EDITOR'S TABLE. 



3 6 7 



this study should he pursued by the 

 method of science. The importance of 

 this last requirement cannot be over- 

 estimated. The study of man should 

 be first of all scientific, because that is 

 the only method which aims solely and 

 supremely to arrive at the truth. It is 

 well to study human nature for the 

 sake of professional utility; but it is 

 better to study it for the intrinsic and 

 exalted character of the knowledge 

 itself. It is more important to insist 

 upon this, because on no subject is the 

 bias of prejudice and prepossession so 

 all-disturbing as here. Human beings 

 should be studied exactly as minerals 

 and plants are studied, with the simple 

 purpose of tracing out the laws and re- 

 lations of the phenomena they present. 

 Men should be analyzed to their last 

 constituents, physiological and mental. 

 They should be observed in their char- 

 acters and actions, in their general 

 attributes and peculiar traits; they 

 should be apprehended in their growth, 

 in their normal and abnormal manifes- 

 tations, in their relations to inferior 

 life, in their social and sexual attri- 

 butes, and in their relations to voca- 

 tions and institutions, and the whole 

 inquiry should be pursued in that un- 

 impassioned spirit of true science 

 which cares little what the facts may 

 be, but every thing to know what they 

 are. 



Human nature is certainly a very 

 comprehensive and complicated sub- 

 ject, and as a science it is, of course, 

 profoundly imperfect. It is by no 

 means to be taken up as one of the 

 ordinary sciences, and pursued sepa- 

 rately, like mathematics or electricity. 

 Those branches of science upon which 

 it chiefly depends are to be acquired 

 first as a foundation, and then they 

 are to be combined in the direct and 

 practical study o" man himself, in his 

 totality, and as a subject of systematic 

 observation. Human nature, like geol- 

 ogy, is dependent upon other sciences 

 for its data, and then it offers large ad- 



ditional questions of its own, which 

 require a scientific training to deal 

 with them. When the geologist has 

 mastered the laws of physics, chemis- 

 try, mineralogy, meteorology, zoology, 

 and botany, he then goes out to com- 

 mence the practical study of the rocky 

 masses which compose the earth's 

 crust. In the same way the scientific 

 student of human nature will first get 

 an acquaintance with the priuciples 

 of biology, which throw lig^t upon 

 man's physical constitution and re- 

 lations, and then he must master 

 psychology, or the science of feel- 

 ing and intellect, as manifested in 

 the grades of life, and these will prepare 

 him to form a right conception of the 

 individual man in his bodily and men- 

 tal unity. All this, however, is of lit- 

 tle account in itself, and is but a prep- 

 aration for the direct study of human 

 beings, their characters and actions, as 

 matters of habitual and methodical ob- 

 servation. What is required of our en- 

 lightened educators is, to arrange the 

 scientific curriculum with a view to 

 this great end, and then to pursue the 

 study into its higher and practical appli- 

 cations. If it be said that we can never 

 know the truth about people, as half 

 of them give their lives to the art of 

 keeping up false appearances, the re- 

 ply is, then study that fact first, and get 

 a cool scientific expression of the ex- 

 tent, limits, and value of this source of 

 error; a long stride will thus be taken 

 toward the end we propose. 



This study is undoubtedly great, 

 complex, and difficult, but it is, 

 nevertheless, intrinsically practicable. 

 Thanks to science, the knowledge 

 exists. An immense body of truth of 

 the character here indicated has been 

 wrought out, but education as yet ig- 

 nores it. Between the vast system of 

 facts and principles which science has 

 established, and the state of the general 

 mind, there is a gulf wider than the 

 Pacific, and it is still daily widening; 

 for, while there is greater activity now 



