as Accomplishments to the Man of Fortune, are great
Reliefs to a Country Life, and many ways useful to those who are
possessed of them.

But of all the Diversions of Life, there is none so proper to fill up
its empty Spaces as the reading of useful and entertaining Authors. But
this I shall only touch upon, because it in some Measure interferes with
the third Method, which I shall propose in another Paper, for the
Employment of our dead unactive Hours, and which I shall only mention in
general to be the Pursuit of Knowledge.

[Footnote 1: Epist. 49, and in his De Brevitate Vita.]

* * * * *

No. 94 Monday, June 18, 1711 Addison.

'... Hoc est
Vivere bis, vita posse priore frui.'

Mart.

The last Method which I proposed in my _Saturday's Paper_, for filling
up those empty Spaces of Life which are so tedious and burdensome to
idle People, is the employing ourselves in the Pursuit of Knowledge. I
remember _Mr. Boyle_ [1] speaking of a certain Mineral, tells us, That
a Man may consume his whole Life in the Study of it, without arriving at
the Knowledge of all its Qualities. The Truth of it is, there is not a
single Science, or any Branch of it, that might not furnish a Man with
Business for Life, though it were much longer than it is.

I shall not here engage on those beaten Subjects of the Usefulness of
Knowledge, nor of the Pleasure and Perfection it gives the Mind, nor on
the Methods of attaining it, nor recommend any particular Branch of it,
all which have been the Topicks of many other Writers; but shall indulge
my self in a Speculation that is more uncommon, and may therefore
perhaps be more entertaining.

I have before shewn how the unemployed Parts of Life appear long and
tedious, and shall here endeavour to shew how those Parts of Life which
are exercised in Study, Reading, and the Pursuits of Knowledge, are long
but not tedious, and by that means discover a Method of lengthening our
Lives, and at the same time of turning all the Parts of them to our
Advantage.

Mr. _Lock_ observes, [2]

'That we get the Idea of Time, or Duration, by reflecting on that
Train of Ideas which succeed one another in our Minds: That for this
Reason, when we sleep soundly without dreaming, we have no Perception
of Time, or the Length of it whilst we sleep; and that the Moment
wherein we leave off to think, till th