Part 13

Theoretically our problem is difficult; on its face it would seem impossible. We are to read all the important parts of a book; that is, the parts most important for us, and nothing but the important parts. But until we read it how are we to know whether any given part of a book is important? In practice, however, our difficulty is not so formidable.

We can eliminate the greater mass of the relatively useless part of a book by a glance at its table of contents. If we see there titles which suggest subjects or aspects of subjects in which we are not interested, or that we feel we already know enough about, or that are simply outside the particular purpose we have in consulting that book at all, we can omit those chapters and confine ourselves to the others. . . .

When we were children first learning to read we had to look at every letter in a word, then spell it out. Finally its meaning dawned upon us. As we became more proficient we did not have to look at every letter; we could read words as wholes with the same rapidity as the separate letters. Accurate psychological tests have determined that a man can read such words as “and” and “the” with even greater rapidity than any single letter composing them. We finally reach the point where we can read short phrases at the same rate as we formerly could single words.

But the secret of the scholar who can cover efficiently much more ground than ordinary men is not so much that he reads faster, as that he reads less. In other words, instead of reading every word he glances down a page and sees certain “cue” words or rather “cue” phrases, for the eye and mind take in phrases as wholes. If he is familiar with the subject (and he is not to employ this method unless and until he is) he knows immediately, by “a sort of instinct” as Buckle called it, whether any new or valuable thought is on that page. When he finds that there is he involuntarily slackens his pace and reads that thought at ordinary reading pace or even slower. Sometimes indeed he will read whole chapters slowly, word for word, if the contents are sufficiently novel and important to warrant it.

Read by this “hop, skip and jump” fashion a book the size of the present volume might take an hour or even less. But it is almost impossible to give even an approximate estimate of the time such reading ought to take. Of course the longer you spend the more you will get out of a book, but the return per time invested will be less and less. On the other hand if you read the book too fast you may be wasting your time altogether; you may end by understanding nothing at all. Much will depend upon the originality and depth of the book, upon the reader’s familiarity with the subject, and upon his native mental qualities.

Many may object to practicing the foregoing method because they have a vague feeling that it is their duty to read every word in a book. I suspect that the real reason for this is simply so that when asked they can conscientiously say they have read the book. Whereas if they had followed this skipping method they would be able to say only that they had “glanced through it” or at best that they had “read parts of it.” To this objection I have nothing to say, for I am confining my remarks to those in search of truth and knowledge rather than conversation and the good opinion of those who believe that reading from cover to cover is the only path to wisdom. I might point out in passing, however, that if we do follow this method there will be a half dozen books which we can say we have “glanced through” to one which we would otherwise have been able to say we had “read.”

This way of dealing with a book is constructive and positive as opposed to the negative method of critical reading. For we read for suggestion only; we carry forward some line of thought of an author, which is better for intellectual development than trying to find if he was wrong and where he was wrong. Not only is this positive method more interesting; in some respects it is better even for criticism. For in carrying forward an author’s line of thought, noting its consequences and implications and considering different cases where it applies, we find whether or not it leads to absurd conclusions; whether or not all concrete instances conform with it. It should be kept in mind that this method is not to be followed until the main text-book has been studied. Consequently when it is followed your mind will have been fortified by previous reading and thinking; valuable thoughts of an author will tend to impress you and be remembered, while his trite or erroneous ideas will tend to be ignored.

But after all, what is important is not your attitude or method at the time of reading a book, but the thinking done later. The critical attitude has its shortcomings, for when we are on the lookout for an author’s mistakes we often miss the full significance of his truths. On the other hand when “reading for suggestion” we may too often allow an error to pass unquestioned. But both these disadvantages may be overcome if we do enough thinking afterward.

Only one thing I must insist on: make sure you understand every sentence of a book. Do not “guess” you understand it. Do not slide over it in the hope that the author will explain it later. Do not work yourself into the belief that after all it is not really important. Rather than this, better by far do not read the book at all. Not only will you get little or nothing from it but you will be forming the worst of intellectual habits—that of thinking you understand when you do not. If you have made every reasonable effort to understand an author and then have not succeeded, write in the margin “I do not understand this,” or draw a line alongside the sentence or passage. If you have to do this too often you should put the volume aside for a time. It is either too advanced for you or it is not worth reading.

As to the thinking you do after reading. Often problems connected with the subject of a book you have read may arise spontaneously in mind, or an objection to a statement may suddenly occur to you when thinking on some other topic. Of course when this happens you should not stifle your thoughts. But besides this, definite periods should be put aside for thinking on what you have read and on the problems you have written. I cannot insist on this too strenuously or too often.

A good task to set before yourself is to take every idea you agree with in a book and try to treat it as a “germ.” Tell yourself that you will develop it beyond the point where the author left off. Of course this will not always be possible. You will seldom succeed. But there is nothing like hitching your wagon to a star, and it will do no harm to set this up as an ideal.

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A few miscellaneous problems remain to be considered.

How should we deal with authors with whom we disagree fundamentally? Herbert Spencer relates that he twice started Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason, but disagreeing fundamentally with the first and main proposition he ceased reading. Now to do this is to give an author too much credit for consistency. For even if every other proposition he sets forth is ostensibly a corollary from his leading one, some of them will contain much truth. It is impossible to be consistently wrong. Add to this the possibility that the author may be right on his first proposition after all. However, no book with a viewpoint radically different from our own should be used as a main text, for we would get little benefit from it. If the book is by an obscure author we may safely lay it aside altogether. But if it is by so famous and so bepraised a philosopher as Kant we should at least glance through the entire volume for suggestions.

How many times ought we to read a book? I have already partly answered this in formulating the law of diminishing returns. Few books are worth re-reading. Rather than read one book twice on any given subject it will most often be more profitable to read another book on it. For the second will not only serve as a review of previous knowledge, but will furnish you with new ideas, different aspects and new problems.

Certain books, however, can never be replaced by others. They occupy this position either because they deal with a subject not elsewhere dealt with or because they take an entirely novel aspect, or solely because they are the works of supreme genius, for while the main conclusions reached in works of this last type may be found elsewhere, the manner of thinking can never be. These books should be read twice. The main text-book selected on any subject will usually be chosen because it is the best and most comprehensive work on that subject. For this reason it should be read a second time even if such reading is only of the hop, skip and jump variety.

We should not re-read a book immediately upon the first completion but should always allow a long interval to elapse. There are several reasons for this. After an interval we acquire perspective; we are in a position to know whether a book has done us any good and just about how much. We may find after this interval that a work of which we thought quite highly at the time of reading has really not helped us appreciably either in thought or action. We may find that we have outgrown the need of it. Even if we finally decide to re-read we shall find the wait of immense help to our memory. If we re-read a book after an interval of six months, three years after our second reading we will remember its contents much better than if we had read it three times in unbroken succession. Add to this that in the lapse of time we shall have forgotten most of the work, and shall therefore approach it the second time with greater interest than if it were still fresh in mind; that our experience, reading and thinking in the meantime will make us see every sentence in a different light, enabling us to judge our own marginal criticisms (if we have made any) as well as the book, and the advantage of waiting cannot be doubted. I do not believe it will ever be necessary to read a book more than twice, that is, so far as thought and knowledge are concerned. With books read for their style or for mere amusement the case is different.

How long should one read at a sitting? Some men find that their thought is choked by reading. Some find it stimulated. But results vary according to the length of time reading is carried on. Reading for very long periods at a stretch often deadens original thought. The writer finds that he nearly always derives benefit from reading for short periods, say ten or fifteen minutes. This is in some measure due to the increased concentration which short periods allow. On the other hand, some people find that a certain momentum is acquired during long reading periods. The reader can only experiment to find how long a period best suits his individual case.

How about concentration? This has been considered in relation to independent thinking, but in reading the problem is somewhat different. In thinking our task is to choose relevant associates. In reading the associates are chosen for us. Our task is to stick to them, instead of following the associates which occur to us either from what we read or from sights and sounds about us. But associates which occur to us from what we read are of two kinds: relevant and irrelevant, and the former should of course be followed out. This however should be done deliberately, in the manner I have previously indicated, and when the vein of suggested thought has been exhausted we should bring attention back to our book. The problem of concentration is not a very serious one in reading. It may sometimes be difficult to concentrate on a book. But it is infinitely easier than concentrating on a problem by unaided independent thought.

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The plan of reading I have laid out is merely suggestive. What I chiefly wanted to show was that all books cannot be treated alike, that we cannot lay down dogmatic inflexible rules to apply to every volume. Our method of reading will vary with the nature of a book or of the subject it treats. It will depend upon the books we have already read and even upon the books we contemplate reading later.

The good you get out of reading will depend entirely on how you allow it to affect you. If every book you read suggests more problems, gives you worth-while questions and topics to think about in spare moments, enriches your intellectual life and stimulates your thought, it is performing its proper function. But if you read solely to answer problems you cannot answer for yourself, if every time you are puzzled about anything you run to a book to have it explained, and accept without question the explanation there given; in short, if you use your reading to save yourself from thinking, you had better stop reading altogether. Smoking is a far less harmful form of dissipation.

I have not yet definitely indicated the ratio which time given to reading should bear to time devoted to thinking. I have avoided this because of the many factors to be taken into account. But if the reader happens to have a spare hour to devote to the improvement of his mind, he will not go very far wrong if he gives thirty minutes to reading and thirty minutes to thinking. His thinking may be on the subject he has read, or part of it may be on other problems. That is not so important. But the reader must not imagine that his thinking need be restricted to these thirty minutes or any other thirty minutes. The glorious advantage of thinking is that it can be fitted in at any odd moment. The entire apparatus for carrying it on is always with you. You do not even need a book for it. I remind the reader of this at the risk of repeating myself.

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It was pointed out at the beginning of this chapter that the reading of any book is not an end in itself, but should be subordinated to the larger end of obtaining the best from reading in general. But for the sake of clearness our end was temporarily considered as the mastery of some particular subject. I indicated a plan of reading to best serve that end. I also promised that needful qualifications would come later.

In stating the law of diminishing returns it was pointed out that it applied to whole subjects as well as to books, that “past a certain point every book we read on a subject, while it will probably add to our knowledge, will not yield as much return as a book of equal merit on another subject new to us.”

While this is true it applies to but a small extent when subjects are read by the method just outlined, for while we do not get as much out of any book as we would out of one of equal merit on another subject, we read it so much faster that the return per time and energy expended is practically as great. This fast reading is made possible by our previous knowledge on the old subject. If the book on the new subject were read in the same manner, we might get little or nothing from it.

With this objection out of the way I suggest that the reader get a specialty. Books read in the ordinary unsystematic fashion, now on this subject and now on that, leave little permanent impression. Even if they do, we feel that though our range of reading may be wide we have at best but a smattering of many things. In the final analysis a smattering of knowledge is in most cases of no more use than total ignorance. Better by far be ignorant of many things and know one thing well, than know many things badly.