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all progress of mind consists for the most part in differentiation, in the resolution of an obscure and complex object into its component aspects
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“all progress of mind consists for the most part in differentiation, in the resolution of an obscure and complex object into its component aspects”

Walter Pater

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Source
Appreciations, with an Essay on Style
Date
1889
Meaning

Meaning of “all progress of mind consists for the most…”

Pater describes intellectual progress as learning to distinguish parts within what initially seems confused, a method that makes clearer categories and more exact judgment possible.

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Appreciations, with an Essay on Style, essay “Style,” printed page 5 in the standard Macmillan 1910 Library Edition pagination reproduced by Project Gutenberg #4037. “all progress of mind consists for the most part in differentiation...” opens Pater’s argument by distinguishing prose, verse and poetry. This is literary-aesthetic criticism, not a modern experimental claim about cognition or learning.

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it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it.
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“it is only when he has turned it over that he can be said to know it.”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Art of Literature · 1851
Meaning & context

Learning becomes knowledge, in this account, when material has been actively reconsidered and integrated rather than merely encountered or memorized.

Source details

The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The preceding sentence says a person must first learn something before turning it over in the mind.

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Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.
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“Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man.”

Francis Bacon · Of Studies · 1625
Meaning & context

Bacon distinguishes what reading, conversation, and writing each contribute to intellectual development.

Source details

Of Studies; Bacon distinguishes the intellectual uses of reading, conversation, and writing within the essay’s compact account of study and judgment.

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If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.
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“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”

Francis Bacon · The Advancement of Learning · 1605
Meaning & context

Intellectual confidence can be improved by beginning with questions rather than pretending certainty too early.

Source details

The Advancement of Learning, First Book, Project Gutenberg #5500, transcribed from the 1893 Cassell & Company edition. Bacon contrasts impatience of doubt with mature suspension of judgment and then sets out two ways of contemplation before saying that beginning with certainties ends in doubts while beginning with doubts can end in certainties. It remains early-modern epistemological argument rather than a modern experimental rule for scientific method.

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a man may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up by thinking it over for himself, it has much less value than a far smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered.
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“a man may have a great mass of knowledge, but if he has not worked it up by thinking it over for himself, it has much less value than a far smaller amount which he has thoroughly pondered.”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Art of Literature · 1851
Meaning & context

Accumulated information is distinguished from understanding: Schopenhauer values knowledge that has been actively compared, connected and reconsidered over a larger but unprocessed store.

Source details

The Art of Literature, section “On Thinking for Oneself,” T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10714. The library analogy immediately precedes the sentence.

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by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete
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“by the constant growth of insight and knowledge, this intellectual life, like a slowly-forming work of art, will acquire a consistency, a permanent intensity, a unity which becomes ever more and more complete”

Arthur Schopenhauer · The Wisdom of Life · 1851
Meaning & context

The image treats intellectual development as cumulative craftsmanship: insight and knowledge gradually produce greater coherence instead of appearing as a single finished achievement.

Source details

The Wisdom of Life, T. Bailey Saunders translation; Project Gutenberg #10741. The simile compares a developing intellectual life with a slowly formed work of art.

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How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.
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“How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book.”

Henry David Thoreau · Walden · 1854
Meaning & context

Thoreau treats reading as potentially transformative: a book can mark a genuine before-and-after point when it gives language to questions a reader has struggled to express.

Source details

Walden, chapter “Reading,” in the discussion of books that can reveal new possibilities and answer enduring questions.

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