Thoughts on Man
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Taken then in this point of view, what an empire does the man of
leisure possess in each single day of his life! He disposes of
his hours much in the same manner, as the commander of a company
of men whom it is his business to train in the discipline of war.
This officer directs one party of his men to climb a mountain,
and another to ford or swim a stream which rushes along the
valley. He orders this set to rush forward with headlong course,
and the other to wheel, and approach by circuitous progress
perhaps to the very same point. He marches them to the right and
the left. He then dismisses them from the scene of exercise, to
furbish their arms, to attend to their accoutrements, or to
partake of necessary refection. Not inferior to this is the
authority of the man of leisure in disposing of the hours of one
single day of his existence. And human life consists of many
such days, there being three hundred and sixty-five in each year
that we live.
How infinitely various may be the occupations of the life of man
from puberty to old age! We may acquire languages; we may devote
ourselves to arts; we may give ourselves up to the profoundness
of science. Nor is any one of these objects incompatible with
the others, nor is there any reason why the same man should not
embrace many. We may devote one portion of the year to
travelling, and another to all the abstractions of study. I
remember when I was a boy, looking forward with terror to the
ample field of human life, and saying, When I have read through
all the books that have been written, what shall I do afterwards?
And there is infinitely more sense in this, than in the ludicrous
exclamations of men who complain of the want of time, and say
that life affords them no space in which to act their imaginings.
On the contrary, when a man has got to the end of one art or
course of study, he is compelled to consider what he shall do
next. And, when we have gone through a cycle of as many
acquisitions, as, from the limitation of human faculties, are not
destructive of each other, we shall find ourselves frequently
reduced to the beginning some of them over again. Nor is this
the least agreeable occupation of human leisure. The book that I
read when I was a boy, presents quite a new face to me as I
advance in the vale of years. The same words and phrases suggest
to me a new train of ideas. And it is no mean pleasure that I
derive from the singular sensation of finding the same author and
the same book, old and yet not old, presenting to me cherished
and inestimable recollections, and at the same time communicating
mines of wealth, the shaft of which was till now unexplored.
The result then of these various observations is to persuade the
candid and ingenuous man, to consider life as an important and
ample possession, to resolve that it shall he administered with
as much judgment and deliberation as a person of true
philanthropy and wisdom would administer a splendid income, and
upon no occasion so much to think upon the point of in how short
a time an interesting pursuit is to be accomplished, as by what
means it shall be accomplished in a consummate and masterly
style. Let us hear no more, from those who have to a
considerable degree the command of their hours, the querulous and
pitiful complaint that they have no time to do what they ought to
do and would wish to do; but let them feel that they have a
gigantic store of minutes and hours and days and months,
abundantly sufficient to enable them to effect what it is
especially worthy of a noble mind to perform!
ESSAY VIII.
OF HUMAN VEGETATION.
There is another point of view from which we may look at the
subject of time as it is concerned with the business of human
life, that will lead us to conclusions of a very different sort
from those which are set down in the preceding Essay.
Man has two states of existence in a striking degree
distinguished from each other: the state in which he is found
during his waking hours; and the state in which he is during
sleep.
The question has been agitated by Locke and other philosophers,
"whether the soul always thinks," in other words, whether the
mind, during those hours in which our limbs lie for the most part
in a state of inactivity, is or is not engaged by a perpetual
succession of images and impressions. This is a point that can
perhaps never be settled. When the empire of sleep ceases, or
when we are roused from sleep, we are often conscious that we
have been to that moment busily employed with that sort of
conceptions and scenes which we call dreams. And at times when,
on waking, we have no such consciousness, we can never perhaps be
sure that the shock that waked us, had not the effect of driving
away these fugitive and unsubstantial images. There are men who
are accustomed to say, they never dream. If in reality the mind
of man, from the hour of his birth, must by the law of its nature
be constantly occupied with sensations or images (and of the
contrary we can never be sure), then these men are all their
lives in the state of persons, upon whom the shock that wakes
them, has the effect of driving away such fugitive and
unsubstantial images.--Add to which, there may be sensations in
the human subject, of a species confused and unpronounced, which
never arrive at that degree of distinctness as to take the shape
of what we call dreaming.
So much for man in the state of sleep.
But during our waking hours, our minds are very differently
occupied at different periods of the day. I would particularly
distinguish the two dissimilar states of the waking man, when the
mind is indolent, and when it is on the alert.
While I am writing this Essay, my mind may be said to be on the
alert. It is on the alert, so long as I am attentively reading a
book of philosophy, of argumentation, of eloquence, or of poetry.
It is on the alert, so long as I am addressing a smaller or a
greater audience, and endeavouring either to amuse or instruct
them. It is on the alert, while in silence and solitude I
endeavour to follow a train of reasoning, to marshal and arrange
a connected set of ideas, or in any other way to improve my mind,
to purify my conceptions, and to advance myself in any of the
thousand kinds of intellectual process. It is on the alert, when
I am engaged in animated conversation, whether my cue be to take
a part in the reciprocation of alternate facts and remarks in
society, or merely to sit an attentive listener to the facts and
remarks of others.
This state of the human mind may emphatically be called the state
of activity and attention.
So long as I am engaged in any of the ways here enumerated, or in
any other equally stirring mental occupations which are not here
set down, my mind is in a frame of activity.
But there is another state in which men pass their minutes and
hours, that is strongly contrasted with this. It depends in some
men upon constitution, and in others upon accident, how their
time shall be divided, how much shall be given to the state of
activity, and how much to the state of indolence.
In an Essay I published many years ago there is this passage.
"The chief point of difference between the man of talent and the
man without, consists in the different ways in which their minds
are employed during the same interval. They are obliged, let us
suppose, to walk from Temple-Bar to Hyde-Park-Corner. The dull
man goes straight forward; he has so many furlongs to traverse.
He observes if he meets any of his acquaintance; he enquires
respecting their health and their family. He glances perhaps the
shops as he passes; he admires the fashion of a buckle, and the
metal of a tea-urn. If he experiences any flights of fancy, they
are of a short extent; of the same nature as the flights of a
forest-bird, clipped of his wings, and condemned to pass the rest
of his life in a farm-yard. On the other hand the man of talent
gives full scope to his imagination. He laughs and cries.
Unindebted to the suggestions of surrounding objects, his whole
soul is employed. He enters into nice calculations; he digests
sagacious reasonings. In imagination he declaims or describes,
impressed with the deepest sympathy, or elevated to the loftiest
rapture. He makes a thousand new and admirable combinations. He
passes through a thousand imaginary scenes, tries his courage,
tasks his ingenuity, and thus becomes gradually prepared to meet
almost any of the many-coloured events of human life. He
consults by the aid of memory the books he has read, and projects
others for the future instruction and delight of mankind. If he
observe the passengers, he reads their countenances, conjectures
their past history, and forms a superficial notion of their
wisdom or folly, their virtue or vice, their satisfaction or
misery. If he observe the scenes that occur, it is with the eye
of a connoisseur or an artist. Every object is capable of
suggesting to him a volume of reflections. The time of these two
persons in one respect resembles; it has brought them both to
Hyde-Park-Corner. In almost every other respect it is
dissimilar;[14]."
[14] Enquirer, Part 1, Essay V.
This passage undoubtedly contains a true description of what may
happen, and has happened.
But there lurks in this statement a considerable error.
It has appeared in the second Essay of this volume, that there is
not that broad and strong line of distinction between the wise
man and the dull that has often been supposed. We are all of us
by turns both the one and the other. Or, at least, the wisest
man that ever existed spends a portion of his time in vacancy and
dulness; and the man, whose faculties are seemingly the most
obtuse, might, under proper management from the hour of his
birth, barring those rare exceptions from the ordinary standard
of mind which do not deserve to be taken into the account, have
proved apt, adroit, intelligent and acute, in the walk for which
his organisation especially fitted him[15].
[15] See above, Essay 3.
Many men without question, in a walk of the same duration as that
above described between Temple-Bar and Hyde-Park-Corner, have
passed their time in as much activity, and amidst as strong and
various excitements, as those enumerated in the passage above
quoted.
But the lives of all men, the wise, and those whom by way of
contrast we are accustomed to call the dull, are divided between
animation and comparative vacancy; and many a man, who by the
bursts of his genius has astonished the world, and commanded the
veneration of successive ages, has spent a period of time equal
to that occupied by a walk from Temple-Bar to Hyde-Park-Corner,
in a state of mind as idle, and as little affording materials for
recollection, as the dullest man that ever breathed the vital
air.
The two states of man which are here attempted to be
distinguished, are, first, that in which reason is said to fill
her throne, in which will prevails, and directs the powers of
mind or of bodily action in one channel or another; and,
secondly, that in which these faculties, tired of for ever
exercising their prerogatives, or, being awakened as it were from
sleep, and having not yet assumed them, abandon the helm, even as
a mariner might be supposed to do, in a wide sea, and in a time
when no disaster could be apprehended, and leave the vessel of
the mind to drift, exactly as chance might direct.
To describe this last state of mind I know not a better term that
can be chosen, than that of reverie. It is of the nature of what
I have seen denominated BROWN STUDY[16] a species of dozing and
drowsiness, in which all men spend a portion of the waking part
of every day of their lives. Every man must be conscious of
passing minutes, perhaps hours of the day, particularly when
engaged in exercise in the open air, in this species of
neutrality and eviration. It is often not unpleasant at the
time, and leaves no sinking of the spirits behind. It is
probably of a salutary nature, and may be among the means, in a
certain degree beneficial like sleep, by which the machine is
restored, and the man comes forth from its discipline
reinvigorated, and afresh capable of his active duties.
[16] Norris, and Johnson, Dictionary of the English Language.
This condition of our nature has considerably less vitality in
it, than we experience in a complete and perfect dream. In
dreaming we are often conscious of lively impressions, of a busy
scene, and of objects and feelings succeeding each other with
rapidity. We sometimes imagine ourselves earnestly speaking:
and the topics we treat, and the words we employ, are supplied to
us with extraordinary fluency. But the sort of vacancy and
inoccupation of which I here treat, has a greater resemblance to
the state of mind, without distinct and clearly unfolded ideas,
which we experience before we sink into sleep. The mind is in
reality in a condition, more properly accessible to feeling and
capable of thought, than actually in the exercise of either the
one or the other. We are conscious of existence and of little
more. We move our legs, and continue in a peripatetic state; for
the man who has gone out of his house with a purpose to walk,
exercises the power of volition when he sets out, but proceeds in
his motion by a semi-voluntary act, by a sort of vis inertiae,
which will not cease to operate without an express reason for
doing so, and advances a thousand steps without distinctly
willing any but the first. When it is necessary to turn to the
right or the left, or to choose between any two directions on
which he is called upon to decide, his mind is so far brought
into action as the case may expressly require, and no further.
I have here instanced in the case of the peripatetic: but of how
many classes and occupations of human life may not the same thing
be affirmed? It happens to the equestrian, as well as to him
that walks on foot. It occurs to him who cultivates the fruits
of the earth, and to him who is occupied in any of the thousand
manufactures which are the result of human ingenuity. It happens
to the soldier in his march, and to the mariner on board his
vessel. It attends the individuals of the female sex through all
their diversified modes of industry, the laundress, the
housemaid, the sempstress, the netter of purses, the knotter of
fringe, and the worker in tambour, tapestry and embroidery. In
all, the limbs or the fingers are employed mechanically; the
attention of the mind is only required at intervals; and the
thoughts remain for the most part in a state of non-excitation
and repose.
It is a curious question, but extremely difficult of solution,
what portion of the day of every human creature must necessarily
be spent in this sort of intellectual indolence. In the lower
classes of society its empire is certainly very great; its
influence is extensive over a large portion of the opulent and
luxurious; it is least among those who are intrusted in the more
serious affairs of mankind, and among the literary and the
learned, those who waste their lives, and consume the
midnight-oil, in the search after knowledge.
It appeared with sufficient clearness in the immediately
preceding Essay, that the intellect cannot be always on the
stretch, nor the bow of the mind for ever bent. In the act of
composition, unless where the province is of a very inferior
kind, it is likely that not more than two or three hours at a
time can be advantageously occupied. But in literary labour it
will often occur, that, in addition to the hours expressly
engaged in composition, much time may be required for the
collecting materials, the collating of authorities, and the
bringing together a variety of particulars, so as to sift from
the mass those circumstances which may best conduce to the
purpose of the writer. In all these preliminary and inferior
enquiries it is less necessary that the mind should be
perpetually awake and on the alert, than in the direct office of
composition. The situation is considerably similar of the
experimental philosopher, the man who by obstinate and
unconquerable application resolves to wrest from nature her
secrets, and apply them to the improvement of social life, or to
the giving to the human mind a wider range or a more elevated
sphere. A great portion of this employment consists more in the
motion of the hands and the opportune glance of the eye, than in
the labour of the head, and allows to the operator from time to
time an interval of rest from the momentous efforts of invention
and discovery, and the careful deduction of consequences in the
points to be elucidated.
There is a distinction, sufficiently familiar to all persons who
occupy a portion of their time in reading, that is made between
books of instruction, and books of amusement. From the student
of mathematics or any of the higher departments of science, from
the reader of books of investigation and argument, an active
attention is demanded. Even in the perusal of the history of
kingdoms and nations, or of certain memorable periods of public
affairs, we can scarcely proceed with any satisfaction, unless in
so far as we collect our thoughts, compare one part of the
narrative with another, and hold the mind in a state of activity.
We are obliged to reason while we read, and in some degree to
construct a discourse of our own, at the same time that we follow
the statements of the author before us. Unless we do this, the
sense and spirit of what we read will be apt to slip from under
our observation, and we shall by and by discover that we are
putting together words and sounds only, when we purposed to store
our minds with facts and reflections. We apprehended not the
sense of the writer even when his pages were under our eye, and
of consequence have nothing laid up in the memory after the hour
of reading is completed.
In works of amusement it is otherwise, and most especially in
writings of fiction. These are sought after with avidity by the
idle, because for the most part they are found to have the virtue
of communicating impressions to the reader, even while his mind
remains in a state of passiveness. He finds himself agreeably
affected with fits of mirth or of sorrow, and carries away the
facts of the tale, at the same time that he is not called upon
for the act of attention. This is therefore one of the modes of
luxury especially cultivated in a highly civilized state of
society.
The same considerations will also explain to us the principal
part of the pleasure that is experienced by mankind in all states
of society from public shews and exhibitions. The spectator is
not called upon to exert himself; the amusement and pleasure come
to him, while he remains voluptuously at his ease; and it is
certain that the exertion we make when we are compelled to
contribute to, and become in part the cause of our own
entertainment, is more than the human mind is willing to sustain,
except at seasons in which we are specially on the alert and
awake.
This is further one of the causes why men in general feel
prompted to seek the society of their fellows. We are in part no
doubt called upon in select society to bring our own information
along with us, and a certain vein of wit, humour or narrative,
that we may contribute our proportion to the general stock. We
read the newspapers, the newest publications, and repair to
places of fashionable amusement and resort; partly that we may at
least be upon a par with the majority of the persons we are
likely to meet. But many do not thus prepare themselves, nor
does perhaps any one upon all occasions.
There is another state of human existence in which we expressly
dismiss from our hands the reins of the mind, and suffer our
minutes and our hours to glide by us undisciplined and at random.
This is, generally speaking, the case in a period of sickness.
We have no longer the courage to be on the alert, and to
superintend the march of our thoughts. It is the same with us
for the most part when at any time we lie awake in our beds. To
speak from my own experience, I am in a restless and uneasy state
while I am alone in my sitting-room, unless I have some
occupation of my own choice, writing or reading, or any of those
employments the pursuit of which was chosen at first, and which
is more or less under the direction of the will afterwards. But
when awake in my bed, either in health or sickness, I am
reasonably content to let my thoughts flow on agreeably to those
laws of association by which I find them directed, without giving
myself the trouble to direct them into one channel rather than
another, or to marshal and actively to prescribe the various
turns and mutations they may be impelled to pursue.
It is thus that we are sick; and it is thus that we die. The man
that guides the operations of his own mind, is either to a
certain degree in bodily health, or in that health of mind which
shall for a longer or shorter time stand forward as the
substitute of the health of the body. When we die, we give up
the game, and are not disposed to contend any further. It is a
very usual thing to talk of the struggles of a man in articulo
mortis. But this is probably, like so many other things that
occur to us in this sublunary stage, a delusion. The bystander
mistakes for a spontaneous contention and unwillingness to die,
what is in reality nothing more than an involuntary contraction
and convulsion of the nerves, to which the mind is no party, and
is even very probably unconscious.--But enough of this, the final
and most humiliating state through which mortal men may be called
on to pass.
I find then in the history of almost every human creature four
different states or modes of existence. First, there is sleep.
In the strongest degree of contrast to this there is the frame in
which we find ourselves, when we write! or invent and steadily
pursue a consecutive train of thinking unattended with the
implements of writing, or read in some book of science or
otherwise which calls upon us for a fixed attention, or address
ourselves to a smaller or greater audience, or are engaged in
animated conversation. In each of these occupations the mind may
emphatically be said to be on the alert.
But there are further two distinct states or kinds of mental
indolence. The first is that which we frequently experience
during a walk or any other species of bodily exercise, where,
when the whole is at an end, we scarcely recollect any thing in
which the mind has been employed, but have been in what I may
call a healthful torpor, where our limbs have been sufficiently
in action to continue our exercise, we have felt the fresh breeze
playing on our cheeks, and have been in other respects in a frame
of no unpleasing neutrality. This may be supposed greatly to
contribute to our bodily health. It is the holiday of the
faculties: and, as the bow, when it has been for a considerable
time unbent, is said to recover its elasticity, so the mind,
after a holiday of this sort, comes fresh, and with an increased
alacrity, to those occupations which advance man most highly in
the scale of being.
But there is a second state of mental indolence, not so complete
as this, but which is still indolence, inasmuch as in it the mind
is passive, and does not assume the reins of empire. Such is the
state in which we are during our sleepless hours in bed; and in
this state our ideas, and the topics that successively occur,
appear to go forward without remission, while it seems that it is
this busy condition of the mind, and the involuntary activity of
our thoughts, that prevent us from sleeping.
The distinction then between these two sorts of indolence is,
that in the latter our ideas are perfectly distinct, are attended
with consciousness, and can, as we please, be called up to
recollection. This therefore is not what we understand by
reverie. In these waking hours which are spent by us in bed, the
mind is no less busy, than it is in sleep during a dream. The
other and more perfect sort of mental indolence, is that which we
often experience during our exercise in the open air. This is of
the same nature as the condition of thought which seems to be the
necessary precursor of sleep, and is attended with no precise
consciousness.
By the whole of the above statement we are led to a new and a
modified estimate of the duration of human life.
If by life we understand mere susceptibility, a state of
existence in which we are accessible at any moment to the onset
of sensation, for example, of pain--in this sense our life is
commensurate, or nearly commensurate, to the entire period, from
the quickening of the child in the womb, to the minute at which
sense deserts the dying man, and his body becomes an inanimate
mass.
But life, in the emphatical sense, and par excellence, is reduced
to much narrower limits. From this species of life it is
unavoidable that we should strike off the whole of the interval
that is spent in sleep; and thus, as a general rule, the natural
day of twenty-four hours is immediately reduced to sixteen.
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