MENTAL SCIENCE AND SOCIOLOGY. 683 



a kind of magic : and we laugh at the story of the negro who hid a 

 letter under a stone, that it might not inform against him when he 

 devoured the fruit he was sent with. Yet the current notions about 

 printed information betray a kindred delusion: a kind of magical 

 efficacy is ascribed to ideas gained through artificial appliances, as 

 compared with ideas otherwise gained. And this delusion, injurious 

 in its effects even on intellectual culture, produces effects still more 

 injurious on moral culture, by generating the assumption that this, 

 too, can be got by reading and the repeating of lessons. 



It will, I know, be said that not from intellectual teaching, but 

 from moral teaching, are improvement of conduct and diminution of 

 crime looked for. While, unquestionably, many of those who urge on 

 educational schemes believe in the moralizing effects of knowledge 

 in general, it must be admitted that some hold general knowledge to 

 be inadequate, and contend that rules of right conduct must be 

 taught. Already, however, reasons have been given why the expec- 

 tations even of these are illusory ; proceeding, as they do, on the as- 

 sumption that the intellectual acceptance of moral precepts will pro- 

 duce conformity to them. Plenty more reasons are forthcoming. I 

 will not dwell on the contradictions to this assumption furnished by 

 the Chinese, to all of whom the high ethical maxims of Confucius are 

 taught, and who yet fail to show us a conduct proportionately exem- 

 plary. Nor will I enlarge on the lesson to be derived from the United 

 States, the school-system of which brings up the whole population 

 under the daily influence of chapters which set forth principles of right 

 conduct, and which nevertheless in its political life, and by many of 

 its social occurrences, shows us that conformity to these principles is 

 any thing but complete. It will suffice if I limit myself to evidence 

 supplied by our own society, past and present, which negatives, very 

 decisively, these sanguine expectations. For, what have we been do- 

 ing all these many centuries by our religious agencies, but preaching 

 right principles to old and young ? What has been the aim of ser- 

 vices in our ten thousand churches, week after week, but to enforce a 

 code of good conduct by promised rewards and threatened penalties ? 

 the whole population having been for many generations compelled 

 to listen. What have Dissenting chapels, more numerous still, been 

 used for, unless as places where pursuance of right and desistance from 

 wrong have been unceasingly commended to all from childhood up- 

 ward ? And if now it is held that something more must be done 

 if, notwithstanding perpetual explanations and denunciations and ex- 

 hortations, the misconduct is so great that society is endangered, 

 why, after all this insistance has failed, is it expected that more insist- 

 ance will succeed ? See here the proposals and the implied beliefs. 

 Teaching by clergymen not having had the desired effect, let us try 

 teaching by school-masters. Bible-reading from a pulpit, with the ac- 

 companiment of imposing architecture, painted windows, tombs, and 



