The Improvement of the Mind

by Issac Watts

Rule I.—Deeply possess your mind with the vast importance of a good judgment, and the rich and inestimable advantage of right reasoning.Review the instances of your own misconduct in life ; think seriously with yourselves how many follies and sorrows you had escaped, and how much guilt and misery you had prevented, if from your early years you had but taken due paius to judge aright concerning persons, times, and things. This will awaken you with lively vigour to address yourselves to the work of improving your reasoning powers, and seizing very opportunity and advantage for that end.II. Consider the weaknesses, frailties, and mistakes of human nature in general, which arise from the very constitution of a soul united to an animal body, and subjected to many incouveniencies thereby. Consider the many additional weaknesses, mistakes, and frailties, which are derived from our original apostasy and fall from a state of innocence; how much our powers of understanding are yet more darkened, enfeebled, and imposed upon by our senses, our fancies, and our unruly passions, &c.Consider the depth and difficulty of many truths, and the flattering appearances of falsehood, whence arises an infinite variety of dangers to which we are exposed in our judgment of things.Read with greediness those authors that treat of the doctrine of prejudices, prepossessions, and springs of error, on purpose to make your soul watchful on all sides, that it suffer itself, as far as possible, to be imposed upon by none of them.III. A slight view of things so momentous is not sufficient. You should therefore contrive and practise some proper methods to acquaint yourself with your own ignorance, and to impress your mind with a deep and painful sense of the low and imperfect degrees of your present knowledge, that you may be incited with labour and activity to pursue after greater measures. Among others, you may find some such methods as these successful.1. Take a wide survey now and then of the vast and unlimited regions of learning. Let your meditations run over the names of all the sciences, with their numerous branchings, and innumerable particular themes of knowledge; and then reflect how few of them you are acquainted with in any tolerable degree. The most teamed of mortals will never find occasion to act over again what is fabled of Alexander the Great, that when he had conquered what was called the eastern world, he wept for want of more worlds to conquer.The worlds of science are immense and endless.2. Think what a numberless variety of questions and difficulties there are belonging even to that particular science in which you have made the greatest progress, and how few of them there are in which you have arrived at a final and undoubted certainty; excepting only those questions in the pure and simple mathematics, whose theorems are demonstrable, and leave scarce any doubt; and yet, even in the pursuit of some few of these, mankind have been strangely bewildered.3. Spend a few thoughts sometimes on the puzzling enquiries concerning vacuums and atoms, the doctrine of infinites, indivisibles, and incommensurables in geometry, wherein there appear some insolvable do this on purpose to give you a more sensible impression of the poverty of your understanding, and the imperfection of your knowledge. This will teach you what a vain thing it is to fancy that you know all things, and will instruct you to think modestly of your present attainments, when every dust of the earth, and every inch of empty space, surmounts your understanding, and triumphs over your presumption. Arithmo had been bred up to accounts all his life, and thought himself a complete master of numbers.

Genres: Self Help, Psychology, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Education, Personal Development, Logic

254 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1814

Reviews

[Samuel · Rating 5 out of 5]

On Faraday's recommendation

[Ogi Ogas · Rating 5 out of 5]

My ratings of books on Goodreads are solely a crude ranking of their utility to me, and not an evaluation of literary merit, entertainment value, social importance, humor, insightfulness, scientific accuracy, creative vigor, suspensefulness of plot, depth of characters, vitality of theme, excitement of climax, satisfaction of ending, or any other combination of dimensions of value which we are expected to boil down through some fabulous alchemy into a single digit.

[Wendy Onyinye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing! Definitely going to reread, reread and reread!!!

study without prayer is atheism, as well as that prayer without study is presumption.

The eyes of a man with jaundice make yellow observations on everything: and the soul tinctured with any passion or prejudice, diffuses a false colour over the real appearance of things.

[John Meagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

He advised to take notes and review what you’ve learned, so here’s my quick takeaways. Before you start- Know you can’t know everything and knowledge consumption must be selective, so pick topics that interest you. Make sure you understand the context of the vocabulary being used based off the author’s location and when the book was written. Don’t gloss over words you don’t understand, look them up and write them down. Add your own commentary with shorthand notes for chapters you plan to revisit.

Be cautious of appeals to authority. They should be backed up by logic and reason and not merely “so and so said it.” Stay humble and willing to change your opinion when presented with valid evidence. Try to be aware of where you may be biased and avoid dogmatic thinking. Keep an open mind despite your proficiency. Learning is an ever evolving process with no end. Expertise in a topic doesn’t mean there can be no room for improvement. Strive to learn one new thing each day.

[Curtis Rappleye · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a good book with interesting pointers.

[Bharat]

So dry , I couldn't even finish it

[Muh Muflih · Rating 5 out of 5]

hmm........

[Levi Hobbs · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book I wanted to read partly just because it's so obscure. There's this program called Forgotten Books that re-publishes old books that have gone out of print; kind of cool.

I actually love that they chose to reprint this with photocopies of the original printing with the old school 1820 fonts and prefaces written in the vernacular of the time. This feels akin to reading the Declaration of Independence or other documents from the period of our country’s founding.

Isaac Watts was a composer of many hymns in the early 1700s, such as "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" and "Joy to the World". This book is his advice on how to study/live to improve your mind. It's rather religious. If you're not Christian, you may be bothered by his frequent allusion to scripture. But on the whole, his actual topic isn't scripture, it's basically a self-help book on how to become a wise, learned person, before self-help was a genre.

“There are five eminent means or methods whereby the mind is improved in the knowledge of things; and these are observation, reading, instruction by lec-tures, conversation, and meditation.”

He's very methodical in going through these. I actually think he had a wondrously well-organized methodical mind. He seemed to have that rare capacity for abstract original thought. I think he has some really good points, and I ended up taking quite a few notes.

A few excerpts:

“Study without prayer is atheism… prayer without study is presumption.”

"Contemplate how vast is the universe and all of the sciences and all of the mysteries still unsolved in each science. Feel the magnitude of it and be humbled and realize how little that you know."

“Never be afraid to publish a retraction when you’re wrong.”

"Think with yourself, with how much ease the God of spirits can cast into your minds, some useful suggestion, and give a happy turn to your own thoughts, or the thoughts of those with whom you converse, whence you may derive unspeakable light and satisfaction, in a matter which has long puzzled and entangled you; he can shew you a “path which the vulture’s eye hath not seen,” and lead you by some unknown gate or portal, out of a wilderness and labyrinth of difficulties, wherein you have been long wandering.”

His language is very reminiscent of anything you've read by the Founding Fathers. I actually find an odd sense of enjoyment in parsing it out.

[Rohit Yadav · Rating 5 out of 5]

Law of association : Religion & thinking. The most important thing to know about a child, one intends to teach is, What is he/she passionate about?

If you want to persuade people appeal to their interest, not to reason. Traveling associated with ideas of making the mind capable of assimilating varied ideas.

Selling : Find every benefit imaginable of your product? Second, find what other person is interested in? Show him sincerely how your product can help him secure his interest better than similar products.

How negative association can close mind: Avoiding to read just because it has some parts related to religion & vice versa.

Use a regular order to arrange your ideas. See how they stand & agree with rest of our ideas on the same subjects.

Observe a regular progressive method. Simple ideas first & then complex ideas.

Combine ideas from different disciplines & apply them regularly to make sense of the world around you. Fill gaps in your knowledge.

Distinction in ideas. Useful & useless.

[Phillip Goodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

insightful, but was surprised while reading this book, as to how much I already knew of his instructions in this book.
Guess I am not a dummy.
Would have been great instructions for the time period it was written for.

[Rutger Mandelings · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very nice written but very difficult to read. This book should be a must've read in any teachers education. Also very knowledgeable if you're a student or a politician.

[Yayati Ashvapati · Rating 5 out of 5]

Timeless!

[Vlad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book on how to manage everything as mindfullness if you even go grovery shopping try to enjoy from that, it inspires to live. The author will describe the first experience on meditating

[Laís · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um trabalho muito bem elaborado sobre aprendizado, ensino e conhecimento submisso a Cristo nas mais diversas áreas que fazem um bom acadêmico e escolástico.

[Reader · Rating 5 out of 5]

I own an original reprinted edition of "The Improvement of The Mind" that was published in the year 1807. I found the edition in a recycling bin that I had permission on the word of my supervisor to dig through. (I worked at a location that regularly discarded old books).

Isaac Watts had a strong and focused insight. I was amazed to discover that he is the writer of "Joy To The World" (1719), the most celebrated hymn of churches and lovers of Christmas.

[Aaron]

Maybe the chewiest book I have ever read. I like to think that is saying something.

[R · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why improving of Mind is important

5 different way

How to teach / convince others