METAMORPHOSES IN EDUCATION. 759 



qualitative relation, so that, given the antecedent, he can determine 

 the consequent, and vice versa. Now, the point to this is that it is 

 of application wherever such phenomena occur, that for the past 

 and the future they must hold good for the same reason that the 

 multiplication table must hold good. If, however, the student 

 goes not beyond these sciences, he has not learned half his proper 

 lesson. In physics the phenomena are relatively simple. In such 

 sciences as those called natural history the complexity of phe- 

 nomena becomes very great. Exactitude is not possible to the 

 degree it is in the former studies, and judgments must be formed 

 on different grounds from those. Here there are estimates and 

 probabilities to be considered, and a degree of caution in forming 

 a judgment, not called for in the simpler sciences. There are prin- 

 ciples he has got from these physical sciences which he must carry 

 into the more complex studies, viz., that complexity does not im- 

 pair the certainty that the laws of matter hold true wherever 

 matter is. He is prepared in a good measure to say what can not 

 happen, but not so well prepared to say what may happen. 

 These sciences then act as a check upon hasty deductions ; but 

 both of them enforce the idea of continuity, an idea which is very 

 vague in most minds, and is the source of no end of confusion 

 among so-called philosophers. 



Again, the science of life contributes to a proper discipline in 

 still other ways. Here one meets with phenomena in which effects 

 are not to be measured by the amount of the acting agent. Con- 

 sider Koch's consumption-cure : the thousandth of a grain injected 

 into the circulation not only presently brings about great physio- 

 logical disturbance, but actually locates itself and does its work 

 in diseased tissue in a distant part of the body, yet affects nothing 

 if the body be healthy ! Here is a contingent result which is a 

 characteristic of organic phenomena. So to continuity and com- 

 plexity there is needed a knowledge of contingency in phenomena. 

 By themselves biology and geology, and indeed all the complex 

 sciences, tend to render vague the idea of necessary relations ; but 

 when to a knowledge of them is added a knowledge of physics and 

 chemistry, a judgment formed upon an involved question will 

 certainly have much greater weight. Lastly, there is the necessity 

 for a knowledge of psychology. A true understanding of the acts 

 of individuals or communities can not be had without the knowl- 

 edge of the laws of mind. Every question of a sociologic nature 

 presupposes this as the condition for intelligent action, and it is 

 for the lack of this preparation that all the mistakes in legislation, 

 in schemes for education, for charity, as well as those that men 

 have made in interpreting history, are due. 



An adequate knowledge of psychology can not be had without 

 a knowledge of the brain, its functions and relations, and this im- 



