Selfknowledge a treatise Author:John Mason Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: A TREATISE SELF-KNOWLEDGE. PART FIRST. CHAPTER I. THE NATURE AND IMPORTANCE OF THE SUBJECT. A Desire of knowledge is -natural to the mind of m... more »an: and nothing discovers the true quality 1 and disposition of the mind more than the particular kind of knowledge it is most fond of. Thus we see that low and little minds are most delighted with the knowledge of trifles; as in children: an indolent mind, with that which serves only for amusement, or the entertainment of the fancy: a curious mind is best pleased with facts: a judicious penetrating mind, with demonstration and mathematical science: a worldly mind esteems no knowledge like that of the world: but a wise and pious man, before all other kinds of knowledge, prefers that of God and his own soul. But some kind of knowledge or other the mind is continually craving after: and by considering what that is, its prevailing turn and temper may easily be known. This desire of knowledge, like other affections planted in our nature, will be very apt to lead us wrong, if it be not well regulated. When it is directed to improper objects, or pursued in a wrong manner, it degenerates into a vain and criminal curiosity. A fatal instance of this in our first parents we have upon sacred record; the unhappy effects of which are but too visible in all. Self-knowledge is the subject of the ensuing Treatise.—A subject, which the more I think of, the more important and extensive it appears. So important, that every branch of it seems absolutely necessary to the right government of the life and temper; and so extensive that the nearer view we take of its several branches, more are still opening to the view as nearly connected with it as the other. Like what we find in microscopical observations on natural objects : the bet...« less