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Show 62 UNWISE AM.BITION. numben;, the division of one number by another, the s~mmation of a serif.\s, or the solution of an equatwn are all infallible recipes for sleep ; and, if a moderate degree of preparation was necessary, I have never been able to keep awake so long, as to complete the square in a common quadratic. These may seem to be trifling matters ; but, in truth, great part of. the enjoyment and happiness of our lives is made up of such trifles ; and it is very often just be- 1 cau~e the sources of error and misery are in trifleJ ( so light that we deem them unworthy of notice, that\ we do not stop them at the outset ; but suffer them to grow and gather, till our habits are debased, and our happiness is destroyed. - Indee~, it is through affected contempt for what we consider to be small and simple matters-matters too minute and trifling for the range and grasp of our ~xtended and powerful minds-that we are so often Ig~orant of wh?-t we might easily know; baffled With what we might easily accomplish; and, in consequence, miserable, when it would really cost us less_ time _and trouble to be happy. In matters of bod1ly a~twn only we do not so frequently fall into those mistakes. We are not vexed and mortified bec~use we cann<?t shoot across the Thames by one motwn of the swimmer, or because every stroke of the oar does not get us along a reach of that river. We feel no mortification because we cannot plant on~ foot at the general post-office and the other at Bnstol o: at York;_ ~n? even Sir Christopher Wren thought It no humiliatiOn that the splendid pile of St. Paul's had to be built up in a number of little parts, s~o!le by stone, and brick by brick. In all these VISible cases, which are, as we may term them, matters of pure observation, we are perfectly contented to take "the method of interpolations,'' and we should _b~ accounted stupid-absolutely out of our ~enses, If. we even spoke of jumping to the concluswn at a smgle bound. We know the length • CAUTION IN MERE OBSERVING. 63 of our ~ap, and we know our strength. If the ~tream Is too wide, we lay stepping-stones, and if it IS als<? too deep, we take the boat, or go round by the bndge. In all these cases, the present step of our progress is the footing that enables us to take the next st~p, and ":Ve know that that is the case, and act accordmgly,-If the last planted foot is not on firm ground, we pause, and consider before we move the other. Now, it _would save us !rom much disappointment and uneasmess, and. so gn':e us much ~ndirect pleasure, as w~U as the Immedmte and positive pleasure of succeedmg sooner and better, if in all matters of thought and kno:vledge we 'Yould take along with us the lesson whiCh observatiOn here gives us. In matters of mere thought, the mind neither knows its own power nor its ?wn rapidity; because, in thought, we can do any thmg, and we take no time in the doi?g of it. But there is no action, and no use, in which the body does not bear its part· and therefo: e, _if the mind does not take the 'body along wtth ~t, our thoughts are idle dreams, not capable of bemg reduced to practice, and hence of no use or yalue. It is the former step that supports us while we take the present one, as it is the former co~rse of bricks _or. stones that supports the one whiCh we are bmldmg, and enables us to build it· and as, without the former, and the former in imme~ diate j_uxt?-position, we could not possibly have the latter m mthe! of ~hese, or in any one practical case that we can 1magme; even so it is in all matters ?f thought, if these are to be of a practical kind, or m any way to deserve the name of knowledCYe or even to return in that suggestion which we calf'rn~mo: y, or be any thing else than an idle waste of the time that they take in passing, and anguish andremorse because that time has been wasted to so little purpose. If we could always thus " keep sight of observa- |