Letters on the Importance, Duty and Advantages of Early Rising [By A.C. Buckland]. (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1819. Excerpt: ... LETTER XI. To the same. An D do you still, my dear Charles, really fear that if you follow my advice, and devote the early hours of morning to study, that you shall not gain any thing in point of intellectual advantage; or rather, that you shall not be so well able to attend to your professional researches then, as at night? Let me only beg your candid attention to a few of the arguments which may with propriety be urged on my side of the question, reminding you at the same time, if you should be inclined to consider my opinions as merely speculative, that I might not only adduce my own actual experience, but that I could refer you to a long and luminous train of literati, whose example should inspire your emulation, and whose learning should remove every doubt from your mind. You cannot hesitate to admit what I have before alluded to--the intimate connexion that exists between the body and the mind, and how much the strength and energies of the latter depend upon the vigour and health of the former. Their union is so strict, that they impede or assist, excite or depress, stimulate or assuage each other in turn. And when, is it natural to suppose, that the body is the most likely to afford that co-operation with the mind which it requires? Will it not be when its members are the least discomposed by fatigue; when its power has been the least weakened by exertion; when the strength has been augmented by the refreshment of rest, and when its functions are discharged with the greatest ease, and the least perceptible constraint? And is not this precisely the case in the early part of the morning? It is then that the corporeal faculties seem ready to obey the intellectual; that mind exerts a sovereignty, and maintains a superiority that is peculiarly favourabl...