poses to deduce from his whole view of the subject; and are these legitimate deductions from such of his premises as we admit to be authentic? The rules thus shortly proposed, I submit as those which ought to guide us in all our inquiries. Without constant attention to them, numerous facts may pass before us from which we can derive no real knowledge; and many ingenious and plausible doctrines may be presented which tend only to lead us into error. In the same manner, the benefit which a physician derives from his own opportunities of observation, in common language called his experience, is not in proportion to the period of time over which it has extended, or the number of facts which have passed under his view. It must depend on the attention with which he has observed these facts, and traced their relations to each other; on the anxiety with which he has separated incidental relations from those which are uniform; and the caution with which he has ventured on assuming the relation of cause and effect, or has advanced to general principles. It must depend, further, on the jealousy and suspicion with which he has received even his own conclusions, and the care with which he has corrected them from time to time by further observations. Finally, it must depend on the judg ment with which he applies the knowledge thus acquired to the investigation and treatment of new cases; by tracing promptly the points of affinity between the case under his view and those cases on which his knowledge was founded; by discovering real points of resemblance where there is an apparent difference, and real points of difference where there is an apparent resemblance. The farther a physician advances in this course of rigid inquiry, he becomes more sensible of the difficulties with which his science is encumbered, more suspicious of all general conclusions, and more anxious to bring them to the test of minute and extensive observation; in particular, he learns to exercise more and more caution in considering any one event in medicine as the cause of another. In real acquisition, consequently, his progress is slow; for much of his improvement consists in detecting the fallacy of systems which he once considered as established, and the instability of principles in which he once confided as infallible. But these discoveries prepare the way for his actual progress, and the conclusions at which he does arrive then fall upon his mind with all the authority of truth. PART V. VIEW OF THE QUALITIES AND ACQUIREMENTS WHICH CONSTITUTE A WELLREGULATED MIND. In concluding this outline of facts regarding the intellectual powers and the investigation of truth, we may take a slight review of what those qualities are which constitute a well-regulated mind, and which ought to be aimed at by those who desire either their own mental culture, or that of others who are under their care. The more important considerations may be briefly recapitulated in the following manner : I. The cultivation of a habit of steady and continuous attention; or of properly directing the mind to any subject which is before it, so as fully to contemplate its elements and relations. This is necessary for the due exercise of every other mental process, and is the foundation of all improvement of character, both intellectual and moral. We shall afterward have occasion to remark, how often sophistical opinions and various distortions of character may be traced to errors in this first act of the mind, or to a misdirection and want of due regulation of the attention. There is, indeed, every reason to believe that the diversities in the power of judging, in different individuals, are much less than we are apt to imagine; and that the remarkable differences observed in the act of judging are rather to be ascribed to the manner in which the mind is previously directed to the facts on which the judgment is after ward to be exercised. It is related of Sir Isaac Newton that when he was questioned respecting the mental qualities which formed the peculiarity of his character, he referred it entirely to the power which he had acquired of continuous attention. II. Nearly connected with the former, and of equal importance, is a careful regulation and control of the succession of our thoughts. This remarkable faculty is very much under the influence of cultivation, and on the power so acquired depends the important habit of regular and connected thinking. It is primarily a voluntary act; and in the exercise of it in different individuals there are the most remarkable differences. In some the thoughts are allowed to wander at large without any regulation, or are devoted only to frivolous and transient objects; while others habitually exercise over them a stern control, directing them to subjects of real importance, and prosecuting these in a regular and connected manner. This important habit gains strength by exercise, and nothing, certainly, has a greater influence in giving tone and consistency to the whole character. It may not, indeed, be going too far to assert that our condition, in the scale both of moral and intellectual beings, is in a great measure determined by the control which we have acquired over the succession of our thoughts, and by the subjects on which they are habitually exercised. The regulation of the thoughts is, therefore, a high concern; in the man who devotes his attention to it as a study of supreme importance, the first great source of astonishment will be the manner in which his thoughts have been occupied in many an hour and many a day that has passed over him. The leading objects to which the thoughts may be directed are referable to three classes. (1.) The ordinary engagements of life, or matters of business, with which every man is occupied in one degree or another; including concerns of domestic arrangement, personal comfort, and necessary recreation. Each of these deserves a certain degree of attention, but this requires to be strictly guided by its real and relative importance; and it is entirely unworthy of a sound and regulated mind to have the attention solely or chiefly occupied with matters of personal comfort, or of trivial importance, calculated merely to afford amusement for the passing hour. (2.) Visions of the imagination built up by the mind itself when it has nothing better to occupy it. The mind cannot be idle, and when it is not occupied by subjects of a useful kind, it will find a resource in those which are frivolous or hurtful,-in mere visions, waking dreams, or fictions, in which the mind wanders from scene to scene, unrestrained by reason, probability, or truth. No habit can be more opposed to a healthy condition of the mental powers; and none ought to be more carefully guarded against by every one who would cultivate the high acquirement of a well-regulated mind. (3.) Entirely opposed to the latter of these modes, and distinct also in a great measure from the former, is the habit of following out a connected chain of thoughts on subjects of importance and of truth, whenever the mind is disengaged from the proper and necessary attention to the ordinary transactions of life. The particular subjects to which the thoughts are directed in cultivating this habit will vary in different individuals; but the consideration of the relative value of them does not belong to our present subject. The purpose of these observations is simply to impress the value of that regulation of the thoughts by which they can always find an occupation of interest and importance distinct from the ordinary transactions of life, or the mere pursuit of frivolous engagements; and also totally distinct from that destructive habit by which the mind is allowed to run to waste amid visions and fictions unworthy of a waking man. |