Nor ask how it may end,
Farther than all that thou couldst ask
Its issues surely tend.”
In short, if one permit himself habitually to stop and ask that indolent part of him which the Apostle Paul calls “the old man” what he would like to do, or would prefer not to do, “the old man” is most unlikely to vote for serious work, but betakes himself to excellent religious or moral advice. The bad part of one must be forced to the habit of obeying, without grumbling, the “categorical imperative” of the better part. When one has achieved this amount of soldierly discipline in himself, then he is on the right path, and until he has reached this point, he has not found his way. Here he first learns whether his life is saved or lost. Sometimes a man proposes to himself to collect his thoughts before he begins, or to meditate on the work he is going to do. In most cases, this is merely an excuse for doing nothing, and it is most obviously such an excuse, when, to encourage this preliminary reflection, a man lights his cigar. In short, one’s best ideas come while he is working, and often, indeed, while he is working on a wholly different topic. A distinguished modern preacher has remarked with originality, though not with strict accuracy, that there is not a single case mentioned in the Bible in which an angel appeared to a man who was not at work.
In close connection with this point should be mentioned the habit of using fragments of time. Many people have no time because they always want to have a large amount of uninterrupted time before they set themselves to work. In such a plan they are doubly deceived. On the one hand, in many circumstances of life these prolonged periods are difficult to secure, and, on the other hand, the power of work which one possesses is not so unlimited that it can continuously utilize long stretches of time. This is peculiarly true of such intellectual work as is devoted to productive effort. Of such work it may be said without exaggeration that the first hour, or even the first half-hour, is the most fruitful. Dismissing, however, these large intellectual undertakings, there are to be found in connection with every piece of work a great number of subordinate tasks of preparation or arrangement which are of a mechanical nature, and for each of which a quarter of an hour or so is sufficient. These minor matters, if not disposed of in small fragments of time which would otherwise be wasted, will absorb the time and power which should be devoted to one’s important task. It might, indeed, be reasonably maintained that the use of these fragments of time, together with the complete dismissal of the thought, “It is not worth while to begin to-day,” accounts for half of the intellectual results which one attains.
Another important means for saving time is the habit of changing the kind of work in which one is engaged. Change is almost as restful as complete rest, and if one acquire a certain degree of skill in his ways of change,—a skill which comes from experience rather than from theorizing,—one may carry on his work for almost the entire day. Moreover, so far as my experience goes, it is a mistake to plan that one piece of work shall be finished before another is begun. The judicious course, on the contrary, is that which prevails among artists, who are often engaged on a whole series of sketches, and turn, according to the momentary inclination which overmasters them, first to one piece of work and then to another. Here, too, it may be remarked is an excellent way of maintaining one’s self-control. The old Adam in us often persuades the better nature that he is not really lazy, but is simply not in the mood for a certain piece of work. In this state of things, one should forthwith say to himself: “Well, if you do not feel inclined to this piece of work, take up with another.” Then one will discover whether the difficulty is a disinclination to a special form of work, to which one might yield, or a disinclination to do any work at all. In short, one must not permit oneself to deceive oneself.
Another point to be considered is the habit of working quickly, not giving too much care to outward form, but devoting one’s efforts to the content of the task. The experience of most workers will bear me out when I say that the most profitable and effective tasks are those which have been done quickly. I am well aware that Horace advises one to take nine years for the perfecting of verses; but such scrupulousness presupposes an excessive notion of the quality of one’s work. Thoroughness is a very beautiful and necessary trait, in so far as it concerns truth, for truth cannot be too thoroughly explored; but there is a spurious thoroughness which absorbs itself in all manner of details and subordinate questions which are not worth investigating, or which cannot be wholly known. Thoroughness of this kind is never satisfied with itself. It is sometimes mistaken for great learning; for to many people learning is profound only when wholly detached from practical usefulness, or when an author, for a whole lifetime, has brooded over one book.
Truth, wherever it may be sought, is, as a rule, so simple that it often does not look learned enough. People feel as if they must add to it something which is not essential to the nature of truth, in order to give to truth a respectable and academic look. Among learned people, it is often the case that one must first earn his reputation by some piece of work which is of no use to himself or to any one else, and in which he heaps together the hitherto undiscovered rubbish of some remote century. Lassalle was able to write his famous work on Herakleitos without forfeiting his interest in the affairs of modern life, but there are few authors with this capacity for practical concerns. On the contrary, many authors in their maiden venture of learned work not only have their eyesight ruined by their researches, but lose their inward vision, which is a matter of much more consequence. They reach the goal of their ambition and become of no further use.
A further way of saving a deal of time is to do one’s work and be done with it; not to deal with it, that is to say, in a provisional or preparatory manner. This kind of immediate thoroughness is in our day extremely rare, and in my opinion much of the blame should be laid to the newspapers, which accustom people to superficial surveys of truth. The editorial writer says, at the close of his article, “We shall return to this subject later”; but in fact he never returns. So it is with the modern reader. If he wants to make use of what he has read, he has to begin the reading of it afresh. His skimming of the subject—as the phrase is—has had no result, and so the time that he has given to skimming has been lost. This is the reason why people have so little thorough knowledge in our day, and why, though they have studied a subject ten times, on the eleventh occasion when they need it, they must study it again. Indeed, there are people who would be extremely glad if they could remember even the works of which they themselves were the authors.
With this point is obviously connected the need of orderliness and of the reading of original authorities. The habit of orderliness saves one from the need of hunting for material, and this search for material is not only, as we all know, a great waste of time, but tempts us also to lose pleasure in our work. Further, orderliness permits us to allow one subject to be forgotten, while we apply ourselves to the next. The reading of original sources, on the other hand, gives one the advantage of being sure of his material, and of having his own judgment about it. There is this further advantage, that the original sources are in most cases not only much briefer, but much more interesting and much easier to remember than the books that have been written about them. Second-hand knowledge never gives the courage and self-confidence which one gets from acquaintance with original sources. One of the great mistakes of modern scholarship, as distinguished from that of the classic world, is—as Winkelmann has pointed out—that our learning in so many cases consists in knowing only what other people have known.