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« The overworked Mind j " - ^ th at is the pregnant title essay in the last number of D » : Forbes Winslow ' s Journal of Psychological Medicine an essay that opens , but does not attempt to exhaust , the great subj ect though it suggests important reflections to all whose way of life is full of the perils of over-work . Fearful as it is to see great intellects succumbinz and succumbing from the want of a little rational precaution ; yet , as Nicole said so finely to Abnauld , it is " better to wear out than to rust out ; " and there are worse shipwrecks in life than that . We die at least the battle-fieldour faces towards the stars !
on , Moreover , the man whose friends deplore that he is " killing himself , " often bears that within him which would more ignobly kill him , if he did not throw himself impetuously into the intellectual struggle , and there , at least , withdraw his thoughts from the " Blue-beard chambers of his heart . " When Goethe lost his son , and when he lost one whom he loved almost as dearly the Archduke—no man could read anything on that godlike , mueh-suffering face ; no man could perceive any considerable change , except that he " worked harder than ever . " "Was not the over-work beneficent ?"
In a medical point of view , and considering over-work purely as overwork , there can be no doubt as to its ruinous effect . Festina lente is our motto , here as everywhere—is if not Nature ' s own method ? The overworked brain will not do the work of one more wisely treated . To treat it wisely , men should familiarize themselves with the general rules of physiology , and consider the brain as an organ having its functions like that of every other organ . Among the most serious mistakes into which men fall , sufficient which
is that of not giving the brain sufficient repose and variety , is another form of repose . Intense and prolonged application to one subject is the root of all the mischief . As your body may be in activity during the whole of the day , if you vary the actions sufficiently , so may the brain work all day at varied occupations . Hold out a stick at arm ' s length for five minutes , and the muscles will be more fatigued than by an hour ' s rowing : the same principle holds good with the brain .
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The new Westminster Review is a brilliant and thoughtful one , and a decided improvement on the two previous numbers . Secular Education is treated in a high and dignified manner ; and although recent discussions have left little that is new to be said upon this subject , the writer says much that is needful to be iterated and re-iterated . He sternly reprimands the irreligious cry of " religion , " which is got up to oppose secular education by all the isms , which , as he says , " when closely examined , are
embodiments of mere self-love , the love of dominion , bigotry , and all uncharitableness . " Why religious people should be aghast at the idea of secular education , will one day be a marvel to our descendants : it is an unconscious fear lest secular education should be found to suffice j and that fear we regard as the most profound misconception of human nature , and the most unworthy conception of the great function of religion : it is a heresy we , with all our heterodoxy , cannot entertain !
Orthodoxy separates Religion from Science , instead of associating them ; and , as this writer says : — - ¦ " One effect of teaching religion dissociated from science , and founding it on the Bible alone , has been to produce a general unconsciousness that the Book of Nature is truly a divine revelation calculated to guide human conduct . It is viewed by practical men as a repository of materials for realizing wealth , and by the rich as a source of polite amusement ; but by neither as embodying a code of rules for the direction of conduct , each duty having its reward and each its penalty attached to it . And yet it is really such , and only misdirection of our education prevents us from seeing this to be the case . "
Yet men wonder that Science is " destructive , " and leads to infidelity ! " They forget that , granting God wrote , the Bible , yet assuredly he made the world ; and if it be perilous to discard or misinterpret the one , there can be no question about the necessity of rightly understanding the other . A beautiful article follows , on England ' s Forgotten Worthies , wherein the adventurous deeds of our early voyagers are truly connected with a higher principle than that of mere excitement . The greatness of that day , he clearly sees to have arisen from faith—the powerful convergence of the whole being of man into one focus . We have lost it , and our scepticism makes us pigmies . We believe nothing , not even Christianity , we only believe its " evidences . "
" We wonder at the grandeur , the , moral majesty , of HOino of Shakespeare h characters , ho far beyond what the noblest , among ourselves can imitate , and at first thought we attribute it to the genius of the pout , who has outstripped nature in his creations ; but we nro misunderstanding tins power and tho meaning of poetry in attributing oreativenesH to it in any such sense ; Shakespeare created , but only as th « Hpirit of nature created around him , working in him as it worked abroad m those among whom he lived . Tho men whom he draws were such men an he saw and know ; the words they utter wore such as he heard in the ordinary conversations in which he joined . At the Mermaid with Raleigh and with Sidney , and at a thouwiiul un-named English firesides , ho found the living originals for his lVuiwj Hals , Inn Orlandos , his Antonios , bis 1 ' ortiun , his Isabellas . The doHcr personal ocquaiiitunco which we can form with the English of the age of Elizabeth , tho more we aro satisfied that Shakespeare ' s great poetry ia no iiwro than tho rhythmic echo of the . life wluoU it depict * . "
The Future of Geology is very interesting and very able , marred , indeed , in its earlier pages , by an attempt at gaiety of style which does not lighten the subject , but full of suggestiveness and seriousness as it proceeds . The most eloquent , and one of the most subtle , of modern religious writers will be recognized in the powerful article on The Restoration of Belief . How truly he sees into our present condition in this passage : — " The more ingenuously the modern orthodoxy lays bare its essence , the more evident is it that a profound scepticism not only mingles with it , but constitutes its very inspiralion . The dread of losing God , the impression that there is but one patent way , not of duty , but of thought , of meeting him , haunt the minds-of men , driving some to Anglicanism to compensate defect of faith by excess of sacrament ; some to Rome in quest of the Lord ' s body ; and prompting others to conservative efforts of Bibliolatry , conducted with ever-decreasing reason and declining hope /
And the impossibility of the Church long continuing its present condition , is thus * stated : — "It is the vainest of hopes , that a body of clergy , brought up to the culture of the nineteenth century , can abide by the Christianity of the sixteenth or of tho second : if they may not preserve its essence by translation into other forms of thought , they will abandon it , in proportion as they are clear-sighted and veracious , as a dialect grown obsolete . The number accordingly is constantly increasing , in every college capable of training a rich intellect , of candidates for the ministry forced by their doubts into lay professions , and carrying thither the powerful influence , in the same direction , of learning and accomplishment . The higher the
offices of education are , to no slight extent , in the hands of these dese rters of church : and through the tutor in the family , or the master in the school , or the professor in the lecture-room , contact and sympathy are established between the best portion of the new generation and a kind of thought and culture with which the authorised theology cannot co-exist . College friendships , foreign travel , current literature , familiarise all educated young men with the phenomenon of scepticism , and in a way most likely to disenchant it of its terrors . Thus by innumerable channels it enters the middle class at the intellectual end of their life ; assuming m general the form of historic and critical doubt : while from below , from the classes bom and bred amid the whirl of machinery , and shaped in their very imagination by the tyranny of the power-loom , it pushes up in the ruder form of material
fatalism . " There are several more articles , but these four are the most important , and suffice to make a valuable Review .
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HAWTHORNE'S NEW ROMANCE . The-Blithcdale Romance . By Nathaniel Hawthorne . 2 vols . Chapman and Hall . This is a mournful book , It fastens on you and will not relax its hold , but it leaves a grave sadness behind it unrelieved by touches of hope and enthusiasm , unmingled with any glimpses into a brighter future . It tells of shattered hopes , of wasted efforts , of enthusiasm breaking against reality , of love given hopelessly , and wasted for no good . Ike failure of a social scheme , begun in unrelenting enthusiasm , is but the prelude to the failure of three lives staking their all upon affection . the ashes of his
Hawthorne was ill advised when lie thus raked among heart for embers wherewith to warm his new romance . He once believed in the possibility of a community living in a brotherhood of labour ; lie joined others in the attempt to realize that scheme ; it was premature , it was unwise , it forgot essential conditions , and it failed . As an author , he was right to turn this experience into material ; nothing but what we have actually experienced can become permanent material in literature . But he was wrong , we cannot help thinking , to treat it so . His failure should have taught him to evolve an appreciable moral , not simply to have furnished him with a local habitation for a love story . JiatUer
Brook Farm should have been used seriously , or not used at all . As lie uses it we sec nothing but the poor machinery of a novel , together with some sad and half contemptuous references to the failure of what was once his enthusiasm . Out of that failure what high encouragement , and what deep lessons a reflective mind might have evolved ; but he seems afraid to striking deep into the realities , and lets the occaaionslip . There is but one good passage , and that has to us a certain tone half of . sadiHvss , half of sarcasm , which , while heightening tho force of the remark , yet leaves an unpleasant impression behind it : —
" The peril of our new way of life was not lost we should fail in becoming practical agriculturists , but that we should probably cease to be anything else . While our enterprise lay all in theory , we bad pleased ourselves with delectable visions of the spiritualisation of labour . It was to bo our form of prayer and ceremonial ot worship . Kaeh stroke of the hoe was to uncover some aromatic root of wisdom , heretofore hidden from the sun . I ' ausing in the field , to let the wind exhulo the moisture from our foreheads , ' we were to look upward , and catch glimpses into the fur-oil" soul of truth . In this point of vie . w , matters did not turn out quite so well as we anticipated . ' It is very true that , sometimes , gazing casually around me , out of the midst of my toil , 1 used to discern a richer pictiiresqueness in the visible scene of earth and nky . There was , " at-such moments , si novelty , an unwonted aspect , on the face of Nature , as if she hud been taken by surprise and seen at miawares , with no opportunity to put oil" her real look , and assume tlie mark with which she mysteriously hides herself from mortals . Hut this was all . Tin : clods
of earth , which wo no constantly belaboured und turned over and over , worn never etherealised into thought . Our thoughts , on the contrary , wore fast becoming cloddish . Our labour symbolised nothing , und loft us mentally sluggish in thu dusk of the evening . Intellectual activity is incompatible with any largo amount of bodily exercise . Tho yeoman and the scholar --the yeoman and tho man of finest moral culture , though not tho man of . sturdiest sense and integrity—nro two distinct individuals , and can never be melted or welded into one subsianeo . ' Indignation , open scorn , any strong feeling Avould l > e preferable to thin mournful glance east over the illusion of his youth . . If lie in speaking an a teacher , desirous to make us aware Of the impracticable nature of a Community so founded , lie is not explicit enough , . strong enough , cogent , enough ; -if as a poet he surveys Jim wrecked illusion , ho is not feeling enough . . Not , therefore , for its illustration of a social attempt , is tho MUlwdale Jiomancc to bo road , hut i'pr il » stem truthful picture of tho Hucriiico of
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M , H 18 ft ] THE LEADER . 663
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Leader (1850-1860), July 10, 1852, page 663, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1942/page/19/
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