Page images
PDF
EPUB

GEMS

OF

GREAT AUTHORS;

OR,

The Philosophy of Reading and Thinking.

[blocks in formation]

SELECTED BY

JOHN TILLOTSON,

[ocr errors]

OUR UNTITLED NOBILITY," GREAT INVENTORS," ETC.

[blocks in formation]
[blocks in formation]

1

PREFACE.

HE power of thought is one of the grandest

attributes of man. Every man thinks. Man may think very erroneously, very foolishly, very ignorantly, but he, nevertheless, thinks. A man can no more help thinking than he can help living; he must think, it is the law of his mental nature to think, and as soon as he observes things he thinks. There is the closest possible connection between thoughts and things. In some of the Teutonic languages think and thing are identical expressions. Now there are in the world two descriptions of things-things that are without us and things that are within us. Things out of the mind are called objects, things in the mind are termed subjects; outward objects are nothing to us mentally until the mind has laid hold of them.

« PreviousContinue »