152 PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS—-SECTION J. 
influences of a child’s environment. The object of education 
should therefore be, whilst working on natural lines, to produce 
the greatest results with a minimum of expenditure. Not, 
indeed, to go against Nature, but, having discovered Nature’s 
methods, to utilise these towards the attainment of the desired 
end. That this end is not always the one which Nature, un- 
aided, would have attained, adds to the difficulty, but does not 
invalidate the process. 
The corpus vile then for our consideration is the immature 
and growing child, and attention will be chiefly directed to 
various anatomical and physiological points that may be 
considered to have a bearing on the subject. And, perhaps, in 
passing, a word may be said to those who may think that some 
of the following statements are purely materialistic, and be con- 
sequently inclined to take offence. As a matter of fact, no one 
is able to say what is the ultimate nature of matter, or what is 
the ultimate nature of mind, and, as Herbert Spencer writes :— 
“The truth is not expressible either by Materialism nor by 
Spiritualism, however modified and however refined.” So that 
any decisions on these points can be only hypotheses or beliefs, 
which are quite distinct from knowledge, and each individual 
must form and adopt that particular hypothesis or belief which 
is most consistent with his own individual proclivities. And, 
as Herbert Spencer goes on to say :—‘ Carried to whatever ex- 
tent, the inquiries of the psychologist do not reveal the ultimate 
nature of Mind any more than do the inquiries of the chemist 
reveal the ultimate nature of Matter; or those of the physicist the 
ultimate nature of Motion.” But he adds :—“ The law of evolution 
holds of the inner world as it does of the outer world. . . . Ii 
we study the development of the nervous system, we see it 
advancing in integration, in complexity, in definiteness. If we 
turn to its functions, we find these similarly show an ever- 
increasing inter-dependence, an augmentation in number and 
heterogeneity, and a greater precision. If we examine the 
relations of these functions to the actions going on in the world 
around, we see that the correspondence between them progresses 
in range and amount, becomes continually more complex and 
more special, and advances through differentiations and integra- 
tions like those everywhere going on. And when we observe 
the correlative states of consciousness, we discover that these 
too, beginning as simple, vague, and incoherent, become in- 
creasingly numerous in their kinds, are united into aggregates 
which are larger, more multitudinous, and more uniform, and 
eventually assume those finished shapes we see in scientific 
generalisations, whose definitely quantitative elements are co- 
ordinated in definitely quantitative relations.” And if we accept 
with Stewart and Tait, as expressed in their “ Unseen Universe,” 
the only two completely fundamental divisions into the “ Un- 
