The Intellectual Life

Philip Gilbert HamertonProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.9
Word count
817K words
Chapters
82

Tags

English Originals Philosophy Readings Humanistic CareLife PhilosophySocial ConductScholar's CultivationSpiritual PracticeIntellectual EnlightenmentIntellectual LifeSelf ImprovementIntellectual CommentaryOn Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Intellectual Life by Philip Gilbert HamertonAuthor: Hamerton, Philip Gilbert, 1834-1894,Language: English, Class: LC: Education: Special aspects of education, Release Date: Apr 27, 2010

Editor's review

"The Intellectual Life" is a discursive work of essays by the English author Philip Gilbert Hamerton on the intellectual life, falling under the special aspects of education. It does not discuss subject knowledge as such, but the lifelong mental discipline of reading, thinking, writing, and self-cultivation, written in a calm, orderly tone with the ease of a nineteenth-century essay. For today's readers its value lies in reminding us that the intellectual life must be consciously managed: time set aside, reading chosen, restlessness resisted, and a balance found between solitude and conversation. The book suits slow reading, a chapter or two at a time, with notes comparing what is said to one's own study habits; it also suits quiet moments on a commute or before sleep, as a way to organize one's reading plans and ways of thinking. Because it was written long ago, some examples and vocabulary bear the marks of their era; readers may treat it as a classic reference on self-education rather than a manual.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read chapter by chapter; after each, write three to five lines noting one suggestion you can act on.
  2. Read alongside your monthly reading plan, adjusting titles and schedule as you go.
  3. Skim examples that feel dated and focus on the arguments about thinking and self-discipline.
  4. Read it against other books on how to read, comparing how different eras understood the intellectual life.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82

FAQ

What is this book mainly about? Is it a study-skills manual? It is a discursive work of essays on the intellectual life, discussing the relation between reading, thinking, writing, and self-cultivation. It aims more at inspiring ideas and rethinking habits than at step-by-step study methods. Readers can draw ideas for planning self-study, but the specifics still need to be designed for their own situation.
Is the original English hard to read? It is a nineteenth-century English essay with long sentences and period vocabulary, moderately to fairly difficult overall. Readers with some English reading ability can read it slowly with a dictionary; those who only want the gist can read the opening and closing paragraphs of each chapter first, then decide whether to read the whole text closely.
How should the e-book be read? Use reading software that supports dictionary lookup and annotation, so you can mark key sentences and jot down your thoughts. Since the content is reflective, read it in sessions of about half an hour, leaving a few minutes afterward for notes; this is easier to absorb than reading it all at once.
Do the book's views still have value today? Its discussions of scheduling time, choosing reading, thinking alone, and exchanging ideas have value across eras; the core is a reminder to manage one's mental life actively. Some examples and vocabulary reflect a nineteenth-century background; readers can take the principles, skim the details, and apply them flexibly to today's reading environment.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Philip Gilbert Hamerton Author · English · 1834–1894

Philip Gilbert Hamerton (1834–1894) was a British artist, art critic and writer, born near Oldham in Lancashire and died in France. He began as a painter before turning to art criticism, founded and edited the art journal The Portfolio, and wrote works including Etching and Etchers and The Intellectual Life, helping to advance the revival of etching in Britain. His writings span art criticism and discursive essays and also touch on human intercourse and regional life, as in Human Intercourse and Wenderholme: A Story of Lancashire and Yorkshire. The library holds four of his works; common classification information is currently unavailable, and public sources are limited, so biographical details are omitted here.