OF THE BRAIN AND MIND. 245 



the slightest influence over mental or moral im- 

 provement. 



Were a general acquaintance with the laws of 

 organization to be held as an indispensable part of 

 a liberal education, we would then be able to incul- 

 cate, with tenfold force and success, the necessity 

 of actively exercising every faculty, whether of 

 thought, feeling, or motion, directly on its own ob- 

 jects, and at once to explode the mistake of sup- 

 posing that any organ or function may be efficiently 

 exercised through the medium of another, and that, 

 to produce high moral feeling, it is sufficient to ad- 

 dress ourselves to the intellect alone. The merest 

 savage, following the footsteps of nature, would pity 

 the philosopher who would seriously assure him 

 that, to cultivate aouteness of hearing or of vision, 

 it was sufficient to be told how to listen or to look. 

 The savage goes more directly and surely to work. 

 If he wants physical strength, agility, and swiftness 

 of foot, he sets himself to develop the muscular 

 system of his child by ample muscular exercise, by 

 constant repetition of the movements and acts he 

 wishes him to perform, and by causing him to run, 

 to leap, or to swim ; and he rests in well-founded 

 hope of accomplishing his purpose. Following the 

 same rule when he seeks acuteness of hearing, he 

 does not merely tell his child how to listen, but he 

 lays him with his ear to the ground, and teaches him, 

 by practice, to distinguish the qualities of sounds. 

 If he wishes him to excel in hunting, in fishing, in 

 lying in ambush, or in scenting the approach of an 

 enemy, he expects to be successful only in propor- 

 tion as he finds occasion to employ him in the prac- 

 tice of these pursuits. If he wishes to inculcate 

 courage in battle, contempt of pain, endurance of 

 fatigue, obedience to chiefs, or revenge upon ene- 

 mies, he chooses the sure way, and cultivates each 

 of these qualities by calling it into direct action 00 

 its own objects ; and we all know the success which 



