346 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



differences in the degree of vividness and fervor with which they are 

 impressed by individual objects, which leave so many persons in the 

 most limp indifference, while exciting in others an absorbing and even 

 passionate interest. "When the individual impressions are so clear, dis- 

 tinct, characteristic, and interesting as to be quite unforgettable, they 

 soon force upon the mind, after prolonged contemplation of them, 

 suggestions of their multiple relations, and the knowledge which was 

 at first simply picturesque becomes, sooner or later, scientific. The 

 mental power which arrives at this is largely innate, and beyond the 

 capacity of any education to bestow. But if any educational method 

 can increase and develop it, it is that which most nearly imitates the 

 spontaneous habits of fertile and original minds, apart from all sys- 

 tematic intention. 



Three characters are conspicuous in the observation exercised by 

 this class of minds : it is single, it is imaginative, and it is indefinitely 

 prolonged. It is single — that is to say, the mind which is powerfully 

 attracted to any object — and none ever discovers anything in any ob- 

 ject to which it is not powerfully attracted, is m no haste to de- 

 tach itself and pass on to anything new ; on the contrary, it lingers 

 and hates to go, and delays, and returns again and again to catch still 

 another glimpse of what has been so delightful. To say that an ob- 

 ject is suggestive is to say that it constantly opens uj) new trains of 

 thought, and, so long as this is the case, the mind can not bear to 

 abandon it. It is on this account that the contemplation is indefinitely 

 prolonged, and irregularly so, according to no fixed rule or extrinsic 

 necessity, not even that of mastering a certain quotum of information, 

 but varies in accordance with the infinitely varied accidents of the 

 mental intercourse. Finally, to be fruitful, this intercourse must be 

 imaginative. First, in the lowest and most literal sense of the term, 

 since the mind can not directly handle the sense-perception of the ob- 

 ject, but only the mental image of the object, revived and remem- 

 bered. But, in addition, to detect all its hidden meanings, properties, 

 and possible aspects, many functions of the imagination must be 

 brought into play, and none are useless. Fertility of fancy, rich asso- 

 ciation of ideas, are as important in collecting the premises for scien- 

 tific argument as is the argument itself in the discovery of truth.* 



During the pre-scientific period, therefore, either in the history of 

 the race, the development of the individual, or the evolution of any 

 single idea in an inquiring mind, the cardinal necessity is that of fill- 

 ing the mind with an abundance of distinct concepts and visual images 

 of real concrete existences. Any prolonged attempt to compare, gen- 

 eralize, or reason about these should be deferred, under penalty of 

 substituting a mere verbal imitation of reasoning for a real effort of the 

 mind. A certain amount of reasoning and comparison will, of course, 



* In these respects the mental history of the celebrated Faraday offers a mine of in- 

 teresting facts and illustrations. 



