LITERARY NOTICES. 



561 



and in its highest form, Mr. Spencer was 

 drawn to its study in the aspect of growth, 

 and as an endowment of growing organisms. 

 Mind, as conditioned by a nervous sub- 

 stratum and unfolding with it the genesis 

 of the psychical faculties in all grades of 

 organic manifestation the law of mental 

 progression from the lowest to the highest 

 animate creatures these were the problems 

 that absorbed his attention. They were 

 considered in various detached papers, but 

 the subject was also dealt with elaborately 

 and systematically in his treatise on the 

 "Principles of Psychology," published in 

 1855. Mental phenomena were here first 

 methodically elucidated from the evolution 

 point of view. The development of intelli- 

 gence was traced upward through the or- 

 ganic series from its lowest rudimental 

 forms through successively higher compli- 

 cations, with the view of determining how 

 the highest forms are produced and the 

 highest intelligence constituted. Ascend- 

 ing from reflex action in the lowest types 

 up through instinct, memory, reason, feel- 

 ings, and the will, Mr. Spencer then reversed 

 the course of inquiry, and showed by subjec- 

 tive analysis how the highest intelligence 

 may be resolved, step by step, from its most 

 complex into its simplest elements. The 

 work was throughout so original and so 

 closely reasoned as to make an epoch in 

 the advance of mental science; and John 

 Stuart Mill declared it to be " the finest 

 example we possess of the psychological 

 method in its full power." 



Thus occupied in working out the laws 

 of mental unfolding, it was impossible that 

 Mr. Spencer's thoughts should not have 

 been strongly attracted at this time to the 

 subject of education. Descended from a 

 race of schoolmasters, skillfully taught by 

 his father and uncle on rational principles, 

 and alive to the gross deficiencies of cur- 

 rent teaching, he was predisposed to take 

 an interest in all questions of mental culti- 

 vation. But the special direction of his 

 studies now forced the subject upon him in 

 a new and most important aspect. Educa- 

 tion as a leading out of the faculties is es- 

 sentially a problem of the growth of the 

 faculties ; and no new light could be thrown 

 upon the processes and order of mental 

 evolution without at once and powerfully 

 vol. xvii. 36 



affecting the practice of the art of educa- 

 tion. 



Spencer's " Education," produced at this 

 period, was written from the point of view 

 here indicated. It contains no formal state- 

 ment of the evolution theory, but it con- 

 forms to the main doctrine throughout. 

 The key-note and controlling idea of the 

 book is, that Nature has a method of intel- 

 lectual, moral, and physical development, 

 which should afford the guiding principles 

 of all teaching. The book is a plea for na- 

 ture in education, and a protest against tu- 

 torial aggression, and meddlesome overdoing 

 on the part of teachers and parents. The 

 chapter on "Intellectual Education," which 

 was written first and published in 1854, treats 

 of school processes in relation to the law of 

 development of the faculties as it takes place 

 naturally. Education is regarded as rightly 

 carried on only when it aids the process of 

 self-development, and it is urged that the 

 course of study in all cases followed should 

 be from the simple to the complex, from 

 the indefinite to the definite, from the con- 

 crete to the abstract, and from the empiri- 

 cal to the rational, in harmony with the 

 course of evolution at large. In the chap- 

 ter on " Moral Education " the subject is 

 again regarded from the point of view of 

 natural development. The general truth 

 here insisted upon is, that the natural re- 

 wards and restraints of conduct are those 

 which are most appropriate and effectual in 

 modifying character. The principle con- 

 tended for is that the moral education of 

 every child should be regarded as an adap- 

 tation of its nature to the circumstances of 

 life ; and that, to become adapted to these 

 circumstances, it must be allowed to come 

 in contact with them ; must be allowed to 

 suffer the pains, and obtain the pleasures, 

 which do, in the order of nature, follow 

 certain kinds of action. " Physical Educa- 

 tion" is again an argument from the bio- 

 logical side for the unhindered development 

 of the bodily powers against the artificial 

 restraints and repressions of school regula- 

 tion ; and it maintains that, during the 

 earlier portion of life in which the main 

 thing to be done is to grow and develop, 

 our educational system is much too exacting. 

 The last essay written, " What Knowledge 

 is of Most Worth" (1859), is placed first in 



