nate observers. It makes him who has but little talent for reasoning acquainted with the arguments and conclusions of the most powerful intellects. So important, in short, is reading as a mode of study, that it is popularly considered the only mode; and to study and to read are used as synonymous or convertible terms. Thus you who are engaged in the study of Medicine are said to be reading Medicine; students of Law, to be reading Law; and students of Theology, to be reading Theology. It is, indeed, an extremely common opinion, that no one can study without reading, and that no one can read without studying. Extremely common, but also extremely erroneous and utterly false. There are other modes of study besides reading, and without which reading is of but small value; and it is quite possible and quite common to read abundantly and superabundantly and yet not study at all. Reading is to the mind what food is to the body. Like food, it may be injurious by being used to excess, or by being of improper quality, unnutritious or unwholesome. Like food also, if used improperly, it gives rise to Dyspepsia-mental Dyspepsia-characterized, like the physical variety of the disease, by debility, distention, flatulence and other evil symp toms. The errors most common among those who are labouring to obtain knowledge by reading, are, 1. That they read without judicious and proper selection of books. 2. That they read too much. 3. That they read without thinking, and consequently without understanding. A moment's reflection will show you the evil influence upon mental progress that must result from any one of these errors. And it is easy to imagine what the effect must be when all three of them are united, as they often are, in the practice of the same person. I. Ill Selection.-The necessity for careful selection must be evident to all who consider the infinite multitude of books, the immense diversity of their characters, the limited powers of the human mind, and the brief duration of human life. The making of books, from the days of Cadmus down to the present time, has been the business or the amusement of some of the wisest and some of the least wise of our race, of some of the most virtuous and some of the most profligate; and the character of books is necessarily in almost all cases strongly tinctured by that of their authors. In medical literature, you will find volumes which no man can read properly, and study faithfully, and understand fully, without being better prepared for the duties of our profession. But these books that are books are comparatively few in number. They dwell sad and lonely, like the patriarch and his family, in the thronged City of the Plain, elbowed, oppressed, and well nigh overwhelmed by a mob of atrocious neighbors. "Nowhere more than in Medicine," says Frederick Hoffman, "will you find books that are worthless and delusive, making mighty promises in their red title pages, and giving miserable performance in all the black pages which follow." Books of this description, the offspring of ignorance and dulness that have mistaken themselves for learning and genius, or of profligate charlatanry inspired by thirst for gain, were certainly never more abundant than at present. We behold them on every side,— "Innumerable, as when the potent rod Of Amram's Son, in Egypt's evil day, From among the motley crew of what are called medical authors, the blindest of wayfarers may easily procure guides blinder than himself. From the abundant stores of what is called medical literature, * Complures multum promittunt in rubro, parum praestant in nigro: Pomposo nempe et splendido titulo emptores alliciunt, ut intus contentæ nuga bilem postea facilius moveant. De Defficultatibus in Medicina addiscenda, 23 † Paradise Lost, 1-338. the student may easily select such a course of reading as will lead him into darkness rather than into light, -as will make him more ignorant of science than he was before he formed acquaintance with the alphabet, -as will consume his days and nights in toil and weariness, and give him in return only false facts, false reasonings, false and foolish opinions, seeming knowledge, and real, substantial and unequivocal ignorance. "I may justly complain and truly," says the learned Anatomist of Melancholy, "that I have read many books to but little purpose, for want of good selection; that I have confusedly tumbled over divers authors with small profit, for want of art, order, memory, judgment, and good choice." The Student of Medicine, unless he exercise judgment and good choice in the selection of books, may read many volumes and tumble over many authors to less profit than Robert Burton, and have no one to quote his lamentation over his lost hours and fruitless studies two hundred years after he has followed his patients to the grave. In our association with the living, we are often compelled by the strong arm of circumstances to contract acquaintance and intimacy with those from whom we can derive but little profit, pleasure, or credit. But among books where our choice is per fectly free and uncontrolled, if we fall into "base and scurvy companionship," and select for our guides and friends, the weak, the trivial, the corrupt, instead of the wise and pure, it is inexcusable folly, and indicates a deficiency of judgment and pravity of taste, which it is certain to increase and perpetuate.* When we contemplate the immense number of books in every department of learning, we are at first apt to be appalled by the unbounded prospect that lies before us. The student is apt to feel that an attempt to master any subject of inquiry by reading all that has been written respecting it, is like setting sail on a voyage of circumnavigation by the way of the North-west Passage. A brief examination will relieve his apprehensions. He will soon find that the vast hostile array before him is not unlike one of those ancient Persian or Indian armies, in which all the real strength resided in a small detachment, while the rest of the countless host was a mere confused rabblement which might be safely despised. An acquaintance with the contents of a large medical library will tend to change our wonder at the number of books into astonishment at the enormous * Non minus a recta mentis ratione feruntur |