Richmond dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1884-1903, 1902-10-19
OWENS g. MINOR DRUG co

ranges to the highest. So the great
poet writes:
Till oft converse with Heavenly habit
ants,
Begins to cast a beam on the outward
shape
The unpolluted temple of the mind.
And turns it. by degrees, to the souls
essence,
Till all shall be immortal.
But when lust by unchaste looks, le"d
gestures and foul thoughts
Lets in defle1nent to the inward parts,
The soul grows clotted by contagon,
Imbodies and imbrutes till it quite lose
The divine perfection Of its first being.
And another writes, on the one hand:
When the minds free the body's deli
cate.
On the other Of british one:
Which any point of goodness will not
take
Being capable Of all i'll.
Between these extremes are divers
stages of intellectual life. and divers
styles of thinking.
But those who deal mostly in it are
rather jealous OF calling it thinking
They draw their conclusions after 4
muscular and mechanical fashion-as it
were with a cartrope. And they dump
| their facts, disdaining analysis or clas-
sifcation or reasoning. This sort Of think
| ing is very mechanical, and largely
matter Of habit. Studying and hard
! thinking, they call bedwork, closet war.
And
So that the ram that batters down the
wall,
For the great swing and rudness of his
posc
They place before his hand that made the
engine.
To a man unused to thinking, it is
| almost as painful to reason and put
things together as it is for a sutt-!ointed
| rheumatic to walk. His thinking is just
stumbling along and taking his chances.
Most men do a certain amount OF
| thinking within the limits Of their own
business. But to the same in some other
| business, or in abstract thinking all is
| blue before their eyes. a profound re-
| mark Of Lord Bacon is: Man can under
stand and is capable of understanding
that of which he has had some expert
\
! serving the operations Of his own being.
| Men can be taught to think by observ-
ing, comparing and inferring. The mass
! of mankind go scrambling along. Some
/ one remarked of a poor, Well-meanlnS
fellow, that he looked as If an idea enter
| ing his mind would scare him to death
And it really is astonishing to notice how
| q bright idea, or a plain observation
of common sense will seem to bewilder al
ordinary nearer
It is pitiful to see how little honest
healthy thinking is done in this world
and how close to slunbers and night
| mares the work Of the common mind ap'
proaches, while people think they are
thinking
But it is far more lamentable to SCI
how deliberately and grandly the wise
and learned play the fool, While they
think they are thinking. a good. patient
ing up for some stupid act, is in the habi
of quoting history: My dear. have
never carried 100000 men to Russia t
die in the snow like Napoleon Bona
part: Nor have I carried a great army
into India to perish in the deserts, ant
then killed my best friend with jug
like Alexander the Great. Just wait til
do something like that. And then, yo,
know, my little scraps are more widel,
read than the great John Lockes Con
stitution OF South Carolina, or Spinoza
or Kant, or Des Cartes.
So he gets off.
He knows he's thinking Those grea
heroes and philosophers thought the,
were thinking.
Solomon says some pretty good things
For example: Seest thou a man wise il
his own eyes? There is more hope Of
FOOL than Of him.