The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1889-02-28
On Thinking.

n seeking to solve the great problems |
Of life and destiny is of no utility
until it adapts itself to practical ends
in the alembic of the mind. We may
cram our heads like hoppers, and
transform our brains into bookshelves
until they are surfeited with the
choicest thoughts of the mighty in
tellects whose lives constitute the
worlds biography, but if there is no
milestone underneath to grind the
kernels, if there is no mind to extract
and assimilate the nutriment, we but
serve as masks and efigies of the
dead. We are merely inflated, and
become like Eolus' bag of winds.
Thinking is the oldest and newest
form of energy. It is the one great
incentive to action. Thought is the
germ of every human invention. We
may as reasonably expect the jewels
that lie encrusted in the bowels of
the earth to come creeping up to the
surface before the pick and spade of
the miner have revealed their hiding
place, as for great truths to reveal to
as their inner spirit before we have
exercised the power of thought
Thinking begets greatness, and also
discovers our littleness. The mind
unaccustomed to thinking is like the
rhetorician Montague mentions,
whose profession it was to make lit
tie things appear great. The man
who picks his ideas from the tree of
knowledge, as a farmer fills his bins
and barrels, and passes them from
hand to hand, is greater only in his
conscious possessions than the silent
thinker with his one golden apple,
who has mastered by mature thought
an intricate problem.
If you have not the habit of thought,
and have little time for thinking, pin
down the mind to one subject and
master it. Clean out your garnet
for our intellects become Uttered UP
like garrets by too much reading
Throw out the useless rubbish
Weigh opinions. Get at central ideas
and bottom facts. Opinions are not
to be weighed on scales hung on
spiders webs. They are not to be
measured as a fencing master meas
ures foils. They are to be tested BY
a sort of chemical analysis and as
to their form and size, these are Incl
dental to the more vital question
Are they sound? or, Arc they dan
gerous Many of us read only tc
confirm our prejudices. We are con
tent to let books think for us. What
ever has the stamp of authority, i
presented by force and dialetical skill
in argument and tricks of style, il
accepted on it's face as incontroverti
BILE truth. Talleyrand once declared
either iestingly or in earnest, that b.
accepted certain proposition be
cause, first, he was Bishop of Autun
and second, because he knew nothing
about it. Thus we are beguilet
through mental and moral cowardic,
into false security. An honest sou
will always give a reason for the faltl
that is in him, and guard unfinch
~ his sacred birthright
| Consider, too, the use and abuse o
wit. Wit as foil to an argument i
the stab of an assassin. A smar
epigram may turn the tables on
scholar of rare acumen when Foil.
puts on her cap and bells It vii
snap asunder the chains of logic lik
fash of lightning. Indeed, wit vii
parry the most convincing argument
8 text may have an immense powe
for mischief when opposed to con
text; with an apothegm you may an
hilate q sermon. For in order t
convince some minds againat thei
Judgment it is only necessary to It'll
late their humors. Who does no
know the man of whom it NAV b