that on "Manners and Fashion," or "The Genesis of Science"
(in a sixpenny volume of Spencer's *Essays*, published by Watts and Co.),
the magic illumination, the necessary power of "synthetising" things,
might be vouchsafed to them. In any case, the lack of some such
disciplinary, co-ordinating measure will amply explain
many disastrous stocktakings. The manner in which one single ray of light,
one single precious hint, will clarify and energise the whole mental life
of him who receives it, is among the most wonderful and heavenly
of intellectual phenomena. Some men search for that light
and never find it. But most men never search for it.


The superlative cause of disastrous stocktakings remains,
and it is much more simple than the one with which I have just dealt.
It consists in the absence of meditation. People read, and read,
and read, blandly unconscious of their effrontery in assuming
that they can assimilate without any further effort the vital essence
which the author has breathed into them. They cannot. And the proof
that they do not is shown all the time in their lives.
I say that if a man does not spend at least as much time
in actively and definitely thinking about what he has read
as he has spent in reading, he is simply insulting his author.
If he does not submit himself to intellectual and emotional fatigue
in classifying the communicated ideas, and in emphasising on his spirit
the imprint of the communicated emotions--then reading with him
is a pleasant pastime and nothing else. This is a distressing fact.
But it is a fact. It is distressing, for the reason
that meditation is not a popular exercise. If a friend asks you
what you did last night, you may answer, "I was reading," and he will be
impressed and you will be proud. But if you answer, "I was meditating,"