OF THE BRAIN AND MIND. 251 



thankless effort must always induce ; and yet, at the 

 present day, in nineteen out of twenty schools, all 

 the knowledge that is offered is through the medium 

 of books and language alone ! 



Adequate exercise of the perceptive powers would 

 require a certain amount of muscular exertion, and 

 of daily exposure to the open air, in going about 

 to collect and examine the varied objects of interest 

 with which creation abounds. In other words, the 

 perceptive faculties cannot be successfully cultivated, 

 without at the same time benefiting the muscular 

 system, and the organs of respiration, circulation, 

 and digestion; and this grand recommendation in 

 the eye of reason, viz. pursuing study in the field of 

 nature instead of in books, is actually, though not 

 avowedly, the circumstance which retards its adop- 

 tion in ordinary education. 



What, therefore, is wanted is a system of education 

 in harmony with the constitution of the human mind, 

 and a mode of life and of occupation which shall give, 

 not only full play to the intellectual powers, but also 

 healthy excitement and activity, and a right direction, to 

 the moral, religious, and effective feelings. 



The details of such a system do not fall under the 

 scope of a treatise like this ; and I must, for the 

 present, content myself with the exposition of the 

 general principle. A serious obstacle to entering 

 upon the regular exertion here recommended re- 

 quires to be noticed, as it arises from a feeling in the 

 patient against which he cannot be too much on his 

 guard. Where the nervous system is weak, and 

 where it, of course, requires most to be strengthened, 

 there is often a retiring sensitiveness of disposition, 

 leading its possessor rather to avoid than to seek 

 intercourse with society. Feeling the irksomeness 

 of present exertion, the nervous invalid is apt to 

 form the secret resolution to live in solitude till the 

 mind shall become stronger, and then to seek society 

 when it will no longer be a burden. Unhappily, 



