LESSON XL.

NATURE OF DEVELOPMENT.

Summary of the Preceding Chapter. We have now completed our survey of the so-called intellectual faculties. The last chapter has enabled us to see that this division of the mind into faculties is not a fundamental division — that, however convenient it may be to speak of perception, memory, imagination, conception, and reasoning as though they were distinct and separate powers of the mind, all of them are mere modes of apperception.

What the Training of the Faculties of the Mind Means. In connection with the discussion of each of these modes of apperception, or faculties, as we may, to save circumlocution, continue to call them, we have considered the subject of their training. At this point, we may profitably consider the question as to what the training of these faculties means. Does the training of the faculty of observation mean the development of the power of observation in general? In other words, does the student who increases his power of observation by observing plants, increase his powers to the same extent even at all to observe the facts of his mind? Does the student who cultivates his memory by the study of history

or

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his historical memory, we may call it - at the same time cultivate his geological or botanical memory? Does the student who cultivates his geographical imagination at the same time cultivate his mathematical imagination? Does the student who trains his reasoning power through the study of mathematics at the same time train it for the study of chemistry? In a word, are we to suppose that the exercise of our powers upon any subject matter trains them to an equal extent to deal with any other subject matter?

Symmetrical Development. -Students familiar with pedagogical literature have already seen that I am inquiring into the validity of a time-honored conception — the conception of symmetrical development. The ordinary conception of education is that it consists in symmetrical development, and by symmetrical development popular thought supposes such a development of the various powers of the mind as corresponds to their worth in the mental life. As reasoning is of more value than memory, it should receive more cultivation, but the cultivation which each of them receives is a cultivation good for any subject matter whatever. This is the conception the truth of which I am calling in question.

Huxley on Education. We meet this conception in so clear-headed a thinker as the late Professor Huxley. "That man,” he says, "I think, has had a liberal education who has been so trained in his youth that his body is the ready servant of his will, and does with ease and pleasure all the work that, as a mechanism, it is capable of; whose intellect is a clear, cold logic-engine, with all its parts of

equal strength, and in smooth working order; ready, like a steam-engine, to be turned to any kind of work, and spin the gossamers as well as forge the anchors of the mind; whose mind is stored with a knowledge of the great and fundamental truths of nature, and of the laws of her operations; one who, no stunted ascetic, is full of life and fire, but whose passions are trained to come to heal by a vigorous will, the servant of a tender conscience; who has learned to love all beauty, whether of nature or art; to hate all vileness, and to respect others as himself."

Is Huxley's Opinion True ? — Are there any men with intellects of this description ready, like a steam-engine, to be turned to any kind of work, ready to observe and remember any classes of facts, to imagine any phases of reality, to reason upon any subject with equal facility? With the possible exception of a few universal geniuses like Aristotle, Shakespeare, and Goethe, have there been any men capable of spinning the gossamers as well as of forging the anchors of the mind? If not, it is certainly a legitimate inquiry whether, in trying to reach an inherently impossible ideal, we are not losing valuable attainable goods.

I believe that the exercise of our powers upon any class of facts does not train them to the same extent for exercise upon any other class of facts; that you can say of the same man that he is a good observer and a bad observer, that he has a good memory and a bad memory, that he has great imaginative power and poor imaginative power, that he is a good reasoner and a poor reasoner, according as you have in view one subject matter or another upon which his powers are to be exercised.

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Suggestions of Physiological Psychology.—I call your attention to the support which this proposition receives from Physiological Psychology. In our study of the brain we have learned that the functions of the cerebrum are to some extent localized, that the part of the cerebrum especially active in occasioning sensations of color is not the part especially active in connection with sensations of smell, and so on. What good reason, then, is there for supposing that a good observer of the colors of objects will be a good observer of sounds, or that exercise in one kind of observation has the same effect upon the mind as another? On the contrary, such a view of the facts suggests that we ought to speak of the mind's powers of observation, not power, precisely as we have seen that we ought to speak of the memories, rather than of the memory, of the mind.

Conclusions Drawn from Experience in Case of Observation. When we study the effects of exercise in observation upon our minds and those of the people we know, we find the suggestions of Physiological Psychology abundantly confirmed. The sailor who can tell at a glance what line a steamship belongs to, and can detect land where you can not see anything, is a very poor observer when you get him on land; the jeweler who can tell with ease whether a stone is a genuine diamond, but who has no skill in distinguishing the qualities of silks; the wool-buyer who can tell the quality of wool from the way it feels, but who can not distinguish one quality of tea from another; the tea-taster who can discriminate the qualities of different teas with almost unerring accuracy, but who can scarcely distinguish one horse from another-are cases in point.

The expression, Such and such a man is a good observer, is always elliptical. It means that he is a good observer of certain classes of facts.

Memory. We have already seen that the same is true of memory. We recall how Dr. Harris cultivated his memory for dates, and then for names - the cultivation of the one kind of memory was not the cultivation of the other. Every one knows that the man in whose memory certain kinds of facts "stick," apparently without effort upon his part, may remember facts in another department of thought only with great difficulty. The student who can not remember Latin and Greek forms may carry multitudes of chemical facts in his mind without difficulty, as one who can not remember mathematical formulas may remember psychological or historical facts with ease. How easily the story-teller remembers long-winded stories, or the practiced chess-player complicated positions on the chess-board, but it does not follow that either of them has a good memory for anything else.

Imagination.

We have seen that the same is true of the imagination. We remember that not only is it not true that the sort of training which the physicist gives his imagination in the study of his subject does not train his imagination to realize the facts of Psychology, but that in some respects such a training is a positive disqualification for it. Professor James reports an incident which illustrates in a very vivid way the effect of the study of biology on the psychological imagination. "I have heard a most intelligent biologist say: 'It is high time for scientific men to protest against the recognition of any such