It was characteristic of his natural indolence that he chose the very
easiest method of reading—that is to say, he always read, if he
could, _in_ a translation, or if the style of the original was the
object, _with_ one. This, like his posture, nearly recumbent, was
deliberately adopted. "I find," he said, "that the _reflective_ part
of my brain works best when I have as little either bodily or _purely_
intellectual to distract me as possible. And it is the reflective
part," he says, "that I always preferred to cultivate, and that
latterly I have devoted my whole attention to. It is through the
reflective part that one gets the highest influence over people.
Training the reflective function is the training of character, while
the training of the purely physical side often, and the training of
the intellectual side not uncommonly, have a distinctly deteriorative
effect.

"By the reflective part, I mean all that deals with the _connection_ of
things, the discovery of principles, the laws that regulate emotion
and influence, the motives of human nature, the basis of existence,
the solution of the problem of life and being—that vast class of
subjects which lie just below, and animate concrete facts, and which
are the only things worthy of the devotion of a philosopher, though
no knowledge is unworthy of his _attention_.

"I am not quite clear what position I intend to take up in the world
at large. This only is certain, that if I am going to teach, and I
have a vague sense that I am destined for that, it is necessary first
to know something, to be _sure_ of something."

All his days were alike, except that on Sunday he used to frequent
city churches in the afternoon, or go to Westminster Abbey and St.