(Over 60 diverse thinkers on how to get more from books)
Gibbon was an historian and English politician.
In his youth he read idly or desultorily, which he came to regret because this “vague and multifarious reading could not teach [him] to think, to write, or to act” (Gibbon 2006, 39, 55). Yet this “cheap acquisition of so much knowledge” led him to focus on reading history, which no doubt kindled his life-long passion for the subject (p. 29). He began studying at Oxford University, both ignorant and erudite, and left without “original learning, unformed in the habits of thinking, unskilled in the arts of composition” (pp. 31, 39). A passion for, and intense practice of, reading isn’t sufficient to work with what you read.
The turning point was when a kind mentor deftly led him “from a blind and undistinguishing love of reading, into the path of instruction” (p. 51). This plan involved a course of study “consecrated to a plan of modern history and geography, and to the critical perusal of the French and Latin classics” in the mornings (ibid.). Gibbon found this pleasurable, “invigorated by the habits of application and method” (ibid.). When he had habituated this “industry and temperance”, the mentor gave him back control of his learning (ibid.). Gibbon’s youthful passion for reading needed direction; reading desultorily was not conducive to the use he wished to put books, so he needed to learn habits and discipline.
Subsequently Gibbon thought in terms of plans of study, whereby he created a curriculum for himself then read the appropriate books. For example, he “formed a more extensive plan of reviewing the Latin classics, under the four divisions of, 1. historians, 2. poets, 3. orators, and 4. philosophers, in a chronological series”, and nearly accomplished it over twenty-seven months (p. 54). He abstracted each book and these observations often evolved into essays (ibid.). He defined his areas of interest, selected books that best spoke to these topics, approached them in a logical order, and set a deadline.
He was neither “hasty” nor “superficial”, reading some texts even a third time, and “never suffered a difficult or corrupt passage to escape, till I had viewed it in every light of which it was susceptible” (ibid.). If still unable to comprehend a passage he “consulted the most learned or ingenious commentators” and experts—in mathematics and anatomy, for instance (pp. 54, 80–81). He also benefited from the work he could undertake with a friend (p. 54):
To him every thought, every composition, was instantly communicated; with him I enjoyed the benefits of a free conversation on the topics of our common studies
When he had more leisure he dropped such plans. For example, he involved himself “in the philosophic maze of the writings of Plato” and “stepped aside into every path of inquiry which reading or reflection accidentally opened” (p. 130). He combined strict study plans with more exploratory reading now he was confident in his study habits. However, he “began to wish for the daily task, the active pursuit, which gave a value to every book, and an object to every inquiry”; when he’d settled on a plan for a new edition of the history book he was writing he “dropped without reluctance from the age of Plato” to the subject of his book (p. 119).
When travelling in Europe he kept a notebook of remarks on the geography and his experiences but also long, learned reflections (p. 91). However, his attempts to conduct his reading “according to the precept and model of Mr. Locke1, into a large common-place book”, weren’t to his liking—he questioned whether the benefits obtained exceeded the labour it required (Gibbon 2006, 57). Instead, he followed Samuel Johnson2 in believing “that what is twice read, is commonly better remembered, than what is transcribed” (Johnson 1825a; Gibbon 2006, 57). Gibbon recommends another practice of his to young students (Gibbon 2006, 70):
After glancing my eye over the design and order of a new book, I suspended the perusal till I had finished the task of self examination, till I had revolved, in a solitary walk, all that I knew or believed, or had thought on the subject of the whole work, or of some particular chapter: I was then qualified to discern how much the author added to my original stock; and I was sometimes satisfied by the agreement, I was sometimes armed by the opposition of our ideas.
See Locke, John↩︎