EDUCATION AS A SCIENCE. 66 7 



When we are working out practical ends, we must follow Nature's 

 method of working ; and, as that is by isolating the separate qualities, 

 we must perform the act of mental isolation, which is to abstract, or 

 consider, one power to the neglect of the rest. When we want to put 

 forth heavy pressure, we think of various bodies solely as they can 

 exert weight, in however many other ways they may invite or charm our 

 sense. This is to generalize or to form a general notion of weight ; and 

 the motive to conceive it is practical need or necessity. 



This motive of practical need at once brings us to the very core of 

 causation, viewed as a merely speculative notion. The cause of any- 

 thing is the agent that would bring that thing into being, suppose we 

 were in want of it. The cause of warmth in a room is combustion 

 properly arranged : we use this fact for practical purposes ; and we 

 may also use it for satisfying mere curioshty. We enter a warm room ; 

 we may desire to know how it has been made warm, and we are satis- 

 fied by being told that there has been, or is now somewhere, a fire in 

 communication with it. 



Thus it is that in proportion as we come to operate upon the world 

 practically ourselves, and from that proceed to contemplate causation 

 at large, we are driven upon the abstracting and analyzing process, so 

 repugnant to one large portion of our feelings. Scieuce finds an open- 

 ing in our minds at this point, when otherwise we might need the 

 proverbial surgical operation. 



These observations will serve to illustrate the working of the emo- 

 tion named Curiosity, which is justly held to be a great power in teach- 

 ing. Curiosity expresses the emotions of knowledge viewed as desire ; 

 and more especially the desire to surmount an intellectual difficulty 

 once felt. Genuine curiosity belongs to the stage of advanced and 

 correct views of the world. 



Much of the curiosity of children, and of others besides children, is 

 a sham article. Frequently it is a mere display of egotism, the delight 

 in giving trouble, in being pandered to and served. Questions are put, 

 not from the desire of rational information, but for the love of excite- 

 ment. Occasionally the inquisitiveness of a child provides an oppor- 

 tunity for imparting a piece of real information ; but far oftener not. 

 By ingeniously circumventing a scientific fact, one not too high for a 

 child's comprehension, we may awaken curiosity and succeed in im- 

 pressing the fact. Try a child to lift a heavy weight first by the direct 

 pull, and then by a lever or a set of pulleys, and probably you will 

 excite some surprise and wonder, with a desire to know something 

 further about the instrumentality. But one fatal defect of the childish 

 mind is the ascendency of the personal or anthropomorphic conception 

 of cause. This, no doubt, is favorable to the theological explanation 

 of the world, but wholly unsuited to physical science. A child, if it 

 had any curiosity at all, would like to know what makes the grass 



