Chapter 11

The meditations of Genius.--A work on the Art of Meditation not yet produced.--Predisposing the mind.--Imagination awakens imagination. --Generating feelings by music.--Slight habits.--Darkness and silence, by suspending the exercise of our senses, increase the vivacity of our conceptions.--The arts of memory.--Memory the foundation of genius.--Inventions by several to preserve their own moral and literary character.--And to assist their studies.--The meditations of genius depend on habit.--Of the night-time.--A day of meditation should precede a day of composition.--Works of magnitude from slight conceptions.--Of thoughts never written.--The art of meditation exercised at all hours and places.--Continuity of attention the source of philosophical discoveries. --Stillness of meditation the first state of existence in genius. 116