Thought | AdventAI

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Sep 24, 1872

Thought.

In educating the mind, our first duty should be to teach it to think, so that all its powers can be concentrated upon a single point without painful effort. When Sir Isaac Newton was asked how he made such vast discoveries in the various departments of science, he replied, “By thinking.” The world, in looking at the results he effected, forgot the weary days and nights spent in patient thought, by which those magnificent theories, the wonder of the present day, were brought forth. In early years he learned to think, and as thought generates thought, and the mind of man is capable of almost infinite expansion, he went on step by step in the labyrinths of science till death put an end to his labors.

The want of earnest thought receives a daily illustration in the institutions of learning all over our land. The brains of the students are crammed with an immense mass of rubbish collected from other minds, and with this insubstantial repast they are compelled to be satisfied. Not once are they taught to descend into the caverns of thought, and gather bright jewels for themselves. There are, however, notable exceptions in this general laxity of discipline, and the light they shed forth shines with a double brilliancy.