It seems proper that I should prefix1 to the following biographical sketch2, some mention of the reasons which have made me think it desirable that I should leave behind me such a memorial of so uneventful a life as mine. I do not for a moment imagine that any part of what I have to relate can be interesting to the public as a narrative4, or as being connected with myself. But I have thought that in an age in which education, and its improvement, are the subject of more, if not of profounder study than at any former period of English history, it may be useful that there should be some record of an education which was unusual and remarkable5, and which, whatever else it may have done, has proved how much more than is commonly supposed may be taught, and well taught, in those early years which, in the common modes of what is called instruction, are little better than wasted. It has also seemed to me that in an age of transition in opinions, there may be somewhat both of interest and of benefit in noting the successive phases of any mind which was always pressing forward, equally ready to learn and to unlearn either from its own thoughts or from those of others. But a motive6 which weighs more with me than either of these, is a desire to make acknowledgment of the debts which my intellectual and moral development owes to other persons; some of them of recognized eminence7, others less known than they deserve to be, and the one to whom most of all is due, one whom the world had no opportunity of knowing. The reader whom these things do not interest, has only himself to blame if he reads farther, and I do not desire any other indulgence from him than that of bearing in mind, that for him these pages were not written.
I was born in London, on the 20th of May, 1806, and was the eldest8 son of James Mill, the author of the History of British India. My father, the son of a petty tradesman and (I believe) small farmer, at Northwater Bridge, in the county of Angus, was, when a boy, recommended by his abilities to the notice of Sir John Stuart, of Fettercairn, one of the Barons9 of the Exchequer10 in Scotland, and was, in consequence, sent to the University of Edinburgh at the expense of a fund established by Lady Jane Stuart (the wife of Sir John Stuart) and some other ladies for educating young men for the Scottish Church. He there went through the usual course of study, and was licensed11 as a Preacher, but never followed the profession; having satisfied himself that he could not believe the doctrines12 of that or any other Church. For a few years he was a private tutor in various families in Scotland, among others that of the Marquis of Tweeddale; but ended by taking up his residence in London, and devoting himself to authorship. Nor had he any other means of support until 1819, when he obtained an appointment in the India House.
In this period of my father's life there are two things which it is impossible not to be struck with: one of them unfortunately a very common circumstance, the other a most uncommon13 one. The first is, that in his position, with no resource but the precarious14 one of writing in periodicals, he married and had a large family; conduct than which nothing could be more opposed, both as a matter of good sense and of duty, to the opinions which, at least at a later period of life, he strenuously15 upheld. The other circumstance is the extraordinary energy which was required to lead the life he led, with the disadvantages under which he laboured from the first, and with those which he brought upon himself by his marriage. It would have been no small thing, had he done no more than to support himself and his family during so many years by writing, without ever being in debt, or in any pecuniary16 difficulty; holding, as he did, opinions, both in politics and in religion, which were more odious17 to all persons of influence, and to the common run of prosperous Englishmen in that generation than either before or since; and being not only a man whom nothing would have induced to write against his convictions, but one who invariably threw into everything he wrote, as much of his convictions as he thought the circumstances would in any way permit: being, it must also be said, one who never did anything negligently18; never undertook any task, literary or other, on which he did not conscientiously19 bestow20 all the labour necessary for performing it adequately. But he, with these burthens on him, planned, commenced, and completed, the History of India; and this in the course of about ten years, a shorter time than has been occupied (even by writers who had no other employment) in the production of almost any other historical work of equal bulk, and of anything approaching to the same amount of reading and research. And to this is to be added, that during the whole period, a considerable part of almost every day was employed in the instruction of his children: in the case of one of whom, myself, he exerted an amount of labour, care, and perseverance21 rarely, if ever, employed for a similar purpose, in endeavouring to give, according to his own conception, the highest order of intellectual education.
A man who, in his own practice, so vigorously acted up to the principle of losing no time, was likely to adhere to the same rule in the instruction of his pupil. I have no remembrance of the time when I began to learn Greek. I have been told that it was when I was three years old. My earliest recollection on the subject, is that of committing to memory what my father termed Vocables, being lists of common Greek words, with their signification in English, which he wrote out for me on cards. Of grammar, until some years later, I learnt no more than the inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but, after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and I faintly remember going through AEsop's Fables23, the first Greek book which I read. The Anabasis, which I remember better, was the second. I learnt no Latin until my eighth year. At that time I had read, under my father's tuition, a number of Greek prose authors, among whom I remember the whole of Herodotus, and of Xenophon's Cyropaedia and Memorials of Socrates; some of the lives of the philosophers by Diogenes Laertius; part of Lucian, and Isocrates' ad Demonicum and ad Nicoclem. I also read, in 1813, the first six dialogues (in the common arrangement) of Plato, from the Euthyphron to the Theaetetus inclusive: which last dialogue, I venture to think, would have been better omitted, as it was totally impossible I should understand it. But my father, in all his teaching, demanded of me not only the utmost that I could do, but much that I could by no possibility have done. What he was himself willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact, that I went through the whole process of preparing my Greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing: and as in those days Greek and English lexicons25 were not, and I could make no more use of a Greek and Latin lexicon24 than could be made without having yet begun to learn Latin, I was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which I did not know. This incessant26 interruption, he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his History and all else that he had to write during those years.
The only thing besides Greek, that I learnt as a lesson in this part of my childhood, was arithmetic: this also my father taught me: it was the task of the evenings, and I well remember its disagreeableness. But the lessons were only a part of the daily instruction I received. Much of it consisted in the books I read by myself, and my father's discourses27 to me, chiefly during our walks. From 1810 to the end of 1813 we were living in Newington Green, then an almost rustic28 neighbourhood. My father's health required considerable and constant exercise, and he walked habitually29 before breakfast, generally in the green lanes towards Hornsey. In these walks I always accompanied him, and with my earliest recollections of green fields and wild flowers, is mingled30 that of the account I gave him daily of what I had read the day before. To the best of my remembrance, this was a voluntary rather than a prescribed exercise. I made notes on slips of paper while reading, and from these, in the morning walks, I told the story to him; for the books were chiefly histories, of which I read in this manner a great number: Robertson's histories, Hume, Gibbon; but my greatest delight, then and for long afterwards, was Watson's Philip the Second and Third. The heroic defence of the Knights31 of Malta against the Turks, and of the revolted provinces of the Netherlands against Spain, exited in me an intense and lasting32 interest. Next to Watson, my favourite historical reading was Hooke's History of Rome. Of Greece I had seen at that time no regular history, except school abridgments and the first two or three volumes of a translation of Rollin's Ancient History, beginning with Philip of Macedon. But I read with great delight Langhorne's translation of Plutarch. In English history, beyond the time at which Hume leaves off, I remember reading Burnet's History of his Own Time, though I cared little for anything in it except the wars and battles; and the historical part of the Annual Register, from the beginning to about 1788, when the volumes my father borrowed for me from Mr Bentham left off. I felt a lively interest in Frederic of Prussia during his difficulties, and in Paoli, the Corsican patriot35; but when I came to the American war, I took my part, like a child as I was (until set right by my father) on the wrong side, because it was called the English side. In these frequent talks about the books I read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilization, government, morality, mental cultivation36, which he required me afterwards to restate to him in my own words. He also made me read, and give him a verbal account of, many books which would not have interested me sufficiently37 to induce me to read them of myself: among others, Millar's Historical View of the English Government, a book of great merit for its time, and which he highly valued; Mosheim's Ecclesiastical History, McCrie's Life of John Knox, and even Sewel's and Rutty's Histories of the Quakers. He was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works I remember Beaver's African Memoranda38, and Collins's account of the first settlement of New South Wales. Two books which I never wearied of reading were Anson's Voyage, so delightful39 to most young persons, and a Collection (Hawkesworth's, I believe) of Voyages round the World, in four volumes, beginning with Drake and ending with Cook and Bougainville. Of children's books, any more than of playthings, I had scarcely any, except an occasional gift from a relation or acquaintance: among those I had, Robinson Crusoe was preeminent40, and continued to delight me through all my boyhood. It was no part however of my father's system to exclude books of amusement, though he allowed them very sparingly. Of such books he possessed42 at that time next to none, but he borrowed several for me; those which I remember are the Arabian Nights, Cazotte's Arabian Tales, Don Quixote, Miss Edgeworth's "Popular Tales," and a book of some reputation in its day, Brooke's Fool of Quality.
In my eighth year I commenced learning Latin, in conjunction with a younger sister, to whom I taught it as I went on, and who afterwards repeated the lessons to my father: and from this time, other sisters and brothers being successively added as pupils, a considerable part of my day's work consisted of this preparatory teaching. It was a part which I greatly disliked; the more so, as I was held responsible for the lessons of my pupils, in almost as full a sense as for my own: I however derived43 from this discipline the great advantage of learning more thoroughly45 and retaining more lastingly46 the things which I was set to teach: perhaps, too, the practice it afforded in explaining difficulties to others, may even at that age have been useful. In other respects, the experience of my boyhood is not favourable47 to the plan of teaching children by means of one another. The teaching, I am sure, is very inefficient48 as teaching, and I well knew that the relation between teacher and taught is not a good moral discipline to either. I went in this manner through the Latin grammar, and a considerable part of Cornelius Nepos and Caesar's Commentaries, but afterwards added to the superintendence of these lessons, much longer ones of my own.
In the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement in the Greek poet with the Iliad. After I had made some progress in this, my father put Pope's translation into my hands. It was the first English verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books in which for many years I most delighted: I think I must have read it from twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought it worth while to mention a taste apparently49 so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, observed that the keen enjoyment50 of this brilliant specimen51 of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys, as I should have expected both a priori and from my individual experience. Soon after this time I commenced Euclid, and somewhat later, algebra52, still under my father's tuition.
From my eighth to my twelfth year the Latin books which I remember reading were, the Bucolics of Virgil, and the first six books of the AEneid; all Horace except the Epodes; the Fables of Phaedrus; the first five books of Livy (to which from my love of the subject I voluntarily added, in my hours of leisure, the remainder of the first decade); all Sallust; a considerable part of Ovid's Metamorphoses; some plays of Terence; two or three books of Lucretius; several of the Orations53 of Cicero, and of his writings on oratory55; also his letters to Atticus, my father taking the trouble to translate to me from the French the historical explanations in Mongault's notes. In Greek I read the Iliad and Odyssey56 through; one or two plays of Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes, though by these I profited little; all Thucydides; the Hellenics of Xenophon; a great part of Demosthenes, AEschines, and Lysias; Theocritus; Anacreon; part of the Anthology; a little of Dionysius; several books of Polybius; and lastly Aristotle's Rhetoric57, which, as the first expressly scientific treatise58 on any moral or psychological subject which I had read, and containing many of the best observations of the ancients on human nature and life, my father made me study with peculiar60 care, and throw the matter of it into synoptic tables. During the same years I learnt elementary geometry and algebra thoroughly, the differential calculus61 and other portions of the higher mathematics far from thoroughly: for my father, not having kept up this part of his early acquired knowledge, could not spare time to qualify himself for removing my difficulties, and left me to deal with them, with little other aid than that of books; while I was continually incurring62 his displeasure by my inability to solve difficult problems for which he did not see that I had not the necessary previous knowledge.
As to my private reading, I can only speak of what I remember. History continued to be my strongest predilection63, and most of all ancient history. Mitford's Greece I read continually; my father had put me on my guard against the Tory prejudices of this writer, and his perversions64 of facts for the white-washing of despot, and blackening of popular institutions. These points he discoursed65 on, exemplifying them from the Greek orators66 and historians, with such effect that in reading Mitford my sympathies were always on the contrary side to those of the author, and I could, to some extent, have argued the point against him: yet this did not diminish the ever new pleasure with which I read the book. Roman history, both in my old favourite, Hooke, and in Ferguson, continued to delight me. A book which, in spite of what is called the dryness of its style, I took great pleasure in, was the Ancient Universal History, through the incessant reading of which I had my head full of historical details concerning the obscurest ancient people, while about modern history, except detached passages, such as the Dutch war of independence, I knew and cared comparatively little. A voluntary exercise, to which throughout my boyhood I was much addicted67, was what I called writing histories. I successively imposed a Roman history, picked out of Hooke; an abridgment33 of the Ancient Universal History; a History of Holland, from my favourite Watson and from an anonymous68 compilation69; and in my eleventh and twelfth year I occupied myself with writing what I flattered myself was something serious. This was no less than a history of the Roman Government, compiled (with the assistance of Hooke) from Livy and Dionysius: of which I wrote as much as would have made an octavo volume, extending to the epoch70 of the Licinian Laws. It was, in fact, an account of the struggles between the patricians71 and plebeians72, which now engrossed73 all the interest in my mind which I had previously74 felt in the mere75 wars and conquest of the Romans. I discussed all the institutional point as they arose: though quite ignorant of Niebuhr's researches, I, by such lights as my father had given me, vindicated76 the Agrarian77 Laws on the evidence of Livy, and upheld to the best of my ability the Roman democratic party. A few years later, in my contempt of my childish efforts, I destroyed all these papers, not then anticipating that I could ever feel any curiosity about my first attempt at writing and reasoning. My father encouraged me in this useful amusement, though, as I think judiciously78, he never asked to see what I wrote; so that I did not feel that in writing it I was accountable to any one, nor had the chilling sensation of being under a critical eye.
But though these exercises in history were never a compulsory79 lesson, there was another kind of composition which was so, namely, writing verses, and it was one of the most disagreeable of my tasks. Greek and Latin verses I did not write, nor learnt the prosody80 of those languages. My father, thinking this not worth the time it required, contented81 himself with making me read aloud to him, and correcting false quantities. I never composed at all in Greek, even in prose, and but little in Latin. Not that my father could be indifferent to the value of this practice, in giving a thorough knowledge of those languages, but because there really was not time for it. The verses I was required to write were English. When I first read Pope's Homer, I ambitiously attempted to compose something of the same kind, and achieved as much as one book of a continuation of the Iliad. There, probably, the spontaneous promptings of my poetical83 ambition would have stopped; but the exercise, begun from choice, was continued by command. Conformably to my father's usual practice of explaining to me, as far as possible, the reasons for what he required me to do, he gave me, for this, as I well remember, two reasons highly characteristic of him: one was, that some things could be expressed better and more forcibly in verse than in prose: this, he said, was a real advantage. The other was, that people in general attached more value to verse than it deserved, and the power of writing it, was, on this account, worth acquiring. He generally left me to choose my own subject, which, as far as I remember, were mostly addresses to some mythological84 personage or allegorical abstractions; but he made me translate into English verse many of Horace's shorter poems: I also remember his giving me Thomson's "Winter" to read, and afterwards making me attempt (without book) to write something myself on the same subject. The verses I wrote were, of course, the merest rubbish, nor did I ever attain85 any facility of versification, but the practice may have been useful in making it easier for me, at a later period, to acquire readiness of expression.1 I had read, up to this time, very little English poetry, Shakespeare my father had put into my hands, chiefly for the sake of the historical plays, from which, however, I went on to the others. My father never was a great admirer of Shakespeare, the English idolatry of whom he used to attack with some severity. He cared little for any English poetry except Milton (for whom he had the highest admiration), Goldsmith, Burns, and Gray's Bard86, which he preferred to his Elegy87: perhaps I may add Cowper and Beattie. He had some value for Spenser, and I remember his reading to me (unlike his usual practice of making me read to him), the first book of the Fairie Queene; but I took little pleasure in it. The poetry of the present century he saw scarcely any merit in, and I hardly became acquainted with any of it till I was grown up to manhood, except the metrical romances of Walter Scott, which I read at his recommendation and was intensely delighted with; as I always was with animated88 narrative. Dryden's Poems were among my father's books, and many of these he made me read, but I never cared for any of them except Alexander's Feast, which, as well as many of the songs in Walter Scott, I used to sing internally, to a music of my own: to some of the latter, indeed, I went so far as to compose airs, which I still remember. Cowper's short poems I read with some pleasure, but never got far into the longer ones; and nothing in the two volumes interested me like the prose account of his three hares. In my thirteenth year I met with Campbell's Poems, among which Lochiel, Hohenlinden, the Exile of Erin, and some others, gave me sensations I had never before experienced from poetry. Here, too, I made nothing of the longer poems, except the striking opening of Gertrude of Wyoming, which long kept it place in my feelings as the perfection of pathos89.
During this part of my childhood, one of my greatest amusements was experimental science; in the theoretical, however, not the practical sense of the word; not trying experiments — a kind of discipline which I have often regretted not having had — nor even seeing, but merely reading about them. I never remember being so wrapt up in any book, as I was in Joyce's Scientific Dialogues; and I was rather recalcitrant90 to my father's criticisms of the bad reasoning respecting the first principles of physics, which abounds91 in the early part of that work. I devoured92 treatises93 on Chemistry, especially that of my father's early friend and schoolfellow, Dr. Thomson, for years before I attended a lecture or saw an experiment.
From about the age of twelve, I entered into another and more advanced stage in my course of instruction; in which the main object was no longer the aids and appliances of thought, but the thoughts themselves. This commenced with Logic59, in which I began at once with the Organon, and read it to the Analytics inclusive, but profited little by the Posterior Analytics, which belongs to a branch of speculation94 I was not yet ripe for. Contemporaneously with the Organon, my father made me read the whole or parts of several of the Latin treatises on the scholastic95 logic; giving each day to him, in our walks, a minute account of what I had read, and answering his numerous and searching questions. After this, I went in a similar manner, through the "Computatio sive Logica" of Hobbes, a work of a much higher order of thought than the books of the school logicians, and which he estimated very highly; in my own opinion beyond it merits, great as these are. It was his invariable practice, whatever studies he exacted from me, to make me as far as possible understand and feel the utility of them: and this he deemed peculiarly fitting in the case of the syllogistic96 logic, the usefulness of which had been impugned97 by so many writers of authority. I well remember how, and in what particular walk, in the neighbourhood of Bagshot Heath (where we were on a visit to his old friend Mr Wallace, then one of the Mathematical Professors at Sandhurst) he first attempted by questions to make me think on the subject, and frame some conception of what constituted the utility of the syllogistic logic, and when I had failed in this, to make me understand it by explanations. The explanations did not make the matter at all clear to me at the time; but they were not therefore useless; they remained as a nucleus98 for my observations and reflections to crystallize upon; the import of his general remarks being interpreted to me, by the particular instances which came under my notice afterwards. My own consciousness and experience ultimately led me to appreciate quite as highly as he did, the value of an early practical familiarity with the school logic. I know nothing, in my education, to which I think myself more indebted for whatever capacity of thinking I have attained99. The first intellectual operation in which I arrived at any proficiency100, was dissecting101 a bad argument, and finding in what part the fallacy lay: and though whatever capacity of this sort I attained was due to the fact that it was an intellectual exercise in which I was most perseveringly102 drilled by my father, yet it is also true that the school logic, and the mental habits acquired in studying it, were among the principal instruments of this drilling. I am persuaded that nothing, in modern education, tends so much, when properly used, to form exact thinkers, who attach a precise meaning to words and propositions, and are not imposed on by vague, loose, or ambiguous terms. The boasted influence of mathematical studies is nothing to it; for in mathematical processes, none of the real difficulties of correct ratiocination103 occur. It is also a study peculiarly adapted to an early stage in the education of philosophical105 students, since it does not presuppose the slow process of acquiring, by experience and reflection, valuable thoughts of their own. They may become capable of disentangling the intricacies of confused and self-contradictory thought, before their own thinking faculties106 are much advanced; a power which, for want of some such discipline, many otherwise able men altogether lack; and when they have to answer opponent, only endeavour, by such argument as they can command, to support the opposite conclusion, scarcely even attempting to confute the reasonings of their antagonists107; and, therefore, at the utmost, leaving the question, as far as it depends on argument, a balanced one.
During this time, the Latin and Greek books which I continued to read with my father were chiefly such as were worth studying, not for the language merely, but also for the thoughts. This included much of the orators, and especially Demosthenes, some of whose principal orations I read several times over, and wrote out, by way of exercise, a full analysis of them. My father's comments on these orations when I read them to him were very instructive to me. He not only drew my attention to the insight they afforded into Athenian institutions, and the principles of legislation and government which they often illustrated108, but pointed109 out the skill and art of the orator54 — how everything important to his purpose was said at the exact moment when he had brought the minds of his audience into the state most fitted to receive it; how he made steal into their minds, gradually and by insinuation, thoughts which, if expressed in a more direct manner would have aroused their opposition110. Most of these reflections were beyond my capacity of full comprehension at the time; but they left seed behind, which geminated in due season. At this time I also read the whole of Tacitus, Juvenal, and Quintilian. The latter, owing to his obscure style and to the scholastic details of which many parts of his treatise are made up, is little read, and seldom sufficiently appreciated. His book is a kind of encyclopaedia111 of the thoughts of the ancients on the whole field of education and culture; and I have retained through life many valuable ideas which I can distinctly trace to my reading of him, even at that early age. It was at this period that I read, for the first time, some of the most important dialogues of Plato, in particular the Gorgias, the Protagoras, and the Republic. There is no author to whom my father thought himself more indebted for his own mental culture, than Plato, or whom he more frequently recommended to young student. I can bear similar testimony112 in regard to myself. The Socratic method, of which the Platonic113 dialogues are the chief example, is unsurpassed as a discipline for correcting the errors, and clearing up the confusions incident to the intellectus sibi permissus, the understanding which has made up all its bundles of associations under the guidance of popular phraseology. The close, searching elenchus by which the man of vague generalities is constrained114 either to express his meaning to himself in definite terms, or to confess that he does not know what he is talking about; the perpetual testing of all general statements by particular instances; the siege in from which is laid to the meaning of large abstract terms, by fixing upon some still larger class-name which includes that and more, and dividing down to the thing sought — marking out its limits and definition by a series of accurately115 drawn116 distinctions between it and each of the cognate117 objects which are successively parted off from it — all this, as an education for precise thinking, is inestimable, and all this, even at that age, took such hold of me that it became part of my own mind. I have felt ever since that the title of Platonist belongs by far better right to those who have been nourished in, and have endeavoured to practise Plato's mode of investigation118, than to those who are distinguished119 only by the adoption120 of certain dogmatical conclusions, drawn mostly from the least intelligible121 of his works, and which the character of his mind and writings makes it uncertain whether he himself regarded as anything more than poetic82 fancies, or philosophic104 conjectures122.
In going through Plato and Demosthenes, since I could now read these authors, as far as the language was concerned, with perfect ease, I was not required to construe123 them sentence by sentence, but to read them aloud to my father, answering questions when asked: but the particular attention which he paid to elocution (in which his own excellence124 was remarkable) made this reading aloud to him a most painful task. Of all things which he required me to do, there was none which I did so constantly ill, or in which he so perpetually lost his temper with me. He had thought much on the principles of the art of reading, especially the most neglected part of it, the inflections of the voice, or modulation125 as writers on elocution call it (in contrast with articulation126 on the one side, and expression on the other), and had reduced it to rules, grounded on the logical analysis of a sentence. These rules he strongly impressed upon me, and took me severely127 to task for every violation128 of them: but I even then remarked (though I did not venture to make the remark to him) that though he reproached me when I read a sentence ill, and told me how I ought to have read it, he never, by reading it himself, showed me how it ought to be read. A defect running through his otherwise admirable modes of instruction, as it did through all his modes of thought, was that of trusting too much to the intelligibleness of the abstract, when not embodied129 in the concrete. It was at a much later period of my youth, when practising elocution by myself, or with companions of my own age, that I for the first time understood the object of his rules, and saw the psychological grounds of them. At that time I and others followed out the subject into its ramifications130 and could have composed a very useful treatise, grounded on my father's principles. He himself left those principles and rules unwritten. I regret that when my mind was full of the subject, from systematic131 practice, I did not put them, and our improvements of them, into a formal shape.
A book which contributed largely to my education, in the best sense of the term, was my father's History of India. It was published in the beginning of 1818. During the year previous, while it was passing through the press, I used to read the proof sheets to him; or rather, I read the manuscript to him while he corrected the proofs. The number of new ideas which I received from this remarkable book, and the impulse and stimulus132 as well as guidance given to my thoughts by its criticisms and disquisitions on society and civilization in the Hindoo part, on institutions and the acts of governments in the English part, made my early familiarity with it eminently133 useful to my subsequent progress. And though I can perceive deficiencies in it now as compared with a perfect standard, I still think it, if not the most, one of the most instructive histories ever written, and one of the books from which most benefit may be derived by a mind in the course of making up its opinions.
The Preface, among the most characteristic of my father's writings, as well as the richest in materials of thought, gives a picture which may be entirely134 depended on, of the sentiments and expectations with which he wrote the History. Saturated135 as the book is with the opinions and modes of judgment136 of a democratic radicalism137 then regarded as extreme; and treating with a severity, at that time most unusual, the English Constitution, the English law, and all parties and classes who possessed any considerable influence in the country; he may have expected reputation, but certainly not advancement138 in life, from its publication; nor could he have supposed that it would raise up anything but enemies for him in powerful quarters: least of all could he have expected favour from the East India Company, to whose commercial privileges he was unqualifiedly hostile, and on the acts of whose government he had made so many severe comments: though, in various parts of his book, he bore a testimony in their favour, which he felt to be their just due, namely, that no government had on the whole given so much proof, to the extent of its lights, of good intention towards its subjects; and that if the acts of any other government had the light of publicity139 as completely let in upon them, they would, in all probability, still less bear scrutiny140.
On learning, however, in the spring of 1819, about a year after the publication of the History, that the East India Directors desired to strengthen the part of their home establishment which was employed in carrying on the correspondence with India, my father declared himself a candidate for that employment, and, to the credit of the Directors, successfully. He was appointed one of the Assistants of the Examiner of India Correspondence; officers whose duty it was to prepare drafts of despatches to India, for consideration by the Directors, in the principal departments of administration. In this office, and in that of Examiner, which he subsequently attained, the influence which his talents, his reputation, and his decision of character gave him, with superiors who really desired the good government of India, enabled him to a great extent to throw into his drafts of despatches, and to carry through the ordeal142 of the Court of Directors and Board of Control, without having their force much weakened, his real opinions on Indian subjects. In his History he had set forth143, for the first time, many of the true principles of Indian administration: and his despatches, following his History, did more than had ever been done before to promote the improvement of india, and teach indian officials to understand their business. If a selection of them were published, they would, I am convinced, place his character as a practical statesman fully141 on a level with his eminence as a speculative144 writer.
This new employment of his time caused no relaxation145 in his attention to my education. It was in this same year, 1819, that he took me through a complete course of political economy. His loved and intimate friend, Ricardo, had shortly before published the book which formed so great an epoch in political economy; a book which never would have been published or written, but for the entreaty146 and strong encouragement of my father; for Ricardo, the most modest of men, though firmly convinced of the truth of his doctrines, deemed himself so little capable of doing them justice in exposition and expression, that he shrank from the idea of publicity. The same friendly encouragement induced Ricardo, a year or two later, to become a member of the House of Commons; where, during the few remaining years of his life, happily cut short in the full vigour147 of his intellect, he tendered so much service to his and my father's opinions both on political economy and on other subjects.
Though Ricardo's great work was already in print, no didactic treatise embodying148 its doctrines, in a manner fit for learners, had yet appeared. My father, therefore, commenced instructing me in the science by a sort of lectures, which he delivered to me in our walks. He expounded149 each day a portion of the subject, and I gave him next day a written account of it, which he made me rewrite over and over again until it was clear, precise, and tolerably complete. In this manner I went through the whole extent of the science; and the written outline of it which resulted from my daily compte rendu, served him afterwards as notes from which to write his Elements of Political Economy. After this I read Ricardo, giving an account daily of what I read, and discussing, in the best manner I could, the collateral150 points which offered themselves in our progress.
On Money, as the most intricate part of the subject, he made me read in the same manner Ricardo's admirable pamphlets, written during what was called the Bullion151 controversy152. to these succeeded Adam Smith; and in this reading it was one of my father's main objects to make me apply to Smith's more superficial view of political economy, the superior lights of Ricardo, and detect what was fallacious in Smith's arguments, or erroneous in any of his conclusions. Such a mode of instruction was excellently calculated to form a thinker; but it required to be worked by a thinker, as close and vigorous as my father. The path was a thorny153 one, even to him, and I am sure it was so to me, notwithstanding the strong interest I took in the subject. He was often, and much beyond reason, provoked by my failures in cases where success could not have been expected; but in the main his method was right, and it succeeded. I do not believe that any scientific teaching ever was more thorough, or better fitted for training the faculties, than the mode in which logic and political economy were taught to me by my father. Striving, even in an exaggerated degree, to call forth the activity of my faculties, by making me find out everything for myself, he gave his explanations not before, but after, I had felt the full force of the difficulties; and not only gave me an accurate knowledge of these two great subjects, as far as they were then understood, but made me a thinker on both. I thought for myself almost from the first, and occasionally thought differently from him, though for a long time only on minor154 points, and making his opinion the ultimate standard. At a later period I even occasionally convinced him, and altered his opinion on some points of detail: which I state to his honour, not my own. It at once exemplifies his perfect candour, and the real worth of his method of teaching.
At this point concluded what can properly be called my lessons: when I was about fourteen I left England for more than a year; and after my return, though my studies went on under my father's general direction, he was no longer my schoolmaster. I shall therefore pause here, and turn back to matters of a more general nature connected with the part of my life and education included in the preceding reminiscences.
In the course of instruction which I have partially155 retraced156, the point most superficially apparent is the great effort to give, during the years of childhood an amount of knowledge in what are considered the higher branches of education, which is seldom acquired (if acquired at all) until the age of manhood. The result of the experiment shows the ease with which this may be done, and places in a strong light the wretched waste of so many precious years as are spent in acquiring the modicum157 of Latin and Greek commonly taught to schoolboys; a waste, which has led so many educational reformers to entertain the ill-judged proposal of discarding these languages altogether from general education. If I had been by nature extremely quick of apprehension158, or had possessed a very accurate and retentive159 memory or were of a remarkably160 active and energetic character, the trial would not be conclusive161; but in all these natural gifts I am rather below than above par3; what I could do, could assuredly be done by any boy or girl of average capacity and healthy physical constitution: and if I have accomplished162 anything, I owe it, among other fortunate circumstances, to the fact that through the early training bestowed163 on me by my father, I started, I may fairly say, with an advantage of a quarter of a century over my contemporaries.
There was one cardinal164 point in this training, of which I have already given some indication, and which, more than anything else, was the cause of whatever good it effected. Most boys or youths who have had much knowledge drilled into them, have their mental capacities not strengthened, but over-laid by it. They are crammed165 with mere facts, and with the opinions or phrases of other people, and these are accepted as a substitute for the power to form opinions of their own: and thus the sons of eminent41 fathers, who have spared no pains in their education, so often grow up mere parroters of what they have learnt, incapable167 of using their minds except in the furrows168 traced for them. Mine, however, was not an education of cram166. My father never permitted anything which I learnt to degenerate169 into a mere exercise of memory. He strove to make the understanding not only go along with every step of the teaching, but, if possible, precede it. Anything which could be found out by thinking I never was told, until I had exhausted170 my efforts to find it out for myself. As far as I can trust my remembrance, I acquitted171 myself very lamely172 in this department; my recollection of such matters is almost wholly of failures, hardly ever of success. It is true the failures were often in things in which success in so early a stage of my progress, was almost impossible. I remember at some time in my thirteenth year, on my happening to use the word idea, he asked me what an idea was; and expressed some displeasure at my ineffectual efforts to define the word: I recollect22 also his indignation at my using the common expression that something was true in theory but required correction in practice; and how, after making me vainly strive to define the word theory, he explained its meaning, and showed the fallacy of the vulgar form of speech which I had used; leaving me fully persuaded that in being unable to give a correct definition of Theory, and in speaking of it as something which might be at variance173 with practice, I had shown unparalleled ignorance. In this he seems, and perhaps was, very unreasonable174; but I think, only in being angry at my failure. A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.
One of the evils most liable to attend on any sort of early proficiency, and which often fatally blights175 its promise, my father most anxiously guarded against. This was self-conceit. He kept me, with extreme vigilance, out of the way of hearing myself praised, or of being led to make self-flattering comparisons between myself and others. From his own intercourse176 with me I could derive44 none but a very humble177 opinion of myself; and the standard of comparison he always held up to me, was not what other people did, but what a man could and ought to do. He completely succeeded in preserving me from the sort of influences he so much dreaded178. I was not at all aware that my attainments179 were anything unusual at my age. If I accidentally had my attention drawn to the fact that some other boy knew less than myself — which happened less often than might be imagined-i concluded, not that I knew much, but that he, for some reason or other, knew little, or that his knowledge was of a different kind from mine. My state of mind was not humility180, but neither was it arrogance181. I never thought of saying to myself, I am, or I can do, so and so. I neither estimated myself highly nor lowly. I did not estimate myself at all. If I thought anything about myself, it was that I was rather backward in my studies, since I always found myself so, in comparison with what my father expected from me. I assert this with confidence, though it was not the impression of various persons who saw me in my childhood. They, as I have since found, thought me greatly and disagreeably self-conceited; probably because I was disputatious, and did not scruple182 to give direct contradictions to things which I heard said. I suppose I acquired this bad habit from having been encouraged in an unusual degree to talk on matters beyond my age, and with grown persons, while I never had inculcated in me the usual respect for them. My father did not correct this ill-breeding and impertinence, probably from not being aware of it, for I was always too much in awe183 of him to be otherwise than extremely subdued184 and quiet in his presence. Yet with all this I had no notion of any superiority in myself; and well was it for me that I had not. I remember the very place in Hyde Park where, in my fourteenth year, on the eve of leaving my father's house for a long absence, he told me that I should find, as I got acquainted with new people, that I had been taught many things which youths of my age did not commonly know; and that many persons would be disposed to talk to me of this, and to compliment me upon it. What other things he said on this topic I remember very imperfectly; but he wound up by saying, that whatever I knew more than others, could not be ascribed to any merit in me, but to the very unusual advantage which had fallen to my lot, of having a father who was able to teach me, and willing to give the necessary trouble and time; that it was no matter of praise to me, if I knew more than those who had not had a similar advantage, but the deepest disgrace to me if I did not. I have a distinct remembrance, that the suggestion thus for the first time made to me, that I knew more than other youths who were considered well educated, was to me a piece of information, to which, as to all other things which my father told me, I gave implicit185 credence186, but which did not at all impress me as a personal matter. I felt no disposition187 to glorify188 myself upon the circumstance that there were other persons who did not know what I knew; nor had I ever flattered myself that my acquirements, whatever they might be, were any merit of mine: but, now when my attention was called to the subject, I felt that what my father had said, respecting my peculiar advantages was exactly the truth and common sense of the matter, and it fixed189 my opinion and feeling from that time forward.
It is evident that this, among many other of the purposes of my father's scheme of education, could not have been accomplished if he had not carefully kept me from having any great amount of intercourse with other boys. He was earnestly bent34 upon my escaping not only the ordinary corrupting190 influence which boys exercise over boys, but the contagion191 of vulgar modes of thought and feeling; and for this he was willing that I should pay the price of inferiority in the accomplishments192 which schoolboys in all countries chiefly cultivate. The deficiencies in my education were principally in the things which boys learn from being turned out to shift for themselves, and from being brought together in large numbers. From temperance and much walking, I grew up healthy and hardy193 though not muscular; but I could do no feats194 of skill or Physical strength, and knew none of the ordinary bodily exercises. It was not that play, or time for it, was refused me. Though no holidays were allowed, lest the habit of work should be broken, and a taste for idleness acquired, I had ample leisure in every day to amuse myself; but as I had no boy companions, and the animal need of physical activity was satisfied by walking, my amusements, which were mostly solitary195, were in general of a quiet, if not a bookish turn, and gave little stimulus to any other kind even of mental activity than that which was already called forth by my studies: I consequently remained long, and in a less degree have always remained, inexpert in anything requiring manual dexterity196; my mind as well as my hands, did its work very lamely when it was applied197, or ought to have been applied, to the practical details which, as they are the chief interest of life to the majority of men, are also the things in which whatever mental capacity they have, chiefly shows itself: I was constantly meriting reproof198 by inattention, inobservance, and general slackness of mind in matters of daily life. My father was the extreme opposite in these particulars: his senses and mental faculties were always on the alert; he carried decision and energy of character in his whole manner and into every action of life: and this, as much as his talents, contributed to the strong impression which he always made upon those with whom he came into personal contact. But the children of energetic parents, frequently grow up unenergetic, because they lean on their parents, and the parents are energetic for them. The education which my father gave me, was in itself much more fitted for training me to know than to do. Not that he was unaware199 of my deficiencies; both as a boy and as a youth I was incessantly200 smarting under his severe admonitions on the subject. There was anything but insensibility or tolerance201 on his part towards such shortcomings: but, while he saved me from the demoralizing effects of school life, he made no effort to provide me with any sufficient substitute for its practicalizing influences. Whatever qualities he himself, probably, had acquired without difficulty or special training, he seems to have supposed that I ought to acquire as easily. He had not, I think, bestowed the same amount of thought and attention on this, as on most other branches of education; and here, as well as in some other points of my tuition, he seems to have expected effects without causes.
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prefix
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| n.前缀；vt.加…作为前缀；置于前面 | |
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sketch
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| n.草图；梗概；素描；v.素描；概述 | |
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par
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| n.标准，票面价值，平均数量；adj.票面的，平常的，标准的 | |
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narrative
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| n.叙述，故事；adj.叙事的，故事体的 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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motive
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| n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的 | |
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eminence
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| n.卓越，显赫；高地，高处；名家 | |
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eldest
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| adj.最年长的，最年老的 | |
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barons
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| 男爵( baron的名词复数 )； 巨头； 大王； 大亨 | |
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exchequer
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| n.财政部；国库 | |
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licensed
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| adj.得到许可的v.许可，颁发执照(license的过去式和过去分词) | |
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doctrines
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| n.教条( doctrine的名词复数 )；教义；学说；（政府政策的）正式声明 | |
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uncommon
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| adj.罕见的，非凡的，不平常的 | |
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precarious
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| adj.不安定的，靠不住的；根据不足的 | |
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strenuously
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| adv.奋发地，费力地 | |
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pecuniary
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| adj.金钱的；金钱上的 | |
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odious
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| adj.可憎的，讨厌的 | |
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negligently
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conscientiously
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| adv.凭良心地；认真地，负责尽职地；老老实实 | |
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bestow
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| v.把…赠与，把…授予；花费 | |
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perseverance
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| n.坚持不懈，不屈不挠 | |
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recollect
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| v.回忆，想起，记起，忆起，记得 | |
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fables
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| n.寓言( fable的名词复数 )；神话，传说 | |
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lexicon
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| n.字典，专门词汇 | |
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lexicons
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| n.词典( lexicon的名词复数 )；专门词汇 | |
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incessant
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| adj.不停的，连续的 | |
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discourses
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| 论文( discourse的名词复数 )； 演说； 讲道； 话语 | |
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rustic
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| adj.乡村的，有乡村特色的；n.乡下人，乡巴佬 | |
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habitually
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| ad.习惯地，通常地 | |
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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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knights
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| 骑士； （中古时代的）武士( knight的名词复数 )； 骑士； 爵士； （国际象棋中）马 | |
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lasting
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| adj.永久的，永恒的；vbl.持续，维持 | |
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abridgment
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| n.删节，节本 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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patriot
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| n.爱国者，爱国主义者 | |
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cultivation
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| n.耕作，培养，栽培（法），养成 | |
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sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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memoranda
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| n. 备忘录, 便条 名词memorandum的复数形式 | |
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delightful
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| adj.令人高兴的，使人快乐的 | |
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preeminent
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的 | |
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eminent
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| adj.显赫的，杰出的，有名的，优良的 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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derive
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| v.取得；导出；引申；来自；源自；出自 | |
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thoroughly
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| adv.完全地，彻底地，十足地 | |
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lastingly
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| [医]有残留性，持久地，耐久地 | |
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favourable
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| adj.赞成的，称赞的，有利的，良好的，顺利的 | |
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inefficient
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| adj.效率低的，无效的 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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enjoyment
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| n.乐趣；享有；享用 | |
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specimen
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| n.样本，标本 | |
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algebra
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| n.代数学 | |
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orations
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| n.（正式仪式中的）演说，演讲( oration的名词复数 ) | |
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orator
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| n.演说者，演讲者，雄辩家 | |
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oratory
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| n.演讲术；词藻华丽的言辞 | |
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odyssey
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| n.长途冒险旅行；一连串的冒险 | |
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rhetoric
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| n.修辞学，浮夸之言语 | |
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treatise
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| n.专著；(专题)论文 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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calculus
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| n.微积分；结石 | |
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incurring
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| 遭受，招致，引起( incur的现在分词 ) | |
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predilection
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| n.偏好 | |
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perversions
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| n.歪曲( perversion的名词复数 )；变坏；变态心理 | |
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discoursed
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| 演说（discourse的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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orators
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| n.演说者，演讲家( orator的名词复数 ) | |
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addicted
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| adj.沉溺于....的，对...上瘾的 | |
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anonymous
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| adj.无名的；匿名的；无特色的 | |
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compilation
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| n.编译，编辑 | |
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epoch
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| n.(新)时代；历元 | |
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patricians
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| n.（古罗马的）统治阶层成员( patrician的名词复数 )；贵族，显贵 | |
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plebeians
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| n.平民( plebeian的名词复数 )；庶民；平民百姓；平庸粗俗的人 | |
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engrossed
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| adj.全神贯注的 | |
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previously
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| adv.以前，先前（地） | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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vindicated
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| v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的过去式和过去分词 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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agrarian
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| adj.土地的，农村的，农业的 | |
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78
judiciously
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| adv.明断地，明智而审慎地 | |
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79
compulsory
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| n.强制的，必修的；规定的，义务的 | |
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80
prosody
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| n.诗体论，作诗法 | |
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81
contented
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| adj.满意的，安心的，知足的 | |
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82
poetic
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| adj.富有诗意的，有诗人气质的，善于抒情的 | |
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83
poetical
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| adj.似诗人的；诗一般的；韵文的；富有诗意的 | |
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84
mythological
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| adj.神话的 | |
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85
attain
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| vt.达到，获得，完成 | |
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86
bard
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| n.吟游诗人 | |
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87
elegy
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| n.哀歌，挽歌 | |
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88
animated
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| adj.生气勃勃的，活跃的，愉快的 | |
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89
pathos
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| n.哀婉，悲怆 | |
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90
recalcitrant
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| adj.倔强的 | |
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91
abounds
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| v.大量存在，充满，富于( abound的第三人称单数 ) | |
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92
devoured
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| 吞没( devour的过去式和过去分词 )； 耗尽； 津津有味地看； 狼吞虎咽地吃光 | |
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93
treatises
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| n.专题著作，专题论文，专著( treatise的名词复数 ) | |
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94
speculation
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| n.思索，沉思；猜测；投机 | |
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95
scholastic
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| adj.学校的，学院的，学术上的 | |
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96
syllogistic
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| adj.三段论法的，演绎的，演绎性的 | |
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97
impugned
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| v.非难，指谪( impugn的过去式和过去分词 )；对…有怀疑 | |
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98
nucleus
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| n.核，核心，原子核 | |
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99
attained
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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100
proficiency
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| n.精通，熟练，精练 | |
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101
dissecting
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| v.解剖（动物等）( dissect的现在分词 )；仔细分析或研究 | |
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102
perseveringly
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| 坚定地 | |
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103
ratiocination
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| n.推理；推断 | |
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104
philosophic
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| adj.哲学的，贤明的 | |
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105
philosophical
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| adj.哲学家的，哲学上的，达观的 | |
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106
faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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107
antagonists
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| 对立[对抗] 者，对手，敌手( antagonist的名词复数 )； 对抗肌； 对抗药 | |
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108
illustrated
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| adj. 有插图的，列举的 动词illustrate的过去式和过去分词 | |
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109
pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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110
opposition
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| n.反对，敌对 | |
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111
encyclopaedia
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| n.百科全书 | |
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112
testimony
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| n.证词；见证，证明 | |
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113
platonic
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| adj.精神的；柏拉图（哲学）的 | |
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114
constrained
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| adj.束缚的,节制的 | |
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115
accurately
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| adv.准确地，精确地 | |
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116
drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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117
cognate
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| adj.同类的，同源的，同族的；n.同家族的人，同源词 | |
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118
investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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119
distinguished
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| adj.卓越的，杰出的，著名的 | |
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120
adoption
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| n.采用，采纳，通过；收养 | |
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121
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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122
conjectures
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| 推测，猜想( conjecture的名词复数 ) | |
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123
construe
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| v.翻译，解释 | |
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124
excellence
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| n.优秀，杰出，(pl.)优点，美德 | |
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125
modulation
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| n.调制 | |
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126
articulation
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| n.（清楚的）发音；清晰度，咬合 | |
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127
severely
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| adv.严格地；严厉地；非常恶劣地 | |
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128
violation
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| n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯 | |
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129
embodied
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| v.表现( embody的过去式和过去分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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130
ramifications
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| n.结果，后果( ramification的名词复数 ) | |
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131
systematic
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| adj.有系统的，有计划的，有方法的 | |
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132
stimulus
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| n.刺激，刺激物，促进因素，引起兴奋的事物 | |
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133
eminently
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| adv.突出地；显著地；不寻常地 | |
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134
entirely
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| ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，彻底地 | |
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135
saturated
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| a.饱和的，充满的 | |
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136
judgment
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| n.审判；判断力，识别力，看法，意见 | |
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137
radicalism
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| n. 急进主义, 根本的改革主义 | |
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138
advancement
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| n.前进，促进，提升 | |
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139
publicity
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| n.众所周知，闻名；宣传，广告 | |
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140
scrutiny
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| n.详细检查，仔细观察 | |
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141
fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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142
ordeal
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| n.苦难经历，（尤指对品格、耐力的）严峻考验 | |
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143
forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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144
speculative
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| adj.思索性的，暝想性的，推理的 | |
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145
relaxation
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| n.松弛，放松；休息；消遣；娱乐 | |
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146
entreaty
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| n.恳求，哀求 | |
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147
vigour
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| （=vigor）n.智力，体力，精力 | |
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148
embodying
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| v.表现( embody的现在分词 )；象征；包括；包含 | |
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149
expounded
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| 论述，详细讲解( expound的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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150
collateral
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| adj.平行的；旁系的；n.担保品 | |
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151
bullion
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| n.金条，银条 | |
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152
controversy
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| n.争论，辩论，争吵 | |
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153
thorny
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| adj.多刺的，棘手的 | |
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154
minor
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| adj.较小(少)的，较次要的；n.辅修学科；vi.辅修 | |
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155
partially
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| adv.部分地，从某些方面讲 | |
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156
retraced
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| v.折回( retrace的过去式和过去分词 )；回忆；回顾；追溯 | |
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157
modicum
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| n.少量，一小份 | |
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158
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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159
retentive
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| v.保留的，有记忆的；adv.有记性地，记性强地；n.保持力 | |
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160
remarkably
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| ad.不同寻常地，相当地 | |
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161
conclusive
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| adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的 | |
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162
accomplished
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| adj.有才艺的；有造诣的；达到了的 | |
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163
bestowed
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| 赠给，授予( bestow的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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164
cardinal
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| n.(天主教的)红衣主教；adj.首要的，基本的 | |
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165
crammed
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| adj.塞满的，挤满的；大口地吃；快速贪婪地吃v.把…塞满；填入；临时抱佛脚( cram的过去式) | |
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166
cram
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| v.填塞，塞满，临时抱佛脚，为考试而学习 | |
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167
incapable
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| adj.无能力的，不能做某事的 | |
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168
furrows
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| n.犁沟( furrow的名词复数 )；（脸上的）皱纹v.犁田，开沟( furrow的第三人称单数 ) | |
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169
degenerate
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| v.退步，堕落；adj.退步的，堕落的；n.堕落者 | |
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170
exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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171
acquitted
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| 宣判…无罪( acquit的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（自己）作出某种表现 | |
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172
lamely
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| 一瘸一拐地，不完全地 | |
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173
variance
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| n.矛盾，不同 | |
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174
unreasonable
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| adj.不讲道理的，不合情理的，过度的 | |
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175
blights
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| 使凋萎( blight的第三人称单数 )； 使颓丧； 损害； 妨害 | |
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176
intercourse
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| n.性交；交流，交往，交际 | |
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177
humble
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| adj.谦卑的，恭顺的；地位低下的；v.降低，贬低 | |
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178
dreaded
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| adj.令人畏惧的；害怕的v.害怕，恐惧，担心( dread的过去式和过去分词) | |
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179
attainments
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| 成就，造诣； 获得( attainment的名词复数 )； 达到； 造诣； 成就 | |
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180
humility
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| n.谦逊，谦恭 | |
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181
arrogance
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| n.傲慢，自大 | |
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182
scruple
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| n./v.顾忌，迟疑 | |
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183
awe
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| n.敬畏，惊惧；vt.使敬畏，使惊惧 | |
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184
subdued
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| adj. 屈服的，柔和的，减弱的 动词subdue的过去式和过去分词 | |
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185
implicit
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| a.暗示的，含蓄的，不明晰的，绝对的 | |
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186
credence
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| n.信用，祭器台，供桌，凭证 | |
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187
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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188
glorify
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| vt.颂扬，赞美，使增光，美化 | |
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189
fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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190
corrupting
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| （使）败坏( corrupt的现在分词 )； （使）腐化； 引起（计算机文件等的）错误； 破坏 | |
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191
contagion
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| n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延 | |
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192
accomplishments
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| n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就 | |
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193
hardy
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| adj.勇敢的，果断的，吃苦的；耐寒的 | |
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194
feats
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| 功绩，伟业，技艺( feat的名词复数 ) | |
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195
solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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196
dexterity
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| n.(手的)灵巧，灵活 | |
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197
applied
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| adj.应用的；v.应用，适用 | |
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198
reproof
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| n.斥责，责备 | |
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199
unaware
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| a.不知道的，未意识到的 | |
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200
incessantly
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| ad.不停地 | |
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201
tolerance
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| n.宽容；容忍，忍受；耐药力；公差 | |
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