g truth. There remains but one course for the recovery of
a sound and healthy condition,--namely, that the entire work of the
understanding be commenced afresh, and the mind itself be from the
very outset not left to take its own course, but guided at every step;
and the business be done as if by machinery. Certainly if in things
mechanical men had set to work with their naked hands, without help or
force of instruments, just as in things intellectual they have set to
work with little else than the naked forces of the understanding, very
small would the matters have been which, even with their best efforts
applied in conjunction, they could have attempted or accomplished. Now
(to pause while upon this example and look in it as in a glass) let us
suppose that some vast obelisk were (for the decoration of a triumph
or some such magnificence) to be removed from its place, and that men
should set to work upon it with their naked hands; would not any
sober spectator think them mad? And if they should then send for more
people, thinking that in that way they might manage it, would he
not think them all the madder? And if they then proceeded to make a
selection, putting away the weaker hands, and using only the strong
and vigorous, would he not think them madder than ever? And if
lastly, not content with this, they resolved to call in aid the art
of athletics, and required all their men to come with hands, arms,
and sinews well anointed and medicated according to the rules of art,
would he not cry out that they were only taking pains to show a kind
of method and discretion in their madness? Yet just so it is that
men proceed in matters intellectual,--with just the same kind of mad
effort and useless combination of forces,--when they hope great things
either from the number and cooperation or from the excellency and
acuteness of individual wits; yea, and when they endeavour by Logic
(which may be considered as a kind of athletic art) to strengthen the
sinews of the understanding; and yet with all this study and endeavour
it is apparent to any true judgment that they are but applying the
naked intellect all the time; whereas in every great work to be done
by the hand of man it is manifestly impossible, without instruments
or machinery, either for the strength of each to be exerted or the
strength of all to be united.

Upon these premises two things occur to me of which, that they may
not be overlooked, I would have men reminded.