The improvement of the mind : containing a variety of remarks and rules for the attainment and communication of useful knowledge in religion, in the sciences, and in common life / by I. Watts.

Date:
MDCCLXXXV [1785]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The improvement of the mind : containing a variety of remarks and rules for the attainment and communication of useful knowledge in religion, in the sciences, and in common life / by I. Watts. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    The firft lines of Homer in his Iliad and his OdyfTee,. the hrft line of Mufaeus in his fong of Hero and Leander, the beginning of Hefiod in his poem of Weeks and Days, and feveral others, furnifh 11s with fufficient examples of this kind; nor does Ovid leave out this piece of devotion as he begins his ftory of the Metamorphofis. Chriftianity fo much the more obliges us by the precepts of fcripture to invoke the affiftance of the true God in all our labours of the mind, for the improvement of ourfelves and others* Bifhop Saunderfon fays, that ftudy without prayer is atheifm, as well as that prayer without ftudy is prefumption. And we are {fill more abundantly encouraged by the teftimony of thofe who have acknowledged from their own experience, that fincere prayer was no hinderance to their ftudies i they have gotten more knowledge fometimes upon their knees than by their labour in perilling a variety of authors, and they have left this obfervation for fuch as follow, Bene oraffe eft bene J}uduiJ]e. Praying is the be ft ftudying. D To 1.