Idaho semi-weekly world. [volume] (Idaho City, Idaho Territory) 1875-1908, 1888-11-30
MENTAL LAX1EESS.
1t is Most Acute In People of Extra
ordinary Ability.
London Spectator.

lishmen, apart always from limited
class of experienced and observant
teachers, are at all aware of the ex-
tent to which many men and more
women are swayed by what is really
nothing but mental laziness. Num-
bers of them positively will not apply |
their minds at all, preferring any
consequences which may result from
ignorance, and emerge from school as
ignorant as fishes; while still larger
classes, possibly even majority, be-
tray the same impulse as regards par
ticular subjects. Men are constantly
heard to affirm in confidential mo-
ments that they literally cannot
acquire this or that ordinary branch
of knowledge, while they do learn at
the very same time things much more
difficult, and requiring precisely the
same kind of mental capacities. Hun
dreds OF men will profess positive in
? ability to learn the comnonest facts
relating to any science but their own,
even when their own is kindred to
the one discussed; while thousands
, of women will calculate accurately all
; the measurements necessary for
, dress, really difficult process If &C
curacy is to be attained, and then de-
, clare unblushingly that they cannot,
e no, they can moi understand rule-of-
: three, or calculate Mr.. Goschen's IN
4 terest in their own fortunes. Half
: the men IN the world who are not
sensitive to music think it an impos-
q sibility for them to learn to read
r musical notation; and we have heard
a man, not without power of reason
ing, and with special aptitude for
mental arithmetic, declare that a
thousand years of tuition would not
u enable him to comprehend a quad
. ratio equation. Indeed, it is one oil
u the phenomena of mental laziness
" that it often reveals itself in its
u acutest form in the naturally able,
and that it is the reasoner who Is
. most daunted by particular set Of
% syllogisns, not one whit more dilh'
u cult than those he has already mas
tered. The inability is not positive
but only relative, and is pro
10 duced either by what we cal
d '' want of interest" in the sub
. iect, which may be eithe
p instructive or natural, or by sens
a. OF pain in the effort, that, like pain t.
w tho arms in swimming, can be over
80 come only by frequent and continu
IL GUS practice. If the necessity is per
g emptory, the inability speedily disap
pears, and that often in way whlc
ey at once indicates its source. 1t doe
NC not disappear gradually; it lasts, al
GU parently as insuperable as ever, up
W definable mement; and then, presto
'' it is gone never to return. The trut
~ is, enough has been learned to avail
!" en- unconsclously the faculty of a
W. tention, or, in other words to tax
~ away the pain of it, and then tt
~" natural power has its full SWIM
" That is, we believe, the unvarying e.
perience of every man who lear
80 chess which no man ever forgot
and of all except the few with mat
Ina raj bent" who study any abstra
old science whatsoever. In men pc
let. sessed of the natural bent" there
cid of course, no laziness, because the
the is no sense of pain; they learn wit
to out effort perceptible to themselvt
rea as the savage learns the wilderne
oot of natural facts necessary to enab
Ken him to hunt or fish for food with 81
zen cess. A savage "uever knows an
Get thing about the orest"-except t
vas myriad of minute indications nect
ain sary to tell him where to find t
or great maggots which he eats. He
cx- compelled to learn that, and his me
out tai laziness, therefore, does not st
ON him as it would if Sir. j. Lubbo
up were to try to teach him the anator
be of leaf. He could learn that ana
My omy if it were equally essential to
ola existence.
Gus - -.-
is WHERE SHE Cor TnEM-The mi