MISCELLANEOUS. READING. CRAFTY men contemn studies, simple men admire them, and wise men use them. Read not to contradict or confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and consider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Reading maketh a full man, conference a ready man, and writing an exact man; and, therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a present wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to seem to know that he doth not. Bacon. If I were to pray for a taste which should stand by me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me through life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss, and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading. I speak of it of course only as a worldly advantage, and not in the slightest degree derogating from the higher office, and sure and stronger panoply of religious principles, but as a taste, an instrument, a source of pleasurable gratification. Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man, unless, indeed, you put into his hand a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history; with the wisest, the wittiest, with the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him. It is hardly possible but that the character should take a higher and a better tone from the habit of associating in thought with a class of thinkers, to say the least of it, above the average of humanity. It is morally impossible but that the manners should take a tinge of good breeding and civilisation from having constantly before our eyes the way in which the best bred and best informed men have talked and conducted themselves in their intercourse with each other. There is a gentle but perfectly irresistible coercion, in a habit of reading well directed, over the whole tenor of a man's character and conduct, which is not the less effectual, because it works insensibly, and because it is really the last thing he dreams of. It civilises the conduct of men, and suffers them not to remain barbarous. Herschel. DIFFUSION OF KNOWLEDGE. IN looking at our age, I am struck, immediately with one commanding characteristic, and that is, the tendency in all its movements to expansion, to diffusion, to universality. To this, I ask your attention. This tendency is directly opposed to the spirit of exclusiveness, restriction, narrowness, monopoly, which has prevailed in past ages... Human action is now freer, more unconfined. All goods, advantages, helps, are more open to all. The privileged petted individual is becoming less, and the human race are becoming more. The multitude is rising from the dust. Once we head of the few, now of the many; once of the prerogatives of a part, now of the rights of all ...We are looking, as never before, through the disguises, envelopments of ranks and classes, to the common nature which is below them; and are beginning to learn that every being who partakes of it, has noble powers to cultivate, solemn duties to perform, inalienable rights to assert, a vast destiny to accomplish. The grand idea of humanity, of the importance of man as man, is spreading silently, but surely. Not that the worth of the human being is at all understood as it should be; but the truth is glimmering through the darkness. A faint consciousness of it has seized on the public mind. Even the most abject portions of society are visited by some dreams of a better condition, for which they were designed... The grand doctrine that every human being should have the means of self-culture, of progress in knowledge and virtue, of health, comfort, and happiness, of exercising the powers and affections of a man; this is slowly taking its place, as the highest social truth ... That the world was made for all, and not for a few; that society is to care for all; that no human being shall perish but through his own fault; that the great end of government is to spread a shield over the rights of all; these propositions are growing into axioms, and the spirit of them is coming forth in all the departments of life. If we look at the various movements of our age, we shall see in them this tendency to universality and diffusion. Look, first, at science and literature. Where is science now? Locked up in a few colleges, or royal societies, or inaccessible volumes? Are its experiments mysteries for a few privileged eyes? Are its portals guided by a dark phraseology, which, to the multitude, is a foreign tongue?... No; science has now left her retreats, her shades, her selected company of votaries, and with familiar tone begun the work of instructing the race. Through the press, discoveries and theories, once the monopoly of philosophers, have become the property of the multitude... Its professors, heard, not long ago, in the university or some narrow school, now speak in the Mechanics' Institute. The doctrine that the laborer should understand the principles of his art, should be able to explain the laws and processes which he turns to account; that instead of working as a machine, he should join intelligence to his toil, is no longer listened to as a dream... Science, one of the greatest of distinctions, is becoming popular. A lady gives us conversations on chemistry, revealing to the minds of our youth the laws of nature, which, fifty years ago, had not dawned on the greatest minds... The school-books of our children contain grand views of the creation. There are parts of our country in which Institutes spring up in almost every village, for the purpose of mutual aid in the study of natural science. The characteristic of our age, then, is not the improvement of science, rapid as this is, so much as its extension to all men. ... The same characteristic will appear, if we inquire into the use now made of science. Is it simply a matter of speculation? a topic of discourse? an employment of the intellect? In this case, the multitude, with all their means of instruction, would find in it only a hurried gratification But one of the distinctions of our time is, that science has passed from speculation into life. Indeed it is not pursued enough for its intellectual and contemplative uses. It is sought as a mighty power, by which nature is not only to be opened to thought, but to be subjected to our needs. It is conferring on us that dominior over earth, sea, and air, which was prophesied in the first command given to man by his Maker; and this dominion is now employed, not to exalt a few, but to multiply the comforts and ornaments of life for the multitude of men ... Science has become an inexhaustible mechanician; and by her forges, and mills, and steam cars, and printers' presses, is bestowing on millions not only comforts, but luxuries which were once the distinction of a few. Another illustration of the tendency of science to expansion |