fond of general principles, every ftudy must be at firft difgufting, which prefents to it a chaos of facts apparently unconnected with each other. But this love of arrangement, if united with perfevering induftry, will at laft conquer every difficulty; will introduce order into what feemed on a fuperficial view, a mafs of confufion, and reduce the dry and uninterefting detail of pofitive ftatutes into a system com. paratively luminous and beautiful.

The obfervation, I believe, may be made more general, and may be applied to every fcience in which there is a great multiplicity of facts to be remembered. A man destitute of genius may, with little ef fort, treasure up in his memory a number of particulars in chemistry or natural hiftory, which he refers to no principle, and from which he deduces no conclufion; and from his facility in acquiring this. ftock of information, may flatter himself with the belief that he poffeffes a natural tafte for these branches of knowledge. But they who are really destined to extend the boundaries of fcience, when they first enter on new purfuits, feel their attention distracted, and their memory overloaded with facts among which they can trace no relation, and are fometimes apt to defpair entirely of their future progrefs. In due time, however, their fuperiority appears, and arifes in part from that very diffatisfaction which they at firft experienced, and which does not cease to ftimulate their inquiries, till they are enabled to trace, amidst a chaos of apparently unconnected materials, that fimplicity and beauty which always characterise the operations of nature.

There are, befides, other circumftances which retard the progrefs of a man of genius, when he enters on a new purfuit, and which fometimes render him apparently inferior to thofe who are poffeffed of

i

ordinary capacity. A want of curiofity,* and of invention, facilitates greatly the acquifition of knowledge. It renders the mind paffive, in receiving the ideas of others, and faves all the time which might be employed in examining their foundation, or in tracing their confequences. They who are poffeffed of much acutenefs and originality, enter with difficulty into the views of others; not from any defect in their power of apprehenfion, but becaufe they cannot adopt opinions which they have not examin ed; and because their attention is often feduced by their own fpeculations.

It is not merely in the acquifition of knowledge that a man of genius is likely to find himself furpaffed by others he has commonly his information much less at command, than those who are poffeffed of an inferior degree of originality; and, what is fomewhat remarkable, he has it leaft of all at command on those fubjects on which he has found his invention moft fertile. Sir Ifaac Newton, as we are told by Dr. Pemberton, was often at a lofs, when the converfation turned on his own difcoveries. It is probable that they made but a flight impreffion on his mind, and that a consciousness of his inventive powers prevented him from taking much pains to treasure them up in his memory. Men of little ingenuity feldom forget the ideas they acquire; becaufe they know that when an occafion occurs for applying their knowledge to, ufe, they must trust to memory and not to invention. Explain an arithmetical rule to a perfon of common understanding, who is unacquainted with the principles of the science; he will foon get the rule by heart, and be

"There are many

* I mean a want of curiosity about truth. "men," says Dr. Butler, "who have a strong curiosity to know "what is said, who have little or no curiosity to know what is "true."

† See Note [T.]

1

come dexterous in the application of it. Another, of more ingenuity, will examine the principle of the rule before he applies it to use, and will scarcely take the trouble to commit to memory a procefs, which he knows he can, at any time, with a little reflection, recover. The confequence will be, that, in the practice of calculation, he will appear more flow and hefitating, than if he followed the received rules of arithmetic without reflection or reasoning.

Something of the fame kind happens every day in converfation. By far the greater part of the opinions we announce in it, are not the immediate refult of reafoning on the spot, but have been previoufly formed in the closet, or perhaps have been adopted implicitly on the authority of others. The promptitude, therefore, with which a man decides in ordinary difcourfe, is not a certain teft of the quicknefs of his apprehenfion ;* as it may perhaps arife from those uncommon efforts to furnish the memory with acquired knowledge, by which men of flow parts endeavor to compenfate for their want of invention; while, on the other hand, it is poffible that a confcioufnefs of originality may give rife to a manner apparently embarraffed, by leading the perfon who feels it, to trust too much to extempore exertions.t

* Memoria facit prompti ingenii famam, ut illa quæ dicimus non domo attulisse, sed ibi protinus sumpsisse videamur. QUINCAIL. Inst. Orat. lib. xi. cap. 2.

In the foregoing observations it is not meant to be implied, that originality of genius is incompatible with a ready recollection of acquired knowledge; but only that it has a tendency unfavorable to it, and that more time and practice will commonly be necessary to familiarise the mind of a man of invention to the ideas of others, or even to the conclusions of his own understanding, than are requisite in ordinary cases. Habits of literary conversation, and, still more, habits of extempore discussion in a popular assem bly, are peculiarly useful in giving us a ready and practical com

In general, I believe it may be laid down as a rule, that those who carry about with them a great degree of acquired information, which they have always at command, or who have rendered their own discoveries fo familiar to them, as always to be in a condition to explain them, without recollection, are very feldom poffeffed of much invention, or even of much quickness of apprehenfion. A man of original genius, who is fond of exercising his reafoning powers anew on every point as it occurs to him, and who cannot fubmit to rehearse the ideas of others, or to repeat by rote the conclufions which he has deduced from previous reflection, often appears, to superficial observers, to fall below the level of ordinary understandings; while another, deftitute both of quickness and invention, is admired for that promptitude in his decifions, which arifes from the inferiority of his intellectual abilities.

It must indeed be acknowledged in favor of the laft description of men, that in ordinary converfation they form the moft agreeable, and perhaps the most instructive, companions. How inexhauftible foever the invention of an individual may be, the variety of his own peculiar ideas can bear no proportion to the whole mafs of ufeful and curious information of which the world is already poffeffed. The converfation, accordingly, of men of genius, is fometimes extremely limited; and is interefting to the few alone, who know the value, and who can diftinguish the marks of originality. In confequence too of that partiality which every man feels for his own speculations, they are more in danger of being dogmatical and difputatious, than those who have no fyftem which they are interefted to defend.

mand of our knowledge. There is much good sense in the following aphorism of Bacon: " Reading makes a full man, writing a "correct man, and speaking a ready man." See a commentary en this aphorism in one of the Numbers of the Adventurer.

The fame obfervations may be applied to authors. A book which contains the difcoveries of one individual only, may be admired by a few, who are intimately acquainted with the hiftory of the fcience to which it relates, but it has little chance for popularity with the multitude. An author who poffeffes industry sufficient to collect the ideas of others, and judgment fufficient to arrange them skilfully, is the most likely perfon to acquire a high degree of literary fame: and although, in the opinion of enlightened judges, invention forms the chief characteristic of genius, yet it commonly happens that the objects of public admiration are men who are much less diftinguished by this quality, than by extenfive learn ing and cultivated tafte. Perhaps too, for the multitude, the latter class of authors is the most useful; as their writings contain the more folid difcoveries which others have brought to light, feparated from thofe errors with which truth is often blended in the firft formation of a fyftem.

CHAPTER SEVENTH.

OF IMAGINATION.

SECTION I.

Analysis of Imagination.

IN attempting to draw the line between Conception and Imagination, I have already obferved, that the province of the former is to prefent us with an exact tranfcript of what we have formerly felt and