Reflection

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Aids to Reflection, Introductory Aphorisms, §IV:

It is the advice of the wise man, ‘Dwell at home,’or, with yourself; and though there are very few that do this, yet it is surprising that the greatest part of mankind cannot be prevailed upon, at least to visit themselves sometimes; but, according to the saying of the wise Solomon, The eyes of the fool are in the ends of the earth.

A reflecting mind, says an ancient writer, is the spring and source of every good thing. (‘Omnis boni principium intellectus cogitabundus.’) It is at once the disgrace and the misery of men, that they live without fore-thought. Suppose yourself fronting a mirror. Now what the objects behind you are to their images at the same apparent distance before you, such is Reflection to Fore-thought. As a man without Fore-thought scarcely deserves the name of a man, so Fore-thought without Reflection is but a metaphorical phrase for the instinct of a beast.