performs the office of a real lever, or of a point of support, which doubles the power.

XIII. OF TWO ACCESSORY CONDITIONS FOR RENDERING THE METHOD MORE ESSENTIALLY USEFUL AND BENEFICIAL. FIRST CONDITION :---THE PRACTICE OF KEEPING THREE DISTINCT AND SEPARATE ACCOUNTS, AND ENTERING IN THEM AS THEY OCCUR TO THE Mind all the USEFUL OBSERVATIONS RELATIVE TO EITHER OF THE THREE FACULTIES WHICH MAN OUGHT TO IMPROVE.

Two accessory

method.

conditions serve to complete this

The first is, to have, besides the analytical summary already mentioned, three separate books, or one book divided into three distinct accounts, in each of which must be inserted the developments to be given to each branch, from day to day, as a useful observation or an interesting article may present itself.

We have laid down this principle: that not a day ought to pass without paying its tribute and producing some improvement; and we have shown in what ways time should be turned to account. We ought to avail ourselves of all the means in our power for preventing the loss of any portion of this treasure, the application of which it is our aim to regulate.

XIV. OF THE TWO PORTIONS OF TIME, DISTINCT IN THEIR APPLICATION, OF WHICH LIFE IS COMPOSED.

THE public capital of a state, and the capital of each individual, are naturally divided, as Smith has shown, into two classes: the one comprehends the capital, properly so called, or the capital of consumption, the distinguishing characteristic of which is, that it produces no income; and the other consists of capital employed in the production of revenue. We may also distinguish, in another point of view, two different employments of capital; the one, commanded by want, applies to things of necessity; the other is appropriated indiscriminately, according to the will of the proprietor, either to things of real utility, present, or future, or to objects of mere pleasure or frivolous luxury, or to wholly useless expenses of whim and fancy.

*

The life of every individual may, in like manner, be divided into two perfectly distinct parts. One is devoted to the necessity of procuring the means of subsistence; of attending to professional avocations; of performing the functions with which he is invested, and the other duties imposed by society; and lastly of satisfying the various wants of nature, as required for the preservation of man.

The second portion is left to the free disposal of each person, who can make what use of it he thinks proper.

The time employed in procuring the means of subsistence, or in the performance of a duty attached to a situation which we hold, or to our social relations, may be considered in the light of a capital destined for immediate consumption. The use which we make of it applies to things of necessity; it is commanded by want.

The disposable portion of time, of which we can make a good or a bad use at pleasure, is lost by many, who spend it in useless, frivolous, or prejudicial pursuits. It is devoted by others to the purposes of preserving and developing their physical powers, of acquiring information, and of improving themselves. With the latter it is a kind of capital destined to produce future profit, and which also most frequently affords the purest and the most exquisite pleasure, at the very moment when we are employing it.

Since the whole of life is composed of these two distinct and separate portions, we ought to regulate their destination with such exact proportion, that the first may not encroach on any of the moments which can be appropriated to the second. We ought even to make them simul

taneously concur, for the present and for the future, in the development of our faculties, directed toward that grand end, which is common to the whole human race.

XV. NECESSITY OF PROFITING BY CIRCUMSTANCES AND MEN.--ADVANTAGES THAT MUST ACCRUE, IN THIS RESPECT, FROM THE PRACTICE OF KEEPING THREE SEPARATE ACCOUNTS FOR THE INSERTION OF THE OBSERVATIONS COLLECTED IN READING, IN COMPANY, IN THE EVENTS OF Life, and REFLECTION.

THE talent of profiting continually by circumstances and persons is essentially connected with the art of making a good use of time. We ought to turn to our advantage and benefit, by means of time, considered as a disposable capital, both circumstances and events, even when they are not favourable or contrary to our wishes; and the persons in whose society we are, and who are capable of contributing to our instruction and improvement.

The daily journal is not sufficient to produce these results; it merely gives the assurance that the various employments of each interval of twenty-four hours shall be distributed regularly and with strict economy. Like the faithful servant charged by king Philip to repeat to him every morning, "Remember that thou art human!"the Journal seems daily to address you in these

words: "Remember that you must account to yourself for the hours of which you are about to dispose."

The use of three separate subordinate journals is of the utmost importance. The three different accounts, contained in these journals, are designed to comprise whatever seems capable of contributing to the improvement of the three branches already specified, and thus arranging it, as it were, in three distinct houses, where it may be easily referred to and consulted as occasion may arise. Each subject is to be treated of at an extent proportionate to its utility, but always with precision. We may derive our materials from reading, from the observations which society furnishes, from the events that pass before us, from the daily occurrences of life, from our own feelings, and the reflections to which they give rise. Experience lies not in the facts themselves, which are not remarked by inattentive and superficial men, but in the feeling of those facts, in the sensation which they excite, and in the duration of that sensation. To fix and to renew sensations, therefore, is to multiply experience.*

* Since experience does not consist in facts, but in the feeling of those facts, and the sensation which they excite, it were