The mind; its capabilities and cultivation : being the substance of a lecture delivered in the reading room of the Calver and Stony Middleton Mutual Improvement Society / by James Wills.

  • Wills, James (junior, of Sheffield)
Date:
1859
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The mind; its capabilities and cultivation : being the substance of a lecture delivered in the reading room of the Calver and Stony Middleton Mutual Improvement Society / by James Wills. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    in your minds that nothing is so truly interesting, no- thing so attractive, and nothing so substantial as Truth. Man was not intended to feed upon wind; he who, though finite and depraved, is nevertheless the moral and intellectual resemblance of the Deity, was never intended to be the sport of superstition, or of the vile excogitations of corrupted and filthy imaginations. Avoid novels and romances, which have nothing to recommend themselves to your notice but the conceived or barely probable approximations to truth. Now, if the semblance of truth is so forcible and fascinating, what must Truth itself be ? People may have their mental powers weakened, their minds poisoned, and become deranged by reading works of fiction; but they will never attain to any high intellectual or moral status by that means. I view with horror, the demoralizing tendencies and positively vicious effects which are daily being produced by the thousands of mere trashy and flashy things which teem from the great portion of the press. The leading articles of many periodicals are such as to inflame the imagination, enkindle the basest feelings, and com- pletely warp and distort the intellectual powers. Let but the habit of novel reading be once formed, and there is very little hope of the important branches of the sciences being prosecuted with vigour and suc- cess. I may be reminded, by way of apology or defence for such reading, of the excellent novels of Knights, Baronets, Barons, and others. All I have to say