Thoughts on Man

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But, as this condition of human society preserves us in
comparative innocence, and renders the social arrangement in the
midst of which we exist, to a certain degree a soothing and
agreeable spectacle, so on the other hand it is not less true
that its immediate tendency is, to clip the wings of the thinking
principle within us, and plunge the members of the community in
which we live into a barren and ungratifying mediocrity. Hence
it should be the aim of those persons, who from their situation
have more or less the means of looking through the vast
assemblage of their countrymen, of penetrating "into the seeds"
of character, and determining "which grain will grow, and which
will not," to apply themselves to the redeeming such as are
worthy of their care from the oblivious gulph into which the mass
of the species is of necessity plunged. It is therefore an ill
saying, when applied in the most rigorous extent, "Let every man
maintain himself, and be his own provider: why should we help
him?"

The help however that we should afford to our fellow-men requires
of us great discernment in its administration. The deceitfulness
of appearances is endless. And nothing can well be at the same
time more lamentable and more ludicrous, than the spectacle of
those persons, the weaver, the thresher, and the mechanic, who by
injudicious patronage are drawn from their proper sphere, only to
exhibit upon a larger stage their imbecility and inanity, to shew
those moderate powers, which in their proper application would
have carried their possessors through life with respect,
distorted into absurdity, and used in the attempt to make us look
upon a dwarf, as if he were one of the Titans who in the
commencement of recorded time astonished the earth.

It is also true to a great degree, that those efforts of the
human mind are most healthful and vigorous, in which the
possessor of talents "administers to himself," and contends with
the different obstacles that arise,

--------throwing them aside,
And stemming them with hearts of controversy.

Many illustrious examples however may be found in the annals of
literature, of patronage judiciously and generously applied,
where men have been raised by the kindness of others from the
obscurest situations, and placed on high, like beacons, to
illuminate the world. And, independently of all examples, a
sound application of the common sense of the human mind would
teach us, that the worthies of the earth, though miracles, are
not omnipotent, and that a certain aid, from those who by counsel
or opulence are enabled to afford it, have oft times produced the
noblest effects, have carried on the generous impulse that works
within us, and prompted us manfully to proceed, when the weakness
of our nature was ready to give in from despair.

But the thing that in this place it was most appropriate to say,
is, that we ought not quietly to affirm, of the man whose mind
nature or education has enriched with extraordinary powers, "Let
him maintain himself, and be his own provider: why should we
help him?" It is a thing deeply to be regretted, that such a man
will frequently be compelled to devote himself to pursuits
comparatively vulgar and inglorious, because he must live. Much
of this is certainly inevitable. But what glorious things might
a man with extraordinary powers effect, were he not hurried
unnumbered miles awry by the unconquerable power of
circumstances? The life of such a man is divided between the
things which his internal monitor strongly prompts him to do, and
those which the external power of nature and circumstances
compels him to submit to. The struggle on the part of his better
self is noble and admirable. The less he gives way, provided he
can accomplish the purpose to which he has vowed himself, the
more he is worthy of the admiration of the world. If, in
consequence of listening too much to the loftier aspirations of
his nature, he fails, it is deeply to be regretted--it is a man
to a certain degree lost--but surely, if his miscarriage be not
caused by undue presumption, or the clouds and unhealthful
atmosphere of self-conceit, he is entitled to the affectionate
sympathy and sorrow of every generous mind.

ESSAY VII.
OF THE DURATION OF HUMAN LIFE.

The active and industrious portion of the human species in
civilised countries, is composed of those who are occupied in the
labour of the hand, and in the labour of the head.

The following remarks expressly apply only to the latter of these
classes, principally to such as are occupied in productive
literature. They may however have their use to all persons a
considerable portion of whose time is employed in study and
contemplation, as, if well founded, they will form no unimportant
chapter in the science of the human mind.

In relation to all the members of the second class then, I should
say, that human life is made up of term and vacation, in other
words, of hours that may be intellectually employed, and of hours
that cannot be so employed.

Human life consists of years, months and days: each day contains
twenty-four hours. Of these hours how many belong to the
province of intellect?

"There is," as Solomon says, "a time for all things." There must
be a time for sleep, a time for recreation, a time for exercise,
a time for supplying the machine with nourishment, and a time for
digestion. When all these demands have been supplied, how many
hours will be left for intellectual occupation?

These remarks, as I have said, are intended principally to apply
to the subject of productive literature. Now, of the hours that
remain when all the necessary demands of human life have been
supplied, it is but a portion, perhaps a small portion, that can
be beneficially, judiciously, employed in productive literature,
or literary composition.

It is true, that there are many men who will occupy eight, ten,
or twelve hours in a day, in the labour of composition. But it
may be doubted whether they are wisely so occupied.

It is the duty of an author, inasmuch as he is an author, to
consider, that he is to employ his pen in putting down that which
shall be fit for other men to read. He is not writing a letter
of business, a letter of amusement, or a letter of sentiment, to
his private friend. He is writing that which shall be perused by
as many men as can be prevailed on to become his readers. If he
is an author of spirit and ambition, he wishes his productions to
be read, not only by the idle, but by the busy, by those who
cannot spare time to peruse them but at the expence of some
occupations which ought not to be suspended without an adequate
occasion. He wishes to be read not only by the frivolous and the
lounger, but by the wise, the elegant, and the fair, by those who
are qualified to appreciate the merit of a work, who are endowed
with a quick sensibility and a discriminating taste, and are able
to pass a sound judgment on its beauties and defects. He
advances his claim to permanent honours, and desires that his
lucubrations should be considered by generations yet unborn.

A person, so occupied, and with such aims, must not attempt to
pass his crudities upon the public. If I may parody a celebrated
aphorism of Quintilian, I would say, "Magna debetur hominibus
reverentia[8]:" in other words, we should carefully examine what
it is that we propose to deliver in a permanent form to the taste
and understanding of our species. An author ought only to commit
to the press the first fruits of his field, his best and choicest
thoughts. He ought not to take up the pen, till he has brought
his mind into a fitting tone, and ought to lay it down, the
instant his intellect becomes in any degree clouded, and his
vital spirits abate of their elasticity.

[8] Mankind is to be considered with reverence.

There are extraordinary cases. A man may have so thoroughly
prepared himself by long meditation and study, he may have his
mind so charged with an abundance of thought, that it may employ
him for ten or twelve hours consecutively, merely to put down or
to unravel the conceptions already matured in his soul. It was
in some such way, that Dryden, we are told, occupied a whole
night, and to a late hour in the next morning, in penning his
Alexander's Feast. But these are the exceptions. In most
instances two or three hours are as much as an author can spend
at a time in delivering the first fruits of his field, his
choicest thoughts, before his intellect becomes in some degree
clouded, and his vital spirits abate of their elasticity.

Nor is this all. He might go on perhaps for some time longer
with a reasonable degree of clearness. But the fertility which
ought to be his boast, is exhausted. He no longer sports in the
meadows of thought, or revels in the exuberance of imagination,
but becomes barren and unsatisfactory. Repose is necessary, and
that the soil should be refreshed with the dews of another
evening, the sleep of a night, and the freshness and revivifying
influence of another morning.

These observations lead, by a natural transition, to the question
of the true estimate and value of human life, considered as the
means of the operations of intellect.

A primary enquiry under this head is as to the duration of life:
Is it long, or short?

The instant this question is proposed, I hear myself replied to
from all quarters: What is there so well known as the brevity of
human life? "Life is but a span." It is "as a tale that is
told." "Man cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down: he
fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not." We are "as a
sleep; or as grass: in the morning it flourisheth, and groweth
up; in the evening it is cut down, and withereth."

The foundation of this sentiment is obvious. Men do not live for
ever. The longest duration of human existence has an end: and
whatever it is of which that may be affirmed, may in some sense
be pronounced to be short. The estimation of our existence
depends upon the point of view from which we behold it. Hope is
one of our greatest enjoyments. Possession is something. But
the past is as nothing. Remorse may give it a certain solidity;
the recollection of a life spent in acts of virtue may be
refreshing. But fruition, and honours, and fame, and even pain,
and privations, and torment, when they ere departed, are but like
a feather; we regard them as of no account. Taken in this sense,
Dryden's celebrated verses are but a maniac's rant:

To-morrow, do thy worst, for I have lived to-day:
Be fair, or foul, or rain, or shine,
The joys I have possessed, in spite of fate are mine.
Not heaven itself upon the past has power,
But what has been has been, and I have had my hour.

But this way of removing the picture of human life to a certain
distance from us, and considering those things which were once in
a high degree interesting as frivolous and unworthy of regard, is
not the way by which we shall arrive at a true and just
estimation of life. Whatever is now past, and is of little
value, was once present: and he who would form a sound judgment,
must look upon every part of our lives as present in its turn,
and not suffer his opinion to be warped by the consideration of
the nearness or remoteness of the object he contemplates.

One sentence, which has grown into a maxim for ever repeated, is
remarkable for the grossest fallacy: Ars longa, vita brevis[9].
I would fain know, what art, compared with the natural duration
of human life from puberty to old age, is long.

[9] Art is long; life is short.

If it is intended to say, that no one man can be expected to
master all possible arts, or all arts that have at one time or
another been the subject of human industry, this indeed is true.
But the cause of this does not lie in the limited duration of
human life, but in the nature of the faculties of the mind.
Human understanding and human industry cannot embrace every
thing. When we take hold of one thing, we must let go another.
Science and art, if we would pursue them to the furthest extent
of which we are capable, must be pursued without interruption.
It would therefore be more to the purpose to say, Man cannot be
for ever young. In the stream of human existence, different
things have their appropriate period. The knowledge of languages
can perhaps be most effectually acquired in the season of nonage.

At riper years one man devotes himself to one science or art, and
another man to another. This man is a mathematician; a second
studies music; a third painting. This man is a logician; and
that man an orator. The same person cannot be expected to excel
in the abstruseness of metaphysical science, and in the ravishing
effusions of poetical genius. When a man, who has arrived at
great excellence in one department of art or science, would
engage himself in another, he will be apt to find the freshness
of his mind gone, and his faculties no longer distinguished by
the same degree of tenacity and vigour that they formerly
displayed. It is with the organs of the brain, as it is with the
organs of speech, in the latter of which we find the tender
fibres of the child easily accommodating themselves to the
minuter inflections and variations of sound, which the more rigid
muscles of the adult will for the most part attempt in vain.

If again, by the maxim, Ars longa, vita brevis, it is intended to
signify, that we cannot in any art arrive at perfection; that in
reality all the progress we can make is insignificant; and that,
as St. Paul says, we must "not count ourselves to have already
attained; but that, forgetting the things that are behind, it
becomes us to press forward to the prize of our calling,"--this
also is true. But this is only ascribable to the limitation of
our faculties, and that even the shadow of perfection which man
is capable to reach, can only be attained by the labour of
successive generations. The cause does not lie in the shortness
of human life, unless we would include in its protracted duration
the privilege of being for ever young; to which we ought perhaps
to add, that our activity should never be exhausted, the
freshness of our minds never abate, and our faculties for ever
retain the same degree of tenacity and vigour, as they had in the
morning of life, when every thing was new, when all that allured
or delighted us was seen accompanied with charms inexpressible,
and, as Dryden expresses it[10], "the first sprightly running" of
the wine of life afforded a zest never after to be hoped for.

[10] Aurengzebe.

I return then to the consideration of the alleged shortness of
life. I mentioned in the beginning of this Essay, that "human
life consists of years, months and days; each day containing
twenty-four hours." But, when I said this, I by no means carried
on the division so far as it might be carried. It has been
calculated that the human mind is capable of being impressed with
three hundred and twenty sensations in a second of time.[11]

[11] See Watson on Time, Chapter II.

"How infinitely rapid is the succession of thought! While I am
speaking, perhaps no two ideas are in my mind at the same time,
and yet with what facility do I slide from one to another! If my
discourse be argumentative, how often do I pass in review the
topics of which it consists, before I utter them; and, even while
I am speaking, continue the review at intervals, without
producing any pause in my discourse! How many other sensations
are experienced by me during this period, without so much as
interrupting, that is, without materially diverting, the train of
my ideas! My eye successively remarks a thousand objects that
present themselves. My mind wanders to the different parts of my
body, and receives a sensation from the chair on which I sit, or
the table on which I lean. It reverts to a variety of things
that occurred in the course of the morning, in the course of
yesterday, the most remote from, the most unconnected with, the
subject that might seem wholly to engross me. I see the window,
the opening of a door, the snuffing of a candle. When these most
perceptibly occur, my mind passes from one to the other, without
feeling the minutest obstacle, or being in any degree distracted
by their multiplicity[12]."

[12] Political Justice, Book IV, Chapter ix.

If this statement should appear to some persons too subtle, it
may however prepare us to form a due estimate of the following
remarks.

"Art is long." No, certainly, no art is long, compared with the
natural duration of human life from puberty to old age. There is
perhaps no art that may not with reasonable diligence be acquired
in three years, that is, as to its essential members and its
skilful exercise. We may improve afterwards, but it will be only
in minute particulars, and only by fits. Our subsequent
advancement less depends upon the continuance of our application,
than upon the improvement of the mind generally, the refining of
our taste, the strengthening our judgment, and the accumulation
of our experience.

The idea which prevails among the vulgar of mankind is, that we
must make haste to be wise. The erroneousness of this notion
however has from time to time been detected by moralists and
philosophers; and it has been felt that he who proceeds in a
hurry towards the goal, exposes himself to the imminent risk of
never reaching it.

The consciousness of this danger has led to the adoption of the
modified maxim, Festina lente, Hasten, but with steps deliberate
and cautious.

It would however be a more correct advice to the aspirant, to
say, Be earnest in your application, but let your march be
vigilant and slow.

There is a doggrel couplet which I have met with in a book on
elocution:

Learn to speak slow: all other graces
Will follow in their proper places.

I could wish to recommend a similar process to the student in the
course of his reading.

Toplady, a celebrated methodist preacher of the last age,
somewhere relates a story of a coxcomb, who told him that he had
read over Euclid's Elements of Geometry one afternoon at his tea,
only leaving out the A's and B's and crooked lines, which seemed
to be intruded merely to retard his progress.

Nothing is more easy than to gabble through a work replete with
the profoundest elements of thinking, and to carry away almost
nothing, when we have finished.

The book does not deserve even to be read, which does not impose
on us the duty of frequent pauses, much reflecting and inward
debate, or require that we should often go back, compare one
observation and statement with another, and does not call upon us
to combine and knit together the disjecta membra.

It is an observation which has often been repeated, that, when we
come to read an excellent author a second and a third time, we
find in him a multitude of things, that we did not in the
slightest degree perceive in a first reading. A careful first
reading would have a tendency in a considerable degree to
anticipate this following crop.

Nothing is more certain than that a schoolboy gathers much of his
most valuable instruction when his lesson is not absolutely
before him. In the same sense the more mature student will
receive most important benefit, when he shuts his book, and goes
forth in the field, and ruminates on what he has read. It is
with the intellectual, as with the corporeal eye: we must retire
to a certain distance from the object we would examine, before we
can truly take in the whole. We must view it in every direction,
"survey it," as Sterne says, "transversely, then foreright, then
this way, and then that, in all its possible directions and
foreshortenings[13];" and thus only can it be expected that we
should adequately comprehend it.

[13] Tristram Shandy, Vol. IV, Chap. ii.

But the thing it was principally in my purpose to say is, that it
is one of the great desiderata of human life, not to accomplish
our purposes in the briefest time, to consider "life as short,
and art as long," and therefore to master our ends in the
smallest number of days or of years, but rather to consider it as
an ample field that is spread before us, and to examine how it is
to be filled with pleasure, with advantage, and with usefulness.
Life is like a lordly garden, which it calls forth all the skill
of the artist to adorn with exhaustless variety and beauty; or
like a spacious park or pleasure-ground, all of whose
inequalities are to be embellished, and whose various capacities
of fertilisation, sublimity or grace, are to be turned to
account, so that we may wander in it for ever, and never be
wearied.

We shall perhaps understand this best, if we take up the subject
on a limited scale, and, before we consider life in its assigned
period of seventy years, first confine our attention to the space
of a single day. And we will consider that day, not as it
relates to the man who earns his subsistence by the labour of his
hands, or to him who is immersed in the endless details of
commerce. But we will take the case of the man, the whole of
whose day is to be disposed of at his own discretion.

The attention of the curious observer has often been called to
the tediousness of existence, how our time hangs upon our hands,
and in how high estimation the art is held, of giving wings to
our hours, and making them pass rapidly and cheerfully away. And
moralists of a cynical disposition have poured forth many a
sorrowful ditty upon the inconsistency of man, who complains of
the shortness of life, at the same time that he is put to the
greatest straits how to give an agreeable and pleasant occupation
to its separate portions. "Let us hear no more," say these
moralists, "of the transitoriness of human existence, from men to
whom life is a burthen, and who are willing to assign a reward to
him that shall suggest to them an occupation or an amusement
untried before."

But this inconsistency, if it merits the name, is not an affair
of artificial and supersubtle refinement, but is based in the
fundamental principles of our nature. It is unavoidable that,
when we have reached the close of any great epoch of our
existence, and still more when we have arrived at its final term,
we should regret its transitory nature, and lament that we have
made no more effectual use of it. And yet the periods and
portions of the stream of time, as they pass by us, will often be
felt by us as insufferably slow in their progress, and we would
give no inconsiderable sum to procure that the present section of
our lives might come to an end, and that we might turn over a new
leaf in the volume of existence.

I have heard various men profess that they never knew the minutes
that hung upon their hands, and were totally unacquainted with
what, borrowing a term from the French language, we call ennui.
I own I have listened to these persons with a certain degree of
incredulity, always excepting such as earn their subsistence by
constant labour, or as, being placed in a situation of active
engagement, have not the leisure to feel apathy and disgust.

But we are talking here of that numerous class of human beings,
who are their own masters, and spend every hour of the day at the
choice of their discretion. To these we may add the persons who
are partially so, and who, having occupied three or four hours of
every day in discharge of some function necessarily imposed on
them, at the striking of a given hour go out of school, and
employ themselves in a certain industry or sport purely of their
own election.

To go back then to the consideration of the single day of a man,
all of whose hours are at his disposal to spend them well or ill,
at the bidding of his own judgment, or the impulse of his own
caprice.

We will suppose that, when he rises from his bed, he has sixteen
hours before him, to be employed in whatever mode his will shall
decide. I bar the case of travelling, or any of those schemes
for passing the day, which by their very nature take the election
out of his hands, and fill up his time with a perpetual motion,
the nature of which is ascertained from the beginning.

With such a man then it is in the first place indispensibly
necessary, that he should have various successive occupations.
There is no one study or intellectual enquiry to which a man can
apply sixteen hours consecutively, unless in some extraordinary
instances which can occur but seldom in the course of a life.
And even then the attention will from time to time relax, and the
freshness of mental zeal and activity give way, though perhaps,
after the lapse of a few minutes they may be revived and brought
into action again.

In the ordinary series of human existence it is desirable that,
in the course of the same day, a man should have various
successive occupations. I myself for the most part read in one
language at one part of the day, and in another at another. I am
then in the best health and tone of spirits, when I employ two or
three hours, and no more, in the act of writing and composition.
There must also in the sixteen hours be a time for meals. There
should be a time for fresh air and bodily exercise. It is in the
nature of man, that we should spend a part of every day in the
society of our fellows, either at public spectacles and places of
concourse, or in the familiar interchange of conversation with
one, two, or more persons with whom we can give ourselves up to
unrestrained communication. All human life, as I have said,
every day of our existence, consists of term and vacation; and
the perfection of practical wisdom is to interpose these one with
another, so as to produce a perpetual change, a well-chosen
relief, and a freshness and elastic tone which may bid defiance
to weariness.

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