UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA AT U)S ANGELES LIBRARY LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. Designed Especially as an Introduction to THE Subject for Private Students, and AS a Text-Book in Normal and Secondary Schools. B • J. P. GORDY, Ph. D. Professor of Psychology and Pedagogy in Ohio University, Athens, Ohio. ATHENS, OHIO: Ohio PrBLiSHiNo Company, iSgi. i o R q 1 7 J.- Nr K> «./ -*. 8 1 Copyright, i«<^io, V.Y J. i*. GORDV. c «^ • < • «- t \ J I 't t i."*. < «.«»jt»C.4,t' 3 F 1 3 1 PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. LESS than a year ago, a number of teachers, at an institute which the author was attending, re- quested him to give them Correspondence Lessons in Psychology. He consented, without adequately con- sidering the amount of labor it would involve. For a little reflection enabled him to see that the only author he could recommend to them — Sully — was much too difficult for students of their attainments. He soon saw that the labor of explaining so difficult a book would be much greater than that of writing lessons directly for them week by week. He accordingly decided to do this, and this little book is the result. This account of its origin will explain a number of its characteristics. As appears from its title, it does not undertake to discuss, even in a superficial way, all the phases of mental activity. It deals only with those facts and laws of mind which, in the judgment of the author, it is most useful for teachers to be familiar with. The style of the book, as the reader will at once see, is colored by the fact that it was originally written for a class of teachers, with most of whom the author was personally acquainted, and whom he had in his mind as he wrote. Although the "Les.sons" have (3) 4 PREFACE. been carefully revised, he has not thought it necessary to carry the work of revision to such an extent as to take from them that familiar tone which he thought proper to use in addressing a class of pupils. The book lays no special claim to originality. The object of the author throughout has been to call the attention of his readers to important mental facts in such a way as to set them to observing their own minds and the minds of their pupils, in order to see whether or not he was right. Profoundly convinced as he is of the importance of a knowledge of Psy- chology to the teacher, he is quite as strongly con- vinced that the only really fruitful knowledge of Psy- chology which the teacher will ever gain he will de- rive from a study of his own mind and the minds of the people with whom he comes in contact, and that books about Psychology are useful chiefly as they give suggestions in this direction. Accordingly, the aim of the author throughout has been to act the part of a guide in a strange city — tell his readers where to look to find valuable truths. If he succeeds in stimulating them to become diligent students of their own minds and the minds of their pupils, he will be more than sati.sfied. J. P. CORDY. Athens, Ohio, July T, 1890. CONTENTS. LESSON I. PAGE. The Benefits of Psychology to the Teacher 9 LESSON n. The Benefits of Psychology to the Teacher. — Continued 19 LESSON III. What is Psychology? 29 LESSON IV. The Subject Matter of Psychology 37 LESSON V. The Method of Psychology 44 LESSON VI. Necessary Truths and Necessary Beliefs 55 LESSON VII. What are we Conscious of ? 65 LESSON VIII. Attention 76 6 CONTENTS. I.ESSON IX. Attention. — Continued 84 I.ESSON X. Attention. — Continued 94 LESSON XI. Attention. — Continued 106 LESSON XII. Attention. — Concluded 119 LESSON XIII. Knowing, Feeling, and Willing 129 LESSON XIV. Sensation 141 LESSON XV. Sensation. — Concluded 154 LESSON XVI. Association of Ideas 163 LESSON XVII. Perception 173 LEvSSON XVIII. Perception . — Concluded 181 LESSON XIX. Cirltivation of the Observing Powers 192 CONTENTS. 7 LESSON XX. Memory 203 LESSON XXI. Cultivation of the Memory 2-1 1 LESSON XXIL Imagination 224 LESSON XXIII. Imagination. — Continued 233 LESSON XXIV. ConceptionI 244 LESSON XXV. Conception . — Continued 253 LESSON XXVI. Conception 260 LESSON XXVII. Conception. — Concluded 270 LESSON XXVIII. Judgment 280 LESSON XXiX. Judgment. — Concluded 288 LESSON XXX. Reasoning 297 S CONTENTS. LESSON XXXI. Reasoning. — Continued 308 LKSSON XXXII. Reasoning. — Concluded 320 LESSON XXXIII. The Primary Intellectual Functions 329 LESSON XXXIV. The Primary Intellectual Functions. — Concluded.. 339 LESSON XXXV. Development 352 LESSON XXXVI. Development 360 LESSON XXXVII. Development. — Continued - 372 LESSON XXXVIII. Development. — Concluded 380 LESSON XXXIX. The Study of Children 388 Lessons in Psychology. IvESSON I. THE BENEFITS OF PSYCHOLOGY TO THE TEACHER. I HAVE uo doubt that you believe that it is worth while for you to study a great many things which you do not expect to make of any practical use. You believe, for example, that it is a good thing to study algebra and geometry, not because you think the knowledge of them is likely to be useful to you — un- less you should be called upon to teach them — but be- cause you think the study of them will develop your mind. Probably that is one of the reasons why you wish to study Psychology. And it certainly is a good reason for studying it, I know of no subject better calculated to develop the power of thinking than Psychology. You know that the way to develop any power of the mind is to use it, and it is quite impos- sible to make any headway in studying Psychology (9) lO LESiONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. without thinking. That is the reason why it is so hard. When any one makes an assertion about your mind — and that is what Psychology consists of, as- sertions about your mind and the minds of all human beings — it is often, indeed generally, impossible to realize what it means without thinking. Thus, sup- pose I say that a mental fact is known directly to but one person, and that one the person experiencing it. In order to realize what that means, you have to look into your own mind for an example of a mental fact. You recall the oft-repeated assertion, nobody knows what one thinks but himself, and you realize that a thought is a mental fact known to but one person directly, and that one the person ex- periencing it. But in order to know what other facts are mental facts, you must think long and carefully, until you have made up your mind just what facts are known to but one person directly, and that one the person experiencing them. And even when you can understand an assertion that any one makes about your mind without looking into your own mind, it is generally necessary for you to do so before you can decide intelligently whether or not it is true. Suppose, for example, I say that, no matter how interesting you make your recitations, LKSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. II you can not get the continuous attention of your pupils without asking questions, or without giving them some other motive for attending besides in- terest. That statement you can understand without special effort. But in order to determine whether or not it is true, you must look into your own mind. You must ask yourself whether any one can keep your at- tention for a half or three-quarters of an hour simply by being interesting. If you set about answering it in the right way, you will think until 3^ou recall some speaker who never asked you questions, or did any- thing, except try to interest you, to keep your atten- tion, but who was interesting ; then I am sure you will remember that, when he was speaking, your mind wandered much more than it would have done if you had known that, when he had finished, he would question you about what he was saying. You will remember that you often allowed your mind to dwell on interesting points that he raised, to the exclusion of what he said directly after. For these two reasons — (i) because you can not understand most of the assertions in Psychology with- out thinking ; and (2) because, even when j-ou under- stand them, you can not tell whether or not they are true without thinking — I know of no subject better 12 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. calculated to make a pupil think, and therefore better fitted to develop the power of thinking, than Psy- chology. But, apart from this, I imagine that you wish to study Psychology for quite practical reasons. As a man who intends to be a surveyor studies trigonom- etry, not merely becau.se it will develop his mind, but because of the use it will be to him, so you study Psychology because you think the knowledge of it will make you a better teacher. How will it help you in this direction? Before you can an.swer this question, you must answer an- other. What is teaching? People used to intimate what they thought of this by saying that a teacher "keeps school." But " keeping school " is not teach- ing. Nor is it to teach to hear recitations. To teach is to deal with mind — is to get it to do something which it would not have done apart from the teacher, in order to get it to become something which it would not have become apart from him. I repeat — and I ask you to notice this statement carefully — to teach is to get the mind to do something, or rather many things, which it would not have done apart from the teacher, in order to get it to become what it would not have become apart from him. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 13 In order to do this intelligently, you plainly need to have as clear an idea as possible of what you wish your pupils to become. You take charge of a school and have a lot of boys and girls whom you want to make different from what they are. If they were everything that you wish them to become, you would not undertake to teach them. What is it that you wish them to become ? In what respect do you wish them to change as the result of your teaching? That question, the study of Psychology will help you to answer; and the more you know about P.S5^chology, the more clearly and fully and definitely you can answer it. Quite likely you think you can answer it now. You say you wish your pupils to have better de- veloped minds at the end of each day than they had at the beginning. But better developed in what direction? The North American Indians, for example, had remarkable powers of observation. They could track an enemy through a forest where you could see no trace of a human being. Will you be con- tent to have your pupils acquire powers similar to those possessed by the North American Indians? Is this what you wish them to become? Again, the Chi- nese have remarkable memories. I suppose there are 14 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. plenty of educated Chiuamen who remember almost word for word the nine classics compiled and edited by Confucius. Do you want your pupils to have minds like the Chinese? I do not, of course, mean to imply that you should not aim to cultivate the observing powers of your pupils as well as their memories. But the North American Indians developed their powers of obser- vation at the expense of the higher powers of their minds, and the Chinese their mechanical memory in the same costly way. And yet they may be said to aim at development. Hence, you see, when one says that the object of education is development, he has not expressed a very definite idea. The question is. What kind of development? and that question Psy- chology will help j-ou answer. vSo you .see, that when 3'ou say you want to help your pupils develop their minds, you have by no means proved that you know precisely what, as an intelligent teacher, you ought to aim at. And it seems to me that, unless you know what to aim at, you can not hope to have success. Do you think an architect could build a beautiful house if he began to build it and if he worked at it from day to day without having in his mind, .so to speak, the house he was LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 15 trying to build? Well, if a carpenter must have a picture in his mind of the kind of house he wants to build in order to build it, how can you hope to succeed in moulding and shaping and forming the minds of your pupils in an intelligent way, unless you have the clearest ideas of what you wish them to become ? You will not, I hope, understand me to say that you should have the same ideal for all of your pupils, and treat their minds in precisely the same way. Some of your pupils will, in the future, be artists, some mechanics, some men of business, and the ideal educa- tion for them, therefore, differs in important respects. But just as a carpenter, though he builds many different kinds of houses, can not build any successfully wirth- out having in his mind a definite idea of what he wishes to do, so a teacher can not do what he ought towards forming the different types of mind which it is his business to form, unless his knowledge of mind ena- bles him to realize clearly the end towards which he desires to work. The faculties of all his pupils do indeed require, to a considerable extent, the same kind of training. All of them should be good ob- servers ; all of them should reason logically ; all of them should have good memories and vivid imagi- 1 6 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. nations. What I am saying is, that whatever the true end of education for each, the more clearly the teacher conceives it, the better fitted he is to reach it; and this clearness of conception the study of Psychology will help to give him. But at any rate, perhaps you think you are clear regarding one respect in which you wish your pupils to change; you wivsh them to become less ignorant — you wish them to know more. But to know more of what ? You have not got very far when you say that you wish to help your pupils to acquire knowledge, unless you have made up your mind what knowledge is worth acquiring. There is a good deal of history in the text-books which is not worth learning, and a good deal out of them which is in the highest degree important, and the same is true of the other subjects you teach. How are you to make up your mind what knowledge is worth acquiring ? The study of Psychol- ogy will help you do that. It will help you see the effect which the acquiring of this or that piece of knowledge will have on the mind, and in this way enable you to estimate its worth. And here again you see that it is quite impossible for you to succeed in teaching unless in some way you are able to decide intelligently what you ought to I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOI,OGY. 17 get your pupils to learn. Until you are able to decide that, you can, in the first place, only aim to get them to learn everything in the text-book. And this is bad for two reasons: in the first place, text-books are sometimes written by men who know so little of the subject that they can not tell what is important and what is not important; and in the second place, intelligent men put many things in text-books not that students may learn them, but that they may be able to refer to them if they have occasion to use them. No one but a fool would commit to memory a railroad guide. And yet railroad guides are very use- ful; but when any one has occasion for them, he goes to them. He remembers what he finds there just as long as he wants it, and then does not trouble his head with it any longer. Now, intelligent men put many such facts in the books they write — facts which they do not expect any one to learn, but to which they think persons may sometimes have occa- sion to refer. For these two reasons, it is very unfor- tunate for a teacher to have to rely entirely upon his text-books in deciding what to teach. Note carefully that, in this lesson, I have been trying to show that a study of Psychology will help you see what you ought to aim at. It will help you 2 1 8 LKSSONS IN PSYCH01<00Y. see the kind of development you ought to try to help them get, and the kind of knowledge you ought to try to impart. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. What are the two reasons for studying Psychology? 2. How is any power of the mind developed ? 3. What are the two reasons which make the study of Psychology so useful in developing the power to think? 4. What is teaching? 5. Give two illustrations to show that when you say you wish your pupils to have better developed minds, your state- ment lacks clearness. 6. Show that you can not succeed as a teacher unless you know what to aim at. 7. Show that when you say you wish to make your pupils less ignorant, your statement lacks clearness. 8. How will the study of Psychology help you in this direction ? 9. Why should not a teacher limit himself to teaching what is in the text-books ? 10. What is the central thought which this^ lesson aims to bring out? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. . 1. Which do you regard as the more important service rendered by the study of Psychology to the teacher — increas- ing his power of thought, or his knowledge of the conditions under which the mind acts ? 2. One writer speaks of a certain kind of memory as the " index " memory, and another of another kind as the "me- chanical " memory. Can you get from this lesson any idea of what they are ? I,»B60NS I.N PSYCHOI,OGY. 1 9 LESSON II. THE BENEFITS OF PSYCHOLOGY TO THE TEACHER. ' I ^O succeed well in any difficult undertaking, three ■^ things are necessary : (i) one must see clearly the thing to be done ; (2) he must have a clear idea of the best means of doing it; and (3) he must have a strong motive for doing it well. He in whom these conditions meet most perfectly — who sees most clearly the thing to be done, who has the clearest perception of the best means of doing it, who has the strongest motive for making strenuous efforts to do it — is the likeliest person to succeed in any difficult undertaking. I do not believe the study of Psychologj^ can be urged on the ground that it is likely to do much toward making the teacher interested in his work, and more willing, therefore, to work hard in order to do it well. I think, indeed, that it is not without effect in that direction. The work of teachers who make no study of mind is likely to be mechanical, while the work of teachers who base their efforts on a knowledge of mind is rational. And mechanical work is uninteresting, unattractive — fit only for 20 LaSSONS IN PSYCHOI,OGY. machines. Anything, therefore, which tends to make a teacher's work rational certainly tends to make it interesting. I think that this was what Fitch meant when he called teaching the noblest of arts and the sorriest of trades. Practiced mechanically, it is in- deed a trade, and a sorry one at that; practiced rationally — practiced by one who realizes that he is dealing with mind, and who uses this method or that, not because some one else has used it, but because his knowledge of mind leads him to believe that it is the best — it is the noblest of arts. But while I believe that the study of Psychology is of some benefit to the teacher in that it tends to give him more interest in his work, I do not urge it on this ground. It is for the other two reasons, (i) because of the clearness which it is fitted to give to the aim of the intelligent teacher, and (2) because of the light it throws on the best methods of realizing that aim, that it seems to me no teacher who is ambitious to succeed should neglect to study it as thoroughly and as faith- fully as possible. In the last lesson I tried to show what the study of Psychology can do for you in the first direction. I tried to show that when you are able to say that your aim is to bring about the development of your pupils, LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 21 you have not got very far unless you have made up your mind as to the value, so to speak, of the various faculties of the mind — that unless you know the worth of the observing powers, and of the various kinds of memory, imagination, and reasoning, you can not proceed intelligently in training them. And in like manner, unless you have made up your mind as to "what knowledge is of most worth," I tried to show that it is of little use to be able to say that you wish to induce your pupils to acquire knowl- edge. I tried further to show that Psychology, by helping you to see the relation of the various powers of the mind to each other, will help you to see the kind of development you ought to aim at; and also that, by helping you to see the eflfect of the various kinds of knowledge upon the mind, it will help you to decide "what knowledge is of most worth." But not only will the study of Psychology tend to give clearness and definiteness to your aim, it will tend quite as strongly to show what you must do to realize that aim. In dealing with mind we must use the same kind of methods which we use when we deal with objects in the material world. What we accomplish in the material world we accomplish by putting objects 22 I,ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. where they will be subject to new influences, so that the forces of nature may do the work we wish to have done. Mortar in one place and bricks in another do nothing to make the walls of a house, but place the bricks on a strong foundation, and put the mortar between them, and you have a strong wall. All you have done, you will note, is to move the bricks and mortar so as to put them in new positions and make them subject to new influences, so that the forces of nature could do the desired work. Heat water to the boiling point, and it will change into steam; and if you. leave it where it can escape, nothing will come of it. But move the water into a confined place, so that the steam can not escape, and then you can make it drive immense palaces across the sea, or pull huge trains across the continent. Every invention which has ever been made is simply a way of moving things into new positions where they are subject to new influences, so that the forces of nature may do the desired work. All the force that is employed in nature exists in nature. All that man accomplishes he accomplishes by making the forces of nature work under different circttmstances, a7id by turning them into different channels from those in which they would have worked apart from him. It is by making nature our servant that we have LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 23 made such wonderful progress in material civilization in the nineteenth century. And how is it that we have been able to make nature work for us in such wonderful ways? Simply by knowing the laws of nature. Knowing the laws of nature, we have been able, so to speak, to foresee what she would do under certain circumstances, and the result is the steam- engine, the telegraph, the telephone, the phonograph, and all the other inventions which minister to our well-being. In dealing with mind we must work in the same way. Precisely as everything which happens in nature is due to the laws of nature, so everything which happens in mind is due to the laws of mind. Precisely as our power in nature depends upon the skill with which we get her to work for us, so our power in dealing with mind depends upon our ability to get it so to act that the results we desire will follow. Precisely as success in dealing with nature consists in supplying the conditions which make it possible for nature to do the desired work, so success in deal- ing with the mind consists in supplying the conditions which make it possible for the mind to do the work we want it to do. And precisely as the better we know the laws of nature — in other words, the better 24 LESSONS IN PSYCHOI^OGY. we know the conditions under which nature will produce this or that result, the better we can supply them — so the better we know the laws of the mind; the better, in other words, we know the conditions under which the mind will do this or that, the better we can supply them. The aim of the teacher being a certain kind of development, and the communication of a certain kind of knowledge, evidently the more he knows of the conditions under which the mind de- velops, and the conditions under which it acquires knowledge, the better he can supply them. "But is there no difference," you may ask, "between a natural agent and the human mind in this regard ? May we say of the human mind, as we may of a natural agent, that it will always do all the work it can under the given conditions?" There is an important difference, but it makes for rather than against the skillful teacher. A natural agent can not be flattered, bribed, or cajoled ; it takes no account of intentions or motives. In dealing with a natural agent, the one single, simple, all-determining question is, Are the conditions fulfilled? If they are fulfilled, the effect will follow; if they are not fulfilled, the effect will not follow. But the case is different with the human mind. When we have put the mind under I^KSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 2$ the right influences, it has a natural tendetuy to the kind of activity we wish to occasion ; but this tendency may be increased or diminished by purely personal relations. A teacher, for example, who adapts the subject of instruction to the mental condi- tion of his pupil creates a tendency in the mind of his pupil to follow his instruction with interest. But if by impatience, ill-humor, or sarcastic remarks the teacher has excited the antagonism of the pupil, the pupil resists the tendency ; he is unwilling to do what he knows his teacher desires. If, on the other hand, the teacher by patience and industry and kindness has gained the regard of his pupil, the pupil exerts himself to attend to the subject. In this way it happens that personal qualities may atone, to some extent, for lack of skill on the part of the teacher. Do you ask if a corresponding increase in the teacher's knowledge of mind, and a corresponding increase in his skill in basing his work on that knowl- edge would enable him to work such miracles in the minds of his pupils as inventors have worked in nature through their knowledge of the laws of nature? I can not, of course, answer such a question. No one can. But in the School of the far-off Future — when no teacher will be allowed to enter a school- a6 LKSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. room who has not made a thorough study of Psychology, and who has not proved to the entire satisfaction of competent judges his ability to apply what he has learned — in that school there will be no dull, listless, inattentive pupils. There will be no boys who leave school because they do not like it. There will be no pupils who hate books. As a child learns not only rapidly but with intense pleasure from the time of his birth to the time he starts to school simply because the activities in which he spontaneously engages are fitted to his state of development, so he will continue to learn rapidly arid with intense pleasure after he starts to school if the work he is set to doing is adapted to his state of development. Do you know who Comenius was ? It was he who said if our pupils do not learn it is our fault. And he was undoubtedly right. If we supplied the proper condi- tions, our pupils would as certainly learn as a train will move when the engineer turns on the steam. Do you know who Pestalozzi was ? It was he who said that if pupils are inattentive the teacher should first look to himself for the reason. And he also was undoubtedly right. As certainly as a blade of corn will grow and mature if it is treated right — if the proper conditions are supplied — so certainly will LESSONS IN PSYCHOW)GY. 27 our pupils attend, and think as the result of attend- ing, and develop as the result of thinking, if we supply the proper conditions. I say "if we supply the proper conditions." It is but truth to say that that sometimes is beyond our power under the circumstances under which we are obliged to work. Some pupils have so little capacity for a subject that to supply the proper conditions would require an amount of attention which the teacher can not possibly give them. It is doubtful also if there are not cases in which there is so little capacity for a subject as to make it a waste of time for the pupil to attempt to study it. A case came under my own observation of a boy who would spend Jive hours on a spelling lesson, and still miss nine words out of ten. I am strongly inclined to the opinion that spelling was an accomplishment which he could not afford to acquire. (See Appendix A.) QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. What three things are essential to success in a difficult undertaking? 2. What can the study of Psychology do to make a teacher interested in his work ? 3. What did Fitch say about teaching, and what did be mean by it? 28 LBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 4. How will the study of Psychology help a teacher to see at what he should aim ? 5. How do men accomplish anything in nature? 6. Illustrate your statement. 7. Show that the same thing is true in our dealings with mind. 8. Do you believe that teachers could accomplish as wonderful results in dealing with the minds of their pupils as inventors have accomplished in dealing with nature if they knew as much about mind ? 9. Why do so many pupils dislike the work of school? 10. What did Comenius say was the reason our pupils do not learn ? 11. Is there anything in our system of classification which increases the difficulty of adapting our work to individual pupils so as to make it pleasant to them ? 12. What can be done to obviate this ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Who is Fitch ? 2. What book on education has he written ? 3. Who was Comenius ? When did he live ? 4. Who was Pestalozzi, and when was he born ? 5. What reform did he work in education? LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 29 I^ESSON III. WHAT IS PSYCHOLOGY? IN the last two lessons I tried to show that the study of Psychology will help you to see the goal that you should try to reach, and what course you should take in order to reach it. But while we have been talking about how Psychology will help you in teaching, the question, What is Psychology? has been left unanswered. That question I shall try to answer in this lesson. The answer usually given is that Psychology is the science of the mind or soul. But what is the soul ? People who have not thought carefully about it would probably say that, whatever it is, it certainly is not the mind. Animals, they would say, plainly have minds, but no one believes that they have souls. I think it may serve to give clearness to our ideas to consider the question whether or not animals have souls. And without doubt in the confused sense in which the word is used in popular language the true answer is that they have. If you suppose that animals have no souls, let me ask you if you have one. 30 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. You will undoubtedly say that you have. Suppose I ask you whether you are always dreaming when you are asleep ? You will probably answer that you are not. And when you say that you are not dreaming, what do you mean ? " I mean," I imagine you saying, " that there are no thoughts or feelings in my mind." " And when there are no thoughts and feelings in your mind, does your soul continue to exist? " " I do not understand you." "You say that you do not think you are always dreaming when you are asleep; and when you say that you are not dreaming, you say that you mean that you have no thoughts or feelings in your mind. So far as thoughts and feelings go, I understand you to say that you are exactly like a dead man. A dead man has no thoughts and feelings, neither have you when you are not dreaming. Now, when you have no thoughts and feelings in your mind, does your soul continue to exist? " " I certainly believe it does, as I have no reason to believe that it ceases to exist when I fall asleep and begins to exist as soon as I awake, as must be the case if it ceases to exist when I have no thoughts and feelings." LBISONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 3 1 " Then you do not mean by soul the thoughts and feelings of which you are conscious, or a part of those thoughts and feelings? " " Again I do not understand you." " You say that your soul does not cease to exist when you have no thoughts or feelings; now, if it does not, your soul can not be your thoughts and feelings, can it? " "Why not?" " Because if it were, when you have no thoughts and feelings you would have no soul, would you? " " I see that I would not." " And it can not be a part of your thoughts and feelings, can it? " " No, for if it were any part of them when I had none of any kind, I would have no soul." " You mean by soul, then, not thoughts and feel- ings, but the thing that has thoughts and feelings ? " " Again I am obliged to say that I do not under- stand you." " A German professor is said to have begun a first lesson on Psychology in this way: 'Students, think about the wall.' After a moment's pause, 'Now think about the thing that thinks about the wall. The thing that thinks about the wall is what 32 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. is to be the subject of your study.' That is what you mean by soul, is it not — the thing which thinks and feels, the thing which has thoughts and feelings? " " It is." "And what do you mean by mind?" " I mean that which thinks and feels, or that which has thoughts and feelings." "But things which are identical with the same thing are identical with each other, are they not? " "They are." " And if the soul is that which thinks and feels, and the mind is that which thinks and feels, they must be the same, must they not ? " " I see that they must." " If then you say that dogs, for instance, have minds, can you refuse to admit that they have souls?" " I am obliged to confess that I can not." In this imaginary dialogue you may say that in the nature of the case I can prove what I wish to prove, since I can put any words in your mouth I please. But if you will carefully consider it, you will see that you are obliged to say that the soul is one of three things : It is either all of our thoughts and feelings, or a part of them, or the thing which has thoughts and feelings — the thing which thinks and feels and I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 33 wills. If you say that the soul is all or a part of our thoughts and feelings — mental facts, in a word — then, instead of saying that Psychology is the science of the soul, it would be much plainer to say that Psychology is the science of mental facts. But if you say that the soul is that which thinks and feels and wills, then, as we have seen, there is no difference between soul and mind, and we are left with the definition, Psychology is the science of the mind. But what do you mean by mind ? What we have seen in the case of the soul — that it consists of thoughts, feelings, and acts of the will, or that which thinks, feels, and wills — is plainly true of the mind also. It must either be that which thinks, feels, and wills, or it must be the thoughts, feelings, and acts of will of which we are conscious — mental facts, in one word. But what do we know about that which thinks, feels, and wills, and what can we find out about it? Where is it ? You will probably say in the brain. But if you are speaking literally, if you say that it is in the brain, as a pencil is in the pocket, then you must mean that it takes up room, that it occupies space, and that would make it very much like a material thing. In truth, the more carefully you consider it, the more plainly you will see what thinking men have known 3 34 IvJjSSONS IN PSYCHOI,OGY. for a long time— that we do not know and can i^jt learn anything about the thing which thinks and feels and wills. It is beyond the range of human knowledge. The books which define Psychology as the science of the mind have not a word to say about that which thinks and feels and wills. They are entirely taken up with these thoughts and feelings and acts of the will — mental facts, in a word — trying to tell us what they are, and arrange them in classes, and tell us the circumstances or conditions under which they exist. It seems to me, therefore, that it would be better to define Psychology as the scietice of the experiences, pheno7ne7ia, or fads of the mind, soul, or self— of mental fads, in a word. But what is a mental fact? I^et us say, to start with, that it is a fact known directly to but one person, and that the person experiencing it. If you are standing on the street with a half dozen friends, you can all see the houses, and men and women and horses. You can all hear the tramping of feet and the clatter of the vehicles that pass along the street. These facts are open to the observation of all of you alike. But there is a class of facts known directly to but one of you — what you think and feel and will, you know. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 35 and no one else does; wliat A thinks and feels and wills, he knows, and no one else does. These thoughts and feelings and volitions are experiences, phenomena, or facts of the mind, soul, or self — mental facts, in a word — facts known to but one person directly, and that the person experiencing them. But I believe there are mental facts not known to any one. If you are intent upon a book, the clock may strike and you may not hear it at the time, and a minute after you may be entirely sure that you heard the clock strike a minute before, although you did not know that you heard it at the time. The true expla- nation of facts like these seems to be that the clock produced a sensation which you would have known was a sensation of sound if you had attended to it at the time the clock struck, and in the sense of having received a sensation of sound because of the clock, you heard it. But you did not know that you heard it until the minute after. Now, what must we call this sensation ? Plainly a mental fact, although there was a time when it was not known by any one. Still, however, it is marked off quite sharply from all other facts — physical facts we ma)'^ call them, which may be known with equal directness by any number of people — by the circumstance that although not known, it is 36 I,ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. knowable by but one person, and that the person experiencing it. We may then define a mental fact as a fact known or knowable to but one person directly, and that the person experiencing it, and i-aychology as the science of mental facts, or the science of the facts of mind. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. r. How is the question, " What is Psychology," usually answered ? 2. Would you say that dogs have souls ? 3. How would you defend your answer? 4. What is the objection to defining Psvchology as the science of the mind or soul ? 5. How would you define Psychology ? 6. What is a mental fact? 7. What is a physical fact ? 8. Into what two classes would you put mental facts ? 9. Can you have mental facts without knowing that you have them? 10. Give examples. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Do animals reason ? 2. Are you ever in a state of dreamless sleep? 3. What is the difference between matter as a substance, and matter as a group of phenomena ? 4. What do we know of matter as a substance — of the experiences, phenomena, or facts of the mind, soul, or self? 5. Why is it that it so often happens that you can not tell your motives for what you do ? 6. lu what sense is it true that the soul is in the brain ? LBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 37 LESSON IV. THE SUBJECT MATTER OF PSYCHOLOGY. TN the last lesson I tried to point out the subject ^ of which Psychology treats. 1 objected to the usual definition, " Psychology is the science of the mind or soul," not because it is incorrect, but because I do not believe it gives young students definite ideas. I want you to get at the outset the clearest possible notion of the subject you are to study. I want you to realize that the facts of which you are directly conscious, the facts known directly to you only — that these and similar facts form the subject of which Psychology treats. It may, perhaps, serve to put the subject matter of Psychology in a clearer light to contrast mental facts with physical facts. A physical fact, as we know, is one open to the observation of all men. Trees, and houses, and flowers, and fences — the whole of exter- nal nature, in a word — are physical facts, since we can all of us observe them with equal directness. But what shall we say of the brain , or any of the internal organs of the body ? Are they mental facts ? They 1 *> H Q 4 7 ± f^ u D i i 38 LBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. arc, provided they are known to but one person directly, and that the person experiencing them. But careful reflection will convince you that no one has any direct knowledge of his body. That we have such an organ as the heart, for example, was established by a process of reasoning. If we had known it directly, it is hard to see why the world was obliged to wait for Harvey to demonstrate the circulation of the blood — why it was not from the beginning a matter of direct knowledge. Strange as it may seem at first thought, it is pretty nearly absolutely certain that we have no direct knowledge of our own bodies. We learn of the existence of our own bodies as we do of the rest of the external world, by a process of reasoning. Descartes long ago said that if we could move the sun or moon by an effort of will, as we can our hands and feet, we should regard them as a part of our own bodies. The sole difference, so far as Psychology is concerned, be- tween any external object, as a tree, and our bodies, is (i) that the former does not move in obedience to our wills, and (2) that it is not a source of sensations as our bodies are. I put my hand on a hot stove, and I have a feeling of pain. I put a stick in the same position, and I have no such sensation. Any one who has ever watched a very young child I^BSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 39 will be quite sure that he has not discriminated his body from the rest of the external world. He first confuses his body with the rest of the external world. Little by little he comes to learn that a little piece of this external world sustains a very peculiar relation to him — that it obeys his will, moves when he wishes it to move, stops when he wishes it to stop, and that it is the direct occasion of pleasure and pain as nothing else in this v/orld is. These two facts, then, and these two facts alone, distinguish our bodies from the rest of the external world, so far as Psychology is concerned, and give us our peculiar interest in them. While this course of reasoning makes it entirely clear that the internal organs of the body are not mental facts, another course will make it equally clear that they are physical facts. Is a pencil in a drawer a physical fact ? No one can see it. No, you say, but every one can see it if it is taken out of the drawer. Precisely. We need, then, to think of a physi- cal fact as one open to the observation of all men, certain co?iditions behig complied with. Bearing this in mind, we see that the various internal organs of the body are physical facts, because when the body is dissected they are open to the observation of all men, precisely as is a tree or flower. 40 I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. Hoping, then, that the difference between mental and physical facts is so clear that there will be no danger of confusing them, permit me to call your attention a little more closely to the mental facts which we are to study, in order that we may avoid a mistake into which many people fall — the mistake of supposing that any of the mental facts of which we are conscious are simple. You remember our definition of Psychology — the science of the facts, phenomena, or experiences, which, when we are con- sciotis of them, we are conscious of as experiences of the mind, soul, or self. The point I wish to empha- size is that we are never conscious of any experience, separated or detached from the mind. As you read this, you are, perhaps, conscious of attending. Look into your own mind and see what it is you are conscious of — it is of yourself attendhig, is it not ? And not of an abstract act of attention. So, also, when you perceive or remember or imagine or reason, what you are conscious of is not an abstract act of perception or memory or imagination or reasoning, but yourself perceiving, yourself remembering, your- self imagining, yourself reasoning. This, of course, is only another way of saying that you yourself enter as a constituent into every meyital fact of zvhich you are LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 4I conscious. In other words, in being conscious of mental facts, we are conscious of ourselves. Many writers appear to think that a mental fact of which we are conscious exists independently of the mind and separate from it, as a tree or a stone seems to do. But a careful looking into your own mind will convince you that they are mistaken ; it will convince you that when you are conscious of a mental fact you are really conscious of yourself in a ceriairi act or state ^ of your- self having a certaiyi experience. As you never know the act or state or experience apart from yourself, so you never know yourself apart from the act or state or experience. Hume said that when he looked into his own mind he always found thoughts and feelings and acts of the will, but he never found anything else — he never found any self. Certainly not in the sense in which he was .speaking. He was looking for a self apart from, and independent of, the various thoughts and feelings and acts of the will of which he was conscious, and no such self is to be found. The self of consciousness, I repeat, exists — not apart from, but as an element of, the various experiences of which we are conscious. You will be careful to note that the mental facts uito which the mind enters as a constituent are those 42 IvESSONS IN PSYCHOI.OGY. of which we are conscious. I have already tried to show that mental facts exist in the lives of each of us of which we are not conscious ; mental facts of the existence of which we never know save by a process of reasoning. Of such mental facts the mind is not an element, and that is precisely why we are not conscious of them. The mind is conscious or has direct knowledge of only its own acts or states or modifications or experiences. A mental fact which is not an act or state or modification of the mind, the mind can learn the existence of only by a process of reasoning. And now I hope the scope of our defini- tion of Psychology is entirely clear. Psychology is the science of those facts, phenomena, or experiences which, when we are conscious of them, we are con- scious of as experiences of the mind, soul, or self. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. What is the usual defiuition of Psychology, and what is the objection to it? 2. Is the brain a mental fact? Why not ? 3. How do we come to distinguish our bodies from the rest of the external world ? 4. What is the difference between a mental fact of which we are conscious and one of which we are not conscious ? 5. Why is it that we are not conscious of some mental facts ? 6. State and explain the definition of Psychology? LKSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 43 SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. When was Harvey born, and what did he do ? 2. Descartes is called the father of modern philosophy ; what does that mean ? When was he born ? 3. Hume is called a philosophical skeptic; what is a philosophical skeptic ? 44 LSSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. LESSON V. THE METHOD OF PSYCHOLOGY. "T3UT in what kind of mental facts," perhaps you ■*~^ ask, "is Psychology interested? I had the toothache yesterday ; that, if I understand you, was a mental fact; but Psychology has no interest in such facts, has it?" No and yes. That you, John Smith, had the toothache is a matter of indifference to Psy- chology. Psychology has no more interest in that fact than the science of Botany has in the fact that you have a bed of geraniums. Like all sciences, its aim is general knowledge ; and that you, John Smith, had the toothache is not general knowledge — it is knowledge of an individual. But when you had the toothache, you found it difficult to study, did you not? You can doubtless recall many similar cases in your experience — cases in which severe pain interfered with that concentration of mind which we call study. And keen delight is just as unfavorable to study. You got a letter some time ago that made you very happy — so happy that you could not concentrate your mind on your work for an hour ; and you find that the ex- I,ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 45 perience of other people is like yours in this regard. So, although Psychology cares nothing about your toothache, there is something in the experience that it does care about. So far as your experience ilbistrates what is true of all minds under similar circumstances, so far it is a matter of interest to Psychology. Or I might say that what Psychology especially seeks to ascertain is laws of mind, or mental facts. A law of mental facts is a general truth about mental facts — something which will be true not only in all your experience, but in the experience of every one under similar circumstances. We have just been con- sidering an example of a law of mental facts — that in- tense feeling, whether of pleasure or pain, can not ex- ist along with concentration of mind on another sub- ject. That is a law of mental facts, because it is true of the experiences of all men without exception. Since one of the conditions of concentration of thought — one of the things which makes it possible — is the absence of intense feeling, concentration of thought, on a subject foreign to the feeling, never can coexist with intense feeling. That is a perfectly general proposition, and, as such, illustrates a law of the mind. Evidently, then, to ascertain laws of the mind, you 46 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. must not only study the facts of your own experience, but those of other people. If you confine yourself to your own experience, you can not be sure that your knowledge is general ; you are liable to confuse a per- sonal peculiarity with a principle of human nature. Imagine Andrew Jackson endeavoring to get a know- ledge of human nature by studying himself alone. If he took himself as a type of men in general, he would have very erroneous ideas of human nature. But can you study the minds of other people in the same way as you can your own? Try it. You often wish to know whether your pupils are attending to you, or whether they understand you. Can you find out, in the same way, that you know whether or not you are attending? Plainly not. You know that you are attending simply by looking into your own mind, and you can not look into the mind of any one else. The word which means looking into is "introspection;" and the adjective "introspective" seems, therefore, to best describe the way or mode or method in which you study your own mind. But you can not learn anything about the minds of other people in that* way. When you study other people, you notice their looks and actions. Many teachers think they can tell whether their pupils are attending liESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 47 to them without asking questions. They look or act as though they were attending, and so the teachers who believe this conclude they are. Conclude, I say. Note the word. It denotes a process of reasoning. And when we study the minds of others, we have to do it by processes of reasoning — by acts of inference. You do not even know that there is any one in the world besides yourself except by a process of reason- ing. When you say you see a man, the truth is that you have sensations of color, and from this fact infer the presence of a human being like yourself. When you see this human being laugh, you infer that he is amused, just as you are conscious of being amused when you laugh. All that you learn of any human being you learn by reasoning — by inference. As, thei^^^ we call the method of studying our own minds the in- trospective — since we study them by looking directly within — so we may call the method of studying the minds of others the i7iferential, since we do it by pro- cesses of inference. Whatever you learn about the minds of others — whether you learn it from what you see them do, or what you read about them — you learn by means of the inferential method. When you learn how Wash- ington exposed himself when Braddock's army was 48 I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOI.OGY. routed, and at the battle of Princeton, you infer that he was brave, precisely as you would have done if you had seen him. Since all the facts of human history relate to the actions of men, they are materials which the inferential method uses to increase our knowledge of human nature. When we learn, for example, that the ancient Greeks left their weak children exposed, in order that they might die, the inferential method enables us to see that Greek fathers and mothers did not love their children as fathers and mothers love their children now, and that they probably loved their country more, since a weak child was considered of no worth because it gave no promise of being able to be of service to the state. When we know that Aristotle said that all that was necessary to reform or relax the manners of a people was to add one string to the lyre or take one from it, the same method enables us to see that the Greeks had a susceptibility to music of which we can scarcely have any idea to-day. When we know that "those doughty old mediaeval knights" "despised the petty clerk's trick of writing, because, compared to a life of toilsome and heroic action, it seemed to them slavish and unmanly," we know that they looked upon a very different world from ours — a world of different aims and ideals; that the LltSSONS IN PSYCHOI.OOY. 49 knowledge we prize so highly, and toil so painfully to gain, was a thing of no value in their eyes. The in- ferential method even uses the relics of the pre- historic ages to add to our knowledge of men. It takes the rough tools of the cave-dwellers and forces from them a little knowledge of the strange men who used them. I have said that the introspective method is the method we use in studying our own mental facts. That needs qualification. It is possible for us to study our own minds by means of the inferential method. People often forget their motives for their actions. They say, "I do not know how I came to do that." In such cases they can learn their motives only by means of the inferential method, precisely as though they were other people whose actions they were con- sidering, and which they were trying to account for. Further, the introspective method can only give us in- dividual facts. As the bodily eye only sees isolated objects, and can not connect them by laws, so the eye of the mind only sees isolated mental facts, and can not connect them together by laws. In other words, we observe facts — not laws. Laws are the result of inference — never of direct observation. The introspective and inferential methods, then — 4 50 LBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. the two methods of studying mind — evidently sustain a close relation to each other. You can, indeed, use the introspective method without the inferential, in tiie mere collection of facts ; but you can not use the inferential at all without the introspective. When you infer that people have such and such mental facts under such and such circumstances, it is because you know by introspection that you have the same mental facts under the same circumstances. The laughter and tears of others would have no meaning to you if you had never known amusement or sorrow. Each of these methods has its peculiar difficulties. The results reached by means of the inferential method are always more or less uncertain. If you have ever made a thorough study of the history of any great man, you have doubtless had an excellent illustrailon of this. While different historians gen- erally agree substantially as to the actions of men, they diflfer very widely in their interpretations of those actions. Federalist historians, and those who sym- pathize with them, usually regard Jefferson, for ex- ample, as a demagogue, while Democratic historians regard him as a sincere and devoted patriot. The reason of course is that, using the inferential method, l^ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 5I the oue explained his actions by one set of mental facts, the other by another. A passage in John Fiske's "The Beginnings of New England," gives such an excellent illustration of the inferential method and its difiSculties that it de- serves to be quoted at length : "It is difficult for the civilized man and the savage to understand each other. As a rule, the one does not know what the other is thinking about." And then, speaking of Eliot, and what the Indians thought about him, the author goes on : "His design in found- ing his villages of Christian Indians was in the highest degree benevolent and noble, but the heathen Indians could hardly be expected to see anything in it but a cunning scheme for destroying them. Eliot's converts were for the most part from the Massachusetts tribe, the smallest and weakest of all. The Plymouth con- verts came chiefly from the tribe next in weakness — the Pokanokets, or Wanipanoags. The more powerful tribes — Narragansetts, Nipmucks, and Mohegans — furnished very few converts. When they saw the white intruders gathering members of the weakest tribes into villages of English type, and teaching them strange gods while clothing them in strange gar- ments, they probably supposed that the pale faces 52 I,»(BSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. were simply adopting these Indians into their white tribe as a means of increasing their military strength. At any rate, such a proceeding would be perfectly in- telligible to the savage mind, whereas the nature of Eliot's design lay quite beyond its ken. As the In- dians recovered from their supernatural dread of the English, and began to regard them as using human means to accomplish their ends, the)' must, of course, interpret their conduct in such light as savage ex- perience could afford. It is one of the commonest things in the world for a savage tribe to absorb weak neighbors by adoption, and thus increase its force preparatory to a deadly assault upon other neigh- bors." The great difficulty with the introspective method is that a mental fact vanishes as soon as you begin to examine it introspectively. The feeling of amuse- ment, of course, is a mental fact. The next time j'ou are amused, suppose you try to analyze the feeling. Some psychologists say that it consists in part of a feeling of superiority. If you make a study of your experience to see whether they are right, your feeling of amusement will disappear. Or suppose you try to ascertain what sort of a mental fact pity is. When you find yourself pitying some one, if you examine LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 53 your experience to see what pity is, the feeling will vanish. If the nature of flowers were such that they disappear the moment one begins to observe them closely, the study of Botany would exactly illustrate the difficulty of studying the mind by means of the introspective method. And as, in such a case, the botanist would have to content himself with observing his facts in the dim light of memory, so also must the psychologist. As his facts disappear the moment he begins to examine them, his only resource is to ap- peal to the memory — his introspection becomes retro- spection. Of course the minds that are of the most importance for you as teachers to study are the minds of children, and it is evident that you must study them by means of the inferential method. If you would get that knowledge of them that will enable you to teach them well, you must note their likes and dislikes, their amusements, their games, the books they read, the mistakes they make — everything, in short, that may throw light on their minds. Do not rely on any knowledge of the mind you can get from this or any book. A good book on Psychology is like a guide in a strange city— useful chiefly in telling you where to look. But as a guide is of no service to a man who 54 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. refuses to use his eyes, so a writer on Psychology can be of little use to his readers unless they constantly test his statements by their own experiences and by the study of the minds of those around them.* QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. What kind of mental facts constitutes the science of Psychology ? Illustrate. 2. What is a lav/ of mental facts? Illustrate. 3. State and explain and illustrate the two ways of study- ing mental facts. 4. Illustrate how the inferential method uses historical facts to enlarge our knowledge of mind. 5. How can yoli study your own mind by means of the inferential method ? 6. Point out the relations that exist between the two methods. 7. State and illustrate the difficulties of the two methods, SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Are there any mental facts which do not form part of the science of Psychology ? 2. Do you kuov7 any facts which indicate that there is a diflference in the keenness of internal perception in different people ? 3. If you were a Turk or a Chinaman, and knew noth- ing of any other people, how would it influence j'our notion of human nature ? 4. Is pity a state of pleasure ? 5. How does the quotation from Fiske illustrate the difficulties of the inferential method? *For a brief explanation of some varieties of the inferen- tial method, see Appendix B. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 55 LESSON VI. NRCESSARY TRUTHS AND NECESSARY BELIEFS. T T ZE would all agree that geometry does right to '' ' state its axioms at the beginning. All its demonstrations depend upon them, and therefore it is proper that they should receive our attention at the outset. For similar reasons it is important for us to ascer- tain as clearly as possible what we can learn by means of the introspective method. Since the introspective and the inferential methods are the only methods of studying mental facts, and since the inferential is based on the introspective, what we learn by means of the introspective method lies at the foundation of our knowledge of mind. If you were building a house, you would be especially careful about the foundation. You would want it all strong and well made, but you would take particular pains to see that there was no flaw in the foundation. No matter how strong and fine and beautiful the rest of the house might be, you would feel that if the foundation was weak the whole thing might come tumbling down about you any day. 56 l,ESSONS IN PSYCHOI«OGY. So it behooves us to look carefully to the foundation of our knowledge of mind, and therefore to ascertain precisely what kind of knowledge we have of the facts known to us through introspection, and what we can learn by means of it. But the knowledge gained by introspection so closely resembles another kind of knowledge that the two are liable to be confused, unless at the outset the latter is clearly explained. To this end permit me, in imagination, to talk with you about some familiar matters. " Have you ever seen a stick with but one end, or a white crow?" " No," you answer. " Do you think it possible that you ever shall? " " Possible to see a white crow? Certainly there is no impossibility in that. I know no reason why a bird might not exist like the crow in every respect except the color of its feathers. But a stick with one end ? That is not merely an impossibility ; it is an absurdity. You can not even assert its existence." " Pardon me, but I think you are mistaken. 'This stick has but one end.' Have I not asserted its existence? " •'Apparently, but not really. You haye indeed LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 57 strung a lot of words together in the form of a sentence — a sentence to which I have no objection on the score of grammar. But there is one fatal objec- tion to it; it does not mean anything." "Does not mean anything? I do not understand you." " Your statement does not express any action of the mind. All sentences that mean anything are expressions of thought. But when you say, ' This stick has but one end,' you have simply used your organs of speech ; you have not thought anything. I might teach a parrot to say, ' Kant's arguments in de- fense of the antinomies of human reason have never been refuted.' But what would those words mean in the mouth of a parrot ? Nothing, and that is all you mean when you assert the existence of a one-ended stick." " Possibly I am stupid, but I really do not see why." " For this very simple reason: The meaning of stick is a thing that has two ends. When, therefore, you say ' This stick has but one end,' it is equivalent to say- ing, ' This two-ended thing has but one end ; this thing, which has two ends, has but one end.' Now it is easy enough to say that, but impossiblt to think it, is it not? " 5$ I that things will behave in the future as they have done in the past f I can not answer the question; I do not believe any one can. The past, as Bain says, is separated from the future by a chasm which no re- sources of logic will ever enable us to bridge.* * " The most authentic recollection gives only what kas been, something that has ceased and can concern us no longer. A far more perilous leap remains, tkg leap to the future. All €• I,«S30NS IN PSYCHOLOGY. But while we " can give no reason or evidence " that " what has been will be," that things will behave in the future as they have done in the past — under precisely similar circumstances — the peculiar fact is that we do not want any. When we know that a thing has happened in the past, we are entirely sure that it will, under similar circumstances, in the future — so sure that we can not help believi7ig it even if we W07lld. This is one of the reasons why we may properly call such beliefs necessary — the fact that we can not rid ourselves of them. But while they share this characteristic of inevitableness or necessity with our interest is concentrated on what is yet to be ; the present and the past are of value only as a clue to the events that are to come. " The postulate that we are in quest of must carrj' us across the gnilf, from the experienced known, either present or remembered, to the unexperienced and unknown — must perform the leap of real inference. ' Water has quenched our thirst in the past ; by what assumption do we affirm that the same will happen in the future? ' Experience does not teach us this ; experience is only what has actually been; and after never so many repetitions of a thing there still remains the peril of venturing upon the untrodden land of future possibility. ' What has been will be,' justifies the inference that water will assuage thirst in after times. We can give no reason or evidence for this uniformity." — Bain's Logic, p, 671. WESSONS IN PSYCHOLOOY. 6 1 necessary truths, the necessity in the two cases is of a very different character. The necessity of necessary truths is a necessity of seeing ; the necessity of neces- sary beliefs is a necessity of believing. We know with absolute certainty that two straight lines can not inclose a space ; we believe with irresistible strength of con- viction that what has been will be, under similar cir_ cumstances — not that it must be. We can not even think of two straight lines inclosing a space ; we can very easily think of this orderly universe becoming a chaos in which there would be an utter absence of law and order, in which combustion would be followed by heat one day, cold another, and so on. The necessity, then, of necessary beliefs is a necessity of belief, not of knowledge. We do not know, strictly speaking, that the thing we believe so firmly is true, but we be- lieve it with irresistible strength of conviction, not- withstanding. Some of our necessary beliefs — for instance, the one we have been considering — have another kind of necessity. If we did not assume that the past would enable us to judge of the future, all rational action would be impossible. Take that belief from the minds of men, and their rational activities would cease as suddenly as though they had been transformed into 62 lessons' in psychology. stone. I eat when I am hungry, drink when I am thirsty, rest when I am tired — do everything which I do under the influence of that belief. The farmer sows, the mechanic builds, the lawyer perpares his brief, the doctor writes his prescription, because they think that a knowledge of the past enables them to anticipate the future more or less accurately. The principle, then, that what has been will be, is necessary not only in the sense that we can not get rid of it, but also in the sense that we must believe it in order to live in the world. If a being were born in the world destitute of the tendency or predisposition to accept the past as in some sense a type of the future, he would necessarily perish. Of necessary beliefs of this class it is absurd to raise the question as to their truth. Though we are not prevented from questioning them by the very nature of our minds — as in the case of necessary truths — still, if we mu.st accept them in order to act and live, the possibility of questioning them will remain a bare possibility. But if we have beliefs that are necessary in the sense that we can not get rid of them, but not in the sense that we must accept them because of their prac- tical importance, it is evident that the question as to LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 63 their truth is altogether in order. A dozen different branches of science — physics, chemistry, physiology, astronomy, etc., as well as Psychology — have shown us very clearly that many of the things which seevi to be true — and which continue to seem to be after we know they are not — are false. The sun still seems to rise and set, although we know it does not. To call a halt to investigation, therefore, on the threshold of neces- sary beliefs of this character would amount to an attempt to protect Error against the assaults of Truth. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. What is the relation between the introspective and inferential methods ? 2. Why is it important for us to learn what we are conscious of? 3. State the difference between a necessary truth and a necessary belief. 4. Can you doubt a necessary belief? 5. What are the two classes of necessary beliefs ? 6. Can you question the truth of a necessary belief? 7. What is the difference in meaning between questions four and six ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Make as complete a list as you can of what you regard as necessary truths. 2. What do you suppose the phrase, "Entertain the idea," originally meant ? 64 LBlSeONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 3. You believe many things because, as you say, you remember them. Are the assertions of memory examples of necessary truths or necessary beliefs or neither ? 4. What does Bain mean by the "leap of real inference?" 5. Mention some other necessary beliefs besides the one spoken of in the lesson. 6. Mention some that are necessary in the sense that we can't help believing them, but not necessary in the sense that the nature of the world compels us to assume them. 7. Mention some things that seem to us to be true, although science has shown that they are not. 8. What is meant by the " uniformity of nature? " LESSONS IN PSYCHOI^OGY. 65 I.ESSON VII. WHAT ARE WE CONSCIOUS OP? '' I ^HE object of the last lesson was to make clear -*- the distinction between necessary truths and necessary beliefs. I tried to show that there are truths that the mind must see when it clearly grasps the sub- ject and predicate of the proposition that expresses them. But the mind by no means inevitably sees all the necessary truths it is capable of seeing, because there are subjects and predicates that are beyond its grasp at certain stages of its development, and others that it might grasp, but which, as a matter of fact, it has not grasped. "Seven plus five makes twelve" is a necessarj' truth. But the child does not see it, be- cause he can not grasp seven and five. A necessary truth, then, is not a truth that the mind must see, but which, whe7t it sees, it sees to be necessary. Necessary beliefs resemble necessary truths in that we are not only willing, but, in a measure, forced to believe them, in the absence of reason and evidence. Indeed, we are certain both of necessary truths and necessary beliefs ; but our certainty dififers widely in the two cases. In the one, it is a certainty of know- 5 65 I,«SSONS IN PSYCHOI^OGY. ledge ; in the other, of belief. Moreover, the necessity of necessary beliefs, unlike that of necessary truths, is not in all cases absolutely unyielding in its nature. When we look through an opera-glass we can not help seeming to see the object much nearer than it really is. Such irresistible "seemings" we call beliefs until we learn that they are false, but no longer. This is one of a multitude of instances in which what seems to be true is directly opposed to what we know to be true. It would appear, therefore, only a matter of common prudence to accept as true only those necessary be- liefs which we can not get along without. Necessary truths, necessary beliefs, and what we are conscious of, then, constitute the foundation of everything we know and believe, not only about mind, but about the world in general. Now that we know what necessary truths and necessary beliefs are, it will be comparatively easy for us to determine the kind of knowledge that consciousness is, and the kinds of facts of which we are conscious. If we had attempted to learn what consciousness is before making a study of necessary truths, there would have been great danger of our confusing the knowledge of the facts that we are conscious of with the knowledge of necessary truths. I«KSSONS IN PSYCHOI^OGY. 67 I/Ct US first try to ascertain what that kind of knowledge is that we call conscious knowledge. For to ask what kind of facts we are conscious of is to ask what we know in precisely the same way, with the same kind and decree of certainty, as we do the facts which every one admits we are co7iscious of. Every one admits that we are conscious of the mental facts we know by introspection. Evidently, in order to learn whether we are conscious of anything else, we need to learn whether we know anything else in the same way, and with the same kind and degree of certainty; we need to learn whether our knowledge of any other facts has the same characteristics as onr knowledge of mental facts. When Columbus first came to this country, if he had been told that certain animals that he saw were buffaloes, he would have had to learn their characteristics in order to be able to recognize buffaloes when he saw them again. Knowing their characteristics, he would have been able to recognize a buffalo as easily as a horse or dog. In like manner, since we are conscious of those facts which we have agreed to call mental facts, we have to learn the char- acteristics of our knowledge of mental facts, in order to learn whether we are conscious of anything else. For if our knowledge of anything else has the same 68 l paee is. 86 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. Making another study of our experience, we find that there are two kinds of attention. You are reading a difficult and not very interesting book, when some one in the next room begins to sing your favorite song. You do your best to keep your attention on your book, but your mind wanders to the song in spite of you. Or you go to a lecture just after reading a letter that contained some very good news. You try to listen to the lecture, but the thought of the letter per- sists in dragging your inind av.-ay. In both these cases you are conscious of two very different kinds of atten- tion — attention depending upon the will, or vol- untary attention, and attention independent of the will, or non-voluntary attention. We can see the difference between them more clearly, perhaps, if we bear in mind that, in the case of non- voluntary attention, there is but one thing that in- fluences the mind — the thing attended to ; while in voluntary attention there are two — the thing attended to, and some reason or motive for attending to it. When you listen to a song simply because you like it, you attend involuntarily ; when you keep your mind fixed upon a book by an effort of will, you attend vol- untarily. In the first ca.se, there are but two things concerned — your mind and the song ; in the second, LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 87 there are three — your mind and the book, and some reason or motive for attending to it. In the first case, you attend because of the attraction which the song nas for your mind directly ; in the second, you attend rot because of any attraction which the book has for your mind, but because of its relation to somethhig else that attracts you directly, as the desire to improve. N"on-voluntary attention, then, is that attention which results from the infiueiice exerted upon the mind by the thing attended to, in and f itself ; voluntary attention is that which results from the influence exerted tipon the mind,Hot by the thing attended to, butbythehiowlcdge of its relation to somethi7tg else that attracts the mind in and of itself . It is evident that voluntary attention is impossible without some variety of experience and some mental development. To attend voluntarily, we must perceive relations ; and to perceive relations, the mind must have had experience, and must be developed enough to interpret that experience. A bath may, almost from the beginning, give a child pleasant sensations. But his mind must be developed enough to perceive the relations between the preparations for his bath and the bath before the sight of the former can give him pleasure. Moreover, it is evident that the child must 88 I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. not only have had experience of relations m order to regard one thing as the sign of another ; he must have not only some development of intellect to be able to connect things together, but also some development of his capacity for feeling, in order to be able to form ideas of things desirable in themselves. When the child is able to form the idea of a thing desirable in itself, and to see the connection between such a thing and someting undesirable, the latter begins to be in- teresting because of its relation to the former — the con- ditions of voluntary attention exist. This analysis of the circumstances under which voluntary attention is possible prepares us to antici- pate what observation confirms — that very young children are incapable of voluntary attention. In- deed, it seems probable that in the first days of a child's life there is no attention of any kind. The mental life of a new-born child seems to consist of a mass of confused sensations, none of them coming into clear and distinct consciousness, because none of them are attended to. But the quality of some of its sensa- tions, their character as pleasant or painful, causes the sensations that possess it to be emphasized in the child's experience. Bain well says that "enjoyment, immediate and incessant, is a primary vocation of the LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 89 iufaut mind." " In the presence of the more enjoyable, the less enjoyable is disregarded." "Attention lasts so long as enjoyment lasts, and no longer."-"- So far as a child is under the influence of pleasure alone, these statements are true without qualification. But pain has fully as strong a hold on attention as pleas- ure. Moreover, as the same author remarks, "In- tensity of sensation, whether pleasant or not, is a power." A bright light, a loud noise, "take the at- tention by storm." But in considering the effect of in- tensity of sen.sations upon attention, we must bear in mind that the greater their relative intensity — the greater, in other words, the contrast between the sen- sation and the other experiences of the child — the .stronger will be its influence in attracting his at- tention. A remark made in an ordinary tone, for ex- ample, when it breaks in upon absolute stillness, will attract attention more strongly than one made in a very loud tone in the mid.st of noise and confusion. Under the influence of these two cause.s — the quality of sensations or their character as pleasurable or painful — and their intensity, absolute and relative, the child's power of attention develops with wonderful rapidity. * Bain's " Education as a Science," page 179. go lv»SSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. As long as he is capable only of non-voluntary at- tention, he is at the mercy of his impressions. As the course of a stream depends upon the slope of the ground, so the direction of his attention depends upon the attractiveness of his sensations. But the exercise of non-voluntary attention de- velops the power to attend voluntarily. Every exer- ercise of non-voluntary attention makes that kind of attention easier. Sensations less and less intense — sensations whose pleasurable or painful character is less and less pronounced — have power to attract it, in accordance with the universal law of the mind that ex- ercise develops power. While the child's power of non-voluntary attention is in this way increasing, his growing experience is leading him to form ideas of things he desires, and to perceive the relation between the things that give him pleasure and the means of gratifying his desires. When this relation is clearly perceived, all the conditions of voluntary attention exist. Probably the first exercise of distinctively volun- tary attention usually occurs when the child is from three to six months old. Professor Preyer reports an instructive experiment as made by Professor I^indner upon his little daughter, twenty-six weeks old, which LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 9I experiment proves conclusively that the child was ex- ercising voluntarj' attention: "While the child, at this age, was taking milk as she lay in the cradle, the bottle took such a slant that she could not get anything to suck. She now tried to direct the bottle with her feet, and finally raised it by means of them so dexterou.sly that she could drink conveniently. This action was manifestly no imitation ; it can not have depended upon a mere accident ; for v/hen, at the next feeding, the bottle is purposely so placed that the child can not get anything without the help of hands or feet, the same performance takes place as before. Then, on the following day, when the child drinks iu the same Vv'ay, I prevent her from doing so by removing her feet from the bottle, but she at once makes use of them again as regulators for the flow of the milk, as dexterously and surely as if the feet were made on purpose for such use. If it follows from this that the child acts with deliberation long before it uses language in the proper sense, it also appears how im- perfect and crude the deliberation is, for my «hild drank her milk in this awkward fashion for three whole months, until she at last made the discovery one day that, after all, the hands are much better adapted to service of this sort. I had given strict orders to 92 I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. those about her to let her make this advance of her- self." We must not forget to note that the conditions of voluntary attention were completely fulfilled in this case, and that it was only through this that the child's action was possible. If the child had not known by experience the relation between certain movements and the effects of those movements, she would not have been able to attend to those move- ments — in themselves uninteresting — in order to get hold of her bottle. And if her experience had not enabled her to form an idea of her bottle as a thing that gave her pleasure, it would not have been possible for her to fix her attention upon certain movements as a means of experiencing that pleasure. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Why is it so important for you to know the conditions of attention ? 2. Illustrate and define the two kinds of attention. 3. State and illustrate the conditions of voluntar}' attention. 4. Show that these conditions can not be fulfilled in the case of a very young child. 5. Describe as clearly as you can the consciousness of a new born child. 6. What are the two causes of non-voluntary attention in a child's experience ? LBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 93 7. Show how the conditions of voluntary attention are gradually developed. 8. Analyze the voluntary attention exercised by Professor Lindner's child for the purpose of showing that the condi- tions of voluntary attention were fulfilled. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Account for the miser's love of money. 2. Account for the knowledge of Professor Lindner's child. 3. Make a study of any children you know of from two or three months to six or seven years of age in order to ascertain (i) the kind of objects that attract their non- voluntary attention ; and (2) the lines of interest that control their voluntary attention after they are capable of exercis- ing it. 4. President G. Stanley Hall says : " It is a striking fact that nearly every great teacher in the history of education who has spoken words that have been heeded has lived for years in the closest personal relations to children, and has had the sympathy and tact that gropes out, if it can not see clearly, the laws of juvenile development and lines of childish interest." {a) Who are some of the great tecichers of whom he speaks ? (b) In what way do you think their personal rela- tions to children were helpful to them ? (r) Do you know any important educational questions that can be best solved by a careful and systematic study of children ? {d) Why is it im- portant to know the "laws of juvenile development?" (c) Why the lines of childish interests ? 5. Professor Preyer's child gazed steadily at his own image in the glass when he was about four months old. Was that a case of voluntary attention ? 94 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. LESSON X. ATTENTION. /^^OMPAYRE says that the way to teach the child ^-^ to be attentive is to supply the conditions of at- tention. Nothing can be truer. But in order to do this, as he remarks, we need to know what the con- ditions of attention are. To ascertain the conditions of non-voluntary at- tention was the object of the last lesson. We did, in- deed, confine our investigations to the first years of childhood; but, as G. Stanley Hall remarks, "the liv- ing, playing, learning child . . . embodies a truly elementary Psychology." If, then, we Avere right in concluding that the two lav^^s of non-voluntary at- tention — the two conditions upon which it depends in childhood— are the pleasurable or painful character of the child's experiences, and their intensity, we have reason to hope that we know the conditions that we need to supply in order to get non-voluntary at- tention, no matter what grade of pupils we are dealing with. I think we .shall be quite sure of this if, pursuing WESSONS IN PSVCHOLOGY. 9$ our usual course, we make a study of our own ex- perience and the experience of those about us. Why do you find it easier to listen to a speaker when you can see him than when you can not ? Because when you see him you have a much more vivid — intense — im- pression of him than you have when you do not. Why is it that to see a dentist extract the tooth of a friend affects you so much more strongly thank to think of the same thing? Because the perception of a person in pain is a much more vivid experience than the thought of one. Why is it that pupils find it so much harder to attend to a teacher who speaks in a drawl- ing, monotonous tone, than to one who speaks in a quick, lively, animated manner? Because the latter makes more definite impressions upon the mind. The monotonous speaker, moreover, is an unemphatic speaker ; and in the absence of emphasis — of impres- sions having the character of intensity — there is nothing to particularly attract our attention to the leading idea, so that it is much harder to learn what that idea is. Why is it that you can remember an ar- gument that you understand so much better than you can one that you do not understand ? Because, when you understand an argument, you perceive the re- lations between its various parts ; and the perception 96 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. of relations is a source of pleasure, and therefore a stimulus of attention, and hence a help to memory. It appears, then, that in learning the conditions of non-voluntary attention in the early years of a child's life, we have learned what they are throughout the whole of his life. Some writers speak of novelty as a condition of non-voluntary attention, and under some circumstances it undoubtedly is. But why ? Because the novel is the unexplained, and the unexplained ex- cites our curiosity. But curiosity stimulates thought, and the exercise of the power of thinking, under normal circumstances, is a source of pleasure. In a word, the novel attracts our attention because of the pleasurable character of the experiences connected with it. To prove this, we only need to recall the fact that, when we see a novel thing under such circum- stances as not to excite our curiosity, it does not at- tract our attention. To the mind of a man who knows nothing of machinery, a complicated machine, however novel, offers no attraction. Indeed, a man who knew nothing of machinery would not know, without being told, that a particular machine was novel, unless its new features were of a very striking character. His ignorance of machinery would make it impossible for him to see the difference between the novel machine LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 97 and those he was in the habit of seeing. If its new features were of such a striking character that he could not fail to notice them, he would regard it with a sort of vague wonder, but not with that keen, active curiosity which is such a powerful stimulus to the at- tention. That is why the entirely familiar and the entirely unknown* are equally destitute of interest. Neither of thera offers to the mind a problem to be solved ; neither of them lures to exertion with the anticipation of a conquest over difficulties. The en- tirely familiar does not stimulate thought because it is, or seems to be, the entirely known ; the entirely unknown does not, because it offers to the mind nothing that it can take hold of. It is like a new ball of string, carefully wound up, with the ends so well concealed that there seems no way of beginning to unwind it. So, again, the physical conditions of attention are insisted on, and, as we all know by experience, with entire propriety. When you are sick or tired, you can not attend as you can when you are well and rested. But why ? Because things do not interest you so much. * Of course it will be understood that I use the phrase "entirely unknown" relatively. Strictly speaking, the en- tirely unknown could not come before the mind at all. 98 LBSSONS IN PSYCHOI.OGY. The relations between body and mind are so close that the mind is incapable of intense interest when the body is exhausted. That attention, then, is strongly influenced by bodih^ conditions is indeed true ; but it is no new law ; it is simply a case under the law al- ready considered, that that which interests us, whether by its pleasurable or painful character, attracts at- tention. We may conclude, then, that we have found what we are in search of, so far as non-voluntary attention is concerned — the conditions which we must supply in order to get it. lyet us now see how the case is altered by volun- tary attention. As a matter of experience, how does the will influence attention? Going to your room, you find a half dozen books on your table. There is "Vanity Fair," a volume of Tennyson's poems, Stanley's "Dark Continent," "Looking Backward," a history of England, and a text-book on Geometry. Which will you read? If you were capable only of non-voluntary attention, you would read the one which attracted your attention most strongly. There would be a struggle between competing attractions, and the strongest would win the day. But through the influence of your will you IvBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 99 may give your attention to precisely that su eject which you like least. You don't like mathematics, but as you are going to be examined in geometry, you be- gin to study that. Can you keep your attention on it .yzw/Zy by an effort of will? Certainly not. The will simply determines the direction in which the mind looks ; but if it continues to look that way, it must find something to interest it — something to attract its non- voluntary attention. The will determines, in this case, that the attention shall be put on geometry; but if it stays there, it is because the subject develops some interest for the mind — stimulates its non-volun- tary attention. Sully puts this very clearly : "By an act of will I may resolve to turn my attention to something — say a passage in a book. But if, after this preliminary process of adjustment of the mental eye, the object opens up no interesting phase, all the will- ing in the world will not produce a calm, settled state of concentration. The will introduces mind and ob- ject — it can not force an attachment between them. No compulsion of attention ever succeeded in making a young child cordially embrace and appropriate, bj'' an act of concentration, an unsuitable and therefore uninteresting subject. We thus see that voluntary at- tention is not removed from the sway of interest. lOO 1.ESS0NS IN PSYCHOLOGY. What the will does is to determine the kind of interest that shall prevail at the moment." The last sentence states the work done by the will in attention very exactly. It creates no new in- fluence; it simply determines which of pre-existing influences shall have control over the mind. Co- operating with a pre-existing influence, the will can make a weaker one prevail over a stronger. Without a prevailing influence to work on, the will is as power- less as a lever without a fulcrum. But, upon second thought, have we not put this too strongly? . Does voluntary attention always re- quire a /r.?-existing influence in order to be effective? I do not think so. If the will resolutely turns the gaze of the mind upon a certain subject, points of in- terest, before unnoticed, may present themselves. The interest which alone makes concentration of mind pos- sible may result from the exercise of the will, instead of existing before it. As the persuasions of a friend may induce you to consent to be introduced to a per- son who does not attract you, and whom you think you will not like, so the exertion of the will maj- induce 3'ou to attend to what you otherwise would not have attended to, because it revealed no attractions to such superficial glances a.s, without interest, are only given, LfiSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. lOI except in voluntary attention. Precisely as your new- acquaintance may develop elements of attractiveness which you never would have known anything about if you had not consented to an introduction, so an unin- teresting subject may become interesting under the searching gaze of voluntary attention, which other- wise would have remained uninteresting forever. And this is one of the functions of voluntary attention — to develop interests, to make us acquainted with interest- ing subjects, of which we should have otherwise re- mained ignorant. But there is another, of quite as much importance. What we call concentration of thought is a continuity of attention to the same subject. But this continuity' is by no means insured when, under the influence of the will, the interests of a certain subject are present to the mind. If the will relaxes its hold upon the ac- tivities of the mind, the attention is liable to be carried away by any one of the thousands of ideas that the laws of association are constantly bringing into our minds. As you use your will to give your attention to geometry, although it attracts you less than a number of other subjects, so, if you really study it, you use your will to prevent your mind from being dragged away from it by the interests that are constantly ini- I^SSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. portuning you. He who possesses this power in a high degree possesses in a high degree the power of volun- tary attention. Thi3, then, is another function of vol- untary attention — to give steadiness to the mind, to prevent it from going capriciously here and there under the influence of the interests that happen to be present at the particular moment. If the interests of the mind are the chief condition of non-voluntary attention, and if voluntary attention, to have any educational value, must start from, or re- sult in, interests, we can put the two questions in which, as teachers, we are interested, in a more definite form. What is the end or object of education? What is teaching? The object of education, we have said, is to develop the pov/er of attending to the right things in the right way ; to teach is to get and keep the attention of our pupils by bringing their minds into contact with subjects that have an educational value. The one is the goal — the other seems the path by which we must reach it. The one is the end — the other seems the means by which we must attain it. But we now see that to develop the power to attend to the right things in the right way is to develop certain permanent interests in the mind, and to give it the power to determine, at any particular time, the in- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. I03 terests by which the current of its thoughts shall be directed. We see also that, to get and keep the at- tention of our pupils by bringing their minds into con- tact with subjects that have an educational value, we must make those subjects interesting ; we must give their wills a fulcrum upon which to work. We may then state our two great questions in this form: (i) How can we develop those permanent interests that shall induce the mind to attend to the right things in the right way? (2) How can we interest our pupils in the subjects we teach? Stated in this compact form, we see that we can not answer the first by answering the second. Life is larger than the school. When we have done all we can to make the subjects they study interesting to our pupils, the interests we have devel- oped will have to compete with other interests, which the work of the school touches but indirectly and re- motely. It will always remain possible for their wills to choose to foster the interests that check the growth of those we wish to make permanent. Moreover, the school is larger than the recitation. There are other influences — discipline, for example — which we can bring to bear upon the will besides those that directly result from the recitatiom. I04 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. What are the two conditions of non-voluntary atten- tion in the case of children ? 2. Show that they are universal conditions of non- voluntary attention. 3. Why is it that novelty sometimes attracts our atten- tion and sometimes fails to do it? 4. Show that the influence of novelty is a case of one of the two conditions already discovered. 5. Show that the influence of bodily conditions upon the attention is not a distinct law of attention. 6. State and illustrate the influence of the will upon attention. 7. What are the two functions of voluntary attention .-' 8. What is the most definite form in which you can state the two great questions which as a teacher it is your business to answer? 9. What is the difference between them ? ID. Why is it so hard to understand unemphatic reading? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. The end of education is often said to be " symmetrical development." In this lesson I say it is the development of certain permanent interests in the mind, etc. Are the two answers consistent ? 2. "A few years ago, a gentleman brought two Eskimaux to London — he wished to amuse and at the same time to astonish them with the great magnificence of the metropolis. For this purpose, after having equipped them like English gentlemen, he took them out one morning to walk through the streets of Loudon. They walked for several hours in silence ; they expressed neither pleasure nor admiration at anything which they saw. When their walk was ended, they LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 105 appeared uucommonly melancholy and stupified. As soon as they got home, they sat down with their elbows upon their knees and hid their faces between their hands. The only words they could be brought to utter were, ' Too much smoke —too much noise— too much houses — too much men— too much everyihingl' " — Bd^eworl/i's Practical Education. Account for the state ofviind of the Indians. 3. Under the influence of the intensity of his interest, the whole mind of an orator, in the midst of an oration, is brought to bear upon his subject. Ideas and images not connected with it do not come to his mind— as though for the time he had forgotten everything in the world except a certain group of related facts and ideas. Is this concentra- tion of thought voluntary or involuntary attention? I06 I,aSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. I.ESSON XI. ATTENTION. WE have seen that voluntary attention is not "re- moved from the sway of interests," but that, to have any educational value, it must start from or lead to interests ; that the two functions of voluntary attention are (i) the development of interests in things that would never give us pleasure were it not for vol- untary attention; and (2) the development of the power of continuous attention, that the mind may di- rect its own energies — that it may not be a mere in- strument, producing nothing but inharmonious sounds, because played upon by every passing impulse. From this point of view we were able to see that the object of education is the development of certain permanent interests, and of the power to determine the course of one's activities; also that true teaching consists in bringing the mind into contact with subjects that have an intellectual value, in such a way as to make them interesting. This latter, as we know, is another way of saying that true teaching consists in getting and keeping the attention of our pupils, and making the right use of it. I,»SSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY, I»7 Beginning, then, with the simpler question — How can we get and keep the attention of our pupils? Comenius answered that question with remarkable completeness nearly three hundred years ago. In his time it was the custom to teach boys separately, or not more than two or three at a time. He contended that a lecturer could hold the attention of a large class just as well (i) " by always bringing before his pupils some- thing pleasing and profitable ; (2) by introducing the subject of instruction in such a way as to commend it to them, or by stirring their intelligences into activity by inciting questions regarding it ; (3) by standing in a place elevated above the class, and requiring all eyes to be fixed on him ; (4) by aiding attention through the representations of everything to the senses, as far as possible; (5) by interrupting his instruction by frequent and pertinent questions— for example, 'What have I just said?' (6) if the boy who has been asked a question should fail to answer, by leaping to the second, third, tenth, thirtieth, and asking the answer without repeating the question; (7) by occasionally de- manding an answer from any one in the whole class, and thus stirring up rivalrj' ; (8) by giving an oppor- tunity to any one to ask questions when the lesson is finished." Io8 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. The hastiest glance at these rules will enable us to see that the teacher who conforms to them supplies the conditions of both voluntary and non-voluntary at- tention ; and we need to carefully note the fact that we must do it if we hope to get and keep the attention of our pupils. A teacher who imagines that his work is done in this direction when he interests his pupils — in other words, when he supplies the conditions of non- voluntary attention — is sadly mistaken. He can not get their non- voluntary attention until he begins to in- terest them; and he can not keep it afterwards simply by being interesting. Until he interests them, their attention, so far as it is non-voluntary, will be given to the most interesting thing that happens to come before their minds. After he interests them, instead of keep- ing their attention on what he is saying, they will con- tinue to think about some interesting thing he has said, until their attention is attracted by something else. In complying with a part of the first rule — in bringing before our pupils something pleasing — we are evidently supplying the conditions of non-volun- tary attention by the matter of our instruction ; in complying with a part of the second — "stirring their intelligences to activity by inciting to questions re- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 109 garding it" — we are doing the same thing by the manner of our instruction ; and the same is true of the fourth and eighth rules. In bringing before our pupils something which they feel to be profitable ; in teaching it so as to commend it to them ; in occupying a position where we can see the entire class (a position that will make them feel that the teacher will be likely to know if they permit their minds to wander) ; in frequently calling upon them to reproduce what we have just said ; in asking our questions promiscuously, without repeating them, when an incorrect answer is given — we are supplying the conditions of voluntary attention, giving them reasons for attending apart from the interest of the matter to which we wish to call their attention. Every one of these rules for getting the voluntary attention of pupils is important ; but I wish especially to call attention to two or three of them. Of the fifth I will only remark that no teacher, below the university, who does not practice it habitually, has the attention of a majority of his pupils, no matter what grade of pupils he teaches. Moreover, unless some such rule is observed, it is hard to see how a teacher can be .sure that his pupils undenstand him. We shall miss half of the importance of the first rule unless we bear no I.BSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. in mind that when we can not see our pupils, they can not see us. What a hindrance that is to attention we shall realize if we try to listen to a speaker when we can not see him. But it is of the first and second rules that I wish particularly to speak. The more I think of it, the more I am convinced that the neglect of them is one of the principal causes not only of inattention in classes, but of a dislike for the work of the school in general. We too often fail to inform ourselves of the educational value of the subjects we teach. It too often happens that the best reason we can give for teaching geography, grammar, arithmetic, etc., is that we were taught them. Now, when we don't know why we require our pupils to study this and that sub- ject, is it any wonder that our pupils don't know why they are required to study them? Boys know very well that they could spend their time to advantage if they could use it as they liked. They could go fishing or hunting or skating, and have lots of fun. They could work and get money, and have more fun. These things a boy knows. Is it any wonder that he does not like to go to school, when he has never been made to feel the value of an education? Is it any wonder that he makes no effort to keep his mind from wander- I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. Ill ing "when the teacher is talking about a lot of "stuflf," as he calls it, because he has never been made to ap- preciate its value? " Ishe to sit and toil day by day, and let the sun shine upon hill and dale, and he not see it? And let it gleam along the rivers, and glance in and out of the forest trees with scattered joyousness, and he not see it? Is he to miss the freshness of the air, the games, and the thousand and one delights that pass through the kaleidoscope of the boy mind, so fertile in fancy, so free? And all for what?"* For nothing, so far as he knows, unless he has been made to feel the value of an education. If you expect him to work, if you expect him to attend to you, you must make him understand, so far as you can, that it is a reasonable thing for him to do what you require. And you must make him realize what knowledge costs. Show him a map of Africa made twenty years ago, and show him a map of Africa as it is known to-day. Tell him of the toil and privations and hardships that Livingstone underwent to make the difference. Let him know, make him feel, that the knowledge which he can get so easily at school is the "piled up" life of some of the greatest and noblest men of the race. It is so easy to read that " the earth is round because men have sailed *Thring's "Theory and Practice of Education." 112 LESSONS IN PSYCHOI.OGY. around it." But Drake and Raleigh and the other men who were among the first to make the voyage did it at the risk of their Hves. Some of them, leaving pleasant homes and wives and children that they loved, exposed themselves to unknown dangers — the result of it all is a single line. But if we put Comenius' rule fully into practice, our pupils will learu to value education not merely for what it will brm^ them, but for what it will make them. They realize the difference between the boy who can read and one who can't. The boy who can't read sees nothing but a piece of paper with black lines of all sorts and shapes upon it. But the boy who can read sees not merely paper with letters upon it, but the very mind of the man whose thoughts are materialized on the page before him. Make him feel that he pos- sesses other dormant powers that you are trying to de- velop ; make him feel that education will not merely give him better tools to use, but increase his power and skill in using them ; make him feel that every lesson you assign is intended to lead to this end, and he will try to attend, whether he succeeds or not. But to insure that his efforts will be successful, we must give his will a fulcrum upon which to work — we must develop interests. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. II3 The great secret of interest is adaptation. The toys and playthings and pictures of a child amuse him be- cause they are adapted to his state of development — they stimulate him to exercise his powers. What we must do in teaching, if we expect to interest our pupils, is to set them to do something that they are able to do, in order that they may acquire the power to do what they can not do. We should constantly be striving at every stage of a child's development to learn the con- tents of his mind — to make an inventory of his ca- pacities, so as to see which of them we can turn to educational account, and how. And here again we come upon the fact that meets us at every turn and corner of our experience in teaching — the necessity of a constant, careful, systematic study of our pupils, if we hope for the best success in teaching them. Unless we know them thoroughly, we can not adapt our teach- ing to them perfectly. W^e all know that we can keep the attention of our pupils better by asking questions than we can by doing all the talking ourselves. The reason is found in the law of adaptation. When we are asking questions we are making the utmost use of the impulses of curiosity and activity. Children like to learn things, and they like to act. Ask the right kind of questions, and you 8 114 LKSSONS IN PSYCHOI,OGY. make them conscious of their ignorance — you stimu- late their curiosity. But here again the necessity of studying the minds of our pupils presents itself. The curiosity of little children is very different from that of older pupils. A child asks a question, and before you have answered it he asks another about an entirely different subject. His question was the result of in- voluntary attention ; and since his interest in things in the form of curiosity is very slight, like a bird he flits from this subject to that, never staying with one thing a minute at a time. But this, as we know, is one of the things which we want to develop — this power of at- tention. So you will try to help him attend more and more closely to a subject, and to follow out a line of thought more and more persistently. When he asks a second question before you have answered the first, you will neither show nor feel impatience — no more than a mother does that her child is bom without teeth. You will ask him questions about the first thing, keeping his mind upon it as long as you think it safe, learning a lesson from the bird, who does not encourage her young to make long flights the first time. You will be satisfied if you can make his curi- osity a means of getting him to think a little and learn a little, being sure that in this way you can deepen it, I^KSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. II5 and so get him to think more closely and acquire more knowledge. It is due to the same principle — that what is adapted to us interests us — that to pupils the most in- teresting thing is the manifestation of that intense form of interest in the teacher that we call enthusiasm. Arthur Sidgwick well says: "Whether it be school lesson or subject of common talk out of school, the en- thusiast drags the boy's mind captive. He makes him attend, he makes him interested, he makes him think. Without trying to do so, he makes learning seem attractive and delightful. Boys are naturally im- pressionable, and enthusiasm impresses; they are naturally imitative, and whatever they see a man keen about, they at once begin to excite themselves about it. Whether it be poetry, history, politics, art, science, natural history, or archaeology, the enthusiast will at once make a school of his own imitators about him. And he will do far more than this. He will lift boy after boy out of the barbarous intellectual at- mosphere in which the natural boy lives and moves, and make him conscious — though it be only dimly conscious — of the vast world of interest which lies around in every direction, waiting till he gird up his mental loins and come to explore. This is the real Il6 I^ESSONS I» PSYCHOLOGY. result of a master's enthusiasm — it cultivates. Under plodding, hum-drum teachers, who will not put soul into their work, a boy may pass through a school from bottom to top, doing all the work so as to pass muster, and be a savage at the end. But let the enthusiast catch him, though but for a term, and the savage is converted."* I can not forbear quoting what another English teacher says on the same subject: "To find the lesson oozing, as it were, from your finger tips ; to be so full of your subject that the question is not what to say, but what to leave out ; and to feel so well and vigorous that your vivacity compels attention and interest, and makes the faces in front of you look bright con- tagiously — that is how to prepare the lesson. . . . The story (told by the Professor at the Breakfast Table, I think) of a tailor lamenting over a customer departing empty-handed, that if it were not for a headache he would have a new coat on that back in .spite of himself, is freighted with truth. There is a magnetic influence passing from a healthy and alert mind to all with whom it comes in contact ; that in- fluence is the teacher's conjuring wand, and without it he will never bring the dry bones of education to * *• The Practice of Education," page 63. LBSgONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 117 life. It will readily be seen that no patent process for the production or maintenance of this influence can be found. It is best fostered by variety of life; by a wide experience of men and things (not at all an easy thing for one so closely tied as a teacher to attain) ; in short, by anything that tends to keep the heart and mind open, and to make life interesting. Teachers lead too often very dull lives, and the dullness reacts on their pupils. Men and women who have to give out so much can hardly lead too full and rich and interesting lives. Their minds ought to be a storehouse of thoughts and pictures and recollections, from which they can draw at will to enrich their lessons and to furnish the minds of their pupils." It is indeed true that enthusiasm is a gift of nature conferred on but few teachers. But there is a degree of interest within the reach of every one of us, if we are willing to work for it. There is no danger that we shall lack interest in our subjects if we study them. When we think we know so much about them that it is not worth while to study them any more, that very fact proves that we are lacking in interest. But interest in our xvork is quite as essential to success in teaching as knozvledge. Il8 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Summarize the results reached in the preceding chap- ters on attention. 2. State the rules given by Comenius, and show how each of them is related to the laws of attention. 3. Show that a teacher must supply the conditions of both voluntary and non-voluntary attention. 4. What is meant by " education values ? " 5. What can we do to commend the subjects we teach to our pupils? 6. What is the secret of interest ? 7. Describe the curiosity of little children, and state what should be done to deepen it. 8. What is an important object of questioning older pupils ? 9. Explain and describe the effect of enthusiasm in awak- ening interest. 10. What is the point of the story told by the Professor at the Breakfast Table? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Dr. Arnold said: "The more active my own mind is, the more it works upon great moral and political points, the better for the school." Account for the fact. 2. Account for the influence of Sheridan at the battle of Shenandoah. 3. Describe the Socratic method of teaching, and account for its stimulating effect. 4. What are the education values of arithmetic, geog- raphy, grammar, and United States history ? 5. Make a study of children, as you have opportunity, to ascertain the character of their attention — whether (a) it is easily distracted, or (b) hard to transfer from one subject to another. (1. What use can you make of that kind of knowledge of children ? LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 1 19 LESSON XII. ATTENTION. IN the last lesson we considered the question as to what we should do to keep the attention of our pupils during recitation. The wider question — the question as to the other means at our command to help us in cultivating the power of attention — has yet to be examined. We learned from Comenius that one of the ways of keeping the attention of our pupils during recitation is to encourage them to ask questions ; and we know that the reason for that is that in this way we stimu- late their curiosity, and give them the pleasure of mental activity. But our observations of children have enabled us to see that the curiosity of very young pupils is not strong enough to incite them to hard work. When they ask us questions, or when we ask them questions that they can not answer, if we do not answer them at once, they stop thinking about them, because they have so little curiosity. But when we are dealing with older pupils we should make a different use of the principle of curi- I30 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. osity. Their curiosity is strong enough to stimulate them to harder work. You can get their attention by asking questions that will make them conscious of their ignorance ; and the realization of this fact will often be a sufficient motive for vigorous exertion. When you should answer your question your own tact must determine. It often happens that a student has interest enough in a subject to be clearly conscious of the labyrinth of difficulties in which the questions of his teacher have involved him, but not enough to make him willing to undergo the labor of threading his way out. Now, while we ought not to remove difficulties that have not been realized, or which the pupil's in- terest might induce him to overcome, there are cir- cumstances under which the clearing up of difficulties may greatly increase his interest, and thus put him in the way of a more vigorous and protracted exertion of his powers. When the subject under consideration lies before his mind wrapped in a fog, a few direct, luminous, incisive statements from you, like a brisk wind, may clear away the fog and reveal the outlines of the country sharp and clear to your pupil's mind. You may thus give him that experience that can be felt, but can not be described — that delightful con- iciousnesc of power which he realizes when, instead of I.BSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. HI groping in darkness in an unknown country, he finds himself at home, with a noonday sun to guide his foot- steps. His feeling of weakness gives place to a feeling of power. Instead of feeling himself overborne and beaten back by a superior force, he is victor, and his enemies are flying, or rather annihilated, before him. This delightful experience, this stepping from dark- ness into light, this transition from mental chaos and anarchy into a region of order and law, is an exceed- ingly powerful stimulus. But if you are to make the most of the interest ex- cited in this or any other way in recitation, you must follow it up. You have asked your pupil a question, and set him to thinking. His thoughts naturally take the shape of a series of questions, and he is eager to get answers to them. What does he need to deepen his interest ? Books. Or by a few well-chosen state- ments you have set his mind in order. He knew a lot of facts, but he saw no connection between them. His mind was like a house into which a lot of new furni- ture had just been tumbled — everything was every- where, and nothing was anywhere. Your statements brought order out of chaos. You enabled him to see that the various measures of Washington's first ad- ministration were a part of the carefully devised plan 122 I^SSSONS IN PSYCHOI.OGY. for Strengthening the general government that ema- nated from the brain of the great Secretary of the Treasury. He at once becomes interested in Hamil- ton. What does he need to deepen this interest? Books. Or your class is studying Hawthorne's "The Great Stone Face." And when they have become thor- oughly interested in the strange and beautiful alle- gory, you tell them of the man who wrote it ; of the quaint old town in which he lived and died; of Emer- son and Thoreau, and the other famous men who lived there ; you try to interest them in some of the great writers of American literature. But if your efiForts are to result in any permanent deepening of their interest, they must have access to books. Without further illustration, it is plain that if you are to make the most of the interest you have excited in recitation, you must be able to direct them to a library. Indeed, to develop interest in your pupils, and expect it to be self sustaining from the start, is as absurd as it would be for a farmer to take the utmost pains in preparing the ground, and then in planting corn, only to neglect it as soon as he saw the tiny blades peeping through the ground, with the idea that his work was then done. If the tiny blade is to grow into a stalk big enough to bear the golden grain, it must LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 1 23 be carefully cultivated. In like manuer, if the interest which teachers excite is to be anything more than a passing emotion, it must be fostered and cultivated; it must be fed by books. "But libraries are expensive, and school com- mittees and directors often refuse to buy them. What can ive do in such a case, granting all that you say about their usefulness?" Yojc cati so impress the idea of their iviportaiice iipo7i the community as to see that they are got. It is always to be borne in mind that a library is only a collection of books ; and as any finite quantity, however small, is infinitely greater than zero, so any library, however small, is infinitely better than none. This, then, is one of the things which we can do to deepen the interests of our pupils, and so in- crease their power of attention. We can set them to reading books that will foster and nourish the inter- ests that have germinated in our recitation rooms. We can help our pupils in the same direction by a proper system of discipline. Carpenter well says: "The influence of a system of discipline by which each individual feels himself borne along as if by a Fate, still more that of an instructor possessing a strong will, guided by sound judgment (especially when united with qualities that attract the affection as well 124 LBSSONS IN PSYCHOIX)GY. as command the respect of the pupil), greatly aid him in learning to use that power. As Archbishop Man- ning has truly said : ' During the earlier period of our lives the potentiality of our intellectual and moral nature is elicited by the will of others.'" The hours of study should be short, especially in the case of younger children. But during those hours they should be put at work adapted to their state of development, and kept assiduously at it. No whispering should be allowed. The boy who whispers to another calls oif his attention from his work — obstructs the formation of the very habit you are trying to develop, the habit of concentration. No disorder of any kind should be tolerated. With the utmost kindness, and at the same time with the utmost firmness, your pupils should be made to feel that the hours for study are for study. As soon as they can understand them; you should show them the reason for your requirements. You should make them feel that, in obeying you, they are obeying reason, and not arbitrary will. And when they can ap- preciate the truth of that noteworthy saying of L,ocke's, " The foundation of all virtue and worth consists in the ability to cross one's inclinations and follow the dic- tates of reason, "you have in their own desire to reach a high ideal a powerful auxiliary. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 125 We can help our pupils in developing powers of concentration by judiciously arranging our programs. You can use your hands and arms until they ache, at the same time that you can walk without any sense of fatigue. In like manner you can use one set of faculties until they are tired, while another set remains comparatively fresh. It is true, of course, that, as the whole body shares to some extent in the fatigue of any of its members, so the mind that has become fatigued for certain kinds of work is to some extent fatigued for all kinds. Still, as we know, change in work, both bodily and mental, is resting. We need to bear this in mind in arranging our programs. Draw- ing and writing are both a training of the hands and eyes. Hence neither should follow the other. History and geography both tax the memory severely. Neither of them should succeed the other. Arithmetic chiefly exercises the reasoning powers. It should be studied when the mind is freshest. Finally, we should never permit ourselves to resort to "laziness" or " stupidity " to account for inattention as long as any other explanation is possible. I have already quoted that profound observation of Pesta- lozzi's, " If our pupils are inattentive, we should first look to ourselves for the reason." Any teacher who 126 LESSONS IN PSYCHOI^OGY. earnestly tries to follow Pestalozzi's injunction will be surprised to find in how large a number of cases inat- tention and lack of interest on the part of his pupils are due to causes which he can remove. Sometimes a boy is inattentive because he does not see the practical value of the work he is set to doing ; sometimes be^ cause he doesn't understand certain fundamental ideas which, being in darkness, necessarily darken the en- tire subject ; sometimes because he is overworked and tired; sometimes also — sad to relate— because the teacher, by sarcastic and satirical remarks, has excited the boy's dislike. Grown people are sometimes guilty of "cutting off their noses to spite their faces," and boys very often. And when a teacher indulges in sar- casm at the expense of his pupils, they are very likely to slight their work as much as they can, even when they know they are injuring themselves, because he wants them to do it^ ■■"Many a boy -will sit and seem stolid, and all the -while reseat your satire with exasperation. You can not tell a sensitive boy by the look. He is not the shy, dark-eyed creature of the school tales. He may just as likely be a ruddy, high-spirited person, or a brawny athlete, or an ugly, lumpy log of a boy. And the satire may often be unjust. And, just or unjust, nineteen boys out of twenty hate it. The worst mistake of all is to use it among small boys. . . . When LE.SSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 1 27 Sometimes also boys are inattentive because the facts of the subject have not much natural interest for them, and have never been connected with anything else. One of my pupils told me of a boy, whom he once taught, who had a great dislike of arithmetic. He began to inquire about the boy, and learned that he was very fond of animals and hunting. The next day after learning this fact he gave the class in arith- metic problems about animals. The boy became in- terested. The teacher pursued this course for a week, and in that time he had acquired such an interest in solving problems about animals that he had come to like arithmetic for its own sake. Sometimes also boys are inattentive bc^cause we do not respect their individuality— because we set them to doing entirely uncongenial work. It is very in- structive to learn that Darwin was counted a very dull boy, and I think it quite likely that the same opinion was held of Edison. The trouble, of course, was not with Darwin, but with his teachers. He had a strong bent towards the study of nature, and they wanted to teach him I^atiu and Greek, and make him memorize they are ignorant, or inattentive, or stupid, he begins to be sarcastic — i. e., to show a far worse ignorance and stupidity than theirs."— TTr* Practice of Education, page 41. I2t I<«SSONS IN WYCHOI^OGY. books about nature. If his teachers had practiced Pestalozzi's injunction, this dull boy might have been transformed into the most interesting and interested student in their schools.* QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Under what circumstances is it proper to ask your pupils questions that you do not answer? 2. Mention various ways in which you can use a library to deepen the interest of your pupils. 3. lu what ways does a system of discipline aid you in de- veloping your pupils' powers of attention ? 4. By what principle should the arrangement of a pro- gram of studies be determined? 5. Mention various causes of inattention and lack of in- terest, and state what can be done to remove them. 6. What do I mean by " respecting the individuality " of the pupil ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. State the various uses of questioning pupils. 2. If a boy liked arithmetic, and disliked geography, or conversely, how would you try to develop an interest in the subject to which he was indiflFerent? 3. Do you think there should be elective studies in high schools, and, if so, to what extent? 4. Can you respect the individuality of atudenta who are studying the same subjects? * See Appendix A. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 129 IvESSON XIII. KNOWING, FEELING, AND WILLING. IN studying our experience in order to ascertain the nature and laws of attention, we have already ob- served three fundamentally different classes of mental facts. We have seen that what we perceive, remember, recollect, and believe — as the result of reasoning — de- pends on what we attend to. But all these acts of mind — perception, memory, recollection, and reason- ing — are alike forms of knowledge. Perception gives us what seems to be immediate or direct knowledge of external objects — trees, houses, fences, and the like; memory, direct knowledge of past objects and events; reasoning, mediate or indirect knowledge of objects and events and laws — past, present, and future. They diflfer, then, in the kinds of facts of which they tell us, and the way in which they tell us about them. Per- ception tells us of the />r QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. ' 1. Illustrate what is meant by association of ideas from your own experience. 2. Illustrate from your owu experience the diflferent kinds of association. 3. What is the difiference between logical association and association by contiguity ? 4. Explain the diflferent names for association by contiguity. 5. Explain the various reasons why things logically associated tend to recall each other. 6. State the two laws of association and explain the attempts to derive one from the other. 7. State verbatim the formula in which the two may be stated. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Explain ideas in the phrase association of ideas. 2. A child seeing a snake licking out its tongue, said it was making faces at him. What kind of association was that? 3. I read to-day the following sentence from Goethe : " Take care of the beautiful, and the useful will take care of it!;elf," and at once thought of Spencer's essay on "What Knowledge is of Most Worth."' Why ? 4. What kind of associations do children first form ? WESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 1 73 LESSON XVII. PERCEPTION. "\ T 7E have seen already that all knowledge takes its ' ' rise in sensation. The mental history of every liuman being begins with its first sensation. Before the fir.st sensation, the only difference between a hu- man being and any other growing thing — a tree, for instance — so far as mind is concerned, consists in the fact that the former possesses the potentiality of mind. This potentiality first begins to become actuality when the human being experiences its first sensations. But although knowledge takes its rise in sensa- tion, it by no means follows that the first experience of sensations constitutes the beginning of knowledge. If we consider what knowledge is, we shall see that, in the nature of the case, the mind must have sensa- tions before it knows it has them. I do not mean merely that a fact must exist in order to be known. That, of course, is true of sensations, but more than that is true. Sensations not only must exist in order to be known, but they may exist — and often do — for a considerable period before they are known ; and I 174 I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. think, if we realize what knowledge is, we shall see that in the nature of the case this must be so. What is it to know a thing? It is to put it into a class, is it not ? A child sees a menagerie, and fixes his ej-es on an animal unknown to him. In what does his ignorance of it consist? In his inability to class it. He looks at it steadily, and suddenly shouts, "Oh, it is an elephant!" What has happened? How is it that ignorance has given place to knowledge? He has suddenly noticed the resemblance between this un- known object and certain pictures he has seen in his reading book ; he has put it into a class, and when he has classed it he knows it. This putting things into classes constitutes the es- sence of all knowing. Some kinds of knowledge we call science — orderly, systematic knowledge — know- ledge of laws and causes and principles ; other kinds we call unscientific, because in these cases our know- ledge is unsystematic and disconnected. But whether we know scientifically or unscientifically, in order to know a thing we must classify it, and in the act of classification consists our knowledge of it. Before Ne\vton, no one understood the motions of the moon. He helped us to understand them — explained them, as we say — by helping us to classify them. But in what I,ESSONS IN PSYCHOI^OGY. 1 75 does our understanding of them consist ? Merely in that we have put them into a class along with many familiar facts. As the child felt that he knew the animal in the menagerie when he noticed its resem- blance to the pictures he had seen in his reading book, so we feel that we understand the motions of the heavenly bodies when we have put them into the same class with familiar facts, such as the falling of a leaf or the dropping of a stone. As to the cause of these motions — as to the nature of the force upon which they depend — we are as ignorant to-day as were those old Chaldeans who used to stand on the plains of Chaldea gazing up into the sky with that wondering curiosit)' which has been so well called the mother of knowledge. We call it gravity, and think we know all about it, because when the mind sees the resem- blance between a strange fact and familiar facts the sense of mystery is gone. Suppose we should ask what is the cause of death, would you think it a suf- ficient answer to say that all things die ? That is a precise illustration of our explanation of the motions of the heavenly bodies. What makes the heavenly bodies move? The law of gravitation, or the force of gravity, is answered. But that is only another way of saying that all bodies move. 176 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. If, then, all knowing is merely classifying — if a thing unknown is merely a thing unclassified — the first sensations must be unknown. A boy can not put his first piece of money in his purse with the rest of his money, because he has no other money. So the first sensation can not be classed with preceding sensations, because, since it is the first, it has no predecessors. Knowledge, then, takes its rise in sensations, not in the sense that the first experience of sensations con- stitutes the beginning of knowledge, but in the sense that sensait07is co7istiitde the first material upon which the mind's powers of knowing are exerted. Observations of new-born children will not only confirm this reasoning, but will lead us to suppose that for some little period in the beginning of a child's life there is no knowledge of sensations. Knowledge be- gins with attention. Not till the child attends to his sensations can he be said to know them in any proper sense of the word. But what shall we say of these sensations before they are known? What character- istics do they have? None whatever. Our sensations are this rather than that — sensations of color rather than sensations of sound — through being known. Be- fore they are known — before they are individualized through being attended to and classed — we can call LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 177 them sensations of sound, for example, only in the sense that they are occasioned by the stimulation of the auditory nerve. We speak of this sensation and that idea because we have fixed our attention upon the fact so individualized, and have chosen to consider it as a whole. But all the experiences we have at any moment are parts of one indivisible whole, and such distinctness as they have is the result of a gradual process of difierencing brought about by attention and classification. Ward well says :" It is impossible for us now to imagine the effects of years of experience removed, or to picture the character of our infantile presentations" — sensation.? — "before our interests had led us habitually to concentrate attention on some and to ignore others, whose intensity thus diminished as that of the former increased. In place of the many things which we can now see and hear, not merely would there then be a confused presentation of the whole field of vision, and of a mass of indistiuguished sounds, but even the difference between sights and sounds themselves would be without its present dis- tinctness. Thus the further we go back, the nearer we approach to a total presentation" — experience — ". . . in which differences are latent." This, then, is the material first presented to th^ 13 178 I.BSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. mind — an undifferenced, unindividualized, confused a- definite mass of sensations ; this is the material first presented to the mind through the senses. But what do the senses seem to tell us now ? Put an apple on your table and sit far enough away from it to prevent it from affecting any sense but the sense of sight. What do you learn about it through the sense of sight ? Merely its color. But what is color? A quality of objects, we should have said a little while ago. But have we not seen that this quality of objects, this color of the apple, is simply a sensation, a state of our minds? A sen- sation, we have seen, is that simple mental state that directly follows the last change in the brain that re- sults from the stimulation of a sensory nerve. Is any nerve stimulated in this case ? Yes ; the optic nerve. The waves of light strike the retina of the eye and cause a change in it, and this in the adjacent particles of the optic nerve, and these in the particles next to them, and soon until the brain is reached; and then — what happens then? Why then, as we have seen, there follows a sensation of color. Close your eyes now, and request a friend to bring the apple near enough to you to enable you to smell it. What does the sense of smell tell you about it? LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 1 79 Simply its odor. But what is odor ? Is it not evident that it is simply a sensation? It is unnecessary to repeat the reasonings of the last paragraph. We have ^ again a stimulation of a sensory nerve, a change all along the nerve, a change in the brain, and then — a sensation. Evidently all that the senses tell us of objects is the sensations they produce in our minds. But this is not what they seem to tell us. They seem to tell us of objects, and of these (i) as having definite qualities, and (2) occupying a definite position in space. The apple that the sense of sight reveals to me is an ob- ject having certain definite qualities — round, red, mellow, etc. — and in a certain place — on the window- sill some ten feet away. In some way, then, those undifferenced, unindivid- ualized, indefinite sensations with which our mental life began not only become definite, but are, as it were, projected out of us, and regarded as qualities of ex- ternal objects. How do they get these three charac- teristics? (i) How does a sensation that was not first known even as a sensation of color, for exam- ple, become known as a definite sensation of color — say a particular shade of red ? (2) How does it be- come localized — projected at a certain distance — say l8o LESSONS IN PSYCHOI the same person, however unlike they might be. Also, the first knowledge of children is not of classes, because, until they know individuals, they can not 252 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. know classes, since a class means and is nothing but a collection of individuals resembling each other in certain particulars. But their first ideas of things are vague, confused ideas of resemblances between things not known to be different. To avoid circumlocution, we will call this idea a class-hnage. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Trace the progress of the mind from indefinite sensar tions to the knowledge of external objects. 2. What kind of knowledge do children first gain of ex- ternal objects? 3. Justify your answer. 4. State the case reported by Perez. What does it prove? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Report any cases similar to the one reported by Perez, that have come under your o1>servation. 2. Have you noticed children calling other men papa, and if so, did you notice whether they seemed to look upon them as strangers, or whether their manner towards them was the same as towards their own papa? 3. Can you prove by your observation of children that they perceive resemblances more easily than differences ? 4. Can you prove by your own experience that you do the same thing? LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 253 LESSON XXV. CONCEPTION. SINCE a knowledge of class images antecedes a knowledge of individuals, to explain conception we have first to explain how the knowledge of class images externalized as things becomes a knowledge of definite individuals. Evidently the various steps or stages that mark the progress of the mind from those undifferentiated, indefinite sensations with which our mental life began to the formation of concepts are (i) the knowlege of class images externalized as things ; (2) the knowledge of individuals ; and (3) the forma- tion of concepts. To see how the knowledge of class images exter- nalized as things becomes the knowledge of individ- uals, we must study our own experiences. Why did I confuse the two brothers mentioned in the last les- son? Because I saw no differences between them. It seems hard to realize that a child can see no differ- ence between a large man with a full beard and a small one with none. But our powers of perceiving both resemblances and differences are much greater 254 I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. than a child's; and if I could confuse two people whom I now see to be very unlike, we shall be able to realize that a child may see two very dififerent things without being able to observe any difference between them. How did I finally gain the power to tell them apart ? By withdrawing my attention from them as wholes and fixing it tipon individiial features — size, color of eyes, and the like. In precisely simi- lar ways the child gains the power to distinguish in- dividuals. And here we can see why it is so hard for him to acquire it. It is so easy for you to withdraw your attention from objects as wholes and fix it upon parts or qualities, but it is v^ry hard for a child. The individual features are there, but he does not see them because he does not attend to them. But little by little he gains the power to fix his attention upon individual features, and as he acquires it he gains a knowledge of individuals. When a child distinguishes individuals because he notes .some of the diflferences between them, it is easy to see that he will first note only the most striking differences. The first difference that he notes be- tween a big black dog and a small white one is proba- bly a difference in color. The class image of dog has become, on the one hand, the perception of individ- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 255 ual dogs. Seeing no difference between them except in color, and noticing that they are both called dogs, he drops out of his class image of dog the element of color, and associates what is left with the name dog whenever he hears it. What is left of the class hnage when the element of color is dropped out of it is a rudi- me7itary concept, and the act of mind by which it is reached is conception. Let us observe closely the steps that led from the percept of the individual to the concept of the class. The first step taken by the child towards the forma- tion of the concept coyisisted in fixing his attentioti upon both dogs, or jipon one dog aiid an image of the other at the same time. Let us call this first step comparison. The second consisted in withdrawing his att€7ition from the point of unlikeness — color — and fixing it upon their points of likeness. Precisely as an essential step towards a knowledge of individuals consists in withdrawing the attention from the ob- jects as wholes and fixing it upon individual parts or features, so an essential step towards a formation of concepts consists in withdrawing the attention from the points in which the objects compared are seen to be unlike, and fixing it upon those in which they are seen to be like. Let us 256 LSSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. call this step abstraction. The third step consisted in applying the name dog to all other objects having the same characteristics — i7i making the name general by making it the name of a class. Let us call this gener- alization. These three acts of the mind, then — com- parison, or the fixing of the attention upon two or more objects at the same time ; abstraction, or with- drawing it from some of their unlikenesses and put- ting it upon some of their likenesses ; generalization, or the making of a name general by making it the name of all the individuals possessing similar qualities — are the three acts that constitute conception. We see at once that the concept — the product of con- ception — is liable to constant change. The only dif- ference that the child first observes between the two dogs is a difference in color. As he observes them more and more carefully he notices more and more differ- ences — the word dog means a smaller and smaller number of attributes. And when he hears the name applied to other animals he naturally puts them in the same class, and the meaning of dog is correspond- ingly reduced, although each separate act of abstrac- tion is followed by an act of generalization — the extending of the name so reduced in meaning to all objects having the common characteristics he has observed. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 257 But while a more careful and a wider observation of dogs in this way reduces the concept, it may en- large it in another way. The child may notice points of resemblance before unobserved. In this way his concept is made to include more attributes — the class name comes to have a richer meaning. The attention that results in comparison and ab- straction may be either voluntary or involuntary, and therefore concepts may be formed voluntarily or in- voluntarily. We know from our study of attention that the concepts that a child forms in the first years of his life will, for the most part, be formed involun- tarily because he is not able to give much voluntary attention. Of course, concepts formed on this by-rule-of- thumb manner are indistinct and inaccurate. They are sure to contain attributes that careful observation would exclude, and not to include others that such observation would bring to light. But we must re- member that it is exactly this kind of concepts that constitutes the furniture of a child's mind when he first starts to school. To transform these indistinct and inaccurate concepts into those that are distinct and accurate — to enlarge the number of concepts — is evidently an important part of education. 17 258 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY, We shall be able to do this more intelligently if we remember not only the manner in which they are formed, but the condition upon which their formation depends. That condition is the perception of resevi- blances between different individuals. Until resem- blances are perceived, no concept of the resembling objects can be formed. That is why a child finds it so hard to understand the meaning of numbers. Four horses, four cats, four toys, etc., resemble each other in being four, but they seem to the young child to have nothing in common — and therefore he does not know what you mean when you call them all fours. Not till his mind is able to detach the fact common to them all will he be able to understand you. The clear perception of this truth will save us from the mistake into which some eminent writers on Pedagogy'^ have fallen — of supposing that because the child perceives resemblances more easily than diflfer- ences that, therefore, we should begin by teaching him the widest classes — for instance, plants — before any of the sub-classes —roses, geraniums, sun-flowers, etc. Manifestly a child can form a concept of roses when he can not of plants, because he can see the re- semblances between . the former when he can not see them between the latter. *See Rosmini's " Method in Education," page 17. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 259 QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. I. Make a careful summary of the last lesson. t. Define class image. What is meant by " externalized as things ? " 3. What is the first thing to be done in explaining con- ception, and why ? 4. How does a child come to know individual persons and things ? 5. State and explain the two directions in which the class image is modified. 6. State and explain the three processes involved in conception. 7. What is the di£Ference between percept, image, and concept ? 8. In what two ways are concepts formed ? 9. What kind of concepts has a child when he first starts to school ? 10. Upon what condition does the formation of concepts depend ? 11. What mistake did Rosmini make, and why ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. At what age do children geiierally begin to under- stand the meaning of numbers ? 2. Why is it desirable to use a variety of objects — sticks, straws, grains of corn, etc. — in teaching children to count? 3. Does this lesson throw any light on the question as to the proper age for taking up the study of grammar ? 26o I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. LESSON XXVI. CONCEPTION. WE saw in the last lesson that involuntary con- cepts are almost certain to be indistinct and inaccurate, and that when children first start to school, unless they have been carefully instructed at home, nearly all their concepts are of this kind. They have observed the objects they see about them closely enough to learn their names, and talk about them with a certain degree of intelligence. Because they can apply their names correctly, teachers are in great danger of thinking that the corresponding con- cepts are all that they need to be. But that is a mis- take. " While an external object may be viewed by thousands in common," said Professor S. S. Green, " the idea or image of it addresses itself only to the individual consciousness. My idea or image of it is mine alone — the reward of careless observation, if imperfect ; of attentive, careful, and varied observa- tion, if correct. Between mine and yours a great gulf is fixed. No man can pass from mine to yours, or from yours to mine. Neither in any proper sense of LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 26 1 the term can mine be conveyed to you. Words do not convey thoughts ; they are not the vehicles of thoughts in any true sense of that term. A word is simply a com- mon symbol which each associates with his own idea or image. " Neither can I compare mine with yours except through the mediation of external objects. And then how now do I know that they are alike ; that a meas- ure called a foot, for instance, seems as long to you as to me ? My idea of a new object which you and I observe together may be very imperfect. By it I may attribute to the object what does not belong to it, take from it what does, distort its form, or otherwise pervert it. Suppose, now, at the time of observation we agree upon a word as a sig7i or symbol for the ob- ject or the idea of it. The object is withdrawn ; the idea only remains — imperfect, in my case ; complete and vivid in yours. The sign is employed. Does it bring back the original object? By no means. Does it convey my idea to your mind? Nothing of the kind ; you would be disgusted with the shapeless im- age. Does it convey yours to me ? No ; I should be delighted at the sight. What does it effect? /t be- comes the occasion for each to call up his oicn image. Does each now contemplate the same thing ? What 262 LBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. multitudes of dissimilar images instantly spring up at the announcement of the same symbol! — dissimilar not because of anything in the one source whence they are derived, but because of either an inattentive and imperfect observation of that source, or of some constitutional or habitual defect in the use of the per- ceptive faculty." What, then, can we do to make these involuntary, and therefore indistinct and inaccurate, concepts dis- tinct and accurate? When a child starts to school, he attaches a meaning to near, far, 7iarrow, and many similar words, but his concept of them is based entirely on his own observations, and is therefore very inac- curate. Shall we seek to make his concepts accurate by definitions? No ; for he can not understand our definitions unless he has accurate concepts correspond- ing to the words we use. We must get him to follow the path that leads to accurate concepts ; we must get him to compare a large enough variety of near and narrow objects to enable him to apprehend the one common quality that such objects possess — we must get him to compare, abstract, and generalize. But while it is necessary for j'ou to bring the mind of your pupil into contact with particulars in order to make his concepts accurate, the very necessity of LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 263 doing it shows the need of exercising care as to the kind of particulars you select. Why is a child's con- cept of narrow inaccurate? Because he has considered only certain kinds of narrow things — narrow ribbons, narrow paths, narrow planks, and the like. A young man told me that until he was eight years old he thought all rivers were like the one near his home. We see, therefore, the necessity of selecting particulars that show all the extreme varieties^ Begin also with particulars that give prominence to the main idea. If you are teaching your pupils what an island is, call their attention first to an island far from the mainland, in order that the characteristic quality of an island may be brought out prominently. Select your particulars also solely with reference to the end in view. Do not select such as have an in- terest in them.selves, because they attract the attention to features that are not included in the concept — features, therefore, that you wish the child to ignore. Finally, stick to your purpose until it is accom- plished. Accumulate particular after particular until the desired concept is formed, allowing yourself to be tempted into no digression whatever. Of course we should pursue the same method in developing new concepts. *See Bain's Education as a Science, page 92. 264 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. But in most cases our pupils have no names for the new concepts we help them to form until we give them. When should we give them? Evidently not until they need them. Language serves two purposes. In the first place, it enables us to preserve the results of our own thinking. When we have performed these processes of comparison, abstraction, and generaliza- tion — when we have formed a concept — if we did not give it a name, there would be nothing to fix it in our minds. When we associate a name with the concept, the name enables us to recall it without repeating the processes of comparison, abstraction, and generaliza- tion that in the first place enabled us to form it. But we have no use for general names to assist us in fixing concepts in our minds until we have formed the con- cepts of which they are names. When we consider the other use of language, we are led to the same conclusion. The other use of language, of course, is to communi- cate ideas. As we have already seen, no such thing, strictly speaking, is possible. What you do when you are said to communicate ideas is to occasion your hearer or reader to recall ideas and make combinations of ideas similar to those ir your own mind. This you are able to do by using a sign or symbol with which he has associated the same idea you have in your mind. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 265 Evidently, then, language can not be used to com- municate ideas, or rather to occasion the recalling of ideas, until you have yourself associated a sign or symbol with the idea you wish to be recalled, and until your hearer has formed the same association. Hence the absurdity of teaching words without ideas. Words are like paper money ; their value de- pends on what they stand for. As 3''ou would be none the richer for possessing Confederate money to the amount of a million of dollars, so your pupils would be none the wiser for being able to repeat book after book by heart unless the words were the signs of ideas in their minds. Words without ideas are an irredeemable paper currency. It is the practical recognition of this truth that has revolutionized the best schools of the country in the last quarter of a century. Pestalozzi well called " the blind use of words in matters of instruction the funda- mental error." He was not the first educational re- former who insisted on it. Montaigne, Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, had all insisted on the same idea, but they were in advance of their time ; the w^orld was not ready to listen to them. But in 1806, after Prussia was thoroughly beaten by Napoleon at the battle of Jena ; when her capital city was in the hands of her 266 LESSONS IK PSYCHOLOGY. conqueror, and she lay humiliated at his feet, it occurred to some of her leading men that the regener- ation of the nation was to be sought in education. In this way it happened that the ideas of Pestalozzi were embodied in the schools of Germany, from which country they have gone into the schools of every civilized country in the world.* In what did the reform inaugurated by Pestalozzi consist? In the substitution of the intelligent for the blind use of words. He reversed the educational engine.f Before his time, teachers expected their pupils to go from words to ideas ; he taught them to go from ideas to words. He brought out the fact upon which I have been insisting— that words are utterly powerless to create ideas ; that all they can do is to help the pupil *It is to me a very interesting fact that Pestalozzi went to Paris early in this century in order to try to induce Napoleon to reform the educational system of France in accordance with his ideas. Napoleon said he had no time to bother his head with questions of A, B, C. Prussia took the time, and the result was that when Prussia and France met again on the field of battle nearly seventy years later, the soldiers of Prussia, educated in accordance with Pestalozzi's ideas, com- pletely routed the armies of France. tWhen I wrote this sentence I did not know that Pesta- lozzi had used a similar illustration : " The public common school coach . . . must not simply be better horsed, ... it must be turned round and brought on an entirely new road." LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 267 to recall and combine ideas already formed. With Pestalozzi, therefore, and with those who have been imbued with his theories, the important matter is the forming of clear and definite ideas. But how can such ideas be formed ? By compari- son, abstraction, and generalization, and by combining concepts so formed into complex concepts. That is why Pestalozzian teachers have made so much use of object lessons. Realizing that the only way the mind can form ideas of objects is by comparing them, then abstracting some quality, then generalizing, they have given systematic courses of Object Lessons in order that they might develop clear and definite concepts of objects in the minds of their pupils. But systematic object teaching is not the only or indeed the chief way of teaching in harmony with this law of the mind. Object teaching will be the method chiefly employed by intelligent primary teachers, because the great intellectual need of young children is clear and definite concepts of objects. Since all our concepts are either simple or complex, and since, of course, simple concepts must precede com- plex concepts, evidently the first step in education should consist in furnishing the mind with a stock of simple concepts. And since the mind of a child is for 268 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. the most part employed with objects, since his in- terests lead him to direct his attention to the external world, plainly the thing to be done is to give him simple concepts of objects. But whatever the subject of thought, in order to get its simple concepts the mind must take the same path, pursue the same course, compare, abstract, generalize. Whatever the nature of the facts studied, whether objects that can be brought into the recitation room, or those that are physically inaccessible, or facts that can not be correctly described as objects, such as the facts of history, mental facts, mathematical facts, the intelligent teacher will lead his pupils to begin with an examination and comparison of them, then go on to note their resemblances and differences, then to make generalizations, unless he is sure that they have a stock of perfectly definite, simple concepts, by the combination of which they can form the complex con- cepts he desires. Such a method of teaching has well been called the Objective Method or Objective Teach- ing, since it is an application of the method of teach- ing by Object Lessons to every dex^artment of instruction. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 269 QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. r. Make a careful summary of the two preceding lessons. 2. What are the two uses of language ? 3. In what sense can we communicate ideas ? 4. How can we make indistinct and inaccurate concepts distinct and accurate ? 5. What kind of particulars should we select, and why? 6. In what did the reform inaugurated by Pestalozzi consist ? 7. What is the difference between object and objective teaching ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. What is the difference between simple and complex concepts ? 2. Strictly speaking, can we have simple concepts of objects f 3. Mention as many distinct and accurate concepts that a child of six is likely to have, as you can think of. 4. What differences would you expect to find between the concepts of a child who has lived in the country, and those of a child who has lived in a city ? 5. Talk with a child of six and endeavor to ascertain his concept of sky, star, sun, moon, and other objects inaccessible to him, that he hears mentioned in daily conversation ? Oki^li^r. 270 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. LESSON XXVII. CONCEPTION. THE great importance of the Objective Method of teaching inclines me to think that it will be well for us to spend a little more time in making an eflfort to get a thorough comprehension of it — such a com- prehension as will enable us to use it from day to day. To this end, I venture to quote further from Professor S. S. Green. " The Objective Method," he says, " is that which takes into account the whole realm of Nature and Art so far as the child has examined it, assumes as known only what the child knows — not what the teacher knows — and works from the well known to the obscurely known, and so onward and upward until the learner can enter the fields of science or abstract thought. It is that which develops the abstract from the concrete — which develops the idea, then gives the teryn. It is that which appeals to the intelligence of the child, and that through the senses until clear and vivid concepts are formed, and then uses these concepts as something real and vital. It is that which follows Nature's order — the thing, the con- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 27 1 cept, the word ; so that when this order is reversed — the word, the concept, the thing — the chain of con- nection shall not be broken. The word shall instantly occasion the concept, and the concept shall be accom- panied with the firm conviction of a corresponding ex- ternal reality. It is that which insists upon something besides mere empty verbal expressions in every school exercise — in other words, expression and thought in place of expression and no thought. " It is that which makes the school a place where the child comes in contact with realities just such as appeal to his common sense as when he roamed at pleasure in the fields, and not a place for irksome idleness. It is that which relieves a child's task only by making it intelligible and possible, not by taking the burden from him. It bids him examine for himself, discriminate for himself, and express for himself — the teacher, the while, standing by to give hints and suggestions, not to relieve the labor. In short, it is that which addresses itself directly to the eye external or internal, which summons to its aid things present or things absent, things past or things to come, and bids them yield the lessons which they infold — which deals with actual existence and not with empty dreams — a living realism and not a fossil dogmatism. 272 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. " It will aid any teacher in correcting dogmatic ten- dencies by enlivening his lessons and giving zest to his instructions. He will draw from the heavens above and from the earth beneath, or from the waters under the earth, from the world without and the world within. He will not measure his lessons by pages, nor progress by fluency of utterance. He will dwell in living thought, surrounded by living thinkers, leaving at every point the impress of an objective and a sub- jective reality. To him, an exercise in geography will not be a stupid verbatim recitation of descriptive para- graphs, but a stretching out of the mental vision to see in living picture, ocean and continent, mountain and valley, river and lake, not on a level plain, but rounded up to conform to the curvature of a vast globe. The description of a prairie on fire, by the aid of the imagination, will be wrought up into a brilliant object lesson. A reading lesson descriptive of a thunder storm on Mt. Washington will be something more than a mere conformity to the rules of the elocu- tionist. It will be accompanied by a concept wrought into the child's mind, outstripped in grandeur only by the scene itself. The mind's eye will see the old mountain itself with its surroundings of gorge and cliff, of wood-land and barren rock, of deep ravine and I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 273 craggy peak. It will see the majestic thunder cloud moving up, with its snow-white summits resting on wall as black as midnight darkness. The ear will almost hear the peals of muttering thunder as they reverberate from hill to hill," This long extract is worth all the study we can find time to put upon it. The thorough comprehen- sion and the practical appreciation of it will revolu- tionize our methods of teaching as completely as have been the methods of teaching in the best schools of the country in the last twenty-five years. But there are two or three sentences in it that are especially worthy of attention. Professor Green says that the Objective Method appeals to the intelligence of the child through the se?ises until clear and vivid coyicepts are formed, and then uses these concepts as something real and vital. What does he mean? I said in the last lesson that whatever the nature of the facts studied, whether objects that can be brought into the recitation room, such as coal, glass, water, and the like, or those that are physically inac- cessible, such as are studied in geography or astron- omy, or facts which can not be correctly described as objects, such as mental facts, historical facts, and the like, the Objective Method of teaching leads the 18 274 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. pupil to begin with an examination of the facts ; in- stead of beginning with inferences about the facts, it puts the pupil face to face with the facts, and leads him to make his own inferences. How is that possi- ble when we are not dealing with objects in the im- mediate presence of the pupil ? When we are dealing with facts or objects that our pupils can not observe for themselves, we must develop in their minds, as nearly as we can, the same vivid ideas that would result from a careful observa- tion of the reality. That is what Professor Green means in the sentence to which I have called your attention. A concept so vivid as to be something real and vital, is a concept that can be used in form- ing complex concepts of things only a little less vivid than would result from a first hand observation of the reality. He means the same thing when he says that the Objective Method takes into account the whole realm of Nature and Art so far as the child has examined it ; assumes as known only what the child knows — not what the teacher knows. For so long as the teacher keeps within the child's know- ledge, he presents to him simple concepts that he can combine into complex concepts, which enable him to clearly and vividly realize facts and realities which LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 275 are beyond the range of his observation, but which he can use in comparing, abstracting, and general- izing, as though he had seen them for himself. When Professor Green says that the Objective Method addresses itself to the eye, external or inter- nal, he means to call attention to the fact that there are realities which can not be cognized by the senses, such as mental facts, but which, nevertheless, are to be studied in the same way. This lesson enables us to see that one of the favorite doctrines of current pedagogy — first the idea, then the word — is inaccurate. In primary instruc- tion it does indeed state with great accuracy the proper method of proceeding for the most part. But even here the teacher must sometimes violate it. No primary teacher can always confine himself to objects that have sometimes been within the range of the pupil's observation. He must sometimes take con- cepts formed from actual observation and build out of them concepts of realities that the pupil has never seen. A more accurate statement is — first the reality, then the play of the mind about the reality. I use the somewhat indefinite phrase, "play of the mind," because a more definite expression would not be suf- ficiently comprehensive. In some cases, what you 276 LESSONC IN PSYCHOLOGY. want from your pupils is not primarily intellectual action, or action of the knowing side of the mind at all. You wish to bring their mind face to face with a certain reality in order to excite the appropriate feelings. That, for instance, would be your object in teaching such a reading-lesson as the one described by Professor Green. The same is true, for the most part, in all teaching of literature. You wish to get the thoughts and sentiments of the piece in the minds of your pupils in order that they may have the proper feelings — appreciation, admiration, and the like. In such cases in the maxim : First the reality, and then the play of the mind about the reality — " the play of the mind " means, for the most part, a certain activity of the emotional side of the mind. But even when the play of the mind you seek to occasion is a certain activity of the intellect, the kinds of intellectual activity that the Objective Method aims at are so different in different circumstances that any very definite term will not accuratel)'- describe them. The play of the mind desired may be the formation of a concept — say the concept of roundness. In that case the reality consists of round objects. You call the attention of the child to round objects in order that he may fix his attention upon their shape, neg- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 277 lecting all their other qualities. Or the play of the mind desired may be the making of a definition — say a definition of roundness. Here the reality is his own concept of roundness ; the play of the mind desired is the accurate description of that concept. Or the play of the mind wanted may be a description of a process — say the formulation of a rule in arithmetic. Here there are two sets of realities: (i) The conditions stated in the problem. You bring them clearly before his mind, in order that he may see for himself the path he must take in order to reach the solution. (2) Having solved the problem, you want him to describe the process, and this is the second reality. You want him to fix his mind upon it so attentively that he can give an accurate description of it. In the following example the play of the mind de- sired is an inference from a fact. Your class learns from you or a book — so far as the Objective Method is con- cerned it makes no difference which — that the Con- stitution of the United States forbade Congress to pass any law prohibiting the importation of slaves prior to 1808, and then that Congress passed such laws in 1808 — just as soon as the Constitution made it pos- sible for them to do it — unanimously. You ask your class what they infer from that. They will be likely 278 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. to say that it indicates that Congress wanted to do all It could to limit slavery. Without saying whether they are mistaken or not, you go on and tell them of the penalty Congress affixed to the violation of the law, and then call their attention to the fact that, although the law was constantly violated and every- body knew it, this penalty was very rarely inflicted, and then ask what that signifies. Here the reality is an historical fact, and the play of the mind about the reality that you are seeking to occasion is an inference based on the reality. If we have the clearest possible comprehension of the Objective Method, we may fail in our attempts to apply it, because we try to bring the minds of our pu- pils into contact with realities which they can not comprehend— try, in other words, to bring their minds into contact with realities with which they can not be brought into contact in their state of development. You could not give a blind boy an object lesson based on the sense of sight. No more can you intelligently use the Objective Method when the realities are be- yond the range of your pupil's comprehension. And here we see another reason for making a careful study of our pupils — that we may learn what realities they can comprehend. Further, it must be borne in mind that the Objec- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 279 live Method* is not the best method to use when our aim is to communicate information. But so far as you aim to supply to the minds of your pupils the con- ditions of development, so far, in one word, as your aim is the strengthening and unfolding of all their powers, so far you should aim to use the Objective xMethod. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Give a general description of the Objective Method. 2. What does Professor Green mean by " real and vital concepts? " 3. Illustrate at length the formula — " first the reality, and then the play of the mind about the reality." 4. For what formula is it proposed as a substitue, and why ? 5. Why may we fail in our attempts to apply the Objec- tive Method ? 6. Illustrate your answer from your own experience. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. I. Is there any contradiction between the quotation made from Professor Green in this lesson and the one in the last? *It doubtless has not escaped the attention of my careful readers that the Objective Method is based in part on laws of the mind which we have not yet considered. Those laws, however, are so generally known that I thought it would conduce to clearness to assume that they would be known, and discuss the Objective Method iu connection with Object teaching, which is but a single application of it. 28o LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. LESSON XXVIII. JUDGMENT. WE have seen that our mental life begins with undifferentiated sensations; that the first step towards knowledge consists in their gradual trans- formation into definite sensations; that while they are thus being made definite they begin to be localized ; that before they are definitely localized they begin to be gathered together in groups and thought of as qualities of objects; that in the first stage of the per- ception of objects, only their prominent, salient feat- ures — those in which small classes resemble each other — are perceived, and that, therefore, individuals are confused with each other, not perceived as individ- uals; that the state of mind that results from the con- fusion of individuals — the class image — gradually changes into two very unlike things — a percept and a concept ; that, on the one hand, it becomes a percept through the definite perception of differences ; on the other, a concept through the perception of resem- blances between individuals perceived to be individual. Through the greater part of these experiences the LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. ^ 28 1 mind has been active in a way to which, so far, we have paid no attention. When we study so complex a thing as the human mind, we have to study its various phases or activities in succession ; but we must remember that what we study successively ex- ists contemporaneously. We shall get a clearer idea of the activity of which I speak if we consider it first in a simple and very common form. I see a man coming down the street. At first I am uncertain whether it is John Smith or his brother. But as I look at him closely I notice a scar on his right cheek, just under his eye, and then I remember that John Smith once received a severe wound there. Immediately my mind passes from its state of doubt into a state of certainty — I say. That man is John Smith. Manifestly such an act of the mind is rendered pos- sible by the laws of association. Through the laws of association I thought of the name of John Smith and of his brother. But there is a wide difference between the final act of my mind and the simple result of the laws of association. As long as my mental state is due entirely to the laws of association, I have a per- cept and two images in mind — the percept of the man before me, and the images of John Smith and his 2S» LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. brother; but when I see the scar — when I am no longer in doubt — the percept and the image of John Smith are fused into one, and, expressing this, I say, This man is John Smith. Such a mental act is called a judgment, and the words in which we express it are called a proposition. If I had known the man was John Smith as soon as I saw him, it is evident that there would have been no conscious assertion expressed, or capable of being expressed, by the words That man is John Smith. There was a conscious assertion, because there was, so to speak, a vacillation on the part of my percept. It stood midway between my image of John Smith and my image of his brother. Because I was conscious of this vacillation, I was conscious of my uncertainty, or rather in this vacillation my uncertainty consisted. But if, as soon as I had seen John Smith, the image of him as seen before had coalesced or fused with my percept, the act would have been so automatic that I should have not been conscious of it. You can prove the truth of this by your own ex- perience. As you went to school this morning, did you say or think to yourself, that is a tree, that is a house, that is a cow, as you passed these several ob- jects? No, you merely recognized them — knew them LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 283 directly — and were conscious of no mental assertion whatever. But suppose the cow had been wrapped in a buflfalo robe, so as to look unlike any animal you had ever seen before. At a first glance you would not have recognized it. There would have been the same vacillation between your percept and the competing images that we have already observed in my ex- perience. But when you had seen through the dis- guise, all but one of the competing images would have vanished ; you would have performed a conscious mental act that can only be described by a propo- sition — That is a cow. We can now see at what point in our mental life this conscious act first appeared. We have seen that a complete act of memory consists of retention, repro- duction, recognition, and localization, and that mem- ory begins to develop before imagination. Evidently, therefore, the mind recognizes things before it forms images of them when they are absent. Now this con- scious act, which we have called judgment, first ap- pears when there is an object before the mind of which it has a percept, and when the mind is tmcertain to which of two images to refer it. If a child, familiar with oranges, sees a lemon for the first time, he at once classes it as an orange because of their likeness — there 284 LBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. is no conscious act of judgment. But if he is familiar with both and the names of both, when he sees an orange at a little distance, by the law of association by similarity he may think of both an orange and a lemon — the image of both may arise in his mind — and his percept may vacillate between the two. When he gets nearer, and notices the peculiar shape and color of the object, he says. That is an orange. Evidently such a conscious act is not possible until the imagination is so far developed that two or more images arise in the mind in connection with the same percept, which the mind is not able to refer to either. If we examine the three judgments we have con- sidered — expressed in the propositions, That is John Smith, That is a cow. That is an orange — we shall see that they consist in the fusion or coalescence of two states of consciousness — a percept and an image in the first, a percept and a concept in the second and third. We need to note (i) that this fusion or coalescence is the way our thoughts sometimes behave when we pass from a state of doubt to a state of belief; (2) that al- though it is thoughts or states of consciousness that coalesce, the belief does not relate to states of conscious- ness, but to some kind of reality :•' The reality may be *Sec Baldwin's Psychology, page 286. I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 285 the reality of externa! nature, as when I say, That is an orange. Or the reality of literature. Thousands of books have been written upon the question of Ham- let's insanity. If I say he was insane, my proposition expresses a belief about a reality in literature. Or the reality of mythology. A student of the classics, on the way to recitation, is running over his lesson in his mind. He asks himself. How did Minerva originate? He is in doubt. Suddenly something brings the for- gotten fact to his mind. He remembers that she sprang from the head of Jupiter. His memory is an assertion of a reality in mythology. Or it may be a reality of meatal facts. I say, The concept man and the concept rational animal are one and the same. Here the reality asserted is a certain relation between mental facts. If we examine what takes place in our minds when we perform the judgment expressed by the propo- sition, Minerva sprang from the head of Jove, we shall see that there is no such fusion or coalescence between the thoughts that stand for the subject and predicate as takes place when we judge That is John Smith. The reason plainly is because of the difference in the things asserted. In the last case we assert identity. I see that the individual before me has all the charac- 286 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY, teristics of John Smith, because he ?s John Smith. In the first, we make an assertion about the origin oi Minerva ; we say not that she is, but that she sprang from, the head of Jove. So when I say, I dreamed last night, I make a still different assertion — I assert a different kind of fact. But no matter what we assert, we shall find, in the period of doubt that preceded the assertion, no fixed relations between the thoughts or concepts or states of mind that represent the various parts of the proposition that we finally assert. "I don't know whether that is John Smith or his brother." As long as I am in uncertainty, my percept tends now towards the image of John Smith, now towards that of his brother, according to my estimate of proba- bilities. "When I pass from a state of doubt to a state of certainty, my percept assumes a definite and fixed relation towards the image of John Smith. "I don't remember whether Minerva sprang from the head of Jupiter or the head of Apollo." Here again there is the same lack of definiteness and fixedness in the re- lations between the thoughts expressed by Minerva, sprang from, head of Jupiter, head of Apollo. But when I .say : " I remember now — she sprang from the head of Jupiter," this lack of definiteness disapppears; they are transformed into a new whole, or rather the LESSONS IN PSYCHOI.OGY. 287 first three are, each of them sustaining a definite and fixed relation towards the rest — a relation which they resume whenever I think of them, unless my belief changes. We see, then, not only that a judgment is that act of the mind that enables us to use a proposition in- telligently, but we see what the act is. // is the 7nental assertion of some kind of reality — the transforrnation of separate units or eleme?its of thought into one ivhole, in which each siistains definite and fixed relatio7is towards the rest. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. State and illustrate what judgment is. 2. When do we make unconscious assertions, and why? 3. Under what circumstances do these unconscious assertions become conscious? 4. State and illustrate the various kinds of reality to which our judgments refer. 5. State and illustrate the difference (i) between the mere association of ideas and judgment, (2) between doubt and belief. SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. State the various causes to which, in your opinion, judgments are due. ' 2. Show that judgments could never have originated from the mere association of ideas. a88 I,BSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. LESSON XXIX. JUDGMENT. SUPPOSE you should have a conversation with a man from the moon, and should explain to him the meaning of water, quench, and thirst, without showing him the relations which these facts actually bear to each other. When he thinks of the three at the same time, they have only a mechanical connection in his mind — the same kind of connection that exists between the thought of a Chinaman and the thought of a steam engine when the child thinks of the two at the same time because he first saw them together. But when yoic think of them together, you assert a real relation between the facts water and thirst — they are no longer mechanically juxtaposed, bid parts of one logical whole. There is a conscious mental assertion only when this act of logical relating for some reason becomes a matter of attention. You say, That is a cow, only after you have been in doubt as to what animal you are looking at, or when you see it in some unexpected place, as in a public park. Some Psychologists con- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 289 fine the term judgment to these conscious assertions of the mind. Assertions made unconsciously they refuse to call judgments, simply because they are made un- consciously. But assuredly those Psychologists take the sounder position who hold that whenever thoughts assume that fixed and definite relation we have seen they have in a judgment, whenever they become parts of a logical whole, there is an act of judgment, whether the act is conscious or not. The essence of an act of judgment coiisists hi this logical relating of thoughts. To refuse to call it a judgment because it takes place so rapidly and unobtrusively as to escape the eye of consciousness is to use language in a way that does not conduce to clearness of thinking. We may, indeed, properly enough mark the dis- tinction between them by putting them into difi"erent classes. We may call the judgments made uncon- sciously, implicit, and those made consciously, ex- plicit. Evidently the mind made implicit judgments when it contemplated what we have called cla.ss images. Evidently, also, when the consciousness of a class image becomes the perception of an indi- vidual thing, the judgment is still implicit. And as every modification of a class image in the direction of an individual is an act of implicit judgment, so every 19 ago LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. modification of a concept is an act of explicit judg- ment. Suppose the first concept that the child makes of a rose is not of a rose as a rose, but as a plant, it is the result of an act of judgment — This is a plant. When he modifies his concept so as to make it include some of the attributes of a flower, this modification is still the work of a judgment — This plant is a flower. When he modifies it still further to make it include some of the attributes of roses, and then of that variety of roses called La France, it is still the work of judg- ment — This flower is a rose, this rose is a La France. In a word, the formation of a concept and each step in its subsequent modification is the work of the mind as judgment. Explicit judgments are usually classified according to the propositions used to express them. "This man is a lawyer," a categorical proposition, is said to ex- press a categorical judgment. "This man is either a lawyer or a doctor," a di.sjunctive proposition, is said to express a disjunctive judgment. "If this man is a lawyer, he is not a doctor," a conditional proposition, is said to express a conditional judgment. But we can not ascertain the character of a judgment by examin- ing the proposition used to express it. A categorical judgment is one in ivhich the predicate is asserted of the LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. «9I subject absolutely ayid uncoyiditionally . Now, a cate- gorical proposition may be the expression of that kind of a judgment, and it may not be. One man says, The S7in will rise to-morrow mornifig, and his proposi- tion expresses a categorical judgment — the possibility even that the sun will not rise has scarcely occurred to him. An astronomer says the same thing, but mentally qualifies his assertion — If nothing happens to the earth or the sun to prevent it. A metaphysician mentally qualifies the same assertion with the con- dition — If things behave in the future as they have done in the past* The last two use a categorical proposi- tion to express a conditional judgment. So, likewise, a conditional proposition may be used to express a categorical judgment. I say — If he is a lawyer, he is not a doctor. I mean, Men do not practice law and medicine at the same time, which is a categorical judgment. A child says, If I do not cry, mamma will give me candy — meaning simply that she will get the candy if she does not cry, and therefore her conditional proposition expresses a conditional judgment. When we make a judgment about an entire class, our judgment is universal ; when about a part of a class, it is particular. All trees have branches, is a proposl- *SecLetsonVI. 292 I,KSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. tion expressing a judgment about the entire class of trees; it is, therefo--:, universal. Some trees are green in winter, is a proposition expressing a judgment about a part of a class; it is, therefore, particular. Affirmative judgments are those in which some- thing is affirmed ; negative, those in which something is denied. The common opinion is that the beliefs (judg- ments) of men — excepting those that we have called necessary truths and necessary beliefs — are based on processes of reasoning. Nothing can be more er- roneous. The credulity of children is proverbial ; but if we get our facts at first hand, if we study " the living learning, playing child," we shall see that he is quite as remarkable for incredulity as for credulity. The explanation is simple: He tends to believe the first suggestion that comes into his mind, no matter from what source; and since his belief is not the result of any rational process, he can not be made to disbelieve it hi any rational way. Hence it happens that he is very credulous in reference to any matter about which he has no ideas ; but let the idea once get possession of his mind, and he is quite as remarkable for incredulity as before for credulity. A father was showing his little girl — three years old — a cistern, and she was LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 293 looking at it with great interest, when she suddenly drew back, and cried out, in a frightened tone, " Oh, papa, you are going to put me in there!" and no amount of persuasion would induce her to consent to look at it again, although the father had never threat- eyied her ivith any khid of physical punishment , and there ivas absolutely nothing in her experience which would serve as a reason for her belief. The explana- tion is that the idea occurred to her, and its mere presence in her mind was a sufficient cause for belief. The same child got in a passion of fear because her father playfully remarked, one day when he had a caller, that she must stay with him to keep the man from hurting him. Not anticipating any such effect from his remark, he tried to soothe her by assuring her that it was not so- that he was only playing — but all to no purpose. She did not believe it because he said it — because of her trust in him — and therefore she wojcld not disbelieve it ivhen he said it xvas not so. Study your "elementary text-book," and you will find abundant illustrations of this truth — that belief about every thing that comes within the range of a child's ex- perience antedates reavSon ; that what reason does, for the most part, in the early years of a child's life, is to cause him to abandon beliefs that are plainly at vari- ance with experience. 294 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. If we Study the larger child — the man with a child's mind — an uneducated man — we shall have the same truth forced upon us. If the beliefs of men were due to processes of reasoning, where they have not rea- soned they would not believe. But do we find it so ? Is it not true that the men who have the most positive opinions on the largest variety of subjects — so far as they have ever heard of them — are precisely those who have the least right to them ? Socrates, we remem- ber, was counted the wisest man in Athens, because he alone resisted his natural tendency to believe in the absence of evidence — he alone would not delude himself with the conceit of knowledge without the reality; and it would scarcely be too much to say that the intellectual strength of men is in inverse propor- tion to the number of things they are absolutely cer- tain of. If this be true, it is hard to overestimate the importance of the work that education should do in this direction. How to make men believe what is true, how to keep them from believing what is false, how to keep them from having opinions upon matters in reference to which their study and investigation, or rather the lack of both, give them no right to an opinion, is surely a question of the very greatest im- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 295 portancc* Manifestly the way to answer it is io bring up the rational side of the mind, to develop it and train it so that it may be strong enough to cope with the believing — judging — propensities of the mind. What we can do in this direction, therefore, it will be proper for us to discuss after we have made a stud^ of reasoning. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Make a careful summary of the preceding lesson. 2. What is the essence of an act of judgment ? 3. State and illustrate the difference between explicit and implicit judgments. *I do not, of course, mean to intimate that we should have no opinions about matters that we have not personally inves- tigated. We take and ought to take the opinion of some men about law, and others about medicine, and others about par- ticular sciences, and so on. But we should clearly realize the difference between holding an opinion on trust and holding it as the result of our own investigations. If we do, we shall see we have no right to an opinion at all — on trust— where there is a decided difference of opinion among specialists. If all I know about the appearance of a thing I have learned from the reports of two men, and if these are directly opposed to each other on all the essential points, then plainly I know nothing about it. In like manner, if I take my conclusions from specialists — as I must to be reasonable, when I have not studied the matter — then, when they disagree widely, there is no reason why I should take the opinion of one rather than another. I have, therefore, in such a case, no right to au opinion. 296 I,BSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 4. What are the first implicit judgments ? 5. How are concepts successively modified so as to in- clude a larger aud larger number of attributes ? 6. State the difference between categorical, disjunctive and hypothetical judgments. 7. Show that v.'e can not tell the character of a judgment by examining the proposition used to express it. 8. Show that children often believe things because of the mere presence of ideas in their minds. ^ 9. What are necessary truths and necessary beliefs? 10. In what did the wisdom of Socrates consist? 11. What lesson does this teach us ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Why is it important for us to believe what is true ? 2. Have you observed beliefs in children that you could only explain by the theory stated in the text ? 3. Have you observed a difference in children in this re- spect? Do some appear more ready to believe without reason than others ? LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 297 IvESSON XXX. REASONING. "^ T 7E saw in the last lesson that children tend to be- * ' lieve the first suggestion that comes into their minds, no matter from what source. Some Psychologists go much further than this. H6fi"diug, for instance, says: "It must be with dawning con- sciousness as with dream consciousness — all that ofifers is at first taken for current coin,"* since to such a consciousness there is no ground for a distinction be- tween the world of possibility and the world of fact and reality. This argument is that, from the very nature of the mind, it follows that, in the beginning of its mental life, a child must accept its ideas or sug- gestions as true.f But we have here nothing to do *Outlines of Psychology, page 131. tThat acute critic and profound student of human nature, Walter Bagehot, wrote a suggestive paragraph on this point: "In true metaphysics, I believe that, contrary to common opinion, unbelief far oftener needs a reason and requires an effort than belief. Naturallj-, and if man were made according to the pattern of the logicians, he would say : ' When I see a valid argument, I will believe; and till I see such argument, I will not believe,' But, iu fact, every idea vividly before us 298 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. with such a priori reasoning. Our business is to make a patient study of facts ; to carefully observe children, in order that we may learn whether there is a tend- ency to believe as true every suggestion that enters their minds ; and if so, to what extent. But here, as always, we must guard against the propensity which, as we have seen, is such an active principle of human nature — the disposition to let our beliefs run clean out of sight of the facts upon Which they are based, and assert a universal conclusion upon the basis of a few observations of two or three children. Knowing the influence of feeling on belief, one would naturally sup- pose that children would be more likely to show the tendency in reference to matters that excite their feel- ings. So far as my observations go, they tend to con- firm the truth of this supposition. We should expect also that children of a decidedly emotional tempera- soon appears to lis to be true, unless we keep our perceptions of the arguments which prove it untrue, and voluntarily coerce our minds to remember its falsehood. 'All clear ideas are true,' was for ages a philosophical maxim ; and though no maxim can be more unsound, none can be more exactly con- formable to ordinary human nature. The child resolutely ac- cepts every idea which passes through its brain as true ; it has no distinct conception of an idea which is strong, bright, and permanent, but which is false too. The mere presentation of an idea, unless we are careful about it, or unless there is within some unusual resistance, makes us believe it" LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 299 meiit would be more likely to show it than those of a quieter temperament. But plainly we have no right to au opinion on this point until we have observed a large number of children, or until we have carefully studied the results of competent observers. But the child very soon begins to form judgments that we can put into quite a different class. When he sees a train coining, and runs into the house because he is afraid of it, his judgment, The traiyi will hurt me if I stay in the yard, is the result of the mere presence of the suggestion in his mind. The suggestion, of course, is due to the a.ssociation of ideas ; the belief, however, is due, as we have just seen, to quite another cause. But when a child, who was burned by his soup yesterday, refuses to touch it to-day because he sees it smoking, his judgment, The soup will burn me if I put it in my mouth, can not be explained in the same way. He does, of course, think of the possible burn becau.se of the association of ideas, but he be- lieves it because of a process that might be roughly described as follows : Yesterday's soup smoked and burnt me: therefore to-day's soup, ivhich smokes also, will burn me. He makes a judgment about past ex- perinice the ground of a judgment about future ex- perience ; lie goes from the known to the unknown. A 300 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. little boy once made the direct assertion, "Snow is sugar; for snow is white, and so is sugar."* Because snow and sugar are both white, he concluded that ■ they are the same. f Let us see if we can find any judgment to serve as a basis or reason for the first one. Does the child think 77/1? train 7vill /uirt vie if I stay in the yard be- cause other trains have hurt me there f or because mam- ma told me it would Mirt vie if I stayed there f No. He does not base the judgment on anything ; he as- sumes it. He does not go from the known to the un- known ; he assumes the unknown. His belief is not mediate — reached through other beliefs — but im- mediate. Now, the process of basing judgments on judgments — of reaching beliefs through beliefs — is called reasoning. Reasoning, then, is the art of going from the known to the unknozun, of basing judgments on judgments, reaching beliefs through beliefs. We are reasoning every moment of our lives when we are awake. You awake in the morning and glance at the clock to see what time it is. You know that the object you are looking at is a clock by a process of reasoning. It looks thus and so, and therefore you say it is a clock. You say that it is half-past six, and *See HoCding's Psychology, page 13a. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 30I therefore you must get up. You infer that that is the correct time, because you have found 3'our clock re- liable in the past ; and when the hands have been in the position lliey now are, 5'ou have learned that it was half-past six. You get up and begin to dress — every act which you perform is based on a process of reasoning. There was a time in your life when you could not do this or that simply by willing to do it. The child of two can not button his dress. And when he learns to do it once, he will be able to do it again by an act of reasoning. He will reason : I did thus and so yesterday morning when I buttoned my dress, and therefore, as I wish to button it again, I will do the same thing again. You go out and sit down to breakfast. Why do you do it? You are reasoning again. You are hungry, and as eating has satisfied your hunger in the past, you think it will do it again. You do not drink coflfee, because j^ou drank it yesterday and had a headache, and you reason that the coffee was the cause. Some one comes into the room, and you say, "Good morning, Mr. ," naming a friend of yours. How do you know who it is? By an act of reasoning. Your friend looks thus and so, and as this gentleman looks the same way, you conclude that he and your friend are the same person. Further than 302 LESSON5 IN PSYCHOLOGY. that, you know that he is a person — a living, con- scious being like yourself — by an act of reasoning. He acts like a person, and therefore you think he is one. These examples give us some idea of the part which reasoning plays in our mental life. It is reason- ing that gives memory its value. Why is it useful for us to know the past? As a guide to the future. In- asmuch as the past has been thus and so, we reason that the same will be true in the future ; and without reason we should have no right to have any opinions about the future whatever. You are not, of course, conscious of reasoning in such cases. You sa)^ 3'ou see the clock, see your friend, and so on, when you really infer in each case. You speak thus because you are not conscious of reasoning — because the reasoning is implicit, like some of the judgments noted in the last lesson. Evidently the first reasonings of a child are of this implicit character. We have seen that the last stage in the process of perception consists in grouping sensa- tions together and regarding them as qualities of ex- ternal objects. Evidently this grouping is the result of reasoning. A child comes to expect that the color of an apple will be followed, under certain circum- stances, by the taste and odor of an apple — comes to LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 303 ttiink of a certain color, taste, odor, etc., as qualities of the same object ; and these judgments, since they are based on other judgments, are products of reasoning. All recognition and classification are products of reasoning. The child first confuses different persons with each other, as we have seen ; implicitly judges, the man I see nozv a7id the man I saiv yesterday are the same, because he sees no differences between them. This implicit judgment is the result of implicit reason- ing: This man looks thus and so; Papa looks the same way ; Therefore this man is papa ^ When his growing mind enables him to see the dif- ference between his father and other men — when he recognizes his father when he sees him — his act of recognition is a judgment which results from an act of implicit reasoning identical in character with the one just described. The unconscious classifications of objects that we make in perception are due to the same cause. A child taught according to Rosmini's method would first be able to recognize or classify a given object as *Cf. Harris, Introduction to the Study of Philosophy, page 98; alao Herbert Spencer's Psychology, Vol. II, page Ii6» 304 l,:eSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. a plant, then as a flower, then as a rose, and last of all, . say, as a Marechal Niel. If the ground of his recog- nition were consciously before him, we could describe the movement of his mind as follows: This object has such and such qualities (those, viz., of a plant, or a flower, or a rose, or a Marechal Niel, according to the judgment) ; A plant (or a flower, or a rose, or a Marechal Niel) has the same qualities ; Therefore this object is a plant (or a flower, or a rose, or a Marechal Niel). Suppose, after he has learned to recognize a Mare- chal Niel whenever he sees it, I show him a Perle des Jardines, in order to test the accuracy of his know- ledge, and ask him what that is. He will be likely to say that it is a Marechal Niel — reasoning in the un- conscious, implicit way already described. If I ask him how he knows it, his reasoning becomes con- scious; he answers, because it has such and such characteristics — supposing him to be developed enough to describe his concepts. This conscious act of reasoning may be expressed in this form : All roses that have such and such qualities are Marechal Niels ; This rose has those qualities; LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 305 Tlierefore it is a Marechal Niel. His conclusion, of course, is incorrect, because one of his premises is wrong. In all of these cases we notice that the judgment through which the mind passes to a conclusion is a judgment about some particular fact, so far as it is consciously in the mind at all ; and if we examine our minds to see the course they take in the reasonings of everyday life, we shall find that we generally reason from some particular fact to some particular fact. You are going to take a train at half-past eleven, and you must give yourself ten minutes to go to the depot. You look at your watch ; the hands point fifteen min- utes past eleven. Remembering that it was five min- utes slow yesterday, you hurry off at once. Why? Be- cause you believe it is twenty minutes past eleven, since your watch was five minutes slow yesterday. Because your watch was five minutes slow yesterday, you believe it is five minutes slow to-day ; you reason frojn a particular fact to a partictdar fact. As you go out of the gate you notice threatening clouds in the Avest. You go back and get your umbrella, as you think it is likely to rain. From the particular judg- ment, The clo2ids look thus and so, yo7c go directly to the particular judgment , It is likely to rain. 20 3o6 I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. But supppose, in either case, I dispute your infer- ence ; suppose I say that it is only fifteen minutes past eleven, or that it is not likely to rain? You seek to justify your conclusion ; you fix your attention on the considerations that seem to you to prove it. You say, I have found by long experience that my watch is reliable, and since it was five minutes slow yester- day, I know that it is five minutes slow to-day. Or, you point to such and such characteristics of the clouds, and say, Clouds that look that way threaten rain. In the first case you seek to justify your infer- ence from your conclusion by appealing to particu- lar facts ; in the second, by appealing to a universal proposition. Now that illustrates the difference be- tween deductive and inductive reasoning. Inference is always from particulars to particulars. But when the mind retraces its steps in order to find the proof of its conclusion, it may find it either in a general proposition, or in particular propositions. In the first case the reasoning is called deductive; in the second, inductive. Deductive and inductive reasoning, then, are not so much tzvo kinds of reasoning as two modes of proof — t'wo modes of exhibiting to ourselves or others the grounds of inferences already drawn. When we prove a conclusion by a general proposi- WESSONS IN PSYCHOL,OGY. 307 tion, the reasoning is called deductive ; when by partic- ular propositons, it is called inductive. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. What is a priori reasoning ? 2. By what a priori reasoning does Hoffding seek to show that children first hold all their ideas to be true ? 3. Illustrate the difference between such judgments and reasoning. 4. Illustrate the extent to which we reason. 5. What is the difference between implicit and explicit reasoning? 6. What is the difference between inference and proof? 7. State and define and illustrate the two kinds of proof SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. I. A child heard a servant say that a certain musical in- strument was a liarp ; her mother afterwards told her that it was an harmonica, but she insisted that it was a harp. Ex- plain it. 308 IvESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. iKSvSON XXXI. REASONING. WE saw ill the last lesson that reasoning is going from the known to the unknown, and that we reason from known particular facts to unknown particular facts; that the difference between deductive and inductive reasoning is rather a difference in the method of proving conclusions already reached than a difference in the method of reaching them ; that when we appeal to a universal proposition to prove our con- clusion, the reasoning is called deductive ; inductive when we appeal to one or more particular proposi- tions. But how is it that I am able to find the proof of a fact in particular propositions? When you say, "I know that this is a Marechal Niel because I know that all the roses that have the characteristics of this rose are Marechal Niels," if I disagree with you it is be- cause I don't believe your premise. Admitting your premise, that all the roses that have the characteristics of this rose are Marechal Niels, I must admit your conclusion. But when the child argues, "Sugar is LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 309 white, Snow is white, Therefore snow is sugar," I ad- mit his premises, but deny his conclusion. But when he -argues, "This and that and the other unsupported bodies have fallen, This stone is an unsupported body, Therefore it will fall," I admit the truth of his con- clusion. In both cases he argues from true particular propositions. We have to inquire (i) how he came to choose those particulars in order to prove his con- clusion ; and (2) how it happened that apparently the same method led, in one case, to a false conclusion ; in the other, to a true one. I think we shall see how to answer the first ques- tion if we ask ourselves if a child can believe that snow is sugar because the one is white and the other sweet. We know that he can not. We know that children — human beings in general — reason from ob- served likenesses to imobserved likenesses , but 7iever from differences to affrrmative conclusions. We know that the child argued that snow is sugar because snow and sugar resemble each other in being white — becaicse they belong to the class of white objects. The proof, in a word, that snow is sugar he found in the fact thai both are white. He took one white thing — sugar — to be the type of all white things — judged implicitly that all white things are sugar. He argued, then, that 3IO LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. snow is sugar because it is one of the class of white things, all of which are sugar. He selects the particular propositions, This un- supported object has fallen, That unsupported object has fallen, etc., to prove that the stone will fall if it is unsupported, for the same reason. Can he believe that a stone will fall because a robin flies, and a geranium bears blossoms, and a maple puts forth leaves in spring time? Certainly not. These facts and the one he believes do not resemble each other — are not members of a class. He believes that an unsup- ported stone will fall, on the ground that this and that and the other body have done so, because he takes this, that, and the other body as types of the class. He has made a class of unsupported bodies, and has judged that those he has observed are examples of the entire class. When, then, he reasons that the stone will fall if unsupported, because this and that and the other body have done so, he really reasons that it will do so because all unsupported bodies rvill do so. We see, then, that there is no essential diflference between in- ductive and deductive reasoning. When I prove a particular fact by other particular facts, I do so be- cause they are members of the same class as the one a])out wliich I am trying to prove something, and be- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 3II cause I have already, explicitly or implicitly, reached a conclusion about the entire class. When a universal judgment is consciously appealed to, the reasoning is deductive ; when it is unconsciously appealed to, it is said to be inductive ; and that is the sole difference between deductive and inductive reasoning. I say, "I am going to die some time." You ask, "Why?" "Because all men are mortal." There I appeal con- sciously to a universal proposition. If I reply, "Be- cause this and that and the other man have died," I certainly appeal, perhaps imconsciously, to a universal proposition, because it is only as this and that and the other individual and I are members of the same cla.ss that what has happened to them throws any light on what is likely to happen to me. We see, then, that we appeal to c&ridJ^n particular particulars to prove a fact, because they are included in a universal judgment that we have made. Now, we see why the same kind of reasoning some- times leads to a true conclusion, and sometimes to one that is false. All inductive reasoning is deductive reasoning. When the universal implied by the par- ticulars is false, the conclusion based upon it will be false. All white things are not sugar. Hence, it is a mistake to say that snow is sugar because it is white. 312 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. All unsupported bodies will fall. Hence I am justi- fied in concluding that this stone will, because this and that and the other bodies have done so when I take them to be types of the class. The proof in deductive reasoning may always be thrown into the following form called a syllogism : {Major premise^ All white things are sugar ; {Minor premise) Snow is a white thing ; {Conclusion) Therefore, snow is sugar. We see here very plainly again that an act of rea- soning may be altogether correct as a process, and yet lead to a false conclusion, because one of the premises is incorrect. That enables us to see why able men so often differ with each other ; they start from differ- ent premises. Take the great differences you find between men in matters of politics, science — every department of thought — and you will often find that they rest at bottom on the fact that those who differ started from different major premises. A physicist or physiologist, for example, is very likely to believe that nothing can cause a change in matter but matter. If so, he is almost certain to be a materialist, since it seems evident that the mind does cause changes in the body ; and if it does, according to his ultimate major premise, it must be material. A peychologist, LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 3x3 on the other hand, is about equally certain to assume that nothing can have the characteristics that the mind has without having some of the attributes of a substance. Accordingly, he is almost certain not to be a materialist, because he sees that, if mental facts are merely phenomena of the brain, then the mind is in no sense a substance. One man says, "All measures that tend to promote home production are benei&cial. A protective tariff does this ; therefore a protective tariff is beneficial." Another says, " Undoubtedly your conclusion is true if your major premise is, but I deny your major premise. I hold that what pro- motes the interests of individuals promotes the inter- ests of nations." Here we have an argument leading to a conclusion that directly contradicts the first, because it starts from a major premise that contradicts the major premise of the first argument. Compare the argument of Ex-Speaker Reed in the North American Review, January, 1890, with the reply of Senator Carlisle — the former defending the rules of the House of Representatives that had just been adopted by the Republican majority, the latter severely criti- cising them. Reed reasons substantially as follows : Whatever rules are necessary to enable the House to transact business are wise ; the rules adopted by the 314 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. Republicans are necessary to enable the House to transact business ; therefore they are wise. Carlisle, on the other hand, reasons substantially as follows : Whatever rules enable the Speaker of the House to exercise arbitrary and tyrannical power are unwise; the rules just adopted by the House enable the Speaker to exercise arbitrary and tyrannical power ; therefore they are unwise. If you ask how it happens that able men so often start from different premises, you ask a difficult ques- tion. One reason undoubtedly is, that the imagination, as we have seen, is the sole audience chamber in which Reality gets a hearing. If for any reason we do not image certain aspects or phases of Reality, they are for us as though they did not exist. The great major- ity of the facts to which the physicist habitually gives his attention are so well explained by his assumption, that it comes finally to seem like an absolute certainty — precisely as we are inclined to think it absolutely certain that things will behave in the future as they have done in the past. When he occasionally thinks of facts that seem to contradict his assumption, he re- fuses to believe them. That which is absolutely true can not be contradicted, however it may seem to be. Sometimes we refuse, more or less consciously, to con- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 315 sider but oue side of a question. If we are interested in supporting a particular conclusion, it often happens that we will not look at the other side. Members of debating societies generally come to believe that their side is right, whatever they thought at the start. They are looking for arguments on but one side, and they see no others. The Republicans in the House all voted for the Republican rules, and the Democrats against them. A few of both parties, perhaps, voted dishonestly, but I have no doubt that the great major- ity voted honestly. The Republicans were interested in having their rules adopted, and looked for arguments to justify it; the Democrats were interested in having them rejected, and looked for arguments to justify it. History abounds in illustrations of the effects of interest on belief. Every one who has studied the history of Calhoun knows that a great change began to take place in his opinions about the year 1825. Before that time he had been an advocate of a protective tariff, a national bank, internal improvements, a liberal interpretation of the Constitution. About 1825 his opinions on all these questions began to undergo a change, and in a few ycar-^ he had completel)'- wheeled about. The explanation is, that about this time he had begun to see 3l6 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. that slavery was the controlling interest of the South, and that the only constitutional weapon with which it could be defended was the doctrine of State rights. Under the influence of this perception the only facts that he permitted himself to realize (imagine) were those that supported his favorite doctrine. Andrew Jackson's history abounds in illustrations of this kind. No man could be his friend and disagree with him. He y/as not only a very sincere patriot, but he was sure he was right, and therefore that every- body who disagreed with him was wrong. What seemed true to him seemed so self-evident that he could not understand how a man could honestly and honorably differ with him. His feelings not only de- termined his beliefs, but gave them such intensity that he could not conceive that any one could really doubt them. The history of men like Alexander Hamilton and Jefferson gives still different illustrations of this truth. Because of natural differences between the things they liked, they inclined to start from different premises in their political reasonings. Jefferson naturally trusted the people and believed in their political capacity. Hamilton as naturally distrusted them, and with his strong love of order and stability it was as natural for LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 317 him to believe in a strong government — one strong enough to hold the people in check — as it was for Jef- ferson to believe in a weak one, because he did not think the people needed much governmental restraint. From this point of view, it is clear that there are two things to be done in the training of the reasoning powers of our pupils: (i) To train them to reason correctly from given premises; and (2) to give them such training as will diminish, as much as possible, the influence of personal considerations in selecting the premises upon which they base their reasoning — to give them such a love of truth that it will be able to neutralize the influence of all merely personal prefer- ences and wishes. What we want to believe has a great influence on what we do believe, but it has no influence in determining what is true. Calhoun and the South wanted to believe that slavery was right, and they did; but that did not make it right. In order to defend slavery, they wanted to believe that the doctrine of State rights was true, and they did ; but that did not make it true. But their attempt to put it in practice resulted in one of the most fearful civil wars of which history gives us any account. But all that can be done, it seems to me, in the way of diminishing the influence of personal considerations 31 S LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. in determining premises, is, in the first place, to point out the great danger of such influences. We have considered examples of such influences from history; you need not go to history to find them in abundance. Incidents at school, if you are on the lookout for them, will give you ample opportunity to bring home to your pupils the fact that there is great danger that they will be led to believe this or that, not because a candid survey of all the facts shows that it is most probable, but because they wish to believe it. In the second place, we can set them a good example. I do not know how United States History can bo taught profitably except by constant reference to current events. Mr. Freeman well says that "History is past Politics and Politics present History;" and the teacher of United States History should constantly try to illustrate "past Politics" by "present Politics," and show how "present Politics" are the necessary results of the Politics of the past. But to do this profitably — to do it without exciting the prejudices of his pupils — he must make it very evident that in all the questions he discusses, his supreme desire is to get at the truth. And he must really have that desire. In these and all other questions he should not only allow, but encourage, the utmost freedom of discussion. And when his pupils LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 319 have pointed out an error in his reasonings — which they are sure to do sometimes — he should acknowledge it instantly, and thus show his supreme deference to truth. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Show clearly the difference between inductive and deductive reasoning. 2. What is a syllogism ? 3. Illustrate how it happens that able men so often differ with each other. 4. Illustrate the influence of interest on belief. 5. What can you do to train the reasoning powers of your pupils ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. . I. Give illustrations from your own observations of the influence of interest on belief. 320 I.ESSONS IN I'SYCHOLOGY. LESSON XXXII. REASONING. T"f ZEliave seen that the only difference between ' ' inductive and deductive reasoning is that the one is based on an implicit and the other on an ex- plicit universal. We will now consider that kind of deductive reasoning that is usually called induction, and to avoid circumlocution I will give it the name that it usually bears. Induction very closely resembles generalization. General^c"..* ^n, you remember, is the last of the three processes involved in the formation of a concept. A child directs his attention to two or more objects at the same time — comparison — and after noting their like and unlike qualities, fixes his attention upon the former — abstraction — and thinks of them as the char- acteristics of a class — generalization. But there is no going from the known to the unknown, and, conse- quently, no reasoning in the act of generalization. When a child, noting that two or more objects re- sembling each other in a number of particulars, and IvESBONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 32 1 all used to sit in, thinks of the qualities in which they resemble each other as the characteristics of a class — extends, in other words, the name given to them to all objects possessing similar qualities — he does not make an inference about the objects he does not see. He does not say that since these chairs have this and that and the other quality, therefore all chairs have them — that would be an induction. But he says that since these objects are alike in certain respects, I will make a class of them, and if there are any other objects that possess the same qualities, I will put them in the same class— call them by the same name. Of course a child does not definitely think any such thoughts. We know that there is a great differ. ence between what the mind really does and v.'hat it is conscious of doing. And when a child sees two ob- jects and calls them dogs — thus putting them in the same class — and when seeing another dog, he says, " dog" — putting it in the same class — it is plain that his mind has taken the course I have endeavored to describe. This is generalization. But there is a wide difference between generalization — making a class of objects — and induction — concluding that since one or more members of a class have such and such character- istics, that therefore they all have it ; or that since 21 322 tBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. something is true of one or more members of a class, therefore it will be true of all. In the one case, we are merely arranging objects into classes ; in the other, we reason from one or more members of the class to the entire class. From this it is evident that induction presupposes generalization. If in induction I reason from one or more members of a class to the whole class, I must have the idea of the class already formed in my mind. But reasoning, in turn, makes all but the simplest generalizations possible. A child sees a round, yellow object, takes hold of it, eats it, and in this way learns the kind of sensations it produces through his various senses. He hears his mother call it an orange. The next day he simply sees an orange — does not feel it or taste it — and says " orange." What does he mean ? He means, if he uses the word intelligently, that the object would feel thus and so, if he could get hold of it, and taste in such and such a way ; in other words, he is reasoning. Inasmuch as the object that had such and such a color yesterday had such and such other qualities, therefore this object, which has a similar color, will have similar qualities. We have already seen that inductive reasoning as- sumes that certain individuals are types of an entire class. Let us consider this further. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 323 When I reason that all crows are black because all the crows I have seen were black, I assume that the crows I have seen are types or examples of the entire class. This assumption that we can regard a greater or less number of individuals as types of a class clearly underlies a large part of our inductions, and we never can be quite sure in any case that we have a right to make it. Of course, it is more likely to be true when the instances which we assume to represent the entire class are very numerous. But, no matter how many cases we have examined, it will always be possible that some member of the class that we have not seen may be unlike those we have seen. An hypothesis is an assumption that we make to account for facts. Our minds are of such a nature that we feel a certain uneasiness when we know a fact that we can not explain, and therefore it is natural for us to try to make some hypothesis or supposition to account for any fact we know. And since, of course, we do not make improbable suppositions to account for facts, or rather since we do not make suppositions that seem to us improbable, we are inclined to regard them as true, so long as they explain the facts. And this is another assumption upon which the greater part, if not all, of our inductions are based. 324 WESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. This assumption can not be so definitely stated as the preceding one. It would not be correct to state it in this form : An hypothesis which explains facts is true. For one great reason why people dififer from each other so widely in their opinions is that of two hypotheses that equally well explain the facts, one seems true to one, and the other to another. A dozen men on a jury listen to the same evidence, and part of them base one conclusion upon it, and the rest of them another. This is anly another way of saying that one hypothesis that explains the facts seems probable to a part of them, and another to the rest of them. I do not believe that a more definite account of this as- sumption can be given than the following : We are naturally disposed to believe any hypothesis that does not seem improbable in itself, which explains facts for which we have, apart from it, no explanation. Since we can not rid our inductions of an element of uncertainty, no matter how cautiously and care- fully we frame them, it is evident that, unless we make them as cautiously and as carefully as we can, they are likely to have very little value. " I do not like Jews," says one. Get him to tell you why, and you will find that the reason is that he has known two or three Jews who were not pleasant persons. " It does LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 325 not do boys any good to go to college," says another. "John Jones went to college, and he does not know any more than Will Smith does" — as though an ex- amination of the case of John Jones entitled one to an opinion of the whole class of students that attend college. " I do not like people with little noses," says a third; "they are always mean and stingy." The foundation for which is that he has seen one or two people with little noses who were stingy. Doubtless the great majority of the popular superstitions, " Thir- teen is an unlucky number," " Bad luck to begin any- thing on Friday," etc., originated the same way. The best thing we can do to guard our pupils against such inductions is so constantly to call their attention to the necessity of founding t!::ir beliefs upon a wide basis of facts that they may get a realization of the danger of doing anything else. Of course, the first condition of doing this success- fully is that you have a vivid appreciation of the dangers of such inductions yourself. And if you have such an appreciation, by encouraging them to express their opinions upon the various matters that come up, you can do something to develop such an appreciation in lliem. And when you are trying to develop it, 1 't of all in your own mind, and then in 326 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. the minds of your pupils, remember that the greatest foe of progress is Ignorance, and that the strongest friends of Ignorance are the Dogmatism and Prejudice to which careless and slovenly reasoning naturally give birth. We have seen that when we appeal to a general proposition to prove our conclusion, the reasoning is called deductive ; when we appeal to particular facts, inductive. When we try to prove one fact by appeal- ing to another which is only valid to prove the one fact we have inferred, so far as it has any validity, we are said to reason by analogy. Argument from analogy is defined by Jevons as " direct inductive inference from one fact to any similar fact." The same author gives the following example : " Thus the planet Mars possesses an at- mosphere, with clouds and mist closely resembling our own ; it has seas, distinguished from the land by a greenish color, and polar regions covered with snow. Tlie red color of the planet seems to be due to the atmosphere, like the red color of our sunrises and sunsets. So much is similar in the surface of Mars and the surface of the earth, that we readily argue there must be inhabitants there as here. All that we can certainly say, however, is that if the circumstances LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 527 be really similar, and similar germs of life have been created there as here, * there must be inhabitants. The fact that many circumstances are similar, increases the probability. But between the earth and the sun, the analogy is of a much fainter character. We speak, indeed, of the sun's atmosphere being subject to storms and filled with clouds, but these clouds are heated probably beyond the temperature of our hot- test furnaces ; if they produce rain, it must resemble melted iron ; and the sun-spots are perturbations of so tremendous a size and character that the earth, to- gether with half a dozen of the other planets, could readily be swallowed up in one of them. It is plain, then, that there is little or no analogy between the sun and the earth, and we can, therefore, with diflftculty form a conception of anything going on in a sun or a star." This kind of reasoning is more uncertain than in- ductive reasoning. Jevons speaks of the similarity between so many circumstances in the case of Mars and the earth as increasing the probability that the former is inhabited because the latter is, and at the same time says that " all we can certainly say is, that if the circumstances be really similar, and similar germs * Italics are mine. 328 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. of life have been created there as here, there must be inhabitants." Need I say that in the very nature of the case we neither know nor can know anything about whether " similar germs of life have been created there as here," and that our knowledge of the extent to which circumstances are similar is so limited that any talk of probability is absolutely without founda- tion ? All that the facts warrant us in saying is, that for aught we know Mars may be inhabited, but he who claims to be able to say that it probably is, lays claim to a larger amount of knowledge than falls to the lot of mortals. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. What is the difference between induction and gener- alization ? 2. Show that induction presupposes generalization. 3. Show that reasoning makes all but the simplest gen- eralizations possible. 4. State and illustrate the two assumptions that underlie nearly all our inductions. 5. Define and illustrate argument from analogy. 6. What seems to you its logical value ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. I. Give illustrations from your own experience of over ha»ty induotionr LKSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 329 LESSON XXXIII. THE PRIMARY INTELLECTUAL FUNCTIONS. \yl 7E have studied sensation, perception, memory, ^ ^ imagination, conception, judgment, and reason- ing — all modes of intellectual activity. If we pass them in rapid review before us, we shall see that in all of them the mind is discriminating or noting differ- ences, and assimilating or noting resemblances. What is it to know a sensation? It is to discrimi- nate or mentally separate it from all other sensations. A child has many sensations which it does not know; many sensations which it confuses with other sensa- tions. But a sensation confused with other sensations is a sensation put in the wrong class — precisely as, if one were sorting out ribbons of different colors, the confusing of purple with blue would lead to the mix- ing of these two kinds of ribbons. So likewise in perception. The first act of the mind in perceiving is to separate mentally the thing perceived from everything else. You remember that, in the lessons on Attention, we saw that what we per- ceive depends upon what we attend to. The mind in 330 I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. attention simply singles out the thing attended to from everything else, and that is discrimination. A dog may stand before you, but if, through pre-occupa- tion or from any other cause, you do not discriminate it from the objects about it, you do not know it. But discrimination is not all that is essential to knowledge. As a matter of fact, when we discriminate we usually know, because assimilation, or the act of putting a thing discriminated into a class, usually follows so closely upon the act of discrimination that the two seem to be identical. But they are not. To pick a piece of blue ribbon out of a scrap bag is one thing; to put it in a box with other blue ribbons is an en- tirely different thing. A child, seeing a dog, may dis- criminate it from all other objects, but until he per- ceives its resemblance to something else, until he as- similates it, he does not know it. So likewise with memory. What is it to have a perfect recollection of any event? It is to have a definite knowledge both of the event and of the time when it happened. If the event is indistinct, it is not perfectly remembered, and its indistinctness is due to imperfect discrimination and assimilation. If we are in any doubt as to the time, it is because we do not perfectly discriminate it from other times, and do not LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 33 1 perfectly assimilate it to other times. The event hap- pened, say, at eleven o'clock yesterday, but I am un- certain whether it was eleven or twelve, or whether it happened yesterday or the day before — that is, I do not discriminate the hour and the day when it hap- pened from all others. Possibly you think that in this latter case there is no assimilation. Inasmuch as in any one place there is but one point of time known as eleven o'clock, April 26, 1890, the question may be asked as to how it is possible for assimilation of such a fact to take place? The question can be readily answered if we bear in mind that the state of mind corresponding to the fact "eleven o'clock yesterday" is a complex con- cept. Before a child can know what is meant by "eleven o'clock yesterday," he must know the mean- ing of "yesterday " and "eleven o'clock," and this is possible only by discrimination and assimilation. But with the concepts of these two facts as elements, all that is necessary to the formation of the complex con- cept expressed by the phrase " eleven o'clock yester- day " is a synthesis of the two through the exercise of the constructive imagination. The product of con- structive imagination is, of course, an image; but as we can take the image of red color to illustrate the 332 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. concept color, so we can take any image to illustrate the corresponding concept. We have seen that the three processes involved in conception are comparison — putting the attention on two or more objects at the same time, discriminating them from all other objects; abstraction — withdrawing the attention from their unlike qualities and fixing it upon their resemblances, assimilating them ; and generalii:a- tion — extending their name to all other objects having similar qualities — a further act of assimilation. In order to judge, we must know the subject and predicate; and to do this, we must discriminate and assimilate them. I can not judge that oak trees lose their leaves in autumn unless I know what oak trees are, and what is meant by "losing their leaves in autumn." But to know oak trees, I must discrimi- nate them from all other trees, and assimilate them to each other. The state of mind corresponding to the fact "losing their leaves in autumn" is a complex con- cept; and to know its elements, as we have seen, we must assimilate and discriminate them. The same is true of reasoning. When I say that John is a mortal, since he is a man and all men are mortal, my conclusion is the result of two acts of as- similation — the assimilation of John to the class men, and of these to the class mortals. I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 333 When I say that, since this and that and the other unsupported body have fallen, therefore all unsup- ported bodies will, I have perceived, in the first place, the resemblance between the unsupported bodies I have seen — I have assimilated them; and, in the second place, I have assimilated them to all other un- supported bodies. Since all knowing consists to so great an extent of discrimination and assimilation, how can there be so many diflferent kinds of knowing? Because there are so many different facts to be discriminated and assimi- lated. The discrimination and assimilation oi single sensations leads to the knowledge of sensations; of groups of sensations to the perception of objects which result in percepts; oi percepts, io concepts; oi concepts, to judgments ; oiJudgme7its, to conclusions. But does not this answer leave the really difficult point unexplained? Granting that there are diflferent kinds of facts to be discriminated and assimilated, and it is easy to see that they would issue in diflferent pro- ducts. But how is it that there are different kinds of facts? That is the really difficult question. It may seem that to ask that question is like ask- ing why there are so many different kinds of facts to be known in the universe. But it is not. Granted 334 LESSON.S IN PSYCHOLOGY. that there are things without, how do we come to know them? How does that which is there somehow get to be represented here in my mind? Granted also that I have lived — have laughed and wept and hoped and feared — have played a part as a conscious being in this strange world. But the past is gone, and with it its experiences. How is it that I am able to recol- lect them? How is it that that which was there and then somehow gets to be represented here and now in my mind? Granted also that there are real relations existing between real things, how am I able to assert them? That which gets into my mind is mental. How is the merely mental transformed into the non-mental, the subjective into the objective? These, you know, are some of the questions we have been trying to answer, and they help us to realize what we are constantly in danger of forgetting— that our science, instead of having merely to discover the laws that govern ready-made facts, is to a large extent a science of processes — a science that has to discover how its facts come to be. How, then, do the facts that we know as sensations come to exist? In the way already described — char- acterless, indefinite, and undifferentiated experiences, but with latent likenesses and differences, begin to exist. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 335 How these were transformed into definite sensations has already been explained. Here we have only to note that this transformation was the mind's own work ; that what we call a sensation is, in a sense, the product of the mind's own activity — that this activity converted latent likenesses and differences into a con- sciousness of likeness and difference between definite sensations. How do percepts come to exist? By the mind's own activity. Sensations existing with certain spatial meanings come to be known as having those meanings. Through the native power of the mind to interpret the brogue of its sensations, to understand the mean- ing of their local signs, the mind arranges its sensations in space, and the result is a percept. How do recollections of pa.st experiences come to exist? Again by the mind's own activity. Our ex- periences succeed each other in time. That we know that they do results from the activity of our minds — the mind retrojects some of its images into the past through its interpretation of their temporal signs, pre- cisely as it projects some of its sensations into space through its interpretation of their local signs. How do judgments come to exist? Through the mind's power to apprehend the various relations of 336 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. reality. Day precedes night. The mind apprehends it, and the result is a judgment. Hamilton origi7iated the fi7ia7icial policy of the Federalist party. The mind apprehends it, and the result is a judgment. Judg- ments are the products of the mind's power to ap- prehend the relations of reality. In each of these cases we have to note that it was no mere dififerentiation and classification of readj^- made facts that brought about the result. The mind makes its sensations, makes its percepts, makes its concepts, makes its judgments, and so makes possible their discrimination and assimilation. We know also the condition of these various ac- tivities. But it is only a condition. The activity of attention is no more to be confused with what results from it than light is to be confused with seeing. The best eye can not see in the dark, and the finest mind can not elaborate its products without attention ; but light is not seeing, and attention is not \.\\& fact-making activity of the mind. We see also in what this activity consists. It is a relating activity — in sensation, bringing characterless experiences into relations of likeness and difference; in perception, combining sensations into relations of space; in memory, combining the various elements of LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 337 experience into relations of time ; in conception, com- bining percepts into relations of likeness ; in judg- ment, combining percepts and concepts into the various relations of reality apprehended by the mind. If, then, we adopt the name usually applied to this activity and call it apperception, we see that apper- ception is that combining activity of the iniiid that brings order and harmony into our mental life by transforming the consciousness of related facts " into the co7iscio7is7iess of relations y^"- Apperception, then — of which, indeed, discrimina- tion and assimilation are modes — is the most funda- mental form of mental activity. It makes sensations, and then, in the form of discrimination, separates those that are unlike and assimilates those that are alike; it discovers the space relations of sensations, transforms them into attributes of bodies, and then discriminates the objects so perceived that are unlike, and assimilates those that are alike ; it discerns the time relations of mental facts, and transforms a suc- cession of experiences into a consciousness of succes- sion ; it combines percepts into concepts, percepts and concepts into judgments, judgments into conclusions. * See Baldwin's Psychology, page 65. 22 338 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Define and illustrate discrimination and assimilation. 2. Analyze sensation, perception, memory, conception, judgment, and reasoning, in order to show that in all of them discrimination and assimilation take place. 3. Psychology is to a large extent a science of processes — what is the meaning of that ? 4. How does it happen that discrimination and assimila- tion issue in such diflferent products ? 5. Define apperception. 6. What does apperception do in sensation, perception, memory, constructive imagination, conception, judgment, and reasoning ? 7. What is the condition of apperception ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. A child saw a donkey and called it a horse; a rabbit, and called it a cat; a fox, and called it a dog. Why ? 2. Report similar facts from your own observation. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 339 LESSON XXXIV. THE PRIMARY INTELLECTUAL FUNCTIONS. TN the last lesson we saw that perception, memory, -■' imagination, conception, judging, and reasoning are processes of discrimination and assimilation, exer- cised on different materials, and that these different materials are themselves products of a more funda- mental mode of mental activity, of which discrimination and assimilation are forms. This being so, the question, How can I impart knowledge most clearly? may be put in another form. From the point of view we have now reached, we are able to see that the question is. How can I supply the conditions of apperception ? or, to put it more definitely, though not so accurately. How can I enable my pupils to discriminate and assimilate most perfectly? This activity of apperception in any of its forms consists in the establishment of relation. If, then, a new fact is to be apperceived, it tmist be brought into relations with old facts. The unknown must be related to the known. Now, in order that this may take place — in order that this relation may be established — it is not 340 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. enough that the mind have in the storehouse of mem- ory concepts to which the known may be related; these concepts must be brought out; and the more completely the whole of one's past experience is ran- sacked for related concepts, the more perfect will be the apperception or assimilation. We can easily illustrate the truth of this by ap- pealing to our own experiences. Sometimes we read books to "inform our minds/' or "to get general in- formation;" sometimes to get definite answers to definite questions. Which do you find the more profitable reading? The last, I am sure; and the reason is that your whole knowledge of the subject to which your question relates is brought to bear on everything you find related to it. Your " apperceiving conceptions . . . stand, like armed soldiers, with- in the strongholds of consciousness, ready to pounce upon" everything they can bring within their grasp. Read the same book with no question in mind, and those apperceiving conceptions are like soldiers asleep, who let their enemy go by them undisturbed. You get illustrations of the same truth when you re-read a book after a considerable interval. If the book is thoughtful — worth re-reading — you are almost sure to find some suggestive or striking observation that LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 34I escaped your notice the first lime. I have read Bagehot's " Physics aud Politics" many times, but I do not remember that my attention was ever attracted to the paragraph quoted on page 297 until I read it a couple of weeks ago. When I read it before, I had "no receptivity" for it, either because I had no related concepts in my mind, or because they were in the background of consciousness, and therefore, like soldiers asleep, unserviceable. But when I read it two weeks ago, my attention had been attracted to the subject of the paragraph by my own observations, nnd so my mind pounced upon it with great eagerness. When you select a subject for an essay that in- terests you very much three or four months before the time you expect to write it, your experience gives you illustrations of the same truth. You scarcely read a single newspaper, or a magazine article, or a novel, that does not suggest some idea on your subject. You suddenly become aware that there is a universe of thought as well as a material universe, and you find your subject "opening out" into it in every direction. Without that subject in mind, your reading would have had no such result ; your apperceiving concep- tions would have been asleep ; their natural prey would have escaped. 342 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. These illustrations enable us to realize that Dr. De Garmo is right when he soys ihoX" the Jirsi great function of the teacher is to prepare the way for the rapid and efficieyit assimilation of that knowledge which the study hour or the recitation period is to furnish" and that this function consists in causing "to appear in the consciousness" of the pupil "those interpreting ideas" that enable him to assimilate what is presented to him.* Before the "presentation," then, of the matter of the lesson, the pupil's mind should be prepared for it. He has read it to get information, or to get a high rank — not to get a definite answer to a definite ques- tion. He understands it in a certain superficial way, but he has not assimilated it — he has not made it a part of his mental self. Now, we can help him to do this b}^ putting a definite question before him — by setting a definite end before him — that he may summon all his energies in the attempt to attain it. And when we have stated clearly the object of the Ics.son, we can help him still further by helping hiiu to array in consciousness his apperceiving conceptions, so that he will be most full)- prepared to accomplish the work. We see the connection between this lesson ■^ De Garmo's Essentials of Method, page 32. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 343 and some preceding lesson. He does not. We should recall the previous lesson to his mind ; we should help him to bring out of the storehouse of his memory everything that bears on the lesson. We can, of course, do this most successfully by asking questions, because in this way we secure from him the greatest amount of mental activity.^' When in such ways the mind of the pupil is pre- pared for the efficient assimilation of the lesson, the matter of the lesson should be presented — the teacher, of course, requiring as much of this to be done by the pupil as possible. The general form or method of the presentation will, of course, depend upon the object in view. If our aim is to have the pupil discover for him- self the definition or principle or general truth we wish him to know, we should u.se the method already described —the Objective Method. But we have seen that the "play of the mind" there spoken of is, for the most part, a form of apperception or assimilation. If we bear this in mind, we can better supply the con- ditions for it by bringing his mind into contact with those phases of the reality in question that present the most salient features for the activity of assimilation. *'See on this whole subject the hook alreadj' cited — by the way, a most suggestive aud stimulating book. 344 I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. But if our aim is to impart knowledge, in the usual sense of the phrase, it will be useful for us to remem- ber the following principle: " Objects and wholes of any kind are more easily discriminated and assimilated — ap- perceived in general — than qualities a7id parts. The ground of it is evident. Objects and wholes of any kind differ from each other in more marked and strik- ing ways than qualities and parts, and consequently can be more easily discriminated. Since they also re- semble each other in a greater number of particulars, they can be more easily assimilated. But you may easily settle its truth by appealing to your own experience. Which do you recognize more easily and certainly — your friends as wholes, or their individual features ? Try to describe the features of your most intimate friends in their absence, and you will see. You will often find yourself ludicrously un- certain as to the shape of the nose, the color of the eyes and hair, to say nothing of less prominent features. All of us likewise recognize a rose when we see it, but it requires the training of the botanist to point out the qualities which distinguish it from all other flowers. Assuming the truth of this principle, it is evident that we can best assist our pupils to discriminate and LESSONS IN PSYCHOI^OGY. 345 assimilate by presenting to them wholes and objects be- fore parts and qualities. We must not limit the application of this principle to maierm/ objects and rna^en'al wholes. It applies to thought wholes as well. Indeed, strictly speaking, all wholes are thojight wholes — wholes made by thought, wholes that are wholes because the mind chooses to think of them as such. There is absolutely nothing in existence except the universe which we may not think of as a part if we choose, and absolutely nothing that we can not think of as a whole. The universe, including everything, can not be thought of as a part of any thing else. Apart from that, it is thinkings and thinking only, which makes a thing a part or a whole. Many arithmeticians do not keep this fact in mind. A fraction is often defined as one or more of the equal parts of a unit, as though units were things of fixed and unchangeable values. I divide an apple into four equal parts, and you ask me if one of these equal parts is a fourth. I do not know how to answer the ques- tion, or rather the question does not admit of an answer until it is made more definite. If you ask me what I call one of the parts in relation to the other three, I answer, a unit. It is one in relation to the other three, two in relation to eighths,/<7/^r in relation 346 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. to sixteenths, and one-fourth in relation to the apple. The apple itself is one-fourth when considered in re- lation to a group of four apples, one-eighth in relation to a group of eight apples, and so on. As the mind decides in what relations it will consider things, it is clear that all wholes, as such, are products of the mind. The reason why certain wholes, as apples, oranges, horses, dogs, etc., are thought of as wholes, in a special sense, is that the purposes of life and their relation to each other make it natural for the mind to consider them as such. If this is clear, we may say that a whole is anything, mental or material, that the mind chooses to regard as a whole. Thus we may think of the life and public services of Alexander Hamilton as wholes. And, in accordance with the principle we have been discussing, the student will be best assisted in getting clear ideas of the life of that great man by having his attention called to its broad general characteristics first, before these are modified and qualified. If the student learns that Hamilton was first a Tory, then a Democrat, and finally a believer in a strongly centralized aristocratic Republic, the broad outlines of Hamilton's political creed lie before him. The qualifications and specific description of these characterizations will put the changes in and final LKSSONvS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 347 character of Hamilton's political creed with the ut- most definiteness before him. So if your object is to give 3'our class a clear idea of Hamilton's public services, first give them a clear idea of the great work of his life — the strengthening and centralizing of the general government; then they are read}^ for the de- tails — the measures and influences by which these ends were reached."'' That we must proceed from the known to the un- known is another well-established rule in Pedagogy. It is hardly necessary to say that it is based on the fact that all knowing consists to so great an extent in discriminating and assimilating. When I learn a new fact — till then, of course, unknown — I put it in a class of already known facts. That we must proceed from the simple to the com- plex, from the indefinite to the definite, from the un- qualified to the qualified, is another well-established pedagogical rule. What is its psychological basis? Plainly that a simple, indefinite, or unqualified fact or statement is more easily discriminated and assimilated than a complex, definite, or qualified fact or statement. If you are teaching a child the form of the outlines of South America, you will succeed best by ignoring its *See on this subject De Garnio on Method-wholes, 348 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. irregularities in the beginning. With the map before him, make him conscious of its general resemblance to a triangle or a ham of meat, or other familiar object, before you try to teach him how it differs in shape from them. If in such ways you fix the general out- line in his mind before advancing to the details, you will impart clear ideas. And why? Because you are working in harmonj^ with the laws of his mind. There is a stronger resemblance between the out- line of South America and a triangle than there is between it and any other simple figure, and if the child has a familiar knowledge of a triangle, he assimi- lates the general shape ot South America as soon as his attention is called to it. Indeed, so far as thought is concerned, this ease comes under the general prin- ciple already spoken of — wholes and objects are more easily discriminated and assimilated than parts and qualities. To thought, South America has the shape of a triangle — a whole — qualified by certain irregulari- ties. In other words, just as the mind grasps a whole before it does the parts, so it grasps the triangle in South America before it does the deviations from a triangle. So likewise of the unqualified or indefinite in relation to the qualified or definite. In relation to thought, the unqualified and indefinite are wholes, first LKSSONS IN PSYCHOIvOGY. 349 known as such before they are qualified and made definite, and the qualities are parts. If in this way, which, with Jevons, we may call the Method of Instruction, or by means of the Objective Method — let us call it the Method of Discovery — we have put our pupil in possession of a concept, or definition, or induction, or maxim — we should, as Dr. De Garmo insists, help him to vitalize his knowledge by helping him to apply it.* In teaching history, for example, we are constantly running upon some truth about human nature, or upon some law of economics or politics. To vitalize this truth, the pupil must be helped to see its relation to everything to which it ap- plies within the range of his knowledge and experience. And here we can see the educational value of ® I can not agree with Dr. De Garmo that this last stage or step always forms a part of a correct method. He holds that"(i) the apperception of new facts in preparation and presentation ; (2) the transition from individual to general notions, whether the latter appear as definitions, rules, prin- ciples, or moral maxims ; and (3) the application of these gen- eral truths to concrete facts, i. e., the return from uuiversals to particulars," are the three " essential stages of a correct method." I think that he makes this second step much too definite, as is evident from what I have said about " the play of the mind about the reality " in discussing the Objective Method. In some cases, as we have seen, "the play of the mind " is simply the appreciation of what is beautiful. How can such appreciation be applied? 350 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. " reviews" — it is to give to the student's knowledge that familiarity that makes it possible for him to relate it properly to new knowledge, and to use it in acquiring new knowledge. Ordinary usage tends to promulgate the idea that re- views are useful only to fix things in the mind of the student in order that he can tell them. If they are only good for that, they are hardly good for anything. There are three stages of knowing. In the first, knowledge is merely implicit; the student can not ex- press what he knows. Such knowledge is useful as a foundation for something better; but if it never leaves that stage, it is almost worthless. In the second, it has become explicit; the student can tell what he knows, but he does not know it fluently enough, so to speak, to use it in thinking. In the third, the student not only knows, but knows so well that he can use his knowledge in thinking ; he can use it in acquiring, and also in illustrating, new knowledge. Such know- ledge is thoroughly assimilated; it has become a part, as it were, of the warp and woof, the flesh and bone and blood of his mind. To develop knowledge into that shape is the great function of reviews. LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 35 1 QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. Make a carefiil summary of the last lesson. 2. In what does apperception consist ? 3. What light does it throw on the preparation of the pupil's mind for the lesson ? Illustrate. 4. In what should such preparation consist ? 5. Explain the methods of instruction and discovery. 6. What principle underlies the method of instruction, and what is its proof? 7. What is a thought-whole ? Illustrate. 8. Why should we proceed from the simple to the com- plex, from the known to the unknown, etc. ? 9. What are De Garmo's three "essential stages?" 10. Criticise his statement of them. 11. What is the function of reviews ? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. I. Give examples of De Garmo's last stage, selected from Geography, History, and Reading. «t..V;I, 352 I^BSSONS IN PSYCHOI^XESSONS IN PSYCHOLOOT. be "full of life and fire," so that he may "love all beauty," and "hate all vileness," and "respect others as himself." We should seek to train the will so that, in the language of Locke, our pupils may get the power to "cross their own inclinations and follow the dictates of reason." Were it not that Professor Huxley seems to imply that equal stress should be laid on all the various faculties of the mind, I should be disposed to accept this as a fairly clear statement of what is meant by symmetrical development of the mind and of the man. But I do not believe that all the faculties of the mind are of equal importance. I believe, with Dr. Harris, that there is such a thing as an over-cultivation of the mechanical memory. The function of the memory and the powers of observation is to put before the reason and the higher faculties of the mind materials to act on. When they are cultivated beyond that point, the mind, as a whole, is weakened, instead of strengthened. But would any one say that the reason can be too highly cultivated? Is it possible for a man to have too strong a will, or too intense a feeling of the beaut)'- of what is beautiful, or the hatefulness of what is hateful? LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 379 QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. State and illustrate what you mean by " the end of education." 2. State and illustrate what you mean by the " physical and social environments." 3. State and illustrate how one's environments affect his beliefs. 4. What does Huxley understand b}- a liberal education ? 5. Do you agree with him ? 6. What is the difference between the rational ntid the mechanical memory ? 7. What is the function of the memory and the observ- ing powers in our mental life? SUGGESTIVE QUESTIONS. 1. Give examples of ways in which you can modify your methods to suit different pupils. 2. Illustrate how memory can be cultivated at the ex- pense of the reasoning powers. 3. What can you do to train the will of your pupils .'' 380 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. LESSON XXXVIII. DEVELOPMENT. T T ZITH such a conception of your aim, how should ^ ' you proceed to get the minds of your pupils to reach it? You must watch nature, and then try to improve upon her. To cultivate the observing powers, nature presents objects; you must do likewise. But if you do no more than that, you will add nothing to the education of nature. Object lessons which consist in telling the pupils what you have observed do nothing to cultivate their observing powers. You must get them to observe something which they have not ob- served before ; you must get them to observe closely, carefully, systematically. How are you to do this? You can only do it by imitating nature. Nature sup- plies a motive. The incessant handling of this, and looking at that, which so fill up the time of children, result from their interest in these things. You must interest them; but if you add nothing to the interest which the objects naturally excite, j'ou will add nothing to the education of nature. You must deepen that interest. You must stimulate their curio.sity by tESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 38 1 asking them questions which they can not answer sbout objects which they think they know all about. You must connect things they are not much interested in with things which they are interested in. You must give them the pleasure of finding out things for themselves. Above all, you must show an interest in their discoveries — the more the better, if you really have it. Herbert Spencer brings out this point so clearly and forcibly that I hope you will pardon me for quoting him at length: "What can be more mani- fest than the desire of children for intellectual sym- pathy? Mark how the infant, sitting on your knee, thrusts into your face the toy it holds, that you, too, may look at it. See, when it makes a creak with its wet fingers on the table, how it turns and looks at you ; does it again and again look at you, thus saying as clearly as it can : 'Hear this new sound.' Watch how the elder children come into the room exclaiming: 'Mamma, see what a curious thing,' 'Mamma, look at this,' ' Mamma, look at that,' and would continue the habit did not the silly mamma tell them not to tease her. " Observe how, when out with the nurse-maid, each little one runs up to her with the new flower it has gathered, to show her how pretty it is, and to get her 382 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. also to say it is pretty. lyisteu to the eager volubility with which every urchin describes any novelty he has been to see, if only he can find some one who will at- tend with any interest. Does not the indication lie on the surface? Is it not clear that we must conform our course to these intellectual instincts ; that we must first systematize the natural process ; that we must li.sten to all the child has to tell us about each object; must induce it to say everything it can think of about .such objects ; must occasionally draw its attention to facts it has not yet observed, with the view of leading it to notice them itself wherever they recur, and must go on, by and by, to indicate or supply new series of thinsrs for a like exhaustive examination? See the way in vv'hich, on this method, the intelligent mother conducts her lessons. Step by step she familiarizes her little boy with the names of the simpler attri- butes — hardness, softness, color, taste, size, etc. — in doing which she finds him eagerly helping bj' bringing this to show her that it is red, and the other to make her feel that it is hard, as fast as she gives him words for these properties. Each additional property, as she draws his attention to it in some fre.sh thing which he brings her, she takes care to mention in connection with those he already knows, so that, by the natural LKSSONS IN PSYCHOI.OGY. 383 tendenc}' to imitate, he may get into the habit of re- peating them one after another. Gradually, as there occur cases in which he omits to name one or more of the properties he has become acquainted with, she in- troduces the practice of asking him whether there is not something more that he can tell her about the things he has got. Probably he does not understand. After letting him puzzle awhile, she tells him — per- haps laughing a,t him a little for his failure, A few recurrences of this, and he perceives what is to be done. " When next she says she knows something more about the object than he has told her, his pride is roused ; he looks at it intently ; he thinks over all that he has heard, and, the problem being easy, pres- ently finds it out. He is full of glee at his success, and she sympathizes with him. In common with every child he delights in the discovery of his powers. He wishes for more victories, and goes in quest of more things about which to tell her. As his faculties unfold, she adds quality after quality to his list ; pro- gressing from hardness and softness to roughness and smoothness ; from color to polish ; from simpler bodies to composite ones — thus constantly complicating the problem as he gains competence, constantly taxing 384 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. his attention and memory to a greater extent, con- stantly maintaining his interest by supplying him with new impressions such as his mind can assimilate, and constantly gratifying him by conquests over such small difl&culties as he can master. In doing this she is manifestly but following out that spontaneous pro- cess that was going on during a still earlier period, simply aiding self-evolution ; and is aiding it in the mode suggested by the boy's instinctive behavior to her. Manifestly, too, the course she is pursuing is the one best calculated to establish a habit of exhaustive observation ; which is the propo.sed aim of these lessons. To tell a child this and to show it the other, is not to teach it how to observe, but to make it a mere recipient of another's observations ; a proceeding which weakens rather than strengthens its powers of self-instruction — which deprives it of the pleasures resulting from successful activity — which presents this all-attractive knowledge under the guise of formal tuition — and which thus generates that indifference and even disgust with which these object lessons are not infrequently regarded. On the other hand, to pursue the course above described is simply to guide the intellect to its appropriate food ; to join with the intellectual appetites their natural adjuncts — amour IvESSO^JS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 3S5 propre, and the desire for sympathy ; to induce by the union of all these an intensity of attention which assures perceptions alike vivid and complete ; and to habituate the mind from the beginning to that practice of self-help which it must ultimately follow." So it is with every other faculty of the mind; your work consists in supplying the conditions of develop- ment—presenting the material appropriate to the faculty, and seeing to it that there is a motive to induce the pupil to exercise it. But while I agree with those educators who think that the work of the school should be made pleasur- able, both in order that the pupil may have the strongest motive for studying, and in order that the teacher may have confidence that his subjects and methods only call for a normal exercise of the powers of his pupils, I think that the doctrine is often ex. aggerated. One of the most popular of our educa- tional papers some time ago said that " the true man- agement of any recitation will make it just as exciting and just as much fun as a base ball game can possibly be." I doubt it very strongly. I do not believe it is possible to make the work of school altogether agree- able. If it were practicable to give each boy and girl a separate teacher, as Locke recommended, we might 25 386 I.KSSON.'? IN PSYCHOLOGY. possibly avoid requiring a pupil to study any subject when he did not feel like it, or when he preferred to study something else. But in a system of class in- struction this is impossible. At a given hour in the day your pupil must study arithmetic. Perhaps he has just been reciting his history lesson. If you have made the recitation interesting, he would like to go on with that. You have told him of certain books that treat the matter more fully, and he is eager to look them up at once. But he can not. He is part of a great machine, and as the rest of it moves, so, to a certain extent, must he. Hence the more successful you are in interesting your pupils, the more impossi- ble it is to avoid an element of irksomeness in the work of the school. Even if it were possible to rely entirely on interest as a motive, I do not believe it would be desirable. To acquire the power to do disagreeable things is an exceedingly important part of education. To saj' nothing of more important reasons, unless we help our pupils to form the habit of doing what is reasonable, whether it is pleasant or not, their intellectual de- velopment will certainly .suffer, since no other motive can be relied on to make the boy do the work he ought to do at school, and the man read the books he ought to read in after life. LB6S0NS IN PSYCHOLOGY. T,%y QUESTIONS ON THE TEXT. 1. How should we proceed to bring about the develop- ment of a child ? 2. Illustrate at length. 3. Compare our methods in inducing the minds of our pupils to act in a certain definite way with our methods in getting nature to do definite things. 4. Use the comparison to illustrate the necessity of studying children. 5. Can pleasure alone be relied on as a motive to induce pupils to study ? 388 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. LESSON XXXIX. THE STUDY OF CHILDREN. \ LL the roads in the Roman Empire led to the -^^- city of Rome." At every turn and corner in our study of our subject, we have seen that successful teaching demands a close and careful and systematic study of children. At this stage in the history of the world, men have come to clearly realize the fact that, no matter what happens in the physical world, there is a cause for it. If a watch stops, or a lock refuses to act, we know that there is a cause for it, and that a patient study of the facts of the case may enable us to discover and remove it. That is precisely the attitude which we should take toward our pupils. If they are not interested in any particular subject, if they are inattentive, if they do not like to go to school, there is a cause for it, and it is our business to learn what it is. Let us not be guilty of the stupidity of saying that some boys "naturally" dislike school. That is an easy explanation to which lazy teachers have a great tendency to resort. But it has a painful likeness to some of the explanations of the Middle Ages. " Mov- LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 389 ing bodies have a natural tendency to stop," said the scholars of that time. " Some boys naturally dislike books," say many of our teachers now. Precisely as a more careful study of the facts has thoroughly discredited the former explanation, so I believe a care- ful study of the facts will thoroughly discredit the latter. That the importance of the study of children is beginning to be generally recognized is one of the most encouraging signs of the times. In the begin- ning of the study of Pedagogy in this country, it was confined almost entirely to a study of methods. Later, it was seen that the most fruitful study of Pedagogy includes a study of the principles that underlie methods ; that in order to know how to deal with the human mind, we must know why we deal with it thus and so ; and that to know the why of our procedure, we must know the laws that govern it. And little by little educators have come to see that, after all, the text- book on Psychology, which it is of most importance for teachers to study, is one whose pages are ever open before them — the minds of their pupils, and the children with whom they come in contact. Never before in the history of the world was the importance of the study of Psychology to teachers so generally 390 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. recognized as now. But as suggestive as a knowledge of it is to thoughtful and intelligent teachers, the best result to be expected from it is the development of what Dr. Josiah Royce calls the psychological spirit* — the habit of observing children — and of the power to turn that spirit to the utmost possible account. In the first two chapters, we considered the benefits of the study of Psychology to the teacher. The conclu- sions there reached were such as seemed evident from the very nature of the case, independently of any special conclusions that our study of the mind would enable us to reach. And while I believe that we shall all agree that the claims there made for it are fully borne out by the facts, I think we shall feel that if our study has made us more interested in the growth and development of the minds of children, more disposed to study them, less ready to dogmatize about them, more eager to learn by actual observation what they can do and what they can not do, what they like and what they do not like, the result of our study will be of incomparably greater value than any there in- sisted on. Because Psychology undoubtedly underlies the science of education, I have seen what I can not but 'Educational Review, February, 1891. I^ESSONS IN PSYCHOI.OGY. 39 1 regard as a disposition to over-estimate its importance. The opinion seems to be entertained in some quarters that every teacher should be a specialist in Psychology. If by that is meant that he must keep well abreast of psychological research, or that he should even be especially interested in current psychological literature^ I enter my emphatic dissent. Many an excellent teacher undoubtedly reproaches himself for his lack of interest in it, forgetting that it is as impossible for every teacher to have a special interest in Psychology as it is for them all to have a special interest in mathe- matics or chemistry. By no such criterion should a teacher test his adaptation for his work. But if a teacher finds himself without interest in children, if he has no disposition to investigate the causes of the facts that thrust themselves upon him every day, if he finds himself disposed to be content with merely verbal explanations — "stupidity, ""prejudice," "natural dislike of the subject," "bad home surroundings," "ugliness," etc., I would respectfully suggest that he carefully consider whether he has not mistaken his vocation. A specialist in Psychology every teacher should not be; special and careful students of the minds of children every teacher should be. I do not, of course, undervalue the study of psy- 392 I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. chological literature. But I do believe that the greatest practical benefit it can render to the teacher consists in the help it can give him in his study of children's minds. Two of the leading institutions in the country for the training ofteachers* lay great stress on this study of children.! Through the kindness of Professor Walter L. Hervey.t Dean of the New York College for the Training of Teachers, I am able to give the entire list of directions and cautions relating to this subject which he puts in the hands of his students.§ They are as follows: OBSERVATION OF CHILDREN. A. — Cautions. 1 . Do not think that only the remarkable sayings and doings of precocious children are to be observed. No act of a child is so common or so habitual that it may not furnish a datum for observation, analysis, generalization. 2. Be careful that your report be accurate — what *The New York College for the Training of Teachers and the State Normal School at Worcester, Mass. tThis work was begun by the students of the Normal De- partment of the Ohio University last year (1890). JI take this occasion to acknowledge ni)' indebtedness to Professor Ilervey for a number of valuable suggestions. ? Through a mistake, for which / alone am responsible, this list was incorrectly printed in the first edition. I.ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 393 you see, not imagine; that it be scientific—giving name, age, date, and other essential data. 3. Never allow a child to know that he is ob- served. 4. Avoid drawing conclusions, even in your own mind, from too few data. Darwin observed worms many years before he dared to write about them. B. — Things to be observed. I . Knowledge. a. The development of the senses. Which de- velop first? Which most rapidly? b. When examining a new object, what quality first strikes them — form, color, taste, use? c. When asking questions, what kind do they ask? d. How clear are the mental pictures which they form? e. A child's curiosity — how limited ? how satis- fied? how differing in degree in different in- dividuals, and in the same individuals at dif- ferent times ? /. In what line is the greatest ignorance dis- played? g. The effect of parentage and nationality on the extent and direction of a child's knowledge. 394 LESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. h. How do children gain ideas of beauty ? Of personal rights, property, etc.? i. When do they get the idea "I am I"? j. Study the aptitudes of children as shown in drawing, sewing, building, planning, etc. 2. Attention, a. How can you gain a child's attention? How keep it ? b. How cultivate attention? c. Under what circumstances have you observed long-continued concentration ? 3. Memory. a. What kind of memory is most found in children? b. When do they begin to exhibit striking dif- ferences ? c. What examples of long memory? d. What instances of logical memory? 4. Imagination. a. Is imagination natural to children? b. Does the power increase with age? c. Note examples of lying, real or apparent, re- sulting from imagination. d. Note the result of reading "Arabian Nights," etc. LBSSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. 395 e. Study children's ideas of the sky, of death, of God, and spiritual things. 5. Reasoning. a. How soon do children begin to reason? b. Is there any difference in reasoning power be- tween boys and girls? c. How and why do children classify ? Compare them with older people as to the ability to ob- serve likeness, difference, any relation. d. At what age, and under what circumstances, have you observed children seeking for cause, effect, means to ends? e. Why does a child ask "why"? 6. Habit. a. How soon do children begin to form habits? b. Note the formation of habits, (i) What are formed with ease? (2) What with difficulty? c. How are habits formed ? d. How are they broken? 7. Feeling. Likes and Dislikes. Interest. a. Amusements, plays, and games— social and solitary. b. Favorite stories, songs, and myths. c. Favorite animals. 39^ I,ESSONS IN PSYCHOLOGY. d. Attachment to places — to persons. e. Aversions, shyness, self-consciousness, pride, fear, anger. 8. Will. a. Do young children have strong wills? b. When should obedience begin to be required? How? c. Is conscience innate? d. How soon are there any signs of conscience? e. Examples of confession of wrongdoing brought about by conscience alone. 9. Ways of dealing with children. a. When naughty. b. When afraid. c. When shy. d. When self-conscious.