancement of the arts and sciences : but the processes of military thousand. Man feels his weakness and creates; but weakness itself does not create. The most ingenious inventions then are due to our intelligence, stimulated by our wants. These wants may be considered as obstacles^ which our nature excites us to surmount, and which give birth to the various productions of the arts. e2 76 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 7T tactics, ingeniously modified, and applied in the intellectual world, may be the means of achieving discoveries and conquests in it. Military habits and manners, which tend in various ways to deprave the morals of mankind, give, at the same time, more energy to the sentic ments of elevation and courage, and fortify and ennoble the soul, by rendering it superior to the fear of death itself. The skill of the mariner is most conspicuous in the tempest, bravery in danger, and virtue in ad- versity. Let us take a rapid survey of the different classes of society, of the diversified scenes of life. Voyages and travels, which do not admit of the prosecution of regular study, seem to be an ob- stacle to the cultivation of the mind ; but to the man who knows how to benefit by them they prove a fertile source of information : they furnish him with numberless observations, and with subjects for useful and profitable medita- tion. The most disagreeable employments, and the most ignorant persons, maybe turned to good account by the man whose mind is accustomed to study how to convert all obstacles into means of fi success. Our very enemies are useful : they impel talent to new efforts, and excite it to surpass itself* There is no man, however limited his capacity, no situation, how unfavourable soever it may appear, but something or other may be gained from them. Your time is occupied, and your mind engaged with disagreeable details ; but the nu- merous accessaries with which your duties bring you in contact may promote your favourite pur- suits, as well as concur in those to which you are obliged to attend. In this manner they indemnify you for the loss which you sustain, and return frequently with usury that portion of time which your situation compels you reluctantly to sacri- fice. In this they themselves necessarily find their advantage, as we shall be convinced on ap- plying the general law of exchanges or mutual services^ the basis and point of support of the inter- coui'se between man and man. A party of pleasure, an entertainment, or a meeting, to which you are summoned by social duties, robs your mind of valuable moments, in which it would have enjoyed itself, and created * See Plutarch's Treatise on the utility of enemies and the art of deriving advantage from them. e3 78 THE ART OP EMPLOYING TIME. 79 noble and generous conceptions. You derive, however, from animated conversation, skilfully directed to the objects which interest you, the means of making yourself more completely master of your thoughts, of expressing them with greater force, energy, and clearness, by striking them, like flints, which only give out sparks by collision, against the thoughts of others. A circumstance, therefore, which seemed likely to be an obstacle ta your plans of study and meditation serves, on the contrary, to promote them. In all three points of view then, physical, moral, and intellectual, as well as in regard to the employment of iimey which is the real science of happiness and virtucy obstacles may be converted into means of power and elements of success. In every pursuit, surmounted obstacles strongly attest the energy of human genius. ELEVENTH GENERAL LAW, LAW OF PROPORTIONS OR HARMONIES. All Things are relative* This general principle, which I shall term the law of proportions or adaptations^ enables him i who understands the art of applying it to dis- cover more readily, and to seize the relations of utility that may be presented by persons and things, the shades of the human heart, and the fugitive occasions, that must be caught, as it were, flying, if we would derive advantage from them. This law is essentially connected with all the others, and especially with the two preceding : . 1. With the lam of obstacles converted into elements of success^ because it is always relatively to things and circumstances that evil may be mo- dified into good ; 2. With the law of the universal mixture of good and evil, because most human things may be reputed good or bad relatively to some other thing or circumstance, and according to the point of view in which they are considered ; 3. With the particular consideration of mis' takes, since mistakes arise solely from our not knowing how to appreciate properly the mutual relation of things, and to examine them compa- ratively with others : for most men form opinions only with reference to their individual situation and passions, and preposterously separate their private interest from the public interest.* Here * The observation of mistakes and their causes ought to instil, into young people in particular, great reserve and circumspcc- E 4: 80 THE ART OF a^ain occurs an application of the law of the chain (all thinors are connected), or of the study of the relations which subsist between all created beintrs. The selfish man, regardless of this great law of nature, imagines that he may with impunity in- sulate himself, and break one of the links of the chain. ^il things are relative. This law of adaptations or proportions is susceptible of general application in nature and society ; in the physical and mathe- matical sciences ; in the metaphysical, moral, and political sciences ; in all the arts and in general philosophy. ' In physics we cannot ascertain the absolute power of gravity, but merely the relative force to the obstacles which, it can or cannot overcome, and the law of the acceleration produced by this force according to the time occupied by the descent of the heavy body. ^ - In chemistry^ the success of the manipulations and operations, tending to bring together or to separate the particles of bodies, and to combine tion in forming their own judgment, and great toleration and in- dulgence for the opinions and judgment of others, which are in general relative to the situation and interests, real or apparent, of the persons disposed to adopt them. EMPLOYING TIME. 81 them in a thousand different ways, depends en- tirely on the exact observance of the proportions in which those particles are made to concur in the combination which we intend to produce. In natural history we cannot obtain an accu- rate knowledge of the different beings, the study of which that science embraces, but by means of comparative anatomy^ which shews their identities or their analogies, and appreciates their different proportions. Each species has its peculiar orga- nisation and manners, habits and wants, springing from, or harmonizing with, that organisation. The three great branches of natural history, minera/ofTT/y botany, and zoology^ cannot be im- proved, nor can their respective spheres be en- lai'ged, but by judicious application of the study of the proportions between the different beings. Jstronomy directs the human eye to the immea- surable etherial vault, that it may there observe the proportions between the masses and the mo- tions of the celestial bodies, and thence deduce the laws of their continuous and regular courses. Geology penetrates into the interiorof our globe, into the abysses of the earth, and every part of its surface, to examine the different strata of which the soil is composed, to observe the formation of the substances concealed in its bosom, the pro- Ed 82 THE ART OF I EMPLOYING TIME. S3 portions and confonnilies between the directions, elevations, inclinations, and depressions, of moun- tains, plains, and valleys, and thus to detect the hidden processes of nature in the material organi- sation of the universe. Mathematics^ geometri/^ and mechanics^ are the sciences more immediately dependent on propor- tions. In physiologi/ and anatomy^ the same relations and the same concordance between the compli- cated works of the animal machine and of the human body prove to the observer, that nature, adhering invariably to her laws, applies them to a single individual as well as to the whole of her creatures and to the courses of worlds. Anatomy^ if cultivated to the extent of which it is susceptible, would convey so intimate a know- ledge of the relations between the parts, and the different results of the changes to which they are subject in their respective situations, that, on see- ing the state of the one, we should be able to judge of the state of the others ; as in geometry, when we know one side and two angles of a triangle, we necessarily know the other two sides. Philosophic physiology^ which compares the varieties of the human species, observes, that in consequence of the principle of correspondence 1 which the parts of the human body ought to pos- sess in order to appear beautiful, each race of men living in society places beauty in a certain per- fection of the characteristic features common to the individuals of that race. A man may be thought handsome in China with very different forms and proportions from those which are re- quired to constitute a handsome person in Europe. The variation of temperature and climate, and the difference of the nature and quality of soils, according to which we ought to modify our opera- tions and processes, with an exact proportion as- certained by observation, furnish fresh occasion for applying our principle in meteorology^ agricul' ture^ and medicine. Medicine ought always to seek with sagacity a regimen and remedies relative and analogous to the constitution of the patient, the climate, the season, the state of the atmosphere, and the nature of the disease. A philosophic physician, examining the differ- ence of the sexes with regard to anatomy and physiology^ asserts, that it does not merely depend on certain superficial variations, but is the result of perhaps as many proportional differences as there are organs in the human body, though they are not all equally perceptible. The delicate and 84 THE ART OF tender constitution of females always retains some- thing of the temperament peculiar to children. This same difference of the sexes, studied in a moral point of view, indicates the essential shades and modifications by which they are dis- tinguished. What is becoming in a woman would often be the reverse in a man. The duties are relative^ as well as the virtues^ according to the destination of each sex. The different ages have, in like manner, dif- ferent, and sometimes contrary propensities, tastes, and pleasures, but yet always relalhe and appro- priate to each of the periods of life. Rest is a want, a kind of right and privilege of flg-ey activity/ is the portion of i/outh, possessing a super- abundance of life, which nature calls forth into exercise. A young man must not require of an old one the performance of the same duties which he thinks it necessary to impose upon himself; nor would it be more rational in an old man to attempt to restrict a young man to that state of absolute tranquillity, stagnation, and inactivity, which he may find so agreeable. The social conditions and professions have, like the sexes and ages, characteristic differences belonging more especially to each of them. That which may befit a schoolboy, or be authorised by EMPLOYING TIME. 85 1^ '.^1 military manners and a life spent in camps, would in general be highly unbecoming in the drawing- room, and among polished society. Our inclinations, ideas, opinions, prejudices, occupations, duties, habits, manners, pleasures and pains, differ according to our respective situa- tions, and depend on the nature of the sphere in which each is placed. The philosophic ob- server, the moralist, the dramatic writer, and the novelist, ought to study, and to seize with sagacity these shades and proportions, in order to obtain a thorough knowledge of the human heart, and to pourtray it with fidelity. In regard to the virtues, the first that morality enjoins are those which are more especially suited to every possible situation. Good and evil^ in morals and legislation^ are almost always relativej either to the laws and customs of a state, or to the particular situation of an individual. There are, nevertheless, acts? which, condemned alike by the voice of conscience and by all laws, divine and human, natural and social, are at all times, and in all places, reprehen- sible actions, or crimes. But these very actions, these crimes, are susceptible of infinite modifica- tions, by which they are aggravated or extenu- ated, and which are communicated to them by 80 THE ART OF attendant circumstances. The same sentence and the same penalty ought not to attacli to the cowardly and ferocious murderer, who has Ions watched for an opportunity to slaughter his vic- tim, and the passionate man, who, in the ebullition of rage or revenge, inflicts a mortal blow on one who has provoked him by a glaring outrage or a wanton insult. It is in seizing the delicate shades which accompany an action, and render it more or less excusable or criminal, that the sagacity of the lawyer and the magistrate ought to be evinced. Wants, like dtilies, and like the morality of actions, are also relative to the circumstances which produce them, and to the general state of civilisation, institutions, and manners, and in par- ticular to the personal situation of each of the members of society.* The expenses of a person ought to be propor- * A carriage may be a mere article of luxury with the wealthy idler, but an object of the first necessity to a man of business, who is obliged to be frugal of his time. Unless we make due allowance for these shades, which modify conditiofis, wants, and duties, we fall into gross errors, resulting from real mis- takes ; and we unjustly charge one man with not knowing how to limit his desires so well as another, whom we prepos- terously hold forth to him as a pattern. EMPLOYING TIME. 87 donate to his income. The judicious application of our general law to the management of a family, or the government of a state, produces a spirit of order and economy requisite in all conditions. The steady observance of a due proporiionhetween tlie receipts, or income, and the expenditure, is essentially requisite to happiness, and belongs alike to the art of conducting ourselves with pro- priety in the world, and to the art of government. The talent of selecting with discernment our friends, our acquaintance, all those with whom we would associate our affections, our studies, our business, and, above all, the partners of our lives, the choice of whom is so essential to happi- ness, depends also on the strict observance of our law of relations or sympathies. Hence likewise springs politeness, which lends an additional charm to every virtue, that delicate sense of social de- cencies, which is composed of an infinity of shades difficult to be seized, and all relative to age, sex, rank, persons, customs, places, and manners.* * The same law applies to the appreciation of the different circumstances which it behoves us to study and consult in 7ho- raliti/, politics, and the sciences, that we may direct and modify our observations, actions, and conduct, according to their difFer- cnccft. We ought to watch for, to appreciate, and to seize the exact moment and point of possibility. Tliis subject falls, in some respects, under the three laws, of the point of support, gradation, and the due mean. 88 THE ART OF Legislation and politics j like education and morality^ ought carefully to adapt their precepts and their laws to the characters and passions of those whom they are called to govern. What is proper in Turkey may be quite unsuitable iu England, and vice versa. Civilised nations re- quire to be ruled in a very different manner from such as are yet rude, ignorant, and barbarous. Literature demands the same strict and precise observance of jitness and proportions, A tra- gic action, says Horace, must not be related in comic and familiar verse : the language of the pulpit is an idiom foreign to the bar : the ease of the epistolary style would not suit the dignity of history : the pastoml pipe is adapted to the eclogue, and the martial trumpet to the heroic poem. Each department of literature, oratory, and poetry, has its peculiar tone and style. Independently of the general rules which con- stitute the beautiful in literature and the arts, each country has its national taste and its appropriate beauties. Some writers assert, that in the grandeur and beauty of intellectual objects, as in those of sen- sible objects, there is nothing absolute, but that they are merely relative qualities to the faculties of our minds. Beauty, they tell us, does not exist of itself in the objects which we think beau- EMPLOYING TIME. 89 tiful ; it is but a relation which they have with us, like cold and colour, which have no existence but in our perception of them. In architecture J sculpture^ paintings poetry^ oratory^ in all the fine arts, as in the mechanical arts and trades, our law of harmonies^ the neces- sary source of a delicate and exquisite tact, which men have concurred to call taste^'^ and the prin- ciple of genuine beauty of every kind, determines t\ie proportions, the relations, the shades, of the different parts of a building, the sentences of an oration, and the colours and details of a picture. " The administration of a great state," observes Fenelon, "requires a certain harmony, like music, and ju6t proportions, like architecture." The art of employing time, as well as education, and the different means which it employs, ought to be modified in practice, with reference to age, sex, condition, fortune, destination, or station in * Taste, according to the definition given of it by the author of an elementary work on rhetoric, is the feeling of what is fit and suitable. The man of taste, in literature, writes nothing that can offend the ear ; in the arts, produces nothing that can hurt the eye ; in society, always employs the tone and language suited to the place where, and the persons with whom, he is, A person possesses taste yhen he is apprised by a quick and lively sensation, agreeable or disagreeable, of what is beautiful or "n^y* good, middling, or bad, in what he sees, reads, or hears. 90 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 91 society, the general circumstances of the country, the nature of the government and of the climate, and the differences and varieties of constitutions, passions, and dispositions. The art of questionings v^rhich is a branch of the science of employing timc^ or the manner of interrogating with benefit such persons as we meet with in society, and of availing ourselves, for our pei'sonal instruction, of the experience and know- ledge peculiar to each, consists in the talent and habit of discoverinor what interests or is relative to them, and adapting our questions and conver- sation to the subjects with which they are familiar.* In short, the proportions or harmony between the means and the end, causes and effects, efforts and results, faculties and desires,t income and 1 1 ■ I— ^»»- ■ ■ ■ ■ III ^—^.— — — M— »»— » * See the two chapters o( the following Essay, on the ^rt of qu€stioningy and the ^rt of employing Men. t Objects, powers, appetites, heaven suits in all, Nor, nature through, e'er violates this sweet, Eternal concord on her tuneful string. Now virtue, it is universally admitted, does not receive upon earth a recompence adequate to its afflictions and its combats. We must therefore assume, that there is reserved for it a reward proportionate to the pains it suffers, and the sacrifices it enjoins. Thus the application of our law of proportions, like our pre- ceding laws, leads to the sublime and cheering idea of the im- mortality of the soul. expenditure, men and their different employ- ments, the characters of nations and the laws that are given to them, seem to furnish a universal rule in morality, legislation, politics, and philosophy, as well as in architecture, mechanics, mathe- matics, music, literature, and all the arts and sciences. TWELFTH GENERAL LAW. LAW OF AIMS. In all Things there must he an Aim^ End^ or Object, The word aim properly signifies a point zahich we strive to hit with something* In the figurative and more general signification, it is a foreseen and desired effect which we seek to produce hy certain actions. None, therefore, can have an aim but an intelligent being, who has at least a confused notion of an effect, who foresees, who wishes it, who acts spontaneously to obtain it, and who accordingly acts in the manner that he thinks most likely to produce it. An aim always presupposes an intelligence and a will, and cannot exist without them. It is the idea of the foreseen effect ^ and the intention of the agent. 93 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME, 93 that determine the reality and extent of the aim which he proposes to himself. The character- istic distinction of intelligent beings is to have an aim in all their voluntary actions ; and this aim is always an effect which they consider as neces- sary to their improvement and felicity. The particular aim of the individual is happi- ness or well-being — a result of the development or improvement of his faculties. The general aim of the species, which is at the same time the aim of the sciences, of inventions, and of every man who aspires to real, solid glory, founded on the happiness of his fellow- creatures, is the me- lioration of the human condition upon earth. The treasures of human knowledge are not des- tined either to flatter the pride of man, to feed his curiosity, or to amuse his leisure. They should be made subservient to his preservation, (which is their common aim) or to the alleviation of the numberless evils with which he is every moment beset. To diffuse pleasures and enjoyments of every kind among a greater number of persons, and thus to create their own happiness, is the common, rational, and legitimate aim of all those who concur in the advancement of the sciences. It is likewise the aim of each science in particular, and especially of morality^ legislation^ 'politics^ and genuine philosophy^ The object of morality is to teach man wherein consists that happiness the acquisition of which is his general aim ; to direct him in the choice of the particular aims which he ought to propose to himself, according to circumstances, to attain happiness, and to point out to him the best ways of accomplishing these different aims. The proper object of politics is to render a nation prosperous at home, and respected abroad. Besides the general and common aim which we have assigned to all the sciences, each art and each science has its particular object or aim, which ought to be thoroughly studied by him who wishes to become a proficient in it, to im- prove its methods, or to extend its sphere. In natural philosophi/^ whose object is a know- ledge of the phaenomena of nature, the experi- ments in which our various instruments are em- ployed are nothing but imitations of those pha?- nomena, the aim of which is to unfold to us their causes. The essential principle and aim of the imita- tive arts is not only to produce representations of. objects, but also to give to those representations ideal beauties, the association of which is capabl 9* THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 95 of moving the soul as much, or even more, than the real presence of the object imitated. The aim of the musician and his art is to ex- cite in the soul emotions and feelings which have a general analogy with those which would be caused by physical and moral objects, the im- mense variety of which does not admit of the production of an exact imitation. In the dramatic art, the object or aim of tra- gedy is, by means of the situations and sentiments which it imitates, powerfully to affect the ima- gination of the spectator, which, being moved, works upon the passions of pity and terror by the natural and necessary effect of the sympa- thy subsisting between the faculties of the soul. The chief aim of orator i/ is to persuade rather than to convince, and to incline the auditors to what is just, though often contraiy to their opinions and their passions. The course usually pursued in the sciences, and in common life, not being directed towards a fixed object, is in this case, as Bacon observes, but a perpetual turning round, an agitation wuh- out aim or end. It is of importance in every kind of study, labour, and action, to keep an aim steadily in view, and to take for that aim practice and results. The law of aims is of general application, like that of the point of support and all the pre- ceding laws. The aim is the goal or point of arrival towards which we tend, as the point of support or base is the point of departure. These two laws are closely connected with one another. The law of the point of support, that o£ causes, and the two laws of the chain and of gradation, teach us in every undertaking and every thing to watch with care over its commencement and its progress, which is frequently imperceptible ; and the law of aims warns us to consider the end. We ought always to know exactly the point frotn which we set out, and to ask ourselves what point we are desirous of arriving at. But, in order to attain the end or aim which we propose to ourselves, we ought to study and employ the means capable of conducting to it. We should apply the principles of Aristotle's philosophy, which consists almost entirely of considerations on ends and means ^ and on their mutual and ne- cessary connection. Too often we are desirous of attaining an end, without possessing the means, which ought always to be proportionate to it. We wish to produce an effect without having studied its law of production. It is a mistake 96 THE ART OF arising from ignorance or disregard of the great law of generation or causes^ the law of propoT' tions^ and the law of aims. In all the operations of which the universe is the theatre, the author of nature has invariably a determinate aim^ a fixed point at which he arrives by several differ- ent ways. He makes a great number of means concur in one result. He always combines ra- riett/ in the means with unit?/ in the end. Every science, every action of human life, ought, in like manner, to have a positive and de- termined aim. It is in the study and judicious choice of these different kinds of aims^ which vary according to the science or thing with which we are engaged, and in pursuing the best way to to attain them, that the exercise of reason chiefly consists.* * Our transient life on earth is but an atid proportioned to the nature of the thinking principle which is manifested in us, to the extent and activity of our conceptions, and to the boldness and insatiability of our desires. Our imaginations and our souls require a wider career, an aim more lofty and more conformable to our destination, which death seems to hide from our feeble ▼Ision, but which a secret instinct seems to reveal to us. The law of aims, duly considered, leads us then, like the other laws, to the cheering hope of a future life, the noble prerogative of an immortal soul. EMPLOYIxVG TIME. 97 CONCLUSION. Montesquieu observes, that "the laws, in their most extensive signification, are the neces^ sary relations which arise out of the nature of things.'' He thus points out their source very accurately ; but I will venture to assert that he has not defined their essence, and what they really are, with equal precision. The Jaws which really spring from the nature of things are rules of action, or the rules according; to which bodies act. This definition, as well as that of Montesquieu, correctly applies to each of our general laws. All these laws, which fit, as it were, into one another, appear to form a vast whole, and to furnish solid bases and well-cemented foundations. They mu- tually join and link into one another: they fur- nish each other witli reciprocal points of support. The want of a point of support is a necessary relation, which springs from the nature of bodies, and is applicable to all beings. It is a general rule, to which we ought to conform our actions, by always giving to them a solid base and a rati- onal and useful aim. The aim is also a kind of point of support, towards which we direct our course. These laws proceed by gradation, and conduct F 98 THE ART OF US from the known to the unknown ; gradation, though frequently imperceptible to our view, or apparently very sudden and rapid, being a neces- sary relation, common to all the operations of nature and of man. They are like distinct and luminous points, the union of which composes a great mass of truths and a kind of central focus. They make beneficial and productive exchanges between one another; and to enable us to advance in a gradual but sure manner towards a clearly indicated end (the improvement of our faculties by a better employment of our time, or happiness): they furnish us with instruments, levers, methods, and means of direction and operation in the three departments, physical, moral, and intellec- tual, which embrace man and the universe. These general laws are susceptible of being studied and observed in all the sciences, in all situations, and especially in the moral and poli- tical relations, and in society. We meet with them every where : their action is universal ; and they are never violated with impunity. Each in his sphere may examine, verify, and take them for rules and guides. Private and common life, public affairs, political events, legislation, diplomacy y commerce, agriculture, manufactures, the mechanical arts, the militart/ art, medicine. EMPLOYlxNG TIME. 99 education^ the sciences, the Jine arts ; and, above all, the great art of employing time, zji'hich can alone advance all the others, alike afford occasions and means of applying them. To conclude, our general laws furnish the rea- son and the undei'stan ding with instruments, which may be employed well or ill, according as the reason is more or less sound, and the understand- ing more or less enlightened ; for the best things are liable to be spoiled by the use which is made of them. It behoves us, above all, to determine with precision what we ought to aim at, to rectify and fix the 2£?i//, which is the chief point of suf.^ port in moral conduct ; and then to acquaint it with the various uses which may be made of these instruments; Such is the twofold object of the following work, in which the general principles that have here been laid down will be successive! v applied and put in practice. It is principally in this point of view that the ideas developed in this Introduction are connected with the Essay on the Art of Employing Time. r 2 100 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME, 101 Application of the Twehc preceding General Laws to the particular Conduct of Life ; for the Useof t/oung Persons* Let us now briefly recapitulate some of the most important applications of our twehe general /flazj^jwith especial reference to the employment of time and to the conduct of life, that we may put a compass, as it were, into the hands of youth, for whom this work is particularly designed. " Here," we would say to them, " you have sure and positive rules, which you may consult with benefit in all the critical circumstances in which you may stand in need of counsel and support." 1. Law of the Point of Support. Take a reasonable point of support^ the point of possi- bility. Fix yourself upon real bases, which it behoves you to lay down solidly, while examining with care your mind, your faculties, your situ- ation, and your duties. This calm and delibe- rate scrutiny will preserve you from the illusions of an ardent imagination, which frequently ex- aggerates means and powers, which exalts the desires and hopes, which generates vague, false, and ambitious conceptions, and urges into the- ories, abstractions, and the region of chimeras and extravagance. In all things take care to have a base, fixed principles, a point of support; know the point from which you set out, and be sure that sound reason and sober views, properly connected and combined, and mutually supporting one another, govern your resolutions and your plan of life, and regulate your actions. 2. Law of Causes or Generation. Study with care the daily, and often almost imperceptible, causes of the changes in your health, of the greater or less vigour and energy of your physical, moral, and intellectual constitution, and you will dis- cover that the good and evil which succeed each other in life, in your pleasures and your pains, depend almost always upon yourself, and you will become, to a certain degree, the arbiter and governor of your destiny. There is no effect with- out cause. In every thing, causes thoroughly studied, investigated, and appreciated, extend adinfnilum our power over ourselves, over other men, and over things. 3. Law of the Universal Chain. Never lose sight of the intimate connection that exists be- tween the different elements of which man is composed. The debility of your body robs your heart and mind of their energy ; and the want of vigour in the mind and soul subjects the body to the most disgraceful propensities, and the most bane- f3 102 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 103 ful passions. When the hodi/ languishes and the inind is enfeebled, the soul also droops : when the soul is pamlysed and the hodi/ enervated, the mind sinks along with them. Thus man is a whole, the three elements of which, necessary to one another, are by their nature blended and intermingled :— an important truth, but which is too much disregarded. All things are con- nected together in the human individual as in the universe. 4. Law cf Gradation. On observing that strict continuity which is manifested in the individual bemg, and in the totality of beings, habituate youi-self to go through the links of the chain and the steps of the ladder with progression and gra-- daiion, without attempting to hurry or force any thing before its due time- A proper circumspec- tion, which is not incompatible with presence of mind, which never lets slip the favourable oppor- tunity, but proceeds with prudence, method, and deliberation, will preserve you from the rock& upon which superior talents themselves frequently strike. It will teach you to avoid that eager im- patience, that rash imprudence, that indiscreet precipitation, too common in the young, and which, by urging them to attempt to grasp every thing, prevent them from seizing, or at least from retaining any thing. These dangerous qualities would have no other effect than to exhaust your energies to no purpose, and to destroy that indi- vidual power, which each ought to be anxious to extend, augment, and consolidate. Every thing in nature is succession and gradation. Learn to obey this general law^ and to take it for the rule of your conduct. 5. Law of Division and Re-union, First divide the things which your body and your mind design to undertake, for the purpose of afterwards duly arranging and re-uniting them ; but aspire not with foolish presumption to do every thing at once. Take up one by one the physical habits which you think it beneficial to contract, or those of which you design to break yourself; the moral observations which you make on yourself or your fellow-creatures; the studies, sciences, methods^ with which you would enrich your mind ; and the different portions of life^ which you are desirous of employing to the best advantage : then con- nect and combine these habits, these observations, these acquirements, these results of the various uses of each of your days, in order to form a whole out of them, and to direct them to one ob- ject — the melioration of your condition, or your physical, moral, and intellectual improvement^ F 4 104 THE ART OP EMPLOYING TIME. 105 1 f in a Word, your happiness^ Division and re-union are two indispensable means for introducing order into our ideas and actions, and may be considered as two generating principles, which must act first alternately, then simultaneously, in order to be productive. 6, Law of Exchanges, Establish beneficial exchanges between your different faculties, which ought by turns to assist one another. Let your physical powers resign, in some measure, their influence to the moral and intellectual power, when the latter ought to act; and let them in their turn borrow its energy and intensity, when a physical object claims your exclusive attention and all your means, those of the passions or mo- ral affections, those of the mind or the thinking faculty, and those of the body. All is exchange between inen and between other beings, as well as in man himself, between the different faculties of which he is constituted. Exchanges, which may be considered as the soul of society, or the basis of justice, morality, and the social relations, are a necessary principle of creation. Concur" rence, the result of exchanges^ is a principle of power. 7. Lazi) of Equilibrium, or the Due Mean* Take great pains to restrain your soul, your fa* culties, your passions, your desires, your temper within proper bounds, and use not your powers unless with moderation, keeping them in equili- brium, and attempering one by the other, instead of abusing and destroying them by baneful ex- cesses. — In all things observe a due mean. This is the real point of wisdom and virtue. Stat medio virtus. 8. Lazo of Action and Re-action. Alternate motion and rest are requisite for the different fa- culties of man, if he would husband and preserve their energy. They have a reciprocal action and re-action upon one another, as we have observed in treating of the universal chain. Every lhin piness, nor the means of contributing to the hap- piness of others. If the bodj/ be not sound and robust, the hap- piness of the individual is impaired ; the mind loses its vigour, and the soul its energy. An ever precarious state of health does not permit a person either to devote his attention to the sciences, or to be serviceable to others and to himself. i^ the mind be not cultivated by instruction, man, brutalized and degraded, renounces his noblest privilege; he is cut off from the most delicious pleasures, and the most solid wealth. If the soul be not fraught with a sense of its dignity, nor elevated to the level of its noble des- tination ; if the heart be not tender and generous ; phj/sical strength and the talents of the 7}iind are 118 THE ART OF vain advantages, which, when ill directed, are frequently injurious to society in general, as well as to him who possesses merely to abuse them. V. Of the three Poinis of View in which the Employ- ment OF Life ought to be considered. In order then to be happy, we ought to turn our physical^ moral, and intellectual faculties to due advantage. The/rs/, which comprehend bodily health and a sound constitution, require keeping up by daily and moderate exercise ; walking or liding, manual occupations, habits of cleanliness, sobriety, and temperance, and abstinence from every kind of excess. The second are connected with the practice of virtue, nobleness and purity of soul, and the serenity of a conscience clear and void of reproach; that delicious serenity which springs from the good we do and tlie evil from which we abstain. In this respect there is im- planted in our hearts a secret and unexception- able instinct, a moral sense which speaks to all men, a warning voice, to the suggestions of which they ought to listen, and whose advice they should follow. Lastly, the intellectual faculties are not developed and improved without a careful culti- vation of the mind, and studies judiciously adapted to one another. EMPLOYING TIME. 119 The whole consists in these three things : to acquire at the same time a sound const it'ut ion, good moral habits, upright sentiments, and a cor- rect mind, accustomed to think, and capable of discerning what is good and useful. These three elements of happiness belong to him who devotes all his thoughts and all his moments to the pur. pose of acquiring and preserving them. For these reasons we shall distinguish three dif- ferent objects in education, and we shall consider, under tliese three points of view, the employment of life, and the aim which every wise man ought to propose to himself. V. Of the term Education, in its most limited and most comprehensive Signification. Education^ in the most limited sense of the word, is but the apprenticeship of life, or the con- duct of an individual during the first portion of his existence ; for we exist a long time without living, and when we begin to live we are not capable either of guiding or governing ourselves. But real education, taking the term in its most extensive sense-^that education, whose precepts and benefits man can apply to himself, commences more especially at that period of life when reason receives its first expansion, when the soul es?ays, 120 THE ART OF if I may be allowed the expression, its powers and its inclinations, when the mind acquires vi- gour and consistency, when the judgment becomes matured, when the heart still preserves its primi- tive purity ; when, in short, the youth begins to be conscious of what he is, to reflect seriously on his destination, and to mark out for himself a plan of conduct founded on principles which he has thoroughly examined. This second education, so powerful, because it is free and voluntaiy, so valuable and so important, because the impres- sions which it leaves behind are more durable, and commonly fix our opinions and sentiments for the rest of our lives, may and ought to be continued till their latest moments. Solon said, that he could not be too old to learn. The wise man, who wishes to be happy, never ceases, even at the most advanced age, to prosecute his education, improvement, and well-being. These three words here express the same idea. What, in fact, is wisdom but the science of virtue and happiness? Till the latest period of life a man may, if he pleases, exert over himself the action and influ- ence of his observations, experience, and reason ; he may profit by the example and the advice of others, to correct, improve, and instruct himself; to tend toward happiness, or to approach it by EMPLOYING TIME. 121 the development and melioration of his physical, morale and intelkctual faculties, VI. Of the Value and Economy of Time, considered as AN Instrument bestowed on Man by Nature. Utility of A Method which would enable him to derive the great- est possible Advantage from it. We have distinguished the three faculties which constitute man, and compose the real elements of his happiness. To keep them in an ever increas- ing state of energy and action, each individual has at hand, and at his disposal, a grand and universal mstrument, furnished by NatuKe, namely, Time, an inestimable treasure, which few can duly ap' preciate, the greatest part of which they waste in frivolous, useless, or pernicious employments, while, by the most absurd of inconsistencies, they complain of the shortness of life, and yet strive themselves to abridge its duration. The time that we waste, observes a modern poet, might make us immortal : it might do more, it mi/rht make us happy. Whoever is acquainted with the value of time, and understands the art of employing all his mo- ments for his advantage and improvement in the three ways here pointed out, doubles his exist- ence. By this alone he obtains a great superiority over the generality of mankind ; he acquiresa real G 122 THE ART OF and personal wealth, independent of fortune and circumstances. The proper employment of time is a real science, which must be acquired by study, like other human attainments. Time, says Bacon, is one of those things, which, when lost, cannot be re- covered. If then an easily practicable method can be contrived for obtaining all the advantage possible from this instrument, such a method will not be of less utility than the invention of watches and clocks has proved for determining the regular division of the different parts of the day and night. Before this division of the days into hours, and of hours into equal, distinct, and separate inter- vals, many moments were lost for want of a stand- ard to regulate the use of them, by an exact pro- portion and a strict economy in their various applications. But the pendulum produces only a mechanical division of time; the method of employing time must multiply what the pendulum divides. It enables us to find days in hours. VII. First Condition proposed for regulating the dle Employment of Time. Previous Question which it is necessary to ask ourselves before we think or act: *' What End will it answer?" Cuihono? "What end will it answer?" is a previous and necessary question, which ought to EMPLOYING TIME. 123 precede all we do and all we say, every procedure and every kind of occupation. It is easier than may be supposed to contract this habit. Every man, in his particular art, acquires analoo-ous habits without difficulty or effort, by the mere con- tmuity of action. The orator, who has exercised his talent of extemporaneous declamation, capti- vates, charm?:, and hurries us along by the cohe- rency, the energy, the rapidity of his address. The musician, who is a proficient in his art, runs over at once with a light and confident touch the cords or keys of an instrument; he calls forth from it hurried tones, the harmony of which enchants us. The practised hand of a painter blends, by a happy mixture, the various tints into a great number oV colours, which seem obedient to his genius. A dancer forms regular and rapid steps, with preci- sion although with velocity. We admire the ease, the agility, and the accuracy of his movements. Habit alone, and daily practice, produce these results, which excite our astonishment. Let us contrive to attain, by similar practice, by a habit easily acquired, the like precision, combined with the like promptitude, in our moral conduct. Let us accustom our minds to call forth on all occa- sions this brief reflexion- Ci^/ bono? '^ Of wlmt benefit ?" which ought to be to us a kind of g2 124 THE ART OF familiar and tutelary spirit, ever ready to appear when we need its aid. We shall thus acquire great presence of mind, and a correctness of moral and intellectual views, which will enable us to avoid many faults, indiscretions, inconsiderate actions, and an immense and irreparable loss of time. Why should not man, whose noblest pre- rogative is reason, make such a continual use of that admirable faculty as never to act, or speak, without some fixed aim ? But a rule of conduct, in order to produce real and salutary effects, must be adapted to the weak- ness and levity unfortunately belonging to the human mind. It is necessary to fortify man against the inconveniencies and dangers attached to his nature. We shall therefore strengthen the first condition, by a second of equal import- ance. VIII. Second Condition.— A daily Examination made re- gularly EVERY Morning and Evening of the Employ- ment OF THE preceding DaY. Every person anxious to make himself better, and to promote his happiness, should daily devote a few moments, either before he retires to rest, or in rising in the morning, to a retrospect of what he has done, said, heard, and observed during the EMPLOYING TIME. 125 i preceding day. This rapid review will occupy precisely a portion of time which is otherwise lost by all mankind, but which, by this method, is gained and employed in the most beneficial man- ner. Seize this moment, which seems to be marked out by nature, and which social life itself always allows you to dispose of as you please, to examine your soul, to recollect all that you have seen, remarked, learned, all that you have said wisely or unwisely, usefully or uselessly, to the benefit or detriment of your body, mind, and heart. Demand of yourself a strict account of the employment of all your moments during the preceding twenty-four hours. Ask, as it were, this question of each day that has just passed :^ " In what respect hast thou promoted my physi- cal, moral, and intellectual improvement ; in a word, my happiness ? I made thee my tributary, hast thou paid thy debt?" Consider time as a farmer, whom you bind down to pay a certain rent, by a lease, the conditions of which he must strictly fulfil, or as a person of whom you have a right to exact a certain toll or duty. This toll or this rent, is to be paid at each fixed term.* ever * Time may also be considered as a moral being, which, present and ever fugitive, seems every moment to say to us : g3 126 THE ART OF Life thus becomes an equally agreeable and in- Kructive journey, in which no lesson is forgotten, no example lost: every moment is rendered subservient to health, the acquisition of know- ledf^e, or moral improvement. Can it be doubted that this method, pursued with constancy and perseverance, would produce effects, slow, imper- ceptible, and progressive, it is true, but not the less certain and infallible ? IX. Third Condition. — A written Summary of the daily ACCOUNT OF Deeds and Words, or Use of an Ana- lytical Journal. Let us add a third condition to the two former. It is impossible to guard man too much against his own inconstancy, or to confirm him too strongly in a habit that is acknowledged to be good and beneficial. The mind would not wander in the proposed examination ; it would be circumscribed within *' Here I am, seize me !" and who, while flying, asks this ques- tion : " AVTiat use have yon made of me? what advantage have you derived from the moments that I have given you in my course ?" How many would be obliged to answer in the words of the emperor Titus, when reproaching himself for suffering a day to pass without doing a good action: Diem jjcrdidi— " I have lost a day." EMPLOYING TIME. 127 a very narrow space of time, all the occurrences of which would be still recent and fresh in the me- mory ; and it would confine its attention to the three branches which we have determined. This habit, however, might not be pursued with assi- duity; a person might relax and become careless; he might not be always equally scrupulous in fol- lowing the gradual progress which he has made, Oil' in guarding against an involuntary negligence, by which he would soon be led away from the object. We must not therefore limit ourselves to an act of mere meditation and reflection, but habituate ourselves to fix the results of them in writing in a book, in which it would be necessary to enter only a few lines every day. By committing to this book a summary of what we have done and said, and the principal particulars of the employ- ment of our time, we shall have a daily analysis of our situation and conduct, a kind of thermo- meter, indicating the different degrees and varia- tions of temperature in the physical, moral, and intellectual constitution. " Why,'' says Condillac, in his excellent Treatise on Education^ "do we not direct the auention of a child, or of a youth, to what passes within him when he reasons and forms opinions, c4 ! di 128 THE ART 01* EMPLOYING TIME. 199 when he feels desires, when he has contracted habits ? Why do we not point out to him the occasions on which he has employed his faculties to advantage or disadvantage, and teach him by his own experience to manage them better? When he has been led to these first observations, he will exercise his faculties with more skill ; he will in consequence be solicitous to exercise them, and will gradually acquire a habit of this exer- cise." Such is the great and inestimable advant- age of the proposed analysis. The necessity which a person imposes on him- self to write regularly a few lines every day occu- pies five, or, at the utmost, ten minutes, every morning after he has risen, and is compatible with all the circumstances of life. This method, which at first view, may appear tedious and troublesome, but which habit and a firm resolution will soon render simple and easy, is already pursued in the army, where the sub- alterns daily deliver to their superior officers, and these to the colonel of the regiment, an accurate report of all that has passed in their respective companies. This practice is not interrupted even when nothing new has happened; a continual vigilance and rigid discipline are thus maintained. Are we then less interested in watching over our- selves than an officer in watching over his men ? Does not such a practice, apphed to our individual life, and the employment of our time, promise the greatest advantages? Is it not calculated to keep all our faculties in a state of tranquillity, equi- librium, and harmony ? X. Recapitulation of the three Parts or Coditions OF the proposed Method. The triple habit of saying and doing nothing without asking ourselves : Of what benefit will it bef of accounting to ourselves, night and morn- ing, for the use we have made of the preceding day ; and of committing the substance of this account to writing, constitutes the basis of the proposed method, all the results of which it is novv our business to develop, and to enable the reader to calculate and appreciate. XI. Of three principal Advantages which the Practice OF THIS Method cannot fail to produce. We shall first remark, that the continual prac- tice of this method must necessarily produce three principal advantages : 1. Health is not impaired, at least, not by our own fault. Now, most of the diseases with which men are afflicted, and which deprive them of the free disposal of great part of their fives, are occa- g5 130 THE ART OF sioned by their own fault, and are the offspring of their negligence, their passions, or their excesses. 2. The soul is not debased. As it watches over itself with continual solicitude, the primitive purity of its essence is not corrupted by the inter- course with mankind, or by the contagion of bad examples. Peace and dignity of soul, constantly preserved with care, prevent the physical consti- tution from being impaired and disturbed by the influence of malignant and corrosive passions, and the understanding from being beclouded and warped from its natural direction, by the anxiety and care which accompany repentance and re- morse. Such is the intimate connexion of morals with the two other branches of education. In nature all is gradation. Man, equally sus- ceptible of being well or ill, good or bad, ignorant or enlightened, does not arrive at any of these three states but by a slow and insensible progres- sion. It depends upon himself to turn this pro- gression to his advantage. The rule which he has adopted, not to suffer a day to pass without summoning all its moments before the bar of rea- son, to examine whether they have been bene- ficially or uselessly employed, never allows vicious habits time to take root. If he has occasionally been diverted from the real road to health. EMPLOYING TIME. 131 wisdom, and happiness, he perceives his mistake soon enough to return to it without difficulty. He can judge every day if any perceptible alter- ation has taken place in his constitution ; if the soul has any thing wherewith to reproach itself, any thing unworthy of and calculated to debase It ; if the cultivation of the mind has been neg- lected or misdirected ; or, on the other hand, he can remark, from day to day, some prepress in the development of the powers of the body, in the elevation and dignity of the sentiments of the soul, and in the useful application of the intellectual faculties, or the thinking power. So far from a moment of life being lost or mis- employed, eveiy instant is put out, as it were, at high interest, and produces a revenue, results of preservation, improvement, and happiness. Let us now admit that most persons, for want of knowing the value of time, spend unprofitably about a third of each day, either by an excessive prolongation of the hours spent in eating, drink- ing, and sleep, or in play, or other frivolous and frequently pernicious occupations, and we shall find that the proposed method, which gives to a young man one-third of his life lost by all others, confers on him the advantage of numbering thirty^ years appropriated to his improvement, his in- 132 lUE ART OF. EMPLOYING TIME. 133 Struct! on, and his happiness, during the same space of time that has produced the rest of mankind a result or revenue of no more than twenty years. If we now consider that the strict economy which directs the application of his time allows a greater profit to be derived even from that portion of it which is usefully spent, we shall admit that the difference or proportion of ten years in thirty, in favour of the person who practises our method, is rather below than above the truth. XII. Of several excellent Habits also resulting from THE Use of this Method, and tending to the Improve- ment OF Man in the three Ways above-mentioned. Such a person, moreover, contracts the follow- ing habits, which are connected with the three principal results of which we have treated : 1. Of doing nothing that is hurtful to his con-, stitution, and of pursuing the regimen best adapted to the preservation of his health ; 2. Of watching over himself; 3. Of destroying or gradually correcting his defects ; 4. Of studying and learning to know mankind; 5. Ofchusing his friends, and associating pre- ferably and exclusively, as far as his situation permits, with those in whose company he can gain improvement and information ; I 6. Of turning to account all those with whom he may happen to be for his instruction and im- provement ; 7. Of speaking little and always to tfie purpose, and of being able to be silent and to keep a secret ; 8. Of observing and reflecting, of maturing his reason, and of appropriating to himself the expe- rience and knowledge of others ; 9. Of exercising his memory; 10. Of analysing with precision ; 11. Of writing with ease, and forming at once his judgment and his style; 12. Of appreciating the value of time, and liv- ing much more than the rest of mankind, who frequently waste purposely, and from listlessness, a great number of hours every day, and many years in the course of their lives. Lastly, he frames for himself fixed and invari- able rules of conduct, the fruit of experience and reflection. He refers every thing to his physical, moral, and intellectual improvement, to his uti- lity, to his well-being, considered in these three points of view. The question ever present to the mind and reason— Cwf bonpP--^'' Of what benefit IS it?"— serves as a guide and beacon in all the circumstances and all the situations of life; it ISft THE ART OF petforms the office of a real lever^ or of a point of support^ Avhich doubles the power. XIII. Of -nvo accessory Conditions for rendering the Method more essentially useful and beneficial. First Condition:— The Practice of keeping three distinct AND SEPARATE ACCOUNTS, AND ENTERING IN TIIEM AS THEY OCCUR TO THE MiND ALL THE USEFUL OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO EITHER OF THE THREE FACULTIES WHICH MaN OUGHT TO IMPROVE. Two accessory conditions serve to complete this method. The first is, to have, besides the analytical summary already mentioned, three separate books, or one book divided into three distinct accounts, in each of which must be inserted the develop- ments to be given to each branch, from day to day, as a useful observation or an interesting article may present itself. We have laid down this principle : that not a day ought to pass without paying its tribute and producing some improvement ; and we have slK)wn in what ways time should be turned to actount. We out^ht to avail ourselves of all the means in our power for preventing the loss of any portion of this treasure, the application of which it is our aim to regulate. EMPLOYING TIME. 1S5 XIV. Of the TWO Portions of Time, distinct in their Application, of hihch Life is composed. The public capital of a state, and the capital of each individual, are naturally divided, as Smith has shown, into two classes : the one compre- hends the capital, properly so called, or the ca- pital of consumption, the distinguishing charac- teristic of which is, that it produces no income ; and the other consists of capital employed in th^ production of revenue. We may also distinguish, in another point of view, two different employ- ments of capital ; the one, commanded by want, applies to things of necessity ; the other is appro' priated indiscriminately, according to the will of the proprietor, either to things of real utility, present, or future, or to objects of mere pleasure or frivolous luxury, or to wholly useless expenses of whim and fancy. The life of every individual may, in like man- ner, be divided into two perfectly distinct parts. One is devoted to the necessity of procuring the means of subsistence ; of attending to professbnal avocations ; of performing the functions with which he is invested, and the other duties imposed by society; and lastly of satisfying the various wants of nature, as required for the preservation of man. 136 THE ART OF The second portion is left to the free disposal of each person, who can make what use of it he thinks proper. The time employed in procuring the means of subsistence, or in the performance of a duty at- tached to a situation which we hold, or to our social relations, may be considered in the light of a capital destined for immediate consumption. The use which we make of it applies to things of necessity ; it is commanded by want. The disposable portion of time, of which we can make a good or a bad use at pleasure, is lost, by many, who spend it in useless, frivolous, or prejudicial pursuits. It is devoted by others to the purposes of preserving and developing their physical powers, of acquiring information, and of improving themselves. With the latter it is a kind of capital destined to produce future profit, and which also most frequently affords the purest and the most exquisite pleasure, at the very mo- ment when we are employing it. Since the whole of life is composed of these two distinct and separate portions, we ought to recrulate their destination with such exact pro- portion, that the first may not encroach on any of the moments which can be appropriated to the second. We ought even to make them simul- EMPLOYING TIME. 137 taneously concur, for the present and for the fu- ture, in the development of our faculties, directed toward that grand end, which is common to the whole human race. XV. Necessity of profiting by Circumstances and Men.— Advantages that must accrue, ,n this respect, from the Practice of keeping three separate Accounts for the Insertion of the Observations collected in Reading, ik Company, in the Events of Life, and Reflection. The talent of profiting continually by circum- stances and persons is essentially connected with' the art of making a good use of time. We ought to turn to our advantage and benefit, by means of time, considered as a disposable capital, both circumstances and events^ even when they are not favourable or contrary to our wishes; and the persons in whose society we are, and who are capable of contributing to our instruction and improvement. The daily journal is not suflRcient to produce these results ; it merely gives the assurance that the various employments of each interval of twen- ty-four hours shall be distributed regularly and with strict economy. Like the faithful servant charged by king Philip to repeat to him every morning, '' Remember that thou art human T--- the Journal seems daily to address you in these 138 THE AnX OF words : ^^ Remember that vou must account to yourself for the hours of which you are about to dispose." The use of three separate subordinate journals is of the utmost importance. The three different accounts^ contained in these journals, are designed to comprise whatever seems capable of contri- buting to the improvement of the three branches already specified, and thus arranging it, as it were, in three distinct houses, where it may be easily referred to and consulted as occasion may arise. Each subject is to be treated of at an ex- tent proportionate to its utility, but always with precision. We may derive our materials from reading, from the observations which society fur- nishes, from the events that pass before us, from the daily occurrences of life, from our own feel- ings, and the reflections to which they give rise. Experience lies not in the facts themselves, which are not remarked by inattentive and superficial men, but in the feeling of those facts, in the sen- sation which they excite, and in the duration of that sensation. To fix and to renew sensations, therefore, is to multiply experience.* * Since experience does not consist in facts, but in the feel- ing of those facts, and the sensation which they excite, it were EMPLOYING TIME. \m XVI. Of the Physical Journal or Account. The journal opened for the physical depart- ment will embrace all that concerns health ; the means of preserving it, if good ; of strengthening and improving it, if weak; and of recruiting and re-establishing it, if injured and impaired. It will form in time a valuable body of practical in- formation, and may be intituled : Phi/skal Re- l^ort; Health and Diseases. The science of the preservation of health, to which our continental neighbours have given the name of hy^iene^ seems to embrace three prin- cipal conditions, or qualities, concurring in its particular object : cleanliness^ sohrieiy^ and tem- perance, — Cleanliness extends to whatever is used by man, to every thing about him, to his person, to his apparel, to his habitation, to all that he to be wished that history, which ought to funiisli a grand expc- riiDcntal and moral course of the study of the human heart, were written by men susceptible of feeling strongly themselves, and capable of powerfully aflfecting the feelings of others. Historians would then transfuse into the souls of their readers the sensations and impressions which were produced by the events, and which would be renewed in future generations by the living pictures of those events delineated with truth and energy, and presented in all their freshness to the eyes of posterity. 140 THE ART OF touches, to the very air that he breathes.* — Sobriety attends to the choice and quality of the food most favourable to health, and the propor- tions in which it ought to be used. Lastly, tern- perancej which comprises continence, and which is one of the connecting links between the phy- sical and moral man, consists in repressing envy, lust, and the malignant passions, which sour the temper, disturb the intellectual and moral func- ♦ We learn from the narrative or Cook's voyages that thii celebrated navigator, who owed part of his renown to his extra- ordinary skill in the art of guiding, governing, and preserving men, found means, by the establishment of judicious and severe regulations, to introduce an admirable degree of cleanliness among his crews, and with it almost all the other virtuet. Cleanliness alone, converted into a habit and a want, produced among those rough seamen sobriety and temperance, and from these flowed almost all the other good moral habits. Order, docility, discipline, silence, harmony, and friendship, prevailed among them, conjointly with health of body, and the content of mind which results from all these things. Hence Cook lo«t but a very small number of his companions in his long and dangerous voyages. Persons who have contracted a habit of extreme cleanliness bold in abhorrence drunkenness, gluttony, and all the brutal passions, the excesses of which at once disgust the senses and degrade man in the eye of reason. A constant attention to per- sonal cleanliness causes us to feel a higher respect for ourselves, and induces a desire to keep our souls pure and well-regulated, like our bodies. EMPLOYING TIME. 141 tions, and by a necessary consequence derantre the regular order of the physical functions also. In the pht/sical journal will be entered, as they occur, the principal observations that may result from the constant study of, and thorough acquaint- ance with, our constitution. We shall easily ascertain by experience, and by close attention to ourselves, what things agree or disagree with us. We shall collect many facts worthy of notice respecting the differences of constitution observed in others; also concerning the variations of cli- mate, gradual and successive, or sudden and irre- gular, in the different seasons, in different coun- tries, in different days of the year, nay sometimes in different parts of the same day; and concern- ing the manner in which they seem to affect the physical constitution. We shall note down, on critical and important occasions, the good or ill effects of different bodily exercises, practised in moderation or to excess; of different kinds of food ; of sleep more or less prolonged ; of forced vigils ; of extreme application of the mind ; of excessive heat; of wet weather, hot and cold; and the different influences of variations of diet on the temper and character. Lastly, the relations be- tween the physical state and the moral state, between the physical state and the intellectual 142 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 143 State, and between these three states, considered either separately or collectively, and in their mu- tual action and re-action, will furnish occasion for many particular observations, that will prove use- ful and instructive in practice. The art of pre- serving health is one of the grand means of eco- nomising time and life. By pursuing the method here pointed out, a person will soon qualify himself to be his own physician,* and will be able to chuse with perfect confidence the diet, regimen, and exercises best adapted to his constitution. He will at least have it in his power to furnish a physician, in case of need, with positive information, which may materially tend to guide his judgment in regard to the mode of treatment proper to be pursued.t ♦ According to Suetonius, the Emperor Tiberius frequently observed, that he could not conceive how it happened that a man of thirty should not be capable of being his own physician. t If each individual of the reflecting and observing class of mankind were to keep an account of the state and variations of his health at certain periods, and to collect his remarks on the causes to which the alterations of his physical constitution, and the derangement or the re-establishment of his functions, are attributable, such particular histories of the human body, con- sidered in numerous individuals, would furnish physiology and medicine with useful materials. I presuppose that these histo- He will collect other analogous observations, relative to methods easily practicable, and to the remedies usually employed in the most common disorders. He will practise this precept given, if I recollect rightly, by Boerhaave,-— /o keep the head cool^ the feet warm^ and the body open,^ He will be capable not only of managing himself, but also of giving occasionally advice serviceable to others. The knowledge thus acquired, accord- ing to circumstances, either in conversation with well-informed persons, or in the examination of the different facts witnessed by himself, will afford the twofold advantage of preserving him from empirics who make so many dupes and victims, and of enabling him to perform acts of bene- ficence. ^- Every man," says Hippocrates, " should strive to acquire at least a slight tincture of me- dicine, which is the art that most nearly concerns ries should be drawn up with care and fidelity ; that is to say, composed of real and circumstantial facts, accurately observed, well authenticated, selected with discernment, and calculated to lead to evident consequences, and to luminous and instruc- tive results. * Old Parr, who attained the age of one hundred and fifty- two years, is said to have followed and inculcated these nilc« for the preservation of health :— -" Keep your feet warm by ex- ercise, your head cool through temperance ; never eat till you are hungr}-, nor drink but when nature requires it." iU THE ART OF him, and of which he may make the most frequent use for his own benefit, or for that of others." A military officer, who is obhged to seek re- sources within himself, and in the superior ranks to watch over the welfare of those under his com- mand, to expose himself like them to all the accidents and all the diseases arising from the insalubrity, the inclemency, or frequent changes and variations of the climate and atmosphere, has more need than any other to acquire at least general notions on the subject of the art of pre- serving health. How would that colonel or ge- neral be adored by his men, who should be able occasionally to mitigate their sufferings, to guide their inexperience in their infrrmities, to direct the proper applications or mode of treatment in cases of emergency that admit not of delay ; and, in short, to compensate, by solicitude to relieve their afflictions, for the necessity which his duty imposes of appearing prodigal of their lives ! XVII. Of the Moral Journal or Account. The moral journal or accoww^ will contain all that relates to the moral conduct, the duties to be performed, the virtues to be practised, and the means of being constantly satisfied with ourselves, and at peace with our own consciences. It should EMPLOYING TIME. 145 contain a kind of experimental course on men and society/, a real course of practical morality, and may bear this title: Moral Report/ Study of myself and Knowledge of the human heart; lieview of my own life. To this journal we should consign the results of the observations made on our own characters, which we thus learn to study and become tho- roughly acquainted with. We penetrate into the deepest recesses of our hearts, into the secrets of our propensities and inclinations, of our most hidden affections, of our defects, and of our vices; we create within ourselves a reason and a con- science, which are ever enlightened, active, and powerful. We acquire a thorough knowledge of ourselves and of men in general, a salutary com- mand, in the first place, over our own will and passions, and, in the next, over others. We collect a number of curious and instructive par- ticulars connected with morals. We record and preserve the really useful and practically appli- cable reflections, which daily occur to us; the principles and rules of conduct which we deem it right to adopt ; the portraits and characters of persons whom we have thought worthy of notice; the varied, frequently delicate and almost imper^ ceptible shades of the human heart, exhibited in H 146 THE ART OF all the conditions and situations of life. We fix in writing for our benefit and instruction remark- able traits, acts of courage, disinterestedness, he- roism, and virtue ; acts of cowardice, knavery, pusillanimity, and treachery ; interesting and re- markable anecdotes ; new and ingenious ideas : in short, all that relates to characters, manners, and customs — to the knowledge of the world, an essential part of education. By pursuing this method of observing, and faithfully recording all that is worthy of notice in your daily intercourse with your fellow-creatures, you surprise nature in the fact ; you delineate persons and events, whose characteristic forms and features you preserve with care, and you easily catch the likeness. You follow the orde^ recom- mended by Bacon for gradually forming an excel- lent treatise of practical morality. You place each truth, which is to serve as a rule of conduct, immediately afi:er the description or sketch of the most painful disease for which it points out the remedy. Your very faults and misfortunes serve to instruct you ;* the faults and misfortunes of others become ever present lessons, which, in due time and place, you do not fail to put in practice. * Application of the Law of Obstacles. EMPLOYING TIME. 147 You study the human heart in your own and in the hearts of your fellow-creatures ; you pene- trate into all the secrets of their desires, and of your own passions ; you seize these, as it were, in their flight, and paint them to the life. " At that moment," says a modem writer " when the soul, divided between sensation and reflection, begins to be so tranquil as to feel itself agitated, and is capable of scrutinizing all its impressions; if man were then to commit to paper the fugitive ideas, the extraordinary reflec- tions, the sudden illuminations, which pass before his mind ; if he were to allow his sentiments to burst forth without restraint, and to delineate themselves ; what energy ! what novelty of ex- pressions and ideas ! and what force would be given to the eloquent lessons of morality and virtue!" Moralitj/y which, according to Locke, consists in discovering the rules and measures of the hu- man actions which lead to happiness,"and the means of putting those rules in execution,* is the practical science by way of eminence, which proposes for its end not the mere speculation and knowledge of the truth, but what is right, Morality governs the will; the law governs actions. H 2 148 THE ART OF and a conduct conformable with justice and wisdom. This science, which teaches us to make a good use of all the rest, we study every moment of our lives, in all the classes of society. Here is dis- played a hideous passion, the full deformity of which it is necessary for us to see in others, that we may be more strongly disposed to guard against it in ourselves : there we observe the in- fluence of an unruly and ill-curbed propensity ; the progress and the ravages of a vicious inclina- tion, which is not watched or checked ; the effects of a culpable imprudence, of an indiscreet teme- rity, of too great haste in speaking or acting, of irresolution of character, of a neglect of order and economy in domestic affairs. We take warning from the faults which we have remarked to avoid them, and appropriate to ourselves good actions and praiseworthy examples as guides for our own conduct. We thus learn to correct and remodel our dis- position, to subdue our passions, or to control and to give them a right direction ; to distrust and to watch strictly over ourselves ; to be silent unless we can speak to the purpose ; and to place, as it were, vigilant sentinels over the lips, the eyes, and the heart. We. accustom ourselves to study and EMPLOYING TIME. 149 to appreciate men, to love them and to deserve their love, to distinguish and honour talents and virtue, to select our friends with discernment, and to observe all the decorums which it is disgraceful not to know or to forget in society. Finally, we habituate ourselves successively to the different virtues, the practice of which is the most neces- sary; to be just, kind, upright, faithful to our engagements, strict with ourselves, because we have a direct and personal interest in correcting our faults, indulgent and charitable towards others, who never do wrong but from mistake or miscon- ception.* " The whole moral philosophy/' says Montaigne, " may be as well associated with a low and private station, as with a more exalted rank; every man possesses within himself the entire form of the human condition." A state of habitual reflection on and close ob- servation of ourselves neutralizes the passions, and gives us the true practical philosophy. We perceive that there is something good even in what is most * Mistakes are the causes of crimes and misery, as well in the details of ordinary life, as in the grand results of political dis- sensions. The harm which men do to one atiother is always the result of mistake — this is a general truth. See the particular con- sideration of mistakes in the Introduction, under the head of the Law of the universal mixture of good and evil. h3 150 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 151 defective, and that every thing in human concerns is compounded of good and evil.* A sound and enlightened reason discriminates and selects ; it founds its judgments on a wise moderation, on entire impartiality : for the spirit of party or pre- judice is blind, fanatical, unjust, and addicted to persecution ; but toleration is kind and indulgent, and its indulgence is justice. We appreciate and daily apply to our conduct those simple and common, but essential and fun- damental truths, which are the epitome of mo- rality, wisdom, and happiness : Inter utrumque tene—Stat medio virtus—Ne quid nimis—Wnue observes a due medium in all things. Vivere parvo, to be content with little. To have few wants is to be truly rich. "Love to be beloved : friendship is acquired only by friendship. Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto. — I am human, and whatever concerns humanity is interesting to me. Res est sacra miser— The unfortunate are sacred objects. We should also impress upon our minds these two maxims : ♦ See the Law of the universal mixture of good and evil, in the Introduction. Do to others as you would be done by • If an action be doubtful, abstain from it We make a point of never turning a deaf ear to the inward voice of conscience, which speaks, if I may be allowed the expression, in the name of the Deity ; which seems to reveal to the soul the secret of its immortal nature and destination ; which, jointly with reason, its noble companion, renders man superior to the brute, and which determines the morality of actions. We allow it a salutary influence and a constant control over our whole conduct. Conscience and rea- son then govern all our passions and all our desires. Temperance and sobriety, which are the guard- ians of health ; moderation, which shuns alike every kind of excess; firmness of character, per- severance in undertakings, impartial justice, love of truth, and warm, disinterested, generous huma- nity, will necessarily result from this habit of a daily and continual examination of our conduct, actions, words, and thoughts We shall fre- quently apply to ourselves this precept of the Delphic oracle, engraved on the front of the temple of ApoWo^Know thj/self. We shall every day make fresh progress in the knowledge of the human heart, in the study of man, and of our own H 4 152 THE ART OP character, and in the science of happiness and virtue. We shall learn, by experience and reflection, to heighten our own felicity by contributing to that of others ; for there is nothing but exchange between men.* The more good you do, the more you will receive ; the more happiness you sow around you, the more you will reap yourself Nature, in zeal for human amity. Denies or damps an undivided joy. Joy is an import, joy is an exchange ; Joy flies monopolists; it calls for two; Rich fruit, heav'n-planted, never pluck'd by one. Needful auxiliars are our friends, to give To social man true relish of himself. Young's Night Thoughts, Night 2. Here is the principle of morality, of sociability, of civilization. + * See the article on the Law of exchanges in the Introduction. t Love, taken in its most extensive signification, may be considered as the principle of morality, which is the science of the reciprocal relations, rights, and duties of all men, or the social science, which may likewise be termed the science of virtue and happiness. The employ merit of titne forms one of the most important branches of this science. We might comprise the whole moral philosophy in the single word love, and in the sen- timent which it expresses, and deduce from this new mode of viewing morality the following subdivisions : EMPLOYING TIME. 153 We shall know at the same time how to do good to others without being dependent on them, to rely upon our own resources for the assurance of our 1. Love of a man's se/f when rightly understood and properly directed, the principle of all other legitimate and salutar>^ species of love, and of all the actions. 2. Love of his parents; filial affection, piety, respect. 3. Love of his brothers and sisters : fraternal affection. 4. Love of the sex (properly directed and restrained within due bounds) ; an imperious instinct, implanted in man for the per- petuation of the species, and which is the bond and charm of society. 5. Love of his wife; conjugal affection. 6. Love of his children ; paternal affection. 7. Love of his friends; friendship. 8. Love of his country and its government ; patriotism, public spirit. 9. Love of mankind; humanity, enlightened philanthropy, genuine philosophy. 10. Love of the tmfortxmate ; beneficence. 11. Love of glory (rightly understood and properly directed) ; heroism. 12. Love of Justice, of virtue, of all that is goofi and useful. 13. Love of the beautiful, in the productions of nature and of the arts — the principle of taste. 14. Love of God; piety, admiration of, or gratitude to the su- preme ruler of the universe. Morality appears to consist essentially of love, applied to the beings which resemble us, or which are of the same species as ourselves, and to the beings, or things which arc useful to us. Love is the soul of the universe, the principle of morality and h5 154 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 155 future happiness, and to consider nothing but the produce of our labour as our own. The more we study mankind in general, and the complicated machinery of social organisation, the more scrupulously attentive we shall be to shun these three classes, which are the bane of communities : gamblers^ or persons who make gaming their principal means of subsistence; mendicants^ and all who live by alms, or by fa- vours, not acquired by legitimate means, by real titles, by talents and virtues ; and thieves, who exercise their ingenuity in the violation of the virtue. From this magic word, love, from the sentiment which it expresses, flows all that is good and fair. Virtue consists in the first place in quitting the narrow circle of self, of the purely personal feeling. Love alone lifts a man above himself, and urges him to transfer part of the love of self, part of his own existence, to another, or to several other individuals. He ceases to prefer himself to the universe ; he feels that which does not touch him immediately ; he has opened his heart to love ; and kind iiumariity, the mother of all the virtues, which embraces them all, and which is itself no other than love in its most extensive acceptation, introduces into that heart, divested of the obdurate bark of selfishness, all the other tender, noble, and generous aflFections. These affections, which shoot, expand, and bear fruit, then produce the habits and actions which con- stitute practical morality, and comprehend all the subdivisions which can be assigned to morality, general and particular, natu- ral and social, theoretical and practical, public and private. i right of property, the primary and fundamental basis of social order. These three classes of per- sons live at the expense of society, without making amends for the mischief they do it, by any benefit whatever. The man who respects himself dis- dains to derive his means of subsistence, and the conveniencies and luxuries which he is desirous of procuring, from any other source than his own labour ; he wishes to pay his tribute to society, in compensation for the benefits he receives from it. Idleness, selfishness, immorality, are not ad- mitted into his plan of life; he alone knows how to appreciate and to obtain true glory, which in whatever situation we may be, consists solely in the good we do to our fellow-creatures. The greater and more durable that good the more brilliant and solid the glory. Glory is nothin^r but the public esteem prolonged for ao-es. XVIII. Of three particular Accounts, supplementary to THE Moral Account, viz, 1. The Economical Account ; 2. The Historical Account ; 3. The Necrological Account. It is adviseable to keep three particular accounts by way of supplement to the moral account ; the Jirst^ to contain a statement of expenses for e\evy 156 THE ART OF week and every monthj and of the various pur- poses to which money has been applied ; the second^ a summaiy, in chronological order, of the principal political events, as they occur ; the thirdj the characters of those with whom we have been connected, or who have held important posts in society, as they successively quit the theatre of life. We shall proceed to the consideration of each of these three supplementary accounts, for the purpose of explaining its particular object and utility : but we must previously insist on one es- sential observation, which is calculated to obviate many objections. We here propose nothing new or extraordinary, nothing but what every man of any education already does, more or less exactly, for his own convenience. We merely furnish the means of giving regularity to what has hitherto been done mechanically and without system ; re- commending that what is generally written on scraps of paper or loose leaves, which are liable to be put out of the way, mislaid, and lost, be entered methodically in books suitably arranged. How many persons are in the habit of committing to writing, either in the form of memorandums for themselves, or in letters to their friends, all that we advise them to insert in a regular journal, Ivl EMPLOYING TIME. 157 to which they can refer whenever they please ! We propose to apply to daily life some of the practices followed by commercial houses and in the army. 1. Of the Ecotiomical Account, The economical account, or account of receipts and expenses, is not less essential than the pre- ceding : it is connected with the moral journal but ought to be kept separately, and with great care. The habit of thus keeping an account of our pecuniary situation, and striking a balance of our receipts and expenditure, either weekly or month- ly, for which purpose we should not have occa- sion to write more than a page every fortnight or three weeks, constitutes a real practical course of domestic economy, which is useful to persons in every class of society. It is a method produc- tive of many good results, tending to check the improper application of money, and consequently to ensure the means of comfortable subsistence and tranquillity.* By means of this practice, we * How many men, rather from imprudence than criminality, how many fathers of families, in many respects worthy of es- teem, have squandered their fortunes, and perhaps even put a period to their lives rather than survive their dishonour, merely •fig 1 158 THE ART OF impose, as it were, upon ourselves particular sumptuary laws or regulations, according to which we proportion our daily and annual expen- diture to our income, by applying our general principle: All things are relative. We acquire the salutary habit of avoiding at the same time avarice and profusion, of never running into debtj or incurring embarrassment in our domestic af* fairs, and of constantly keeping our receipts and disbursements in an exact proportion, and in a due equilibrium. Among the Romans, all fathers of families were obliged to keep an account, in which they regularly entered their receipts and expenses, their active and passive debts ; and, under certain circumstances, these accounts were produced as evidence in the courts of justice.* The same custom, familiar to the illustrious Sully from his early youth, trained that great minister, who, by the admirable and unprecedented order which he introduced into the administration of the for want of keeping such an economical account. This habit of itself would necessarily have apprised them of the gradual de - rangement of their affairs ; it would at least have stopped them on the brink of the precipice, and prevented their total niin. * See CUero's Letters to Atticus, Book 1 . EMPLOYING TIME. % French finances, contributed so powerfully glory of his sovereign, and the prosperity country. 159 to the prosperity of his f ', 2. Of the Historical Account. A concise statement of the principal historical events must necessarily find a place in the divi- sions of our grand memorial, if it shall be as complete as it could be wished. No well-in- formed person is indifferent to the public events, which are likely to have an influence at once on his country, on the age in which he lives, and on his own situation. It behoves him, moreover, for his private use, information, and satisfaction, to keep a journal, containing in chronological order, a summary of the principal facts composing the history of states and eminent contemporaries. It is useful to be thoroughly acquainted with this history, and to have classed the general results successively in our minds, that we may have a more comprehensive view of the whole. This account, however, seems more especiallv, perhaps exclusively, suited to those who hold public offices, civil or military, in whom a posi- tive duty and a direct personal interest excite a wish to preserve some memorial of the remarkable I 160 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. events, political and military, in which they have perhaps co-operated. 3. Of the Necrological Accounts The idea of death, which every object and every moment are incessantly presenting to our eyes and our minds, must not be omitted in our tablets. It is even adviseable to assign to it a par- ticular account, the object of which is moral and philosophical ; for to live well we must learn to die. In the military profession, in civil offices, in every possible situation, a man cannot be happy unless he can constantly preserve a serenity and composure which the approach of death itself is incapable of disturbing. We shall thus form by degrees a kind of necrological gallery, in which will be deposited the names, characters, and memoirs, of deceased persons whom we have known, and who have performed in our time im- portant parts in public affairs. Their images, frequently present to our view, will famiUarize us with that supreme law, which calls us all sooner or later to the same grave. The idea of death, associated with the cheering and sublime convic- tion of the immortality of the soul and the existence of God inspires man with fortitude, instructive, on the different branches of the 181 ^ purifies the soul, incites to virtue, and acts as a powerful auxiliary to morality, by furnishing a point of support, and holding forth an aim. It should not be forgotten, that these accounts or journals, supplementary to the analytical jour- nal, which may, at first sight, appear likely to occupy a great deal of time, tend, on the contrary, to save it, and require but about half an hour every two or three days to be kept posted up. XIX. Of the Intellectual Journal or Account devoted TO the Improvement of the Mind. The Intellectual Journal comprises t\\^. results of the observations made on the judgment, the imagination, the understanding, the memory, in short, on all the intellectual faculties. We study to become thoroughly acquainted with them with a view to develop, cultivate, and improve them. We extend our remarks on these subjects to all those with whom we are in habitual intercourse. We record the substance of all conversations and discussions of any interest at which we have been present. We suffer no productive fact, no lumin- ous and fertile idea to escape us : whatever ap- pears interesting and useful is carefully preserved. We thus form in time a valuable and multifarious collection of detached articles, elementary and 162 THE ART OP sciences, on which we have occasion to hear the arguments of enlightened men, or to read good works ourselves. This collection is regularly ar- ranged, with references to corresponding articles. The sciences, all of which began to exist before they were distinguished by particular denomina- tions, and divided into different classes, are no- thing but collections of facts, observations, expe- riments, and results. The man who has con- tracted the beneficial habit of rendering every thing subservient to his improvement, of adding every day to his stock of facts and observations, and who is always eager after information, ought to profit *even by the conversations and discus- sions which he hears in companies in which he happens to be. He recapitulates every night to himself such as seem deserving of his attention. He analyses and inserts the substance of them in his journal, after digesting and maturing them by meditation : for we retain better what we have fixed in our minds by reflection, than what we have learned merely by the aid of the memory. In this manner we exercise the mind, form correct ideas, and learn to think. An index formed upon Locke's plan,* and * See the explanation of Locke's method in Note 1. subjoined to this Essay. EMPLOYING TIME. 163 placed at the end of the journal, enables us to bring together all .the detached articles on the same subject, and serves to form a whole on one or more sciences, of which we thus acquire a ge- neral notion. The subject of each article being expressed in a single word in the margin,* it may be easily referred to when wanted. The results in a few years present a mass of clear and positive information on several branches of science, col- lected without difficulty, trouble, or fatigue, in the moments of relaxation, spent in company and lost in general by other persons. It may here be observed, that in familiar conversations scientific men adapt themselves to the level of ordinary capacities, and then illustrate the sciences in a manner that renders them more easy of com- prehension. It is not my intention to assert that by this method alone we may acquire a thorough know- ledge of the sciences, but we may gain from it a slight tincture of them successively ; we shall be led to view them under different aspects ; we shall be enabled to compare the different doc- * The choice of the leading word written in the margin to each article is of great importance for accuracy, and for the facility of reference to similar and corresponding articles. 164 THE ART OF trines of those who cultivate them ; we shall form our judgment, our memory, and our style. This method is particularly useful for military men, or travellers, whose wandering life prevents them from pursuing a regular and methodical course of study, and allows them scarcely any other means of acquiring information ; but who see many different countries, who pass the greatest part of their time in the society of other men, who may be said to have many different persons, nations, events, phenomena, manners, laws, and customs, successively passing in review before them. There is not an individual, however shallow and ignorant, who may not be superior to another in some point, or useful to him in some way or other, and consequently from whom he may not derive more or less benefit. On this observation is founded the art of employing men, and that of questioning them in society. If you happen to be in the company of a law- yer, turn the conversation to the courts, their organisation, their forms, the consequent advan- tages or disadvantages, and the abuses which have crept into the administration of justice. You will obtain useful information of a common attorney, and still more of an able lawyer and an enlightened magistrate. EMPLOYING TIME. 165 If you are with a merchant, a banker, or a mere shopkeeper, you direct your enquiries to the nature of his speculations, and to the interests or the class to which he belongs : you acquire a notion of commercial intercourse, considered in detail in society, or in trade, viewed on a large scale, in its connection with the prosperity of a country, and in the communications which it establishes between different and distant nations. A military man, if you have the art to question him concerning that branch of the service with which he is familiar, will explain to you the internal mechanism of a corps, will make you a spectator as it were, of its evolutions and manoeuvres, will qualify you to judge of the state of the discipline, the intelligence and the administration of the troops. He will furnish you with the information neces- sary to enable you to decide how the different kinds of troops, the light infantry, the infantry of the line, the cavalry, and the artillery, may be most advantageously employed according to cir- cumstance and local situation. He will give you interesting and instructive descriptions of the battles at which he has been present, and will have it in his power to point out the best works to be consulted on the art of war. It will fre- quently happen, that objects which appear the most 166 THE ART OF remote from the ordinary sphere of your occupa- tions and your thoughts will present to your mind observations or processes, which may be benefi- cially applied to the science or pui^suit that espe- cially engages your attention. With an officer of engineers you will talk of encampments and fortifications: with a seaman of the elements that compose a fleet, of the sciences connected with his profession, of naval tactics, and navigation. The traveller will transport you into the coun- tries which he has visited ; the ambassador and diplomatist will introduce you into the secrets of the cabinets of kings, of the intrigues and in- terests of courts, and of the respective strength and power of different states. With a divine, you will insensibly turn the con- versation to his religion ; you will inform yourself of its object and doctrines ; you will study the spirit of the ministers who profess it ; and, in ge- neral, you will find in that class many worthy and enlightened men. But even the ignorant and the shallow ecclesiastic will furnish you with the means of increasing your knowledge. We ought, according to Bacon, to listen to, nay even some- times to seek the company of superstitious per- sons, were it only for the purpose of closely ob- EMPLOYING TIME. 167 serving superstition, a very common disease, which is incurable, from which we cannot well preserve ourselves unless we are acquainted with it, with which we cannot be acquainted unless we study it, and which we cannot study, without closely watching those who are infected with it : only we approach them with the same kind of caution and reserve as we would persons attacked by disorders that sometimes prove contagious. You will profit by the experience of the aged, and by the polished manners and delicate tact of the man of the world. Artists, scholars, and the fair sex, will give you at one and the same time a relish for the beautiful, and the rules necessary for the formation and direction of taste. The chemist, the naturalist, the astronomer, the phy- sician, the botanist, the farmer, will furnish you with elementary notions of the science which each of them has more particularly studied. The mere artisan and workman will initiate you into those mechanical details, which ought neither to be neglected nor despised. The most trivial ob- jects are capable of acquiring a degree of utility in a comprehensive mind, which can properly ar- range all that it knows. Every individual has lived in some sphere or other, traversed a more or less extensive circle of ideas and observations. 168 THE ART OF and can impart more or less information to him who possesses the art of extracting it. Learn then to turn to your advantage all whom you meet with, that you may not lose your time, but be continually adding to your stock of know- ledge. The emploi/ment of time^ and the employ- ment of persons^ are jointly the two elements of the art of governing ourselves and others. The eloquent Bossuet exhibits to us this maxim, as practised by the great Conde. " With what vivacity," exclaims the orator,* " did he appreciate, in a moment, times, places, persons, and not only their interests and their talents, but also their humours and their caprices ; nothing escaped his penetration. With that prodigious comprehension of the general plan, and of all the details of military operations, he was incessantly attentive to every occurrence : he extracted from a deserter, a runaway, a prisoner, a passenger, whatever he chose to say, whatever he wished to conceal, all that he knew, and, in some measure, all that he did not know, so correct was he in his conclusions. ... But it was not war alone that shed a glory over this prince : his great genius embraced every thing — the ancient as well as the * See Bossuet's Funeral Oration for the Prince of Conde. EMPLOYING TIME. 169 modern ; history, philosophy, the most sublime theology, and the arts and sciences. There was not a book but he had read, not an eminent man, either as a profound thinker, or as an excellent writer, but he had entertained: none quitted him without adding to their knowledge, or correcting their ideas, either by his shrewd questions, or by his judicious reflections. His conversation was therefore delightful, because he knew how to adapt it to the talents of each ; not merely talk- ing with military men of their campaigns, with courtiers of their interests, with politicians of their negociations, but also with inquisitive travellers of their observations and discoveries, either in nature, government, or commerce ; with the arti- san of [his inventions ; and, lastly, with men of science, concerning the most extraordinary things they had met with in their respective pursuits." The Russian prince Potemkin, according to the character given of him to the author by an ambassador who had been intimately acquainted with him, had acquired, by the same means, an extraordinary fund of information, though he had learned nothins fi'om books. He had conversed with able men in all professions, and in all the arts and sciences. None ever understood better the art of appropriating to himself the knowledge 170 THE ART OF of Others, and converting it into his private pro- perty. He would have astonished ahke in con- versation the scholar and the artist, the artisan and the divine. His knowledge was not pro- found; the kind of life which he had led pre- vented him from penetrating deeply into any thing ; but it was very extensive and multifarious. How much better informed he must be who has drawn with discernment all his knowledge from those two equally abundant sources, reading and society; or from the extracts made by himself from the most esteemed works, and from the in- structive conversations, the substance of which he has noted down ! No one, says the author of a biographical account of Locke, ever understood better than that illustrious philosopher the art of suiting himself to every kind of capacity, which is per- haps one of the surest signs of a great genius. In conversation he had a particular knack of making people talk on the subjects with which they were best acquainted. With a gardener he would talk of gardening, with a jeweller of precious stones, with a chemist of chemistry. " In this manner," said he, " I please all these persons, who, in general, cannot speak to the pur- pose of any thing else. Finding that I interest EMPLOYING TIME. 171 myself in their occupations, they are delighted to display their skill, while I, for my part, profit by their conversation." By means of this practice, Locke had actually acquired an extraordinary knowledge of all the arts, and he extended it every day. He was accustomed to say, that a knowledge of the arts contains more genuine philosophy than all those brilliant and learned hypotheses, which, having no connection with the nature of things, answer in reality no other purpose than to waste the time of the inventors, as well as of those who strive to understand them. By the different questions which he put to people of all profes- sions he found out the secret of their art, of which they were themselves ignorant, and fre- quendy suggested new and useful hints, which they turned to good account. You have ensured the beneficial employment of your time by a judicious application of all your moments to useful objects; you appreciate also the advantages accruing from the due selec- tion and employment of men ; you avoid those by whom you have less to gain than to lose, and seek the society of such whose company and con- versation are always profitable. This method, which we have recommended i2 172 THE ART OP as particularly useful to the soldier and the ti'a- veller, is equally advantageous to the studious man, who, confined within a narrow circle, and deriving the materials for his journal from reading, from reflection, from his recollections, and not from society, likewise reaps every day an abun- dant harvest, and carefully classes the extracts or analyses of the good works which he has read and meditated upon, or reviews the successive parts of the sciences which he has studied. In this manner, a person may go through in a few hours the substance of what he has read and observed in the space of several months.* If we propose to embrace several sciences, we can have as many separate journals as we have different kinds of works to extract from, or sciences, the scattered notions of which we are desirous of collecting, in order to combine them into one whole. The more we increase our stock of knowledge, by this method, the more strongly we feel urged still farther to augment it, and the more we take delight in cultivating our minds, and in the pure pleasures attached to successful study. * See note 2, subjoined to this Essay, containing an account of a particular method of reading, studying, and analysing historical works. EMPLOYING TIME. 173 i Order and clearness, lucidus ordo, should pre- side over all our studies. A suitable division of time, a certain and uniform method, chosen with discernment and followed with perseverance ; an object of real and practical utility, whenever we apply ourselves to any science ; variety in our pur- suits, to afford recreation to the mind ; a judi- cious and alternate mixture of occupation and rest, of bodily and intellectual exercise, of reading and instructive conversation ; the salutary practice of concentrating our powers upon a single point, instead of spreading them, and thus losing in depth and solidity what we seem to gain in surface and extent ; the advantage which thence accrues of completely mastering every subject that we take up, and of successively resolving all the most dif- ficult and the most interesting questions, by means of doubt, reflection, observation, and ex- perience ; such are some of the effects of the pro- posed method. It tends more particularly to strengthen the mind, and to impart to it a useful habit of observation and meditation. s I o 174 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 175 XX. Of three particular Journals auxiliary to the GENERAL INTELLECTUAL JOURNAL, viz, 1. Obligatory Occupations; 2. Optional Occupations ; 3. Bibliographic Account. The general intellectual journal^ the utility of which we have been explaining, seems to admit of three particular auxiliary journals, each of which must concur in the same end, that of aiding and fortifying the understanding, by frequent exercises relative to the different pursuits to which duty or inclination urges us to apply. 1. Of Obligatory Occupations, Obligator 7/ occupations^ or such as are imposed by the situation we hold in society, deserve a par- ticular account, which enables us to follow their order and progression, and to give greater regu- larity and rapidity to their course. Occupations of this kind are indeed sometimes arduous and disagreeable, especially to those whom society, by the misemployment of their talents, dooms to a continual struggle between their destination and their destiny^ between that for which they were designed by nature, and that which they are com- pelled to be by their condition. It behoves us, nevertheless, to strive incessantly to improve our- selves in this particular, that we may perform our duty the better; that we may render it lighter and more pleasant ; that we may be at the same time better satisfied with ourselves, more worthy of the esteem of others, and more useful to our country. Daily experience, none of the lessons of which is lost, because we carefully collect the results, and an uninterrupted apprenticeship to the different parts of the principal branch of our functions, quickly lead to such a degree of clever- ness as renders us superior, or at least equal, to all those who are successfully pursuing the same 'e to illustrate each other. Tlie general division of the journal into several different parts, each having its specific destination, admits of giving to these various accounts an extent proportionate to their respec- tive degrees of importance, and to the greater or less abundance of the materials which may offer themselves to the mind, with- out our being ever liable to confound them. It may not be ami.s to repeat, that half an hour, at most, every day, will be sufficient for keeping these diflFerent accounts posted up, since there are many in which there will be no occasion to make entries, but at longer or shorter intervals. We have already treated of the advantages likely to result from them. k' I EMPLOYING TIME. 1S3 for the more we are convinced of its excellence and utility, the more v^^e should strive to ensure its being invariably foUov^ed. The daily journal, the three general accounts, and the other particular accounts, are the results either of the review of each day, or of observations collected at different periods. They furnish the means of judging whether we advance in the career which we purpose to pursue, whether we stand still, or whether we recede : in short, whe- tlier we are in a progressive, stationary, or retro- grade state. The retrograde state is fraught with disadvantages and calamities ; the health declines, the heart becomes depraved, and the understand- ing obscured. The stationary state exhibits the image of stagnant water, which at length becomes putrid and unwholesome. The progressive state^ by expanding and improving all the faculties, is the only one capable of meliorating individuals, and giving prosperity to nations. A person who travels with a view to acquire in- formation will not be satisfied with driving post haste through provinces and cities, taking a glance at the country, and snatching a view as he passes of the monuments of the arts, the prodigies of industry, the useful establishments, and the ob- jects of curiosity. He will puiposely make fre- 184 THE ART OF quent pauses. He will impress upon his mind what he has seen and remarked during his jour- ney ; he will make inquiries, and enrich himself with such observations and collections as he has opportunities of amassing. In like manner, in the journey of life, we ought to pause at certain distances, take a retrospective survey of the space which we have travelled, to ask ourselves whence we come and what we have done ; where we are, and how we can judge of our present situation ; whether the contemplation of ourselves seems to excite in the soul feelings of discontent or satisfac- tion, grief or joy; lastly, whither we are going, to what goal we are proceeding, according to our condition, duty, or interest, and which is the surest and most agreeable road to it. But the fickleness and indolence natural to the human mind must necessarily oppose the execu- tion of our plan. They would not permit us to hope that this plan of laying all our days under contribution, and extracting, as it were, from them their most substantial part, could be pur- sued with invariable perseverance, even though supported by firm resolution. We should, more- over, be careless in drawing up the proposed summary of the employment of our time, if it were destined merely for our own eye ; and it is far- EMPLOYING TIME. 18) ther to be remarked that no person can form so impartial an estimate of himself as a friend would do : man is naturally lynx-eyed, in regard to the faults of others, but blind to his own. Chuse then an upright, enlightened, sincere friend, to be another self, near enough to your own age to be no stranger to your tastes, your propensities, and your passions, yet sufficiently advanced in life to have some experience of men and things; possessing a reason so mature, a mind so cultivated, a heart so noble and generous, as to inspire you with that unreserved confidence, founded on mutual esteem, which is the neces- sary basis of friendship. Into the bosom of such a friend you may freely pour forth your soul : you will not be afraid to expose it to him without disguise, to reveal to him its inmost recesses, and every weakness that lurks within them. Let us add a few other traits by which you may distinguish him whom you ought to select for your model, counsellor, and guide, unless in- deed an affectionate, virtuous, and enlightened mother, renders your search unnecessary, and sup- plies his place : for there is no adequate substi- tute for the heart of a mother. You will seek and love in him the man, who, with an excellent disposition, combines all the moral qualities of a 186 THE ART OF Strong mind, a sound and delicate judgment, solid and instructive conversation, new and luminous ideas, and true dignity of soul. In his society you are sure to be a gainer ; you will feel that he contributes to enlighten your mind, and to purify your heart. You never leave him without being better pleased with yourself, more disposed to the love of mankind and of virtue, and more clear respecting your real destination and the duties which you are called to perform in society. In this person you will also appreciate the rare merit and talent of knowing how to doubt ; of employing, if requisite, several successive years in the thorough examination of an important truth, in the solution of a difficult question, in the search after causes— 2l creative and fertile prin- ciple in all the sciences. You will distinguish in him an urgent desire to seek and find for himself men of strong and enlightened minds, capable of assisting him with their talents. You will imi- tate that obliging complaisance which cheerfully descends to the level of the capacities of the ignorant and inexperienced, especially of young persons eager after information, and that constant and indefatigable patience which frequently de- votes a whole life to the composition of a good work, that is, a work beneficial to mankind, and EMPLOYING TIME. 187 calculated to advance a science which the author has profoundly studied. To a person whose character corresponds with this description, or to him, who, by a more or less complete combination of the qualities here specie fied, seems to prefer the strongest claim to your esteem, submit then, every three or six months, or only once a-year, a faithfiil summary of your per- sonal state, with reference to the three grand points. Every three or six months you will read over the observations you have made ; you will exa- mine and try your actions, and ascertain your pro- gress of every kind and your present state, as com- pared with that exhibited in the preceding re- port three or six months before. You will lay before your friend these summaries of the employ- ment of your life; they will furnish him with the text to the salutary advice, in offering which be fulfils a duty towards you enjoined by confidence and friendship. You have discovered in him a certain superiority of understanding and moral qualities ; and you make him the confidant, wit- ness, and judge, of your thoughts and actions, that you may receive in exchange his counsel and in- struction. 188 THE ART OF XXlll. General Observation on the Mode of digesting THE Daily Journal, the particular Accounts, and the Analytical Statements of a Person's individual Situa- tion, TO BE drawn up EVERY SIX MONTHS, OR EVERY YEAR. In order to possess the greater freedom in keep- ing the daily journal, the three general accounts, and the analytical statements of his physical, moral, and intellectual situation, let the writer always speak of himself in the third person and under a fictitious name, which may easily be changed at pleasure. He is thus not cramped by any consideration of self-love, human respect, false modesty, vanity, or pride. He pens a faith- ful history of his life, without fear of indiscreet confidants or malicious critics. He speaks of others also, whether in terms of praise or censure, imder feigned names ; and in this manner forms, without restraint or scruple, a collection of ac- tions, portraits, observations, and characteristic and instructive anecdotes, which cannot hurt any one's feelings ; for he does not make it his busi- ness to delineate this or that individual, merely for the purpose of gratifying a frivolous malignity. His object is the same that Theophrastus, La Bruyere, and many other philosophic moralists, had in view in their works, namely, the knowledge EMPLOYING TIME. 189 of man. He wishes to study, to know, and then to represent under every form for his own instruc- tion man in general — a real Proteus, who meta- morphoses himself in a thousand ways, and as- sumes a thousand shapes for the purpose of elud- ing the most penetrating eye — a strange com- pound, the varied hues of which cannot be seized and fixed but by degrees, and after long observa- tion of difierent persons in all classes of society, and in every condition of life. XXIV. Objections FORESEEN AND REFUTED. Inconveniencibs TO be AVOIDED IN THE KEEPING OF THE DIFFERENT AC- COUNTS. It now behoves us to seek and to examine various objections, some of which have already been urged against the proposed method, by persons to whom it has been communicated. We shall repeat them here in all their force, that we may the better appreciate their validity. In this discussion we shall be obliged to recur to some of the preceding details, for the purpose of bring- ing into one view the objections and the observa- tions destined to refute them, with the general theory to which both relate, and the results that we have ascribed to this method. 190 THE ART OP First Objection, The first objection which naturally occurs is, '' the prodigious difficulty and almost absolute impossibility of following the proposed plan in the state of society in which we live." — " What you require," say the objectors on this ground, " would no doubt be very fine, but it is not practi- cable : for who would thus spend all his life in the compilation of journals ? Your method might do very well for angels, but is not suitable for human creatures : the results which you promise yourself are chimerical^ imaginarj/, impossible of attainment.'' Answer, If the principles laid down in this work arc acknowledged to be good and beneficial ; if hap- piness is really the end of education and of life ; if the essential elements of happiness are without doubt healthy virtue^ and knowledge; if time is ihe gxBx\& instrument for procuring these; if the good or bad use of this instrument constitutes the happiness or misery of individuals and of society ; if the method here developed for regulating the good use of time, the chief mean of being happy presents a pleasing, but, according to some per- EMPLOYING TIME. 191 sons, an impracticable theory : is it not of the ut- most interest to youth, to whom it is more parti- cularly addressed, to prove that this method is, on the contrary, easy of execution ? If those who condemn it solely as impracticable approve its object, and acknowledge the truth of the princi. pies on which it rests, but are alarmed at the obligations, apparently numerous and arduous, which it enjoins, what will they have to reply', when it is demonstrated to them that this method is less theoretical than practical, and that it is susceptible of being applied by persons of ordi- nary capacity in almost all the situations of life? We may even add, that it has been successfully practised by persons of different ages, but more particularly by young men, chiefly belonging to the army; though a military life, from^ being more unsettled and dependent, seems at fir^ sight to be less favourable than any other to the execution of the plan described. What is, in fact, this method, reduced to its simplest and most concise expression ? It consists of three principal and two auxiliary conditions. 1. Never to speak or act without asking our- selves this question : " What good and useful end will it answer .?— without having an object." Tiiis preservative practice, which should be applied in preference to important actions, may nevertheless 192 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 193 be easily extended to all proceedings; but the will must first be there. The will imparts strength to the weakest. The power of the will may be said to be incalculable. How many signal and solemn evidences might be adduced in support of this truth ! 2. " To inquire, after e?ch interval of twenty- four hours, in the morning, in the evening, or any other moment of the day that is at our disposal, the use we have made, whether good or bad, of that portion of life"— to contract in this manner the habit of constituting reason the judge of all X)ur words and actions, and to avoid those faults into which people are too frequently led by thoughtlessness and inconsistency. — In the pre- sent state of society every individual may have the free disposal of the moments that immediately precede retiring to rest, and that follow his rising. If we were to accustom ourselves to devote these brief intervals, which are most commonly wasted, to a rapid examination of whatever interesting and useful we have said or done, seen or heard, learned or observed, we should have an employ- ment not only veiy instructive and beneficial, but also very agreeable, for that portion of time which at present has no destination prescribed by necessity. 3. The third condition has appeared more I terrific than even the other two — " To keep a journal containing an analytical summary of the employment of the day, under the three heads, physical, moral, and intellectual." — This mighty effort, nevertheless, consists merely in employing a few minutes, and in writing a few lines, for the purpose of arranging and committing to paper the result of the examination mentioned above. This examination is confined to three principal points: the imagination and observation are fixe^, and cannot ramble. Is then such a custom, which soon becomes familiar by practice, more troublesome tV.an that of winding up one's watch every night, and looking at it many times in the day, of consulting the thermometer, or even of dressing and undressing every twenty-four hours. These things are done without being thought of, some by certain persons only, others by all with- out exception. I assert, from experience, that it is not more difficult for any one who is solicitous to contract the habit, to commit to writing every day the substance of such observations as he judges important fcr his health, for his moral state, and for his instruction. Such are the first three conditions or rules of the method, to which may be added the two fol- lowing, to render it more complete : — 194 THE ART OF 4. The fourth condition relative to the keeping of three journals or accounts for the three depart- ments above specified is but an extension of the daily journal. In these a person writes at leisure moments all that he thinks it useful to preserve concerning the three elements of man, with which the three principal means of happiness bestowed on him by nature are connected. I am far from desiring that volumes should be written, and from imposing any toilsome or extra- ordinary task. I merely wish that to be done reo^ularly, methodically, and with immense bene- fit, which many persons already do more or less punctually, but in a desultory manner, and with- out utility. How many are there* who daily make hasty memorandums on loose papers, to remind them of what they have done or planned to do, or write frivolous and useless notes and letters! Instead of this very common waste of time, which may be said to render existence nega- tive and barren, we class, in houses constructed for the purpose, whatever we deem worth pre- serving ; and sifting the whole as we do, we re- * I here allude to such persons as arc habituated to observe and reflect, and generally to those who have received a liberal education. EMPLOVING TIME. 195 tain nothing but what is calculated to yield some profit. In the phi/sical account we follow the course and the variations of our constitution. When the progression is good, the note will be short : if we remark a deviation, it will be desirable to fix the period of it, to state the symptoms, to en- quire the cause, and to obviate the consequences. By tliis practice much more time will be saved than wasted. As to the moral account, instead of scribblinrr trivial letters and notes, frequently dictated bv slander and malignity, we shall collect for our own use the observations which we daily make on the human heart and passions, without naming or pointing at any particular individual. We shall learn to know ourselves, and acquire, to :i certain degree, the command over our inclinations. It will not be every day that we shall have re- marks to insert in this journal; but we enter in it at short intervals whatever interests us. We shall be astonished when, at the expiration of one or two years, we turn over the collection we have formed. Relinquish those frivolous or useless customs w^hich run away with so many hours, and you will find a few minutes for this operation, which will prove to you a powerful medium of k2 196 THE ART OF saving time. Even such days when you have neither pen, ink, nor leisure, snatch a moment, and make a hasty memorandum with pencil of one or two leading words, which will serve, per- haps several days afterwards, to remind you of the idea or circumstance which you were desirous of preserving. As to the intellectual account^ every person who wishes to read with profit makes notes, analyses, or extracts. The only point is to give them a better arrangement, to class them with more me- thod, so that we may be able to turn to tliem again the more easily without wasting time in looking for what we want. Accordingly, we but improve upon a method generally practised with more or less regularity, by all who read and st^udy,* * I have heard of a man eminent for his talents, a nice and acute obsen-er, whose daily observations arc frequently intro- duced into his works, and furnish him with useful materials ; who regularly notes down every night the remarks made during the day, and who derives from this practice, constantly pursued for many years, a delicate tact and a manner of dclineatin"- characters that is almost invariably original, intercstinff, and true. The moral philosopher, the statesman, the orator, the dramatist, whom it more particularly behoves to study men, that they may be able to captivate their understandings, to work EMPLOYING TIME. 197 5. The ffth and last co7idition has, like the others, not escaped censure, and may in fact be attended with some difficulties. It consists in drawing up every six months, or every year, a summary of our physical, moral, and intellectual situation, for the purpose of submitting it, either to a mother, if a person is fortunate enough to have one capable of justifying that honourable confidence, or to affectionate and enlightened relatives, or to a virtuous and sincere friend. These statements, in which self-love proves no bar to disclosure, since the writer speaks of him- self in the third person under a fictitious name, and as he would of a stranger, enable him and the friend to whom they are submitted to judge whether there is progression^ stagnation^ or drci- ation, and which is the weak part of the faculties that require melioration. Thus the five conditions of this method are equally practicable, nay even easy, and above all well calculated to render important services to those who chuse to comply with them. It is not then a vain theory; it is a plan which every one has it in his power to execute, which is particu- upon their passions, and to govern their wills, would find va- luable resources in such a method as ours. K O ws THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIxME* 199 larly Bultable for young people, and which fur- ni^ies them with a Mentojr and a guide.* The principal objection ig overthrown. There is neither an almost absolute impossibility, nor even any difficulty in following the pro{X)sed plan.t ■ I I II — IT— — *— Ill 1 I II ■ » ■ ■ I 11. » I H II ■ ■ I ■ * It has been asserted, that it is doubtful whether one youth in ten thousand woukl have the perseverance to follow the pro- posed method. To this I can reply, that out of more than thirty yooag men who learned it, fifteen practised it, and ten in p^- ticular have followed it for several years with regularity and success. Nothing, I repeat, is wanting, but perseverance aad a will. f Let us here make a general observation, on which too much ;»trcss cannot be laid, because it points out one of the chief ob- stacles to the advancement of the sciences and of morals. TU« j^ilosopher, the man of science, the philanthropisjt, should rige superior to that error of the vulgar, who are always content to plod on in the old beaten track. The vulgar have always regarded new, bold, and grand con- ceptions, wliich were above the ordinary capacity, as mere spe- culations and wild theories. Whatever is good, useful, and of general application, was at first new, and above the comprehen- sion of the mnltitude, and was no doubt deemed impossible before it was discovered and practised. Languages ; the alpha- b^, their dement and instrument; writing, arithmetic, print- itig ; the prodigies of mechanics and of navigation ; the present results of civilisation, which are less noticed by superficial and iuattentive minds, must once have appeared chimerical theories, dreasis impossible to be realised. AVhy should mankind inva- riably throw discouragements in the way of those who devote \ I i I admit, however, that this method, susceptible oJf being infinitely varied, modified, and reduced, though it has been deemed adviseable to give it here all the extension it is capable of receiving, seems not to be applicable to all circumstances and to all persons. It is chiefly suited to him who wishes not to lose any thing that can assist him to acquire a more complete command over his own faculties, and to become a superior man. It is adapted to him also, who is called by his character or his talents, by a noble emula- tion, or by wealth and birth, to fill an exalted post in society. Such a person ought to strive more than any other to improve himself inces- santly, and to justify by a real superiority of ta- lents, knowledge, and virtue, the superiority of rank which seems likely at some future period to be assigned to him. Some persons might confine themselves to the first three conditions of this method, namely, the question which ought to govern tJie employment of all the moments of life ; th£ daily examination ; and the analytical journal. Those who have more leisure, more perseverance, a more active their studies and meditations to all that concerns their welfare and happiness! K 4 SCO THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 201 mind, and who consider the three journals, phy- sical, moral, and intellectual, as so many maga- zines, in which they may amass an ample store of principles, knowledge, and practical truths, will apply this auxiliary condition of the method to their own case. They will have more or less to write in these different journals, according as their mode of life, the disposition of their minds, and the persons and objects around them, furnish materials for observation and reflection. They will then imitate the industrious bee, which, in its desultory excursions, extracts the most exqui- site juices from all the flowers, and afterwards •combines them to compose its honey. Every thing becomes easy by habit. The ha- bit of rendering an exact account of our situation and conduct, of our conversations, reflections, and reading, and committing a summary of it to writing, requires in general but a quarter of an hour a-day, or an hour at most on such days as have been best employed, when the harvest of course is most abundant. And where, alas ! is the man who does not waste one or perhaps several hours every day ! Our method has been censured as imposing the obligation of too rigid punctuality, of too con- stant regularity. It requires, in fact, nothing I I i but punctuality and order. But, if it had no other object and result than to impart these regu- lar and methodical habits, which double our time and powers, it would even then confer inestimable advantages. * Second Objection, Another more specious objection, and which at first seems in some respects to be well founded, must likewise be discussed. It will furnish occa- sion to obviate the inconveniencies which it would be wrong to consider as inherent in our plan. " May not the practice of keeping a daily re- gister of our thoughts and actions, though bene- ficial in many respects, tend to contract the mind, and to make it attach too much importance to trifling details, which are flattering to self-love and vanity, but frequently not worthy of being committed to paper?" This rock needs but to be pointed out : it will be easy to shun it. The best practices are liable to abuse : ought they on that account to be pro- scribed? We should carefully separate a custom that is good and useful in itself, from the vices that may mingle with it and pervert its effects. Self-love is the disease of all men, but more espe- cially of little minds. A sound and enlightened k5 !202 THE ART OF mind, which loves and seeks truth, combats this secret and dangerous enemy with success. It is sufficient to be continually on our guaixl against it : and for this the very practice of our method furnishes the surest means. We shall say no moie, but that, as it accustoms the mind to rise invariably from a particular fact to a general con- sideration, and to contemplate men and things from a very elevated point of view only, it musi necessarily impart greater energy, extent, afid profundity to the conceptions. Third Objection, Other critics have found fault with the method for other reasons : they have animadverted on it in this way : — " May not this method for the em- ployment of time, from which the autlior seems to expect such great things, when it comes to be generally adopted by the class of thinking beings endowed with a reason that acts upon itself with a knowledge of causes, and by a free and deli- berate volition : — may not this daily practice, which nothing is to escape, make a man an ego- . tist, by teaching him to refer every thing to him- self exclusively ? — is it not to be feared that it will harden his heart, and impoverish his ima- EMPLOYING TIME. 203 gination ? — It seems likely to expose too glaringly the nothingness of life, to excite a disgust of it, and to dispel its illusions. It requires too much time, and must fatigue the mind. Not only is it impracticable in many of its positions ; it is also peinicioiis, inasmuch as it cannot fail to rentier the character timid and pusillanimous. He who is always weighing the disadvantages of eveiy thing he does never dares to determine ; he he- sitates at every step ; his opinion and his will are vague and vacillating ; and his conduct is influ- enced by this habitual disposition of his cha- racter." I think I may reply with confidence, that these supposed dangers of the method are little to l>e apprehended, nay, that they are entirely chime- rical. So far from impoverishing the imagination, the practice of keeping the daily journal pro- vides for it a copious source of riches and enjoy- ments. It furnishes multifarious materials for observation and meditation. Instead of giving a trifling turn to the mind, and slavishly attach- ing it to puerile details, it teaches it to separate with care whatever is substantial and worthy of being preserved from what is useless and frivo- lous. Instead of hardening the heart and weaken- ing that generous impulse which causes us to sym- 204 TUB AUT OF pathise strongly in the woes of others, our method disposes man to generalise his feelings as well as his ideas. It warns him never to separate his interests from those of his fellow-creatures, since continual experience convinces him of the close and necessary connection between them : it im- parts greater energy and activity to the noble sentiment of philanthropy. So far from tending to produce a disgust of life, to sour the temper, and to generate spleen and melancholy, this method, in reality, imparts a new charm to life. It fixes, as it were, all its good things, and renders them more durable ; it diminishes all its evils, and renders them lighter. It furnishes it with a direction, and an end at its different periods. It gives more buoyancy and vigour to the mind, more fertility, freshness, and activity, to the ima- gination, more maturity to the reason, more solidity to the judgment, a kind of anticipation to experience, more strength to the memory, more accuracy to the observation, more ease, elegance, precision and clearness, to the style. It supplies means for governing our conduct, and for studying and making ourselves intimately acquainted wiili -our physical and moral constitution, and it enables us to adopt the most suitable regimen in regard to both these points. It soothes the soul, EMPLOYING TIME. 205 by affording it an asylum far from the turmoil of the world. It furnishes consolation in adversity, subjects for useful and agreeable reflection in pleasure and prosperity, and occasions for salutary self-examination. It produces a habit of studying the human heart, of profiting by good and bad examples, of regulating our intercourse with others, of asserting our rights, of performing our duties, of respecting ourselves, and thus obtaining esteem and confidence ; finally, of observino- tlie varied shades of social courtesies and decorums. We have already found that it gives greater extent and vigour to the thinking faculty ; it enlarges and enriches it, by conducting it successively through the different branches of human know- ledge. The discussions and conversations of per- sons more or less acquainted with these subjects, at which we may from time to time be pre- sent, are not forgotten with the moment, but leave durable traces and results for him who ex- tracts, digests, elaborates the substance of then), and, by a kind of assimilation, makes it his own. This method becomes, at the same time, a species of curb to repress the freaks of the imagination, and a real spur to excite the mind to motion and activity. Thus the physical, moral, and intel- 206 THE ART OF le€tual departments are alike cultivated, de- veloped, and improved. The individual is con- sequently meliorated; lie places himself in a state of progression, which alone exalts man, and constitutes life; and he is of course more happy. It seems to be demonstrated that, by the prac- tice of this method, life is richer and better filled, mcH-e fertile in knowledge, pleasure, and results : it has less vacuity, excites less disgust, lias a deeper interest, and attaches us to it more strongly. It has likewise been proved, that the execution of the method is easy in all situations ; that it neither fatigues the mind, nor occupies too much time. Half an hour a day is sufficient : even on such days when we have no opportunity to commit our remarks to writing we may make two or three memorandums, and put down so many leading words in pencil. These words or memorandums, having the date of the day to which they belong affixed, enable us in a few days, or at the expiration of a week, or even a month, to draw up, in the space of one or two hours, or perhaps less, all the useful, interesting, and instructive articles that we think it right to preserve. We thus amass a store of valuable materials for mature years, agreeable mementos EMPf.OYING TIME. 207 for old age, and salutary lessons and advice to leave at our death to the children or fi-i ends who are to survive us. This practice, then, is attended with no fatigue of mind, no drudger}', or slavery, incompatible with tlie other obligations and the ordinary habits of social life. There is no com- pulsory sacrifice of too great a portion of time : for the method is susceptible of modification according to circumstances, and may be ac- commodated to eveiy situation. Lastly, it does not produce timidity and pusil- lanimity : on the contrary, it enables us to ground our conduct on more solid bases, and to avoid most of the errors into which men are too ft-e- qu^tly plunged by thoughtlessness, rashness, and indiscretion. It provisions the mind, and fortifies the judgment, the reason, and the will. Fourth Objection, Some of those who have seen this Essay have found fault with the author, for his " silence on the subject of religion." He has, nevertheless, enfoixjed in various passages, and especially in the notes to his Introdudioriy in support of the general laws which he proposes, the two grand and beautiful ideas of the existence of a God, 1 208 THE ART Ot and tlie immortality of the soul. Genuine religion is wholly comprised in this cheering doctrine, and in morality, with which those two bases of all religious creeds are inseparably con- nected. The most worthy homage that we can pay to the Supreme Being consists in making a artially adopted in the school of Pythagoras. That philosopher enjoined his disciples to tfevote a few moments each day to an examination of their hearts, and to ask themselves these ques- tions :— In what manner have 1 spent this day? Where have I been? What persons have I seen ? What have I done right ? What have I done wronop ? Another method of the same kind, followed and recommended by Franklin, consists in ex- ercising ourselves in each virtue separately, for the purpose of rendering them all more familiar, by taking one after the other, and applying all the energies of the soul to each during a certain space of time. This preservative method, which 216 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 217 perfectly barmonises with ours, may be practised with success. It is peculiarly adapted to that period of life when it is easy to subdue the most unruly passions, or rather to prevent them from springing up, and to sow, cultivate, and mature in the soul, the seeds of all the moral qualities that elevate and distinguish man.* An eminent French physician, who was an intimate and beloved friend of Franklin's, prac- tised a nearly similar method. He asked himself tx>ery morning tins question:—^' How did I spend yesterday ?" He instituted a kind of self- examination, and mentally reviewed all that he had done the preceding day, for the purpose of self-reproof and correction. He read, txcry CDening, such sentiments of philosophers as fur- nish rules of conduct, and was fond of referring, in order to show the benefit that ought to be derived from reading, to this inscription placed over the door of the library of Alexandria :— - Physic for the Soul, or Moral Medicine. * See in Note 3 Franklin's own account of the method re- commended by him, which may be practised at the same time with ours, when the two systems will be found mutually to assist each other. 1 XXVJ. Of several eminent Men who have successfully PRACTISED THE ArT OF EMPLOYING TiME. A FEW examples, adduced from the lives of cele- brated men, will serve to confirm our doctrine. They will prove that all those who hold a dis- tinguished place in history acquired the repu- tation and superiority which they attained, either in science or power, solely by scrupulous attention to make a good use of their time. The science of employing time is not subservient to virtue and happiness alone ; it is likewise one of the surest means of acquiring fortune and celebrity, of earning glory, and of succeeding generally in whatever we undertake. Antiquity offers to us the example of Aristotle, justly surnamed the prince of philosophers. Con' tinually engaged in study, he ate little and slept less. Diogenes Laertius informs us, that, to pre- vent his being overcome by sleep, he extended one hand, in which he held a brass ball, from his bed, that, by the noise which it made in falling into a basin of the same metal, he might be kept awake. Aristotle soon surpassed all his fellow- students. He visited the principal cities of Greece, seeking the acquaintance of all those f'om whom he could obtain information : his 218 THE ART OF inquiries extended to the most trifling subjects, and he committed to writing the particulars which he obtained, lest he should forget any useful cir- cumstances. When Alexander the Great had attained his fourteenth year, his father Philip placed him under Aristotle's tuition. The pre- ceptor instructed his pupil in the sciences in which he himself excelled. Alexander, therefore, observed, that if he owed his life to Philip, it was Aristotle who had taught him to make a good use of it.* The great renown of Alexander served as a spur to the ambition of Caesar. That Roman, on beholding a statue of the Macedonian hero at Cadiz, shed tears, and exclaimed : " At my age he had conquered the world, and I have yet done nothing worthy of record I'' The extraordinary * When Alexander had ascended the throne, grateful to the preceptor by whom he had been educated, and wishing to avail himself of his extraordinary genius for the purpose of extending the sphere of human knowledge, he solicited Aristotle, by letter, to compose a history of animals, and sent him eight hundred talents to defray the expense of the undertaking. He furnished him also with fishermen and hunters to facilitate his investiga- tions. Aristotle's work on Natural History is a monument of Alexander's love of the sciences, and one of his most durable titles to renown. EMPLOYING TIME. 219 activity of Caesar, who was both a warrior and a negociator, a statesman, an orator, and a writer, was the principal cause of his success in life! Pliny relates, that he would read and write at the same time, and dictate at once to several secreta- ries in as many different languages while giving audience to ambassadors. Cicero, whose genius placed him on an equality with Caesar, who was continually entrusted with the business of the state and of private indi- viduals, found, amid troubles and storms, amid the occupations and vicissitudes of life, leisure sufficient to acquire a thorough knowledge of all the doctrines of the philosophic sects of Greece. During a career of such prodigious activity, he composed numerous works of different kinds, on almost all the subjects interesting to man, sub- jects on which, as it is evident, he had profoundly meditated. Augustus, as we are informed by Suetonius, was extremely assiduous in study, especially in the study of eloquence, and had from an early age led a very laborious life. Such was his passion for the sciences, that he always conversed during meals on matters of erudition. He also cultivated poetry, and usually composed while bathing. In this manner he employed every moment. He was l2 220 THE ART OF accustomed to digest and commit to writing all his addresses to the senate, the people, and the army, nay, even every important communication that he had to make to his wife. He forbade his family and his grand-daughters to do or say any- thing in secret that was not fit to be recorded in the family journal.* Vespasian's time, after he became emperor, was thus divided: he always rose early and before day-light : after reading the letters and looking over the memorials directed to him, he received his friends, and dressed himself while conversing with them : he then attended to any other busi- ness he had to transact, afterwards took a walk or ride, and rested some time : he bathed before he went to table, and during his repasts he con- versed in the kindest and most affable manner with those about him ; thus making intervals of useful recreation and well employed leisure suc- ceed his numerous avocations. Alexander Severus, who was constantly intent * The practice of keeping a family journal, in which the father should inscribe the most important acts of the lives of his children, and which should be road to them at the end of every year, would be a highly moral domestic institution, and well calculated to produce the best effects. EMPLOYING TIME. 221 on the prosperity of his people, devoted the whole day to the transaction of public affairs and the administration of strict justice to individuals. He then sought recreation at night from the cares of government in the society of the best and most en- lightened persons, whom he cautiously selected for admission to his familiarity, in order to consult the one and to gain information from the other. A succeeding emperor, Julian, who considered the sovereign power as an extension of his means of doing good to mankind, and who acted con- sistently with this principle, equally desirous, from the natural bent of his disposition, and from policy, to diminish the number of his enemies, and to augment that of his friends, multiplied liimself, in a manner, by his activity. Passion- ately fond of the Greeks, imbued by daily and nightly study with the spirit of their writers, an enthusiastic admirer of Homer and Plato, eaaer and insatiable of knowledge, endowed with that kind of imagination which is captivated by every thing extraordinary, having moreover an ardent soul, and that energy which can urge forward better than check— he embraced, he applied him- self to every thing. When mortally wounded, at the age of thirty-two years, he beheld with serenity the approach of his last hour : and the l3 292 THE ART OF recollection of his life shed a lustre over his death: « My life has been short," said he, " but my days have been full. Death, which is an evil to the wicked, is a good to the virtuous : it is a debt which a wise man ought to pay without murmur- ing. I have been a private person and an emperor, and in neither station have I done any thing, as far as I know, of which I have reason to repent." Such is the noble testimony that will be borne by the conscience of every one, who from his earliest years has firmly persisted in the resolution to make good use of his life. No sovereign ever possessed the art of doing •the greatest things with ease, and the most diffi- cult with promptitude, in a higher degree than Charlemagne. He governed his household with the same wisdom as his empire. In his prodigious activity he found resources unknown to ordinary minds, and he contrived at once to conquer his enemies, to polish his subjects, to advance and patronize literature and the sciences, to re-estab- lish the navy, and to perform in a few years what would seem to require several centuries. Alfred the Great, one of the best kings that England has to boast of, partly owed his success and his glory to the attention which he paid to the due regulation of the employment of his time. EMPLOYING TIME. 925 To this end he divided the twenty-four hours of the day into three equal portions ; one of these he appropriated to public business and affairs of state;* another to reading, study, and religious duties ; and the third to bodily exercises, riding, hunting, various sports and recreations, repasts', and sleep. As clocks were not then invented, he contrived to measure time by means of six tapers of a certain length, which burned four hours each, in lanterns placed at the entrance of his palace, and his chaplains gave him notice when- ever one of them was consumed. In this manner his superior genius made amends for the defici- encies of the arts. This rigid economy of time, and the art of employing it to good purpose, ren- dered him one of the most learned men of his age, so that, had he not been illustrious as a king, he would have been famous as an author. An historian, treating of this monarch, breaks * It is generally allowed that this monarch not only digested several particular laws which are still in force, but that he laid the first foundation of our present happy constitution. There is great reason also to believe that to him we are indebted for trial by jury, and that he was the first who divided the kingdom into shires, at the same time establishing a new form of judi- cature. For these and other benefits conferred on his country the name of Alfred is still held in high and deserved veneration. l4 224 THE ART OF out into this apostrophe:—" O! Alfred, the wonder and astonishment of ages ! — If we reflect on his religion and piety, we shall suppose that he spent his whole life in a convent ; if we think of his military exploits, we shall imagine that he was never out of camps ; if we recollect his eru- dition and his writings, we shall presume that all his time was passed in the schools ; and if we consider the wisdom of his government, and the laws which he framed, we shall be convinced that these were the exclusive objects of his study." The orientals, whose ordinary life is a kind of lethargic slumber, refer with pride to one of their most celebrated princes, the great Saladin, who was not less estimable for his humanity and justice than for his valour, and above all for his indefa- tigable activity. He held his divan or council in person, every Thursday, assisted by his cadis, as well when in his capital, as when at the head of his army. On the other days of the week he every morning received petitions and memorials, and pronounced judgment in urgent cases : and all persons, without distinction of rank, age, country, or religion, were allowed free access to him. From the habit of thus seeing people of all classes, and reconciling many jarring interests,, he acquired a more intimate knowledge of the EMPLOYING TIME. 2^25 I* ■ human heart, and greater skill in the difficult art of government. Activity was likewise the predominant quality of Henry IV. of France, who was adorned by many other virtues. In camps, amid the fatigues and dangers of a war at once civil and religious, he was seen denying himself all repose, mingling with the soldiers, lying like them upon straw, going his rounds day and night to inspect the most important posts : he was every where, saw every thing, encouraged all by his presence ; he scarcely allowed himself to sleep or eat, and mul- tiplied his life by the use which he made of his time. It was observed of him that " other ge- nerals carried on war like lions, Henry like an eagle." He appropriated to himself Caesar's ce- lebrated motto : He flew, he came, he conquered He seemed at once entirely devoted to the affairs of government, the fatigues of war, and the duties of friendship. The virtuous Sully, his friend and minister, was not less economical of his time than of the revenues of the state. We learn from his me- moirs that he retired early to rest, that he slept little, that an invariable rule and order governed his occupations. In his attention to business he was indefati enable. He rose at four o'clock every l5 THE ART OF morning. The first two hours were employed in reading and disposing of the papers that were laid upon his desk. This he termed sweeping the carpet. At seven he repaired to the council, and spent the rest of the forenoon with the king, who gave him his orders concerning the different departments over which he presided. He dined at noon. After dinner he gave audience, to which persons of all classes were admitted. The clergy of both persuasions were first heard. The farmers, and other persons of low condition, who are frequently afi^aid to approach a man high in ofl&ce, and especially a prime minister, had their turn next. The great and the noble were re- ceived last. He was afterwards usually engaged in business till supper-time : he then ordered the doors to be shut, and indulged in social pleasures with a select number of friends. Ten was his regular hour for retiring to bed ; but when any unexpected circumstance had deranged the ordi- nary course of his occupations, he made up the deficiency of the day by encroaching upon the night. Such was the kind of life which he inva- riably led during his administration. If we turn from princes and statesmen to scho- lars and philosophers, we shall find in like man- ner that all those who have acquired distinction EMPLOYING TIME. 227 were chiefly indebted to the good use of their time for their success, eminence, and reputation. Boerhaave, the physician, whose fame filled all Europe, owed his vast erudition, his prodigious celebrity, his domestic happiness, his peace of mind, the preservation of his health, and the pro- longation of his life, to a judicious and regular distribution of the different employments of his time. His mornings and evenings he devoted to reading and study, and the middle of the day to the public. A few moments were given to his friends or to amusements, such as music, of which he was passionately fond. He rode on horseback every day as long as his health permitted ; but when age forbade that exercise he took a walk in its stead. Wl\en he could not go abroad he played on the guitar. An alternate mixture of occupation and rest constituted an essential part of his regimen. His mild and uniform philo- sophy, springing, in a great measure, from the regularity of his life, was proof against malignity; and he disarmed slander and satire by the con- tempt with which he treated them. Haller, a name which naturally classes with the preceding— Haller, the physiologist, who united with prodigiously extensive knowledge the most estimable moral qualities, was particularly 928 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 229 u remarkable for his love of occupation. He con- sidered time as a treasure which cannot be hus- banded with too much economy, and thus qua- drupled his existence. His method of collecting materials for his great physiological work con- sisted in noting down extracts from his immense reading, upon sheets or leaves of paper cut and arranged for the puiposcjand then depositing these sheets, or analytical notes, in drawers numbered and labelled, so that he could afterwards easily lay his hand on them for the purpose of classing them in any suitable order, and bringing together such as had any connection with one another. In this manner he stored up the fruit of his researches to be used when wanted. He found means to combine the advantages of extensive, profound, and well digested erudition with those of obser- vation and meditation. All the analogous and identical facts met at one general place of rendez- vous. False or imperfect observations were gra- dually corrected, modified, or completed; and facts confirmed by fresh experiments. In this mode of proceeding, which may be recom- mended with confidence to those who undertake works of any magnitude, consists the happiest application of the principle of division and re- union* Such was Haller's activity, and so strong the impulse that urged him to literary pursuits, that, having had the misfortune to break his right arm, he learned in a few nights to write tolerably well with his left hand. He was incessantly employed, and communicated his activity to those about him. — Activity confers on those who are endowed with it, to a certain degree, a kind of empire over others ; it multiplies the faculties, and conse- quently the existence : but it keeps him who can- not set bounds to it in a continual fever, which consumes the blood, and, in this point of view, it shortens life. Due moderation should be ob- served in all things. The great Frederic, an author and philosopher upon the throne, as well as a warrior, legislator, and politician, was likewise sensible of the value of time, and knew how to employ it. Wishing to break himself of a habit which he had con- tracted of lying too long in bed, he gave orders that a napkin steeped in cold water should be thrown over his face to waken him. Hi fixed beforehand the distribution and employment of his time, which he so regulated, as never to defer the business of one day to another. Till the latest period of his long life, he rose at four o'cluck every morning, and dressed himself at 230 THE ART OF once, that he might not lose valuable time in changing his clothes during the day. Convinced that the good use of time is one of the chief concerns of the wise, Prince Henry of Prussia, like his uncle Frederic, was in this point a model for philosophers, as well as statesmen—a circumstance the more astonishing in these two eminent personages, inasmuch as it seems scarcely reconcileable with the love of independence which formed the groundwork of their character. But this formality in the order of their pursuits and amusements was perhaps one of the principal causes of whatever great or useful they performed in the course of their lives. Reading was one of the means by which Prince Henry amused his solitude : he had recourse to it for that relaxation which contributes to support the mind even under the severest mortifications. The learned and celebrated Dr. Samuel Clarke was peculiarly cautious not to lose the least mo- ment of his time. He always carried some book about with him, which he would read while riding in a coach or walking in the fields, or if he had any leisure moments free from company or his other studies : nay, he would read even in com- pany itself, where he might take such a liberty without offence to good manners. EMPLOYING TIME. 231 We might extend our researches and quota- tions much farther.* It would perhaps be curious and instructive to study the lives of illustrious persons with a special view to the employment of their time. But it is sufficient for our purpose to have shown by striking examples the justice and excellence of our principles. The judicious employment of time alone makes men great, learned, just, good, and happy. XXVII. Of a General Division of the various Employments OF Time during each interval of twenty-four hours. We shall now propose a general plan, suscep- tible of infinite modifications, for an accurate and proportionate division of the various employments of time in each day. The most judicious arrangement for the appli- cation of each interval of twenty-four hours seems to be the following : — Eight or even seven hours will be sufficient for sleep.f Eight hours should * The reader may particularly consult the lives of the ancient philosophers, especially Pythagoras, Plutarch's Lives, the life of Bacon, the history of Queen Elizabeth, of the Czar Peter 1. of the empress Catherine II. and the biography of the great writers of the last century. Wherever we meet with durable results, we find that they sprung from great activity judiciously directed. t The Salernian school, which is less indulgent, allows but 232 THE ART OF be devoted to studi/j reading, intellectual pur- suits, or official duties. The remaining eight hours of each day will be occupied by meals, dif- ferent bodily exercises, walks, visits, social duties, aorreeable and instructive conversation, amuse- ments and recreations of every kind. This divi- sion of life may, and indeed ought to be occasion- ally modified according to a person's circum- stances and situation; but it is adviseable to depart from it as little as possible. With respect to meals and sleep, an ancient French adage pre- scribed the most suitable regimen for prolonging life : it was to this effect — Bise at six^ dine at ten, sup at six^ and live ten times ten.* Our own homely distich : six hours' sleep alike to the young and the old, scarcely seven to the sluggard, and eight to none : Sex horas dormire sat est, juvenique, senique ; Vix pigro septem ; nulli conceditur octo. * Fontenelle retired to bed regularly at nine o'clock, rose at five (after eight hours* sleep) employed himself till dinner time, about two or three o'clock in the afternoon; then spent the other six hours in recreation, in walking, or instructive con- versation with enlightened men or amiable and intelligent women. Being fond of order and quiet, the regularity of his life and the moderation of his disposition at once promoted his happiness, preserved his health, and prolonged his mortal existence, which nearly reached a century. The reader may consult with advan- EMPLOYING TIME. 253 Early to bed and early to rise Is the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, is too apposite to our subject not to occur to every reader. A habit of retiring early to rest, and of rising early, actually appears to be very favourable to the development of the powers and the preser- vation of health.* Those who lie half the day in bed become effeminate and enervated; they lose that activity which, properly directed, can alone confer value on life. The greatest men have invariably given only a small number of hours to sleep,t but just so many as are absolutely required by nature : they have thus turned to account part of the time of which it robs those who indulge it to excess. lage Bacon's Treatise o» Life and Death, which contains some very curious inquiries on the art of prolonging life. * ** It would be thought a hard government that should tax its people one-tenth part of their time to be employed in its service: but idleness taxes many of us much more; sloth, by bringing on diseases, absolutely shortens life. Sloth, like rust, consumes faster than labour wears. Dost thou love life, then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." Franklin's Memoirs^ published by his grandson. Vol. v. p. III. t See above. Chapter XXVI. the examples of Aristotle, Sully, and Frederic the Great. BufFon insisted that his valet should pull him out of bed by force, if he could not make him rise without it. 234 THE ART OP *' Sleep little," says Locke : '* great sleepers become brutalized." " Frequent and daily exercise," says Hippo- crates : ^' I know not whether motion be not as necessary for man as food." Avoid excess at table : intemperance ruins the constitution, degrades the soul, and beclouds the understanding. Shun excess in study and meditation. Those who follow intellectual pursuits with immoderate ardour, who prolong their vigils till too late hours, exhaust their powers, and speedily arrive at pre- mature old age.* Exertion of the mind and in- action of the body carried to excess are alike destructive of the most robust health. Adopt a due medium in the allotment of your time to the purposes of rest, study, and bodily exercise. Nature exhorts, nay commands you to avoid excess of every kind. Neither too much nor too little is the motto of the wise. Wear not yourself out by late watching, nor by too long and too intense mental application, * Some very useful instructions on this point, and many sa- lutary rules relative to health, may be found in the Treatise on the Diseases incident to the Studious, by Tissot, the celebrated physician. EMPLOYING TIME. 235 nor by dangerous and deceitful pleasures, nor by fatigues disproportionate to your strength. An alternate mixture of daily and moderate exercise, study, and reading, enables you to allow rest by turns to the body and to the mind ; and keeps all the faculties in due equilibrium and in a state of progressive improvement. Thus the whole life is usefully employed ; and man, exempt from most of the diseases, vices, passions, prejudices, and errors, which torment his fellow-creatures, at once healthy, wise, virtuous,w good, and happy, fulfils the purpose for which he was placed upon the earth. XXVIII. Destination of Man. Since we must all alike descend sooner or later to the grave, let us at least strive to perform our task well in our short passage through life ; to be happy and to do good ; to leave some traces behind us and to deserve some regret. This ex- hortation we cannot too often repeat to ourselves : the idea of death should warn us to make a good use of life. This reflection, which ought to go- vern the employment of a great portion of exist- ence, and which accustoms us to survey with serener eye the termination of our career, apprises us also to limit the circle of our labours, so that 236 THE ART OF we may have it in our power to complete them all, and to leave here below some actions worthy of remembrance, and some results beneficial to humanity. If each person were to look at his situation and his duties from this point of view, things would go on much better than they do in the world: every one would then contribute to the general welfare ; every nation would advance in wealth, in knowledge, and in happiness, by the concurrence of all the individual efforts, di- rected to one and the same end, though in dif- ferent spheres. Too often do we forget this duty of humanity, this destination of man, this grand end of society, this real method of ensuring our own happiness by contributing to that of our fellow-creatures. We seclude ourselves and seek our particular advantage at the expense of others. Selfishness, indolence, carelessness ; false phi- losophy, prejudice, ignorance ; pride, pusillani- mous mediocrity, or vain and inconsiderate pre- sumption; base malignity, perfidious hypocrisy; ambition, which contracts the heart, when it is confined to narrow views of personal elevation, and limited to the interest of a single individual ; but which enlarges the soul when it is noble and pure, when it has for its object the public weal, the advancement of one's country in science, EMPLOYING TIME. 237 power, knowledge, and consequently in felicity : all these vices, or rather mistakes, some of which have their source in the heart, others in the head, retard the progress of the human race. They prolong the reign of ignorance, of weakness, of corruption, and of all the inveterate and conta- gious diseases which prevent societies from grow- ing and flourishing. Men who have not duly reflected, who have narrow views, or will not be at the trouble to reflect, who are sluggish and careless, or selfish, or profoundly ignorant, or possessed with systematic and false opinions and gross prejudices, believe these maladies to be in- curable, and regard as absolutely impossible what is merely difficult, in consequence of the obstacles created by ourselves. They are not aware of the immense progress that has already been made, though slowly, in the course of ages, or of the still greater, more speedy and more certain ad- vances which might easily be made, by givin A passive and negative life. It depends upon ourselves alone to be happier in mature age ; for then we can enjoy the complete development of our faculties ; we possess, in consequence, more means and instruments of preservation and felicity : but youths f; \ M 252 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 253 1 i The necessary consequence then is that he ac- quires fortune and celebrity by means of the im- mense power of continuity of action, and by the determination to attain them. Such a person does not veoretate on the earth — he lives, and is worthy of living. XXXIII. General Results of the uninterrupted Practice OF the proposed Method for regulating the Employ- ment OF Tlme. To him whose heart and imagination are strongly stimulated by the desire of distinction, who does not remain cold and insensible while calculating what he may become by the well- directed employment of his faculties; to him belongs more particularly the application of our plan. To learn to observe ourselves and to know others, to speak little, to be silent at proper times, to will resolutely, to subdue anger, to avoid the snares of self-love, to conquer sensuality, to sub- seems manifestly to be the period most favourable to happiness. The body has more strength and vigour ; the mind more spirit and activity ; the soul more fire and energy, more elevation and generosity : life presents more smiling prospects and fairer hopes. Learn, beloved youth, to appreciate and to employ all your advantages : the aim of my work is to furnish you with th< means of doing so. ject the passions to reason, to curb the imagi- nation, to foUowr for our instruction that order and method which are the soul of study, to em- ploy all the moments of life with economy and discernment, according to fixed and invariable laws ; to husband our strength and our powers, and thus to prolong our existence ; in short, to watch, to correct, to meliorate ourselves inces- santly — this is the end and aim of our method. Such are the characters that must constitute a superior man, when the first seeds of the great qualities attached to our nature and organisation are expanded by education and habit. The soul of such a superior person will be the focus of the noblest passions. His head will be cool and calm, and his character phlegmatic ; for it is the phlegmatic who possess the command over others. -Always masters of themselves, they easily acquire the mastery over other men. Patient and ob- servant, they wait for opportunities, or silently create them, and make them subseiTient to their views. Genius, says Buflfon, is but a greater aptitude to patience. The results of our method, pmctised persever- ingly, and in all its points, are health, peace of mindy and knowledge, advantages, to obtain which it is doubtless worth while strictly to pur- sue the prescribed course. r' '''. ! 1 * J p - E ^ I 4 254 THE ART OP EMPLOYING TIME. 255 . .-'1 All men run after happiness : we have pointed out the easiest and surest road for reaching that goal, which so few know how to attain. We have furnished the youth desirous of fortifying and im- proving himself, of acquiring knowledge, and lead- in or an agreeable and honourable life, with general principles, of conduct for preserving both health of body and dignity of soul, for cultivating his understanding and adorning his mind. We have presented him with the practical application of these principles, a simple method for regulating the employment of his time, a faithful guide, a sort of portable apparatus, which he may set in motion when he will, and keep going as long as he pleases. He will know nothing either of va- cuity of soul, or of that too common disease — spleen, which a person who thinks cannot feel without blushing. His whole life, ever usefully employed, instead of affording occasion for re- pentance, disgust, or regret, will be like a fertile and productive field, which yields its owner abundant crops. In short, we have furnished a method for improving the understanding, and forming happy men, and useful citizens and subjects. All the results of this method cannet be cor- rectly calculated, without taking the widest and most general view of the question of the employ- fnent of time. Time belongs alike to all men, and the employment of the time of each indivi- dual, according as it is well or ill regulated, tends to the advantage or detriment of the whole community. This important truth ought, above all, to be deeply impressed on the mind : it is the contemplative inaction of a small number of persons tliat is the germ of the activity of the multitude. As it is the thinking class that sets in motion the active class, that habit of contem- plation and meditation which we render simple, easy, and necessary by our method, will double the activity of those who chuse to practise it. It has been justly observed that order enlarges space* The spirit of order which we apply to all the portions of life enlarges for man both the sphere of thought and that of time, since time is a necessary element, which enters into the com- bination of all human actions and thinfifs. The habit of employing the different parts of this * If good management and great regularity in the appropriation and employment of money really increase the wealth of in- dividuals and states, the same must be the case with time and life. We augment them, we impart to them a virtue of repro- duction and fecundity, we multiply their results, if we know how to allot and direct their various applications with regularity and method. Sd6 THE ART OP EMPLOYING TIME. important element with order and economy really increases the quantity of it allotted to eacli individual. We add at once to the quantity and to the quality of actions. They are more nu- merous in a given space, and they are of a better nature, or better adapted to the grand end, our individual happiness, and the general prosperity. NOTES ON THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. NOTE L Description of the Method of forming a Commok- Place Book on the Plan recommended and prac- tised by John Locke, the celebrated Author of the Essay on the Human Understanding , A Common- Place Book is a register of such things worthy of being noted as occur to a per- son in the course of meditation or study, arranged in such a manner, that among a number of sub- jects any one to which he has occasion to refer may be easily found. The advantages of keeping a common-place book are numerous and import- ant : it not only makes a man read with accuracy and attention, but leads him insensibly to think for himself, provided he considers it not so much as a register of sentiments that strike him in the course of his reading, as a register of his own thoughts on various subjects. Many valuable thoughts occur even to men of no extraordinary genius ; and these, without the assistance of a common-place book, are generally lost both to themselves and others. 258 THE ART OF There are various methods of arranging com- mon-place books, but that invented by Locke, and recommended by him from the experience of its utility during a period of thirty-five years, is not excelled by any that have since been contrived. The first page of the book devoted to this pur- pose is to serve as a kind of index to the whole, and to contain references to every place or mat- ter comprised in it : in the commodious contriv- ance of which index, so that it may admit a suffi- cient quantity or variety of materials without con- fusion, the principal merit of the method consists. The first page then, or, for the sake of obtain- ing more room, the first two pages, that front each other, are to be divided by parallel lines into twenty-five equal parts ; every fifth line of which is to be distinguished by its colour or other circumstance. These lines are to be crossed per- pendicularly by others, drawn from top to bottom, and in the several spaces of which the several letters of the alphabet both capital and small are to be duly written. The form of the lines and divisions, both horizontal and perpendicular, will be easily conceived from the following specimen, in which what is to be done in the book for all the letters of the alphabet is here shown in the first two, A and B. EMPLOYING TIME. 259 a A e t u a e'2.3. Li I o 1 u The index being thus formed, the book is ready for taking down any thing that may be de- sired. In order to this, consider to what head the thing you would^ enter is most naturally re- ferred, and under which you would be led to look for such a thing. In this head, or word, regard is had to the initial letter, and the first vowel that follows it, which are the characteristic letters whereon all the use of the index depends. Suppose, for instance, I would enter down a passage that refers to the head Beauty. B is the initial letter, and e the lirst vowel. I look in the index for the partition B, and in that partition for the line e (which is the place for all words be- ginning with B, and whose first vowel is e), and finding no numbers already down to direct me 260 THE ART OF to any page of the book where words of this cha" racteristic have been entered, I turn forward to the first blank page, which, in a fresh book, as this is supposed to be, will be page 2, (that is, if one page only is occupied with the index) and there write what I have occasion for on the head Beauty; beginning the head in the margin, and indenting all the other subservient lines, that the head may stand out and show itself. This done, I enter the page where it is written, namely 2, in the index, in the space Be^ from which time the class Be has the exclusive possession of the 2d and 3d pages, which are consigned to words of thii characteristic. Had I found any page or number already en- tered in the space Be^ I must have turned to that page, and have written my matter in what room was left on it. Thus too, if, after entering the passage on Beauty ^^ I should have occasion for Benexolence^ or the like, finding page 2 already possessed of the space of this characteristic, I begin the passage on Benevolence in the remain- der of the page, and if that will not contain the whole, I carry it on to page 3, which is also for Be, and add the figure 3 in the index. Or, as it may happen in a book which has been some time in use, when the page allotted EMPLOYING TIME. 261 to a certain class of words is full, and the follow- ing page is occupied also, it will then be neces- sary to go to the first blank page, the number of which must be marked at the foot of that of which it is a continuation. To quotations from books, Mr. Locke recom- mends the addition not only of the page on which the passage transcribed stands, but also the number of pages contained in the volume, thus, 425 1 — , the upper number indicating the page con- taining the passage quoted, and the lower the total number of pages in the volume. By this method, not only the edition of the book is known, but the reader may, by the rule of three, find the passage in any other edition, by looking at the number of the pages. NOTE IL Account of a Particular Method (invented andprac- Used by the Author) for reading^ studying^ and analysing scientific and historical Works, with a View to the saving of Time in reading and study. It would be, in my opinion, of great advantage for the instruction of youth, to prepare for their use analytical tables of the various branches of liuman knowledge, arranged according to the TUE ART OP principal characters which seem calculated to distinguish them with most precision. This ge- neral analysis of the sciences ought to present in detail for each of them : — 1. The general divisions and the particular subdivisions of which each science is composed, so as to afford a clear, accurate, and complete no- tion of the principal objects which it embraces, and of its aim ; 2. The infinitely complicated relations which subsist between the sciences, and connect them, more or less, immediately with one another ; 3. A catalogue, compiled with judgment, of the best works written on each branch of the sciences, accompanied by an analysis of their contents, and critical remarks, from which an opinion may be formed of the species of merit and utility possessed by each. Every person of studious habits may make trial of this or a similar method with regard to the science which constitutes his favourite pursuit. Till I can myself carry this plan into execution in a large work, for which I have collected a great quantity of materials, I shall here intro- duce an account of a particular method for read- ing and analysing works written on the different departments of the sciences or on history. This EMPLOYING TIME. ^63 method, which is not merely theoretical, but the advantages of which are demonstrated by long practical experience, is essentially connected with the subject of the preceding Essay, since it is designed to save time in reading and study. It is adviseable to study the sciences and his- toiy in particular with specific views. It will be found of great advantage to determine before- hand the points with an especial reference to which we propose to read scientific and historical works, and to make extracts from or analyses of them. I shall therefore mark out here, in a ge- neral manner, the course which may be pursued, and which is susceptible of numberless modifi- cations, and various kinds of improvements ; for it should not be the same for those who have different aims. He who travels and reads as a naturalist will not make the same collections and researches as another who travels as a painter or a lover of the fine arts, or as a lawyer, and with the intention of acquainting himself with the jurisprudence, manners, and customs of the country which he visits, or whose annals he is consulting, SCIENTIFIC WORKS. A young man who studies, and wishes to make 26 i THE aut of himself master of any science whatever, may class the extracts or analyses of the works he reads in the following manner, so as to collect in distinct and separate but co-ordinate cells all that relates to the general divisions about to be enumerated. He may open a particular account for each of them, and afterwards adopt subdivisions suited to the particular object of his studies and his des- tination in society. 1. Definiiion of (he Science, or concise Explanation of its Object. It is proper, in the first place, to define the science and to state its object, and in the next, to sketch the luminous and productive facts which serve it for a basis and points of support ; to indi- cate the causes of the phsenomena which it consi- ders, the services which it has rendered, and those which it may still render, the principal means which it employs, the results which it proposes to obtain ; and thus to make the definition of it more accurate and complete. 2. Hi ft or 1/ of the Science. Having settled the definition of the science, it is necessaiy to proceed to its origin, and to give a concise history of it ; to trace the course it haa EMPLOYING TIME. 265 followed, and the progress it has made, according to a more or less rapid gradation ; to notice the persons who have advanced it, the point which it has attained, and tlie degrees of improvement of which it is susceptible. 3. Geography and Topography of the Sciences^ and of each Science in particular^ considered within its peculiar Limits, A third account will be appropriated to the de- termination of the principal divisions, subdivi- sions, and ramifications of a science, and their mutual relations. It will exhibit, if I may so express myself, a geographical and topographical map of the science, shewing the provinces, coun- ties, and districts, composing its territory ; and the high-roads, cross-roads, anil canals, formed, or to be formed, in order to facilitate their mu- tual intercourse, and their reciprocal exchano-es. 4. Legislation of the Sciences in general, and of each Science in particular. The fourth operation may consist in recapitu- lating the principles, the general axioms, or the fundamental and practical truths and laws, de- duced from the very nature of the science under review, and forming, in some measure, its cade or legislation. ^6 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 267 It. I 5, External^ and, as it were, Commercial Relations of one Science with the others. It will be useful to study separately, and to in- vestigate with care, the more or less immediate relations of the particular science under consi- deration with the other sciences and the different social professions ; to observe their mutual action and re-action ; and lastly, to indicate the methods and resources presented by it to the arts, which are thus made its tributaries. 6. Logic of the Sciences, or Art of directing them ; Tactics of the Sciences, or Method to be pursued for promoting their Jdvancement ; and Conquests to he made by those who cultivate them in the dif. ferent Regions of the Intellectual World, After these general considerations on the sci- ence which we are studying, we must endeavour to collect the positive applications of its processes ; to indicate, on one hand, the principal disco- veries that are due to it. or fall within its sphere, their origin, connection, and progress ; to point out, on the other, the abuses to be avoided, the obstacles to be overcome, the principal questions to be discussed, and the problems to be resolved; to bring together and to class methodically the doubtful facts to be elucidated, the phenomena to be verified and to be traced to their causes and effects; and to direct to these questions, in- teresting to humanity, which are frequently scat- tered through a great number of books, the atten- tion, meditation, researches, and experiments of such persons of active and observant minds as cultivate the sciences. 7. Bibliographjj of the Sciences, and Methodical Collection of the Productions of the Human Mind, relative to each of the Branches of Knowledge. In the seventh place, those who would follow our method should form for their use, as they proceed in their studies, a bibliographical and chronological account of the most esteemed ele- mentary works that have been published on tlie science to which they apply themselves, and of those which have extended its limits. They will take care to note down, in a series of observations adapted to this account, their particular opinion of such of these works as they may have read and studied, or the opinions of enlightened men whom they may have had occasion to consult. K 2 268 THE ART or 8. Biography of Men of Science and Philosophert who have contributed to the Advancement of the Arts and Sciences. The eighth account will contain a concise notice of the life, character, peculiar merits, and works of all those, whether theoretical or practical men, who have advanced the science, or distinguished themselves in it. This catalogue will be made up by centuries, and a separate article in it will contain a list of persons still living who cultivate the science in question. 9. Analytical Table to facilitate References to the particular Accounts above-^mentioned^ which may be made up into one Book or Journal* At the end of each of the parts containing these different accounts, opened for the different views intended to be taken of the science, it will be ad- viseable to form an analytical index, on Locke's plan, which has been described in the preceding note. ' The habit of thus forming extracts or methodi- cal analyses of the works written on a science, upon a plan uniform and tixed, but comprehensive and suitable for receiving all those modifications of detail, of which every science and every branch EMPLOYING TIME. 269 of study may be susceptible, seems calculated to communicate to the mind of a young man a man- ner of viewing things at the same time more com- prehensive and more precise. It disposes him to dwell upon the bearings to which he designs to direct his attention, and to embrace a great num- ber of these bearings from a single point of view, in order to their thorough investigation. If such a direction were given to many minds, we should have in a few years numbers of geo- graphical and statistical charts, infinitely more accurate than any we now possess, of the different regions of the intellectual world, and not only of the parts already known and cultivated, but also of those that have hitherto remained unwrought and unproductive, nay even of such as are still unknown. Historical Works. Historical works, as well as those written on the sciences, afford rich mines of materials of all kinds to those who understand the art of working them. The manner of studying history from all the points of view that it embraces would furnish the subject of a comprehensive work, which I may some day submit to the n3 270 THE ART OF public* At present, I shall merely propose a few subjects of inquiry, to which every one will be at liberty to add such as he deems more expe- dient. I shall show how a person, after classing the different subjects which he wishes to consider in all historical works, may prevent any of the facts, or any of the passages relative to them, from escaping him, and arrange his books of extracts * Some years since the author of this volume planned an Historical EncyclopcBdiay or Universal History y formed of com- parative sketches of the different ages and nations considered under the points of view most interesting to mankind. He bad instituted a Society of Emulatiori for the Study of History, consisting of nearly thirty young men, many of whom were al- ready advantageously known by means of useful productions, and who were to collect and arrange the materials for the pro- posed great work. The co-operators in this literary undertaking, which was in- terrupted at its outset by circumstances, were subdivided into as many committees or classes as there were in their judgment important branches of inquiry to pursue. These composed the principal divisions, to which belonged several particular sub- divisions, which Ihey were at liberty to extend and multiply as they thought proper. These committees had separate books for the different depart- ments, in which were to be placed, as in a cell or drawer, the facts and obsen-ations connected with each. These copious materials were then to be digested into one homogeneous work, which would have furnished in a few volumes the essence of almost all the productions of the human mind, since man began to preserve and to transmit them from generation to generation. EMPLOYING TIME. 271 m such a manner that each of them, in a few years, shall furnish the substance of a great num- ber of volumes, and an analytical and methodical assemblage of all the analogous facts, or fact, bearing upon one and the same point, contained m those volumes. He will have a copious coU lection of practical truths regularly arranged and mutually supporting one another; and he will acquire solid, diversified, and compkte informa- tion on each of the matters which he may have selected for the subjects of his inquiries and observations. Most of those who read historical works read without order, connection, or method. They take up at random ancient or modern authors, distant or recent periods, and fill their minds with vague and confused notions. They find little in- terest in what they read, which is necessarily ill digested, and but a series of digressions. A complete course of historical reading, well ar- ranged and perseveringly prosecuted, would re- quire neither more time nor more attention, but afford more information and more pleasure, and be attended with important advantages. It would be useful to determine beforehand the works ta be read, and the order in which they are to be successively taken up. This order should be N 4 \ 972 THE ART OP governed by chronology, that the reader might follow from age to age the progression and the variations of the human race, and the different vicissitudes which each nation has in turn expe- rienced. It would then be proper for the reader to fix, as we have recommended, upon some par- ticular point of view, in which to consider the course of ages and nations : this would produce a kind of unity of action, interest, and end, which we expect in a tragedy, in an epic poem, and generally in works of every class, which have no merit in our eyes, unless the details, ably com- bined and blended together, concur in forming a beautiful whole. This particular field, which the reader proposes to explore, ought to be so chosen with reference t?o the nature of his understanding, taste, and destination, that he may find in it both pleasure and profit. A soldier will pay especial attention to the military art, to its first rude essays, to its more or less complicated procedures, and to the modifications which it has undergone. A lawyer will observe the different systems of legislation which have succeeded one another in the different ages of the world, in the different countries of the globe, and in various periods of civilisation. A statesman will seek and compare together the EMPLOYING TIMK. 273 treaties, the conventions, and the transactions of every kind that have taken place between states? as well as the changes which the law of nations and general politics may have experienced, according to the epochs and constitutions of com- munities. A physician will study in history the different branches of the medical art, with a two- fold view to things and persons; or to discoveries, systems, and the doctrines successively taught in the schools, and to the men who have distin- guished themselves in that profession. A moral philosopher will investigate the manners, habits, and customs, and the causes which have produced, influenced, or varied the different shades or hues, by which they are characterised. But it is not necessary to confine ourselves to one particular point of view ; we may take a greater mnge if we find it desirable or expedient. As each indi- vidual may thus select one or more particular sub- jects for consideration in history, he will give more precision and steadiness to his mind, which will always have a principal, especial, and de- terminate aim in its inquiries and observations, and a powerful motive to excite and keep it in activity. From this salutary habit the under- standing will not only acquire precision and accuracy, and a greater degree of energy and % .5 274 THE ART OP sagacity, but also capacity and a comprehensive manner of viewing things ; for on all occasions it will ascend from effects to causes, to the movinir springs or agents, and descend again from these productive causes to their effects or results. At the same time that we are giving precision, rec- titude, comprehensiveness, and vigour, to th^ understanding, and inuring it to habits of obser- vation and meditation, we shall gain the triple advantage of cultivating and adorning the me- mory, of exciting and embellishing the imagi- nation, and of forming the style : for it will be our business to commit to writing, in tables, for which we shall presently furnish a model, an analytical summary of the facts which we may have remarked, and which belong to the parti- cular subject of our inquiry. Subjoined are some of the principal points which it seems useful to consider in history, in voyages and travels, and in philosophical, moral, and political works, together with a statement of the method, which will be sufficient to enable every one to adopt a great number of others, ac- cording to his inclination, occasions, and capacity; for it must not be forgotten that the direction to be given to the study of history ought to be infinitely varied, according to the particular EMPLOYING TIME. 275 situations of individuals, the objects they have in view, and the kind of information they wish to derive from it ; and that it is of the highest im- portance to attend continually to results. 1. Education; or, the Art of forming Men. Those who would study history, and the lives of illustrious men, with a particular reference to this subject, ought to collect and class by centuries and nations, the laws, customs, methods, obser- vations, and facts relative to education^ public or private, in the different ages and countries of the world. 2. Politics; or, (accoriUng to Aristotle s admirable Definition) the Art of rendering Men happy. ' If we search history for the means of thoroughly studying politics^ we should collect and arrange i;i the mode and order already mentioned the facts^ observations, laws, customs, and manners, which seem to have concurred in the aim that politics ought to keep in view, and which may furnish elements and results of prosperity. It is neces- sary to convey a clear and accurate idea of the different modes of administration, of the nature and conduct of different governments compared with one another, and of the salutary or baneful influence which they have exercised. 276 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. 277 3. Social Advancement; or, Social Progressions. A third important consideration, which is con- nected with politics, and which likewise embraces ^ the arts and sciences, and the whole of the social economy, will have for its object to examine and exhibit, century by century, the general state of the arts and sciences, the progressive^ stationary y or retrograde course of society in the different parts of the globe, and the principal, general or particular, causes which appear to have produced these variations. We should more especially strive to make ourselves intimately acquainted with the connection between these causes and their effects, and to display it to demonstration ; then to form for our instruction an accurate thermo- meter or scale of the different degrees of the political, moral, and intellectual temperature, of the prosperity, stagnation, or advancement, of every age and every nation of the world. 4. Obstacles to Public Prosperity. As the division of labour among many indi- viduals, who share the different professions among them, allows each more completely to explore and to improve the field to which he has devoted his especial attention ; so the judicious distribu- tion of the different considerations which history may furnish among those who wish to study it with profit, or the successive examination by one person of these considerations taken separately, enables a good understanding to penetrate deeper into the particular object of its inquiries, and to discover in it things which it muot have over- looked, had it attempted to embrace too many subjects of observation at once, instead of direct- ing and confining, at least for a time, all its energies to a single point. It will not therefore be amiss, after selecting from history, and bringing together the different facts relative to education^ 'pnlitics^ and social advancement^ to seek out and separately inves- tigate the obstacles to prosperity/. With this view we should strive by patient and close observation to discover the causes which have retarded public prosperity and civilisation among different nations and in different ages. These causes we should then class in epochs, and state with precision and fidelity the principal facts relative to this branch of inquiry, and the proofs of the pernicious effects which have evidently resulted from the causes specified. 978 THE ART OF 5. Great Men compared together. The influence of men of genius, who, by a noble einployment of their faculties, devoted to the happiness of their species, elevate themselves to the rank of great men, is one of the most pow- erful causes ef public prosperity. It would there- fore be both interesting and instructive to form a chronological gallery, with characteristic notices of the illustrious persons who succeed one another in the varied pictures of history, by centuries, nations, and classes, according to the different walks in which they distinguished themselves. We should endeavour to delineate their portraits with impartial fidelity, to state their claims to fame or to the esteem of posterity, the points of resemblance that may exist between them, the nature and degree of the influence which they possesssed over their age, their art, or the pro- fession which they embraced, and over their countiy. 6. Influence of Women considered among all Nations and in all Ages. The private or public, and moral and politi- cal influence of women, considered among the different nations, and in all ages of the world, EMPLOYING TIMK. 279 seems to be a subject worthy of curiosity, atten- tion, and meditation. That influence of the weaker over the stronger sex, wliich restores the equilibrium between them, is a law of nature, of which society, legislators, and governments, oufrlit to avail themselves for the benefit of mankind. It is expedient to study and indicate the direction, salutary or pernicious, which religion, education, legislation, social institutions, and manners, have given, and may give to the influence of women, by employing with more or less skill, or in a wrono- way, this all-powerful engine, formed by nature to act upon the heart and mind of man, and of course upon the whole species, as well as upon individuals. It is at once a fascinating and a serious subject, which charms the imagination, delights the rea- son, enlightens the understanding, and soothes the heart; which associates itself with all the soft, tender, generous affections, with all the noble sentiments, with all profound thoughts. It is a consideration rich and fertile in reflections and consequences, which observers of both sexes may study with equal interest ; but which women in particular may pursue with profit. They will learn from numberless facts, which appear in every shape and in all ages, what is the real 280 THE ART OF I . a power of their sex, which is ever active, though frequently invisible and unperceived ; and how that power, well or ill directed and employed, becomes either a useful lever to raise man to the loftiest conceptions, to the boldest enterprises, to the most difficult and the most laudable actions, or a real bane to mankind, who are sometimes plunged by this cause, when degenerated and corrupted, into the most tremendous abysses of depravity and misery. The most interesting half of the human species is thus transformed, as it were, into a single indi- vidual, who may be followed and observed through all the periods of history, and whose influence, variously modified by education, legis- lation, manners, and the general spirit of com- munities, may be profoundly studied. We col- lect, in the order of dates and countries, a mul- titude of curious facts, public and private, inter- esting anecdotes, instructive observations, events, portraits, and characters, scattered throughout the annals of nations, which may be combined into a panorama, or arranged as a spacious gal- lery. History, without losing any of its dignity and utility, assumes the colour and interest of fiction, abounding in e;pisodes, and in strange and tragic adventures, ever varying, and nevertheless referrible to one and the same general consideration. EMPLOYING TIME. 7. Religions and Institutions. 281 We may lastly study with profit the various characters of the doctrines or creeds, and of the religious institutions of all ages and all nations; their influence, alternately beneficial and baneful, the agents which they set in motion, the means which they have employed, and the effects which they have produced according to their different modifications. Application of the proposed Method. A person who designs to practise the proposed method, and to direct his attention either to the subjects above specified or to others, should open for this purpose a number of separate books for analytical extracts, equal to that of the subjects upon which he may fix. He will have a kind of clue and compass to guide him through the vast and tortuous labyrinth of the annals of all ages suid of all nations. He will pause every twenty pages (more or less, according to the strength of his understanding and memory, and the nature of the work) to recapitulate in his mind what he has read and observed ; he will consider it in the different points of view which he has pre-deter- mined, and put a small strip of paper, marked 1982 THE ART or with the letter of reference of one of the subjects aheady specified^ at the page containing a fact or observation analogous to any of the objects of his inquiry. lie will lay down the book after reading sixty or eighty pages, at three different intervals, and will not begin reading again till he has wTitten down, in a few lines only, the con- densed substance of what appears to him to be- long to one of the general subjects for which he studies history. This manner of reading, studying, analysing, and extracting, cannot but contribute, as we have remarked, to form at once the judgment, taste, style, and memory ; to develop the under- standing, by giving to it more comprehensiveness and precision ; and lastly to produce a beneficial habit of observing with care, comparing with impartiality, discerning with sagacity, and judg- ing soundly,* * A young lady, equally interesting for her talents, the fruit of an attentive education, and for her excellent natural quali- ties and graces, has put in practice, for the study of history, a method similar to that here proposed. She has reduced into ta- bles the great historical results, descending from certain general ideas to the details of the most important events. These events are appropriated either to a principal epoch which embraccf them all, or to a particular dynasty. In each division, which EMPLOYING TIME. 283 The journals or books may be arranged in the following manner: — 1. At the head of each the principal title, or the subject of the extracts and analj/sis^ with a letter of reference. Letters of Reference. Subjects of the Analyses. ^ ^ / V ^ ^ , A Education. B Politics and Government. C Women (influence of) D Social Advancement, Arts & Sciences, Progress of Civilisation. E ...... *^. ... . Obstacles to Public Prosperity. F Great Men compared. G Religions and Institutions. comprises a certain period of time, are inserted all the remarkar- ble facts that belong to it. Thus you may compare the pro- ducts of this or that epoch, of this nation or that dynasty, as wc compare in arithmetic the products of several series of figures placed in parallel and corresponding columns. History, which is a science of facts, when so treated, furnishes positive results, which this method elicits, and which, collected and combined, furnish useful subjects of observation, and enabfe us to ascend more easily to the causes which produced them. Another young lady, who is likewise indebted to nature for the twofold advantage of a happy physical and moral organisa- tion, developed by a good education, under the superintendence of an excellent mother, has commenced with success an analysis of general history, ancient and modern, with a particular view to the injluence of women, pursuing exactly the course marked out S84 THE ART OP 2. Under the title, at the head of each page, should be mentioned the work from which the notes are extracted. 3. Close to the margin on the left there should be a first column for the insertion of the running numbers, and likewise of the dates or epochs (by centuries for ancient times, and by ten years or even by single years for modern times), to which the passages to be extracted or analysed relate. 4. In the second column, advancing to the right, are to be entered the numbers of the pages and of the chapters of the work from which the ex- tracts are taken. 5. A third column, rather wider than the pre- ceding, contains the words of reference peculiar to each article, or the name of the nation bv whose history it is furnished, or that of the science to which it belongs. 6. The fourth column, which is considerably the widest, contains the substance o^t\ie facts and observations which the reader thinks fit to select. 7. A fifth column on the right is left blank for such private notes and reflections as the writer above. In this manner of treating history, she finds the advan- tages which we have ventured to promise — solid, agreeable, and diversified information, pleasure, and utility. EMPLOYING TIME. 285 may please to add, and for references to the articles that correspond. 8. At the end of each book or journal he will form an analytical index of its contents, on Locke's plan, already described. Besides the journals above-mentioned, it wiFl be adviseable to have two other separate books, which will be found particularly useful by those who cultivate the sciences. The one may be in- tituled : Experiments made and to be consulted^ or luminous and productive Facts/ and the other: Experiments to be made, or Series of Questions and Problems to be resolved. These two books, the one devoted to the past, the other to the future, which are designed mu- tually to assist each other, and to concur in the same end, must have a wide margin ; each article must be numbered, and in the margin must be written the word of reference to denote the prin- cipal subject, or the science, to which the fact cited or the question proposed relates.* * A methodical collection, formed in this manner, for every science, ind containing separately, in the first place, all the in- teresting facts belonging to it that are to be found scattered through a multitude of works ; and in the next, all the problems useful to mankind, the solution of which seems to be reserved for it, would be, in my opinion, an excellent medium for accele- rating the progress of the sciences, and for furnishing youth, the investigators of nature, and men of genius, capable of 2S6 , TilE ART OF Every reader may thus form for his own use an abridged, yet complete, general history, either of any particular science, nation, or epoch, or of any branch relative to his personal instruction, and comprise in a series of analytical tables all the principal points that he deems it necessary to study and investigate. Instead of letting slip all the profit of his reading, of which most people retain no more than a vague and useless recol- lection, he will ensure the means of having what he has read and observed always present to his mind, of better digesting what he reads by medi- tation, and of rendering it really instructive, by arrano^ino- with order and method all that deserves to be impressed upon the memory, that he may be able to refer to and make use of it when he has occasion. The advantages afforded by such a system, practised for ten years only, would be immense and incalculable. making discoveries, with a greater quantity of materials in each, and those better arranged and more productive from their concentration. The same portion of life would thus supply an infinitely greater number of facts, subjects for observation, in- ^,Vy, and experime^it : and we might naturally expect also to obtain in the same space of time a greater mass of results. EMPLOYING TIME. 287 NOTE III. TLAN OF DR. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN FOR ATTAINING MORAL PERFECTION, AND REGULATING THE EMPLOYMENT OF TIME. About this time I conceived the bold and ar- duous project of arriving at moral perfection. I wished to live without committing any fault at any time, and to conquer all tliat either natural inclination, custom, or company, might lead me into. As I knew, or thought I knew, what was right or wrong, I did not see why I might not alwai/s do the one and avoid the other. But I soon found that I had undertaken a task of more difficulty than I had imagined. While my atten- tion was taken up, and care employed in guard- ing against one fault, I was often surprised by another ; habit took the advantage of inatten- tion ; inclination was sometimes too strono- for reason. I concluded at length that the mere speculative conviction, that it was our interest to be completely virtuous, was not sufficient to pre- vent our slipping ; and that the contrary habits must be broken, and good ones acquired and esta- blished, before we can have any dependence on a steady uni-form rectitude of conduct: for this pirrpose I therefore tried the following method. Y THE ART OF In the various enumerations of the moral vir- tues I had met with in my reading, I found the catalogue more or less numerous, as different writers included more or fewer ideas under the same name. Temperance, for example, was by some confined to eating or drinking, while, by others, it was extended to mean the moderating every other pleasure, appetite, inclination, or pas- sion, bodily or mental, even to our avarice or ambition. I proposed to myself, for the sake of clearness, to use rather more names, with fewer ideas annexed to each, than a few names with more ideas; and I included, under thirteen names of virtues, all that at that time occurred to me as necessary or desirable ; and annexed to each a short precept, which fully expressed the extent I gave to its meaning. These names of virtueSy with their precepts, were : — 1. Temperance. — Eat not to dullness : drink not to elevation. 2. Silence. — Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself: avoid trifling conversation. 3. Order.— Let all things have their places : let each part of your business have its time. 4. Resolution. — Resolve to perform what you ought: perform without fail what you re- solve. EMPLOYING TIME. 5. Frugality.— Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself ; i. e. waste nothing. 6. INDUSTRY.-Lose no time : be always em- ployed in something useful : cut off all unne. cessary actions. 7. Sincerity.— Use no hurtful deceit : think innocently and justly; and if you speak, speak accordingly. 8. Justice.— Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are our duty. 9. Moderation.— Avoid extremes : forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they de- serve. 10. Cleanliness.— -Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, clothes, or habitation. 11. Tranquillity.— Be not disturbed at tri^ fles, or at accidents common or unavoidable. 12. Chastity.— Rarely use venery, but for health or offspring ; never to dullness or weak- ness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation. 13. Humility.— Imitate Je5w^' and Socrates, My intention being to acquire the habitude of all these virtues, I judged it would be well not to distract my attention by attempting the whole at once, but to Hx it on one of them at a time ; and when I sliould be master of that, then to pro- o 290 THE ART OF ceed to another ; and so on till I should have gone through the thirteen. And as the previous acquisition of some might facilitate the acquisi- tion of certain others, I arranged them with that view as they stand above ; Temperance first, as it tends to procure that coolness and clearness of head which is so necessary where constant vigi- lance was to be kept up, and a guard maintained against the unremitting attraction of ancient habits and the force of perpetual temptations. This being acquired and established. Silence would be more easy ; and my desire being to gain knowledge at the same time that I improved in virtue ; and considering that in conversation it was obtained rather by the use of the ear than of the tongue, and therefore wishing to break a habit I was getting into of prattling, punning, and jesting (which only made me acceptable to trifling company), I gave Silence the second place. This and the next, Order, I expected would allow me more time for attending to my project and my studies. Resolution^ once be- come habitual, would keep me firm in my en- deavours to obtain all the subsequent virtues ; irifgalitj/ and Indtistrj/ relieving me from my remaining debt, and producing affluence and independence, would make more easy the prac- EMPLOYING TIME. 291 tice of Sincerity/ and Justice^ &c. &c. Conceiv- ing then, that agreeably to the advice of Pytha- gdras in his Golden Verses, daily examination would be necessary, I contrived the following method for conducting that examination. I made a little book, in which I allotted a page for each of the virtues. I ruled each page with red ink, so as to have seven columns, one for each day of the week, marking each column with a letter for the day. I crossed these columns with thirteen red lines, marking the beo^innino- of each line with the first letter of one of the virtues • on which line, and in its proper column, I mio-ht mark, by a little black spot, every fault I found upon examination to have been committed respect- ing that virtue, upon that day. Q 292 THE ART OF FORM OF THE PAGES. EMPLOYING TIME. 293 Temperance. — Eat not to dullness ; drink not to elevation. Sun. Mon. Tues. Wed. Thur. Fri. Sat. Temperance Silence 1 Order Resolution Frugality Industry Sincerity { Justice Moderation Cleanliness Tranquillity Chastity Humility 1 I determined to give a week's strict attention to each of the virtues successively. Thus, in the first week, my great guard was to avoid the least offence against Temperance; leaving the other virtues to their ordinary chance, only marking every evening the faults of the day. Thus, if in the first week I could keep my first line marked T. clear of spots, I supposed the habit of that virtue so much strengthened, and its opposite weakened, that I might venture extending my attention to include the next ; and for the fol- lowing week keep both lines clear of spots. Pro- ceeding thus to the last, I could get through a course in thirteen weeks, and four courses in a year. And like him who, having a garden to weed, does not attempt to eradicate all the bad herbs at once, (which would exceed his reach and his strength) but works on one of the beds at a time, and having accomplished the first, proceeds to a second ; so I should have (I hoped) the encouraging pleasure of seeing on my pages the progress made in virtue, by clearing succes- sively my lines of their spots ; till in the end, by a number of courses, I should be happy in view- ing a clean book ; after a thirteen weeks' daily examination. o3 294 THE ART OF ExMPLOYING TIME. 295 This my little book had for its motto these lines from Addison's Cato : " Here will I hold. If there's a power above us, (And that there is, all Nature cries aloud Through all her works) he must delight in virtue ; And that which he delights in must be happy." Another from Cicero, " O xitcd Philosophia dux ! O virtutum inda- gatrix expultrixqiie vitiorum! Unus dies hene^ et ex prcEceptis tuts actus, peccanti immortalitati est anteponendus.''^ Another from the proverbs of Solomon, speak- incr of wisdom or virtue : '^ Length of days is in her right hand, and in her left hand riches and honour. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace." And conceiving God to be the fountain of wisdom, I thought it right and necessary to so- licit his assistance for obtaining it ; to this end I formed the following little prayer, which was prefixed to my tables of examination, for daily use : " O powerful goodness! bountiful father! merciful guide ! increase in me that wisdom which discovers my truest interest. Strengthen my resolution to perform what that wisdom dic- tates. Accept my kind offices to thy other chil- dren, as the only return in my power for thy con- tinual favours to me." I used also sometimes a little prayer, which f took from Thomson's Poems, viz. " Father of light and life, thou God supreme ! O teach me what is good ; teach me thyself ! Save me from folly, vanity, and vice. From every low pursuit ; and fill my soul With knowledge, conscious peace, and virtue pure ; Sacred, substantial, never-fading bliss !" The precept of Order requiring that ever?/ part of my business should haze its allotted time, one page in my little book contained the following scheme of employment for the twenty-four hours of a natural day. Morning. I I The Question. What good<^ 6 '^ shall 1 do this day } | | UJ 8 9 ilO 11 SCHEME. Hours, f 5 1 Rise, wash, and address Powerful Goodness! contrive day's busi- ness, and take the resolution of the day ; prosecute the present study, and breakfast. Work. Noon. n Read or look over ray accounts, and dine. o 4 296 THE ART OP Hours. Afternoon. Evening. The Question. What good have I done to-day ? Night. Work. Put things in their places. Supper. Music or diversion, or con- versation. Examination of the day. L 4J I entered upon the execution of this plan for self-examination, and continued it with occasional intermissions for some time. I was surprised to find myself so much fuller of faults than I had imagined; but I had the satisfaction of seeing them diminish. To avoid the trouble of renew- ing now and then my little book, which, by scraping out the marks on the paper of old faults to make room for new ones in a new course, be- came full of holes, I transformed my tables and precepts to the ivory leaves of a memorandum book, on which the lines were drawn with red ink, that made a durable stain; and on those lines I marked my faults with a black-lead pencil ; which marks I could easily wipe out with a wet sponge. After a while I went through one course EMPLOYING TIME. 297 only in a year ; and afterwards only one in se- veral years; till at length I omitted them en- tirely, being employed in voyages and business abroad, with a multiplicity of affairs that inter- fered ; but 1 always carried my little book with me. My scheme of Order gave me the most trouble ; and I found that though it might be practicable where a man's business was such as to leave him the disposition of his time, that of a journeyman printer, for instance, it was not pos- sible to be exactly observed by a master, who must mix with the world, who often receive people of business at tlieir own hours. Order too, with regard to places for things, papers, &c. I found extremely difficult to acquire. I had not been early accustomed to method, and having an exceeding good memory, \ was not so sensible of the inconvenience attending^ want of method. This article, therefore, cost me so much painful attention, and my faults in it vexed me so much, and 1 made so little progiess in amendment, and had such frequent relapses, that 1 was almost ready to give up the attempt, and content myself with a faulty character in that respect. Like thfe man who, in buying an axe of a smith, my neigh- bour, desired to have the whole of its surface as bright as the edge, the smith consented to grind o5 298 THE ART OF it for him if he would turn the wheel : he turned, while the smith pressed the broad face of the axe hard and heavily on the stone, which made the turning of it very fatiguing. The man came every now and then from the wheel to see how the work went on ; and at length would take the axe as it was, without further grind insf. " No," said the smith, " turn on, turn on, we shall have it bright by and by; as yet 'tis only speckled." " Yes," said the man, " but / think I like a speckled axe best,^^ And I believe this may have been the case with many, who having, for want of some such means as I employed, found the difficulty of obtaining good, and breaking bad habits in other points of vice and virtue, have given up the struggle, and concluded that " a speckled axe is best-^^ For something, that pre- tended to be reason, was every now and then suggesting to me, that such extreme nicety as I exacted of myself might be a kind of foppeiy in morals, which, if it were known, would make me ridiculous; that a perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of beinop envied and hated ; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance. In truth, I found myself incor- rigible with respect to Order / and now I am » \ EMPLOYING TIME. 299 grown old, and my memory bad, I feel very sen- sibly the want of it. But on the whole, though I never arrived at the perfection I had been so ambitious of obtaining, but fell far short of it, yet I was, by the endeavour, a better and a hap- pier man than I otherwise should have been if I had not attempted it ; as those who aim at per- fect writing by imitating the engraved copies, though they never reach theAvished-for excellence of those copies, their hand is mended by the en- deavour, and is tolerable, while it continues fair and legible. It may be well my posterity should be informed, that to this little artifice, Vv'ith the blessing of God, their ancestor owed the constant felicity of his life down to the seventy-ninth year, in which this is written. What reverses may attend the remainder is in the hand of Providence ; but if they arrive, the reflection on past happiness en- joyed ought to help his bearing them with more resignation. To Temperance he ascribes his long- continued health, and what is still left him of a good constitution. To Indmirij and FrugaUhj^ the early easiness of his circumstances and acqui- sition of his fortune, with all that knowledge that enabled him to be a useful citizen, and obtained for him some degree of reputation among the 300 THE ART OF learned. To Sinceritt/ and Justice^ the confi- dence of his country, and the honourable employs it conferred upon him : and to the joint influence of the whole mass of the virtues, even in the im- perfect state he was able to acquire them, all that evenness of temper and that cheerfulness in con- versation which makes his company still sought for, and agreeable even to his young acquaintance. I hope, therefore, that some of my descendants may follow the example, and reap the benefit. It will be remarked that though my scheme was not wholly without religion, there was in it no mark of any of the distinguishing tenets of any particular sect : I had purposely avoided them ; for, being fully persuaded of the utility and excel- lency of my method, and that it might be service- able to people in all religions, and intending some time or other to publish it, 1 would not have any thing in it that should prejudice any one of any sect against it. I proposed writing a little com- ment on each virtue, in which I would have shewn the advantages of possessing it, and the mischiefs attending its opposite vice. I should have called my book The Art of Virtue^ because it would have shewn the means and manner of obtaininir virtue, which would have distinguished it from the mere exhortation to be good, that does not EMPLOYING TIME. 301 instruct and indicate the means ; but is like the apostle's man of verbal charity, who, without shewing the naked and hungry how or where they might get clothes and victuals, only exhorted them to be fed and clothed. — (James ii, 15, 16.) But it so happened that my intention of writing and publishing this comment was never fulfilled. I had indeed, from time to time, put down short hints of the sentiments, reasonings. &;c. to be made use of in it, some of which I have still by me : but the necessary close attention to private business in the earlier part of my life, and public business since, have occasioned my postponing it ; for, it being connected in my mind with a great and extensive project, that required the whole man to execute, and which an unforeseen succes- sion of employs prevented my attending to, it has hitherto remained unfinished. In this piece it was my design to explain and enforce this doctrine, that vicious actions are not hurtful because they are forbidden, but forbidden because they are hurtful ; the nature of man alone considered : that it was therefore every one's in- terest to be virtuous, who wished to be happy even in this world : and I should from this cir- cumstance (there being always in the world a number of rich merchants, nobility, states, and If S02 THE ART OF princes, who have need of honest instruments for the management of their affairs, and such being rare) have endeavoured to convince young per- sons, that no qualities are so likely to make a poor man's fortune as those of probity and integrity. My list of virtues contained at first but twelve, but a quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride shewed itself frequently in conversation ; that I w^as not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing and rather insolent (of which he convinced me by mentioning several instances), I determined to endeavour to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest ; and I added Ilumi- lily to my list, giving an extensive meaning to the word. I cannot boast of much success in acquiring the reality of this virtue, but I had a good deal with regard to the appearance of it. I made it a rule to forbear all direct contradiction to the sentiments of others, and all positive asser- tion of my own. 1 even forbade myself, agreeably to the old laws of our Junto (a club formed by Franklin at Philadelphia), the use of every word or expression in the language that imported a fixed opinion; such as certainly^ undoubtedly^ &c. and I adopted instead of them, I conceive^ I i EMPLOYING TIME. 303 apprehend, or / imagine a thing to be so and so ; or it so appears to me at present. When another asserted something that I thought an error, I denied myself the pleasure of contradicting- him abruptly, and of shewing immediately some ab- surdity in his proposition ; and in answering I began by observing that, in certain cases or cir- cumstances, his opinion would be right, but in the present case there appeared or seemed to me some difference, &c. I soon found the advanlao-e of this change in my manners ; the conversations I engaged in went on more pleasantly. The modest way in which I proposed my opinions procured them a readier reception and less con- tradiction ; I had less mortification when I was found to be in the wrong, and I more easily pre- vailed with others to give up their mistakes, and join with me when I happened to be in the right. And this mode, which I at first put on with some violence to natural inclination, became at leno-th easy and so habitual to me, that perhaps for the last fifty years no one has ever heard a dogmatical expression escape me. And to this habit (after my character of integrity) I think it principally owing that I had early so much weight with my fellow-citizens, when I proposed new institutions, or alterations in the old ; and so much influence 30i THE ART OF in public councils when I became a member : for I was but a bad speaker, never eloquent, sub- ject to much hesitation in my choice of words, hardly correct in language, and yet 1 generally carried my point. In reality there is perhaps no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride : disguise it, struggle with it, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and shew itself: you will see it perhaps often in this history; for even if I could conceive that I had completely overcome it, I should probably be proifd of my humility,* The plan contrived and practised by Franklin, and here detailed in his own words, may be fol- lowed with equal advantage, but with some mo- difications, to keep an account of the employment of our time and our progress in the three grand departments which we have fixed : — 1. In the bodilj/ exercises beneficial to health, which we may take up one by one for the purpose of improving ourselves in them. 2. In the moral habits and qualities^ or virtues, which cannot be acquired and retained without * Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Benjamin Franklin, edited by his grandson, W. T. Franklin, Vol. I. 127—143. EMPLOYING TIME. 505 serving a kind of apprenticeship to each of them. 3. In all the branches of knowledge, the whole of which at once would overwhelm the mind, but with which we may easily render ourselves fami- liar, by studying them progressively, and one after another. Here we find three important applications of three of our general laws: 1. The Law of Gra- dation; 2. The Law of Division and Re-union ; 3, The Law of Action and Re-action, which have been developed in the Introduction. NOTE IV. ON THE PROGRESS AND EFFECTS OF CIVILISATION, Civilisation is inherent in the nature of man^ one of whose distinguishing characteristics is soda* hility. It is compounded, like all human things, of good and evil ; but the advantages far out- weigh the disadvantages. It is our duty to strive to meliorate it, to diminish the evils which it has produced, or which are attached to it, and to augment the benefits which it is capable of dif- fusing over the whole human race. The division and employment of men are not only the two principal effects, but in their turn 306 THE ART OF the most important causes of civilisation and its advancement. Our civilised societies consist of two great classes. One comprehends the idlers^ or those \vho do nothing themselves, but live by the labour and toil of others— men debased and depraved by sloth and selfishness. " In politics, as in morals,'* says Rousseau (in whose opinion, how- ever, there seems to be some exaggeration), '^ it is a great evil not to do good ; and every useles* citizen may be considered as a pernicious man." The other class is that of the labourers^ or the active and industrious members of society. The latter is subdivided into two parts:—], the per- sons whose labour and activity produce beneficial results:— 2. those whose activity is barren and fruitless, nay often detrimental. These per- nicious people are unfortunately too numerous. Even among those who are engaged in useful occupations, how many do we see not employed on that for which they are best qualified, whose industry is absolutely thrown away, or much less productive than it would be if better directed ! How many others are obliged to spend their lives in occupations which I call negative^ though im- peratively commanded by the nature of things in society ! Such are judges, priests, physicians, < EMPLOYING TIME. C07 soldiers, &c. who render important services, and whose functions are highly necessary, but whose number ought never to be disproportioned to the real wants of society ; since they consume the produce of the labour of the other classes? widiout producing any thing immediately of themselves. This class should be confined within due limits, or rather care should be taken not to encourage exclusively the growth of this part of the social body, and not to give it a factitious corpulence injurious to the other members^ In our civilised societies we cannot reckon that more than one-twentieth of the persons compos- ing them are engaged in really productive occu- pations. This twentieth has to feed or support by its labour the other nineteen-twentieths, composed of the useless idlers, the pernicious labourers, and the unproductive individuals. Let us establish a new proportion beneficial to society ; let us exert our skill to direct to a useful purpose that individual and general activity, which is too often ill managed and unprofitably applied ; let us form an immense mass of well- combined efforts, and augment our powers a hun- dred-fold by employing them better. Instead then of calumniating civilisation, let us seize all that is good and useful in it, all the 308 THE ART OF means and resources which it offers, and earnestly endeavour to improve it by a more judicious ap- plication of those three great moral and political powers—Me division oflabour^ the employment of timej and the emploj/ment of men. Rousseau himself, after pourtraying, with glow- ing eloquence, the mischiefs and abuses which have crept into the social system, and corrupted whatever was most noble and most beautiful in the institution of societies, bears a solemn testimony to the pre-eminence of the civilised man over the savage. In spite of the enemies of civilisation, who, nevertheless, enjoy all its benefits, and who may justly be chained with ingratitude to that society which clothes, lodges, and feeds them, which lavishes on them all its comforts, conveniencies, and luxuries, we seem to be authorised to assert, that the moral ideas are developed and expanded, matured and improved, with the progress of knowledge. Rude and barbarous nations, who have yet attained only a certain point of the social state, are addicted to acts of cruelty, unknown in civi- lised countries. The history of the different ages of the world, and of the inhabitants of the various regions of the globe, ancient and modern annals, ' EMPLOYING TIME. 309 and the relations of voyagers and travellers, con- firm this truth. Let us consider for a moment the progress and effects of civilisation, by comparing the laws and customs, and the civil and political state of the Romans, with our present manners, customs, laws, and civilisation. The Romans carried the rights of paternity to a pitch of barbarity. A father had a right to expose, sell, and even put to death his children. Our manners have not this character of atrocity : our jurisprudence, more consistent with sound reason, harmonises better with morality and nature; our civil existence is better protected and guaranteed. Now-a-days a son may, and ought to be the friend of his father. Education, more humane and better directed, especially for the last half century, has produced a much closer connection between parents and children. The Romans had slaves, carried on an infamous traffic with them, and usurped the power of life and death over these wretches. They reduced their prisoners of war to servitude, chained cap- tive kings to the triumphant cars of their haughty generals, and frequently made a sport of violating treaties. They marked their baneful power and destructive dominion by pillage, perfidy, and feru- 310 THE ART OF city. Our policy is milder, nobler, more gene- rous; our law of nations more humane. In wars, even the most inveterate, we spare private pro- perty. Our disarmed foes are placed under the safeguard of the sacred laws of humanity ; our prisoners of war are treated like our own soldiers, and return when hostilities are over to their na- tive country. Slavery has been banished from civilised Europe. The Romans delighted in the exhibitions of gladiators: murder was their amusement. We know nothing of these sanguinary sports. Every foreigner was a barbarian in the eyes of the Romans ; they applied this term to their ene- mies, the Carthaginians, who were more civilised than themselves. The European nations have renounced these national prejudices, the offspring of mistaken pride. The foreigner, of whatever nation, is welcomed among them, and every where enjoys the protection of the laws, the atten- tions of hospitality, and the advantages of civil society. Any person, so inclined, might, by consulting the Roman history, carry this parallel much farther. He might also apply it to the Spartans, whose vaunted republic, no doubt worthy of admiration in many respects, nevertheless de- EMPLOYING TIME. Sll serves the censure of having extinguished every spark of humanity in the bosoms of her citizens, of having authorised theft for the purpose of exercising the dexterity of youth, and of having sanctioned the atrocious policy of sending forth the inhabitants of Laconia to hunt their slaves, the Helots, as we go out to chase the deer, the hare, or any other species of game. The study of the history and manners of dif- ferent nations, and a comparison between the ages of ignorance and those of knowledo-e be- tween savage and barbarous tribes, and en- lightened and polished nations, are sufficient to enable us to decide the question, whether the arts and sciences have contributed to refine the manners ; or, in other and more general terms, iChether civilisation is more beneficial than in- jurious, I reserve for my Essai/ on the Philosophi/ of the Sciences some conjectures respecting the future possible and probable progress of civi- lisation, and the advantages which must result from it for the great family of mankind, and especially for the few individuals who, appointed to preside over its destinies, have it in their power by their influence to communicate to it either a retrograde or a progressive motion. $12 THE ART OF EMPLOYING TIME. These considerationSj of such powerful interest, will not appear misplaced after an Essai/ on the Employment, of Time^ more especially designed for youth ;* for they ought when entering the career of life to impress upon their minds a deep sense of the destination which they have to fiilfil. Their energies should be contifiually directed towards this noble and lofty aim :-—the melioro' Hon of the state of man upon earthy the extension of his power over nature^ and the augmentation of his means of happiness. Each in his sphere, how- ever contracted, can contribute his share to this grand result. It is impossible then to throw too much light on all the questions relative to social advancement, which is the common aim of the general conduct of nations and governments, or the public administration, and of the private conduct of individuals. THE END. tONDON : PRI>