The nature of the human intellect places limits to mental progress, though they are not assignable in any given case, but may be indefinitely extended. That there are limits, however, you will readily perceive by reflecting that we do not possess even one idea which does not, either in itself or in its postulates, contain something which transcends all human comprehension.
What, let us ask ourselves, is the law of intellectual growth? The condition of all growth is effort. Life is a struggle in which lesser forces are overcome by greater. This is true of the individual as of the race. It is only by effort, by the exertion of power, that we live and consequently grow. Labor, then, is the law of intellectual as of all progress.
Before going further, let us examine [pg 199] into the obstacles which tend to prevent improvement of mind.
These are to be sought for either in the circumstances which surround us or in ourselves. We are to such an extent the creatures of circumstances that, when these are unfavorable, it is almost impossible that we should make great head-way.
As occasion makes the thief, it is also required to make the scholar. In the first place, leisure is essential to mental culture, since education is a work of time and of labor. We therefore look for little or no cultivation of mind in those who lead lives of manual toil, and who, during the brief moments allowed for recreation, are so fatigued as to be incapable of sustained mental effort.
Here and there an individual from this class, of remarkable gifts, and endowed with great energy and will, surmounts the obstacle, and, having risen to a higher level, succeeds, by perseverance and industry, in making very considerable intellectual progress. But, as a rule, all will admit that it would be absurd to look for much mental training in men who work ten or even eight hours a day in factories and mines, or in tilling the soil.
Intercourse with educated men is of the greatest advantage in the work of self-education; and where this is wanting, intellectual progress will rarely be found. The presence of highly developed and gifted minds has a magnetic power which creates emulation, awakens admiration, and stimulates to effort. Hence we find the great men of the world, whether philosophers, poets, statesmen, orators, or artists, in schools and historic groups.
Books, too, are required; but to this part of the subject we shall return.
The obstacles to mental growth within ourselves are of various kinds. Some have their origin in the body, some in the intellect, others in the will.
Infirm health, the love of ease, and excessive fondness of eating and drinking are generally incompatible with intellectual growth; and yet some of the greatest minds have wrought through feeble bodies, whilst many literary men have indulged to excess in the pleasures of the table, though always to their own injury.