Excerpt from Essays, Moral and Literary, Vol. 2 of 2 The belt method of extrac'tin a epitomizing, is to exprefs the author's ideas, a ter mttinghjs book, in our own words. In this exercife, the memory is exerted, and the ftyle improved. We make what we write our own; we think, we are aftive, and we do not condemn ourfelves to an. Employment merely ma nual and mechanical. But, after all, whatever a few may fay, write, or think, it is certain, that the great elt fcholars were content with reading, without making either extracts or epitomes. They were fatisfied with what remained in their minds after a diligent perufal, and when they wrote, they wrote their own. Reading is, indeed, molt juflly called the food of the \mind. Like food, it mull; be dige ed and a imulated it mull thew its nutritive power by promoting growth and fireh th, and by enabling the mind to bring forth founf and vigorous produftiousr It mu be converted in fucczzm ez' fanguz'zzem, 1nt03u1ce and blood, and not make its appearance again in the form in which it was originally imbibed. It is indeed true, and the ih fiance may be brought in oppolition to my doerine, that Demofthenes tranfcribed Thucydides eight times with his own hand; but it {hould be' remembered, that Demo henes ourifhed before printing was difcovered, and that he was induced to tranfcribe Thucydides, not only for the fake of improvement, but alfo for the fake of multiplying copies of a favourite author. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works."