Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the AuthorGodwin, William
Philosophy
Thoughts on Man, His Nature, Productions and Discoveries: Interspersed with Some Particulars Respecting the Author
Godwin, William
Human beings; Psychology -- Early works to 1850
He sets before him, as he grows older, all the considerations
and reasons he can devise, to make him apprehend the advantage of
improvement and literature. He does his utmost to make his progress
easy, and to remove all impediments. He smooths the path by which he
is to proceed, and endeavours to root out all its thorns. He exerts his
eloquence to inspire his pupil with a love for the studies in which he
is engaged. He opens to him the beauties and genius of the authors he
reads, and endeavours to proceed with him hand in hand, and step by
step. He persuades, he exhorts, and occasionally he reproves. He awakens
in him the love of excellence, the fear of disgrace, and an ambition to
accomplish that which "the excellent of the earth" accomplished before
him.
At a certain period the young man is delivered into his own hands,
and becomes an instructor to himself. And, if he is blessed with an
ingenuous disposition, he will enter on his task with an earnest desire
and a devoted spirit. No person of a sober and enlarged mind can for a
moment delude himself into the opinion that, when he is delivered into
his own hands, his education is ended. In a sense to which no one is
a stranger, the education of man and his life terminate together. We
should at no period of our existence be backward to receive information,
and should at all times preserve our minds open to conviction. We
should through every day of our lives seek to add to the stores of our
knowledge and refinement. But, independently of this more extended sense
of the word, a great portion of the education of the young man is left
to the direction of the man himself. The epoch of entire liberty is a
dangerous period, and calls upon him for all his discretion, that he
may not make an ill use of that, which is in itself perhaps the first of
sublunary blessings. The season of puberty also, and all the excitements
from this source, "that flesh is heir to," demand the utmost vigilance
and the strictest restraint. In a word, if we would counteract the
innate rebelliousness of man, that indocility of mind which is at all
times at hand to plunge us into folly, we must never slumber at our
post, but govern ourselves with steady severity, and by the dictates
of an enlightened understanding. We must be like a skilful pilot in a
perilous sea, and be thoroughly aware of all the rocks and quicksands,
and the multiplied and hourly dangers that beset our navigation.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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