l 4 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



mix intellectual and sensational acts, not in their proper relations with 

 each other, but in a jumble. Comprehension is brought to bear upon 

 every thing that is easy ; while a difficulty of any kind is committed 

 to the safe keeping of the sense perceptions, and the explanation of it 

 is only remembered. Hence arise a habit of resting upon imperfect 

 knowledge, and a habit of loading the memory by the aid of faulty 

 associations ; and these habits, in their turn, are the sources of the 

 lively superficial stupidity which is so common among the better 

 classes. The sufferers from it form that great public to whom are 

 addressed the Morisonian system of pathology and therapeutics, and 

 the elaborately argued advertisements of Norton's Camomile Pills. 

 Every thing that follows " because " is to their minds an explanation ; 

 every thing that has an antecedent is to their minds an effect. Their 

 creed is, that all questions lie in a nutshell ; and, according to Prof. 

 Faraday, their shibboleth is " it stands to reason." On this ground 

 they would placidly maintain against Owen the existence of the sea- 

 serpent. For their especial behoof bubble companies are formed ; and 

 upon their weaknesses innumerable imposters thrive. Their deficiency 

 is chiefly this that, having been permitted from childhood to do many 

 things superficially and with inexactness, they have forfeited the power 

 of arranging their ideas with precision, or of comparing them with 

 caution. They can therefore scarcely be said to possess any assured 

 convictions, or rooted principles of conduct ; but, nevertheless, they 

 are ready to decide in all controversies ; and are " wiser in their own 

 conceit than seven men who can render a reason." 



The cause of such educational errors we should express in the sin- 

 gle word empiricism. For successive ages teachers had no guide 

 but experience ; and the results of this experience appeared to defy 

 generalization. The almost self-evident proposition, that the training 

 of the mind should be guided by an analysis of its powers, was brought 

 into early disrepute by the conditions under which such analysis was 

 attempted. The men engaged in it, learned, patient, laborious, pro- 

 found, reached the limit of discovery by the method of reflection long 

 before the method of observation was disclosed to them. Too exclu- 

 sively metaphysical, they wanted a link to connect them with the 

 material world. Like the children of Israel, they were wandering in a 

 wilderness before they entered the promised land. Their advanced 

 messengers had not yet returned, bringing of the fruits that were here- 

 after to reward their labor. Foiled in their advance by a barrier that 

 seemed impassable, they were tempted to waste their energies in the 

 invention of technicalities and the multiplying of verbal distinctions. 

 Under such circumstances the science and its professors were too 

 broad a mark to escape the shafts of satire ; and thus, even at the 

 present day, there are scars to show the wounds which those shafts 

 have made. 



During the last few years, however, the dark portions of this much- 



