This interest may be of purely objective kind, or merely
subjective. The latter comes into play only in things that concern
us personally. Objective interest is confined to heads that think by
nature; to whom thinking is as natural as breathing; and they are very
rare. This is why most men of learning show so little of it.
It is incredible what a different effect is produced upon the mind
by thinking for oneself, as compared with reading. It carries on and
intensifies that original difference in the nature of two minds which
leads the one to think and the other to read. What I mean is that
reading forces alien thoughts upon the mind--thoughts which are as
foreign to the drift and temper in which it may be for the moment, as
the seal is to the wax on which it stamps its imprint. The mind is
thus entirely under compulsion from without; it is driven to think
this or that, though for the moment it may not have the slightest
impulse or inclination to do so.
But when a man thinks for himself, he follows the impulse of his
own mind, which is determined for him at the time, either by his
environment or some particular recollection. The visible world of
a man's surroundings does not, as reading does, impress a _single_
definite thought upon his mind, but merely gives the matter and
occasion which lead him to think what is appropriate to his nature and
present temper.
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