It often comes
unexpectedly and returns again and again; and the variety of temper in
which we approach it at different moments puts the matter always in a
fresh light. It is this long process which is understood by the term
_a ripe resolution._ For the work of coming to a resolution must be
distributed; and in the process much that is overlooked at one moment
occurs to us at another; and the repugnance vanishes when we find, as
we usually do, on a closer inspection, that things are not so bad as
they seemed.
This rule applies to the life of the intellect as well as to matters
of practice. A man must wait for the right moment. Not even the
greatest mind is capable of thinking for itself at all times. Hence a
great mind does well to spend its leisure in reading, which, as I have
said, is a substitute for thought; it brings stuff to the mind by
letting another person do the thinking; although that is always done
in a manner not our own. Therefore, a man should not read too much, in
order that his mind may not become accustomed to the substitute and
thereby forget the reality; that it may not form the habit of walking
in well-worn paths; nor by following an alien course of thought grow a
stranger to its own. Least of all should a man quite withdraw his gaze
from the real world for the mere sake of reading; as the impulse and
the temper which prompt to thought of one's own come far oftener from
the world of reality than from the world of books.
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