Excerpt from Tendency of Misdirected Education and the Unbalanced Mind to Produce Insanity On the other hand, as in the decline of fortune every pecuniary loss, and every neglect to secure due and honorable advantage, increases the danger of another sacrifice, and diminishes the power of preventing it, so in the mental and moral constitution every neglect of study or discipline, every misapplication of intellectual force, every perversion of any of the faculties, every undue indulgence of any appc tite or passion, every error or sin, increases the danger and the chance of the repetition of the same mistake or fault, and diminishes the securities against their influence; for whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away even that he bath. The practical operation of this law, both of growth and of decline, is manifested everywhere and among all men, and few are they who cannot trace it in some form or other, even in themselves, in the cultivation of any or all of the intellectual powers, in the study of language, mathematics, natural history, or any other branch of litera ture or science, in the cultivation of the moral and spiritual affections, the religious element, the conscience, the sense of right and wrong, regard to truth, love of man. In the intellectual progress, the more one learns, the greater is his power of acquisition, and the taste for and the facility of acquiring increase with it. In the moral progress, the more the heart is warmed, the greater warmth does it demand to satisfy its desires; the more the spirit is elevated, the higher are its aspirations towards the true and the infinite. We see the same law in the cultivation of the tastes, the love of nature, of the beautiful, of music, of painting, of any of the fine arts. In these, indulgence creates strength, and strength gives enjoyment and a. Craving for more and more, and with these come the means and resolution to obtain greater gratification. 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.