74 EDUCATION^ AS IT IS AND AS IT SHOULD BE. 



Knowledge comprehends an acquaintance with every created thing, 

 and its relationships — with our mighty globe, with the whole burden 

 of its people and its countries, with the stars, eighty millions in num- 

 ber, each of them a sun, with its retinue of planets, to which our 

 globe is but a grain of sand on the field of immensity ; and, again, 

 with all that the microscope reveals, which shews us that in the leaves 

 of every forest, in the flowers of every garden, and in the waters of 

 every rivulet, there are worlds teeming with life, and numberless as 

 are the glories of the firmament. The imagination is absolutely baf- 

 fled with the mere attempt to picture to our minds the vast, the num- 

 berless tribes which every blade, nay atom, may harbour within itself, 

 and man is again glad to seek refuge in his own insignificance.* 



It now becomes evident that some method must be pursued ; and 

 accordingly, in order to facilitate its acquisition, knowledge has been 

 divided into separate branches, each of these branches being called a 

 science. For instance, there is the science of the heavenly bodies, 

 called Astronomy ; the science of the productions of our globe, called 

 Natural History ; and this, again, has been divided into three other 

 sciences : the science of minerals, or Mineralogy ; the science of ve- 

 getables, or Botany ; and the science of animals, or Zoology. 



In determining the relative value of these sciences, Phrenology is 

 of great utility. The phrenologist knows that the higher and more 

 anterior an organ is situated in the head, the more superior is its ma- 

 nifestation. Well, then, we have only to determine what organs are 

 necessary for any pursuit to estimate its importance. For observing 

 objects, we know that Individuality is the principal organ necessary. 

 Mineralogy consists chiefly in the observation of inanimate, lifeless 

 objects ; thus we know the organ necessary for its cultivation. Bo- 

 tany, again, consists very much in the observation of inanimate ob- 

 jects, and thus the same organ is principally necessary here too. 

 But then vegetables grow and reproduce, and the corolla opens and 

 shuts ; and thus the organ of Eventuality, which is situated above 

 Individuality, and which takes cognizance of actions as well as objects, 

 is slightly called into play. Hence Botany is a higher study than 

 Mineralogy ; but Zoology is highest of all, for here, not only is In- 

 dividuality required, as in the other two, but Eventuality, too, is called 

 into full activity ; and also an organ yet higher than this, which has 

 yet received no name : a short account of it will be found in the last 



* The reader will find this subject beautifully dilated on in Chalmers's 

 Lectures on Aslronomy. 



