Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 8.djvu/228

216 all sciences and all knowledge, and that one truth really becomes ours only in proportion as it is surrounded and illuminated by other truths already ours? But, in spite of all untoward circumstances, the power of association in reading can be, and should be, trained carefully.

The power to read well depends, likewise, upon our power of perception, of mental perception; upon the readiness with which we discover the relation between ideas. The degree of this faculty, more than any other one thing, constitutes the difference between dull and sharp minds. Also, it seems to be, more than any other faculty, a native endowment. However, training will show here as plainly as elsewhere. Persons blindfolded have described the contents of rooms, the position of doors, windows, etc., with such accuracy that the credulous have attributed to them a superhuman power; whereas, their whole secret lay in the development of their perceptive faculties. Circumstances unnoticed by others gave them information and the power of inference. The same difference may be observed among readers. One person at a single reading will grasp the thought precisely as it was expressed; for another, even time and study are not sufficient to impress all the modifications and the exact form of the idea. Our Federal Constitution affords a good opportunity to test this power of perception in reading. "No person except a natural-born citizen, or a citizen of the United States at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States." Upon once perusing this, a fair reader would instantly recognize the difference between the two classes of citizens spoken of, and also consciously notice that in the last line it is not "citizen," but "resident," and he will distinctly perceive the difference in the meaning of these words. But this is just what a vast number of those who ought to be good readers will not do. They will not perceive these distinctions until study or comment brings them to their attention. I say a good reader will consciously perceive these differences; he will think of them as he goes along: for many persons will retain in a physical chamber of the mind, as it were, an echo of the words, and repeat them verbatim, but these distinct ideas will not penetrate their consciousness. Submit to the average readers of Byron this line upon the Gladiator:

and judge of the quickness and clearness of their perception.

A large part of the function of this faculty consists in the perception of analogies. Such is its chief office for the student of literature The feeling of likeness in one way or another is the foundation of all