34 SELECTIONS FROM HUXLEY 



this mighty game. In other words, education is the instruc- 

 tion of the intellect in the laws of Nature, under which name 

 I include not merely things and their forces, but men and their 

 ways ; and the fashioning of the affections and of the will into 

 5 an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those 

 laws. For me, education means neither more nor less than 

 this. Anything, which professes to call itself education must 

 be tried by this standard, and if it fails to stand the test, I 

 will not call it education, whatever may be the force of au- 



10 thority, or of numbers, upon the other side. 



It is important to remember that, in strictness, there is 

 no such thing as an uneducated man. Take an extreme 

 case. Suppose that an adult man, in the full vigor of his 

 faculties, could be suddenly placed in the world, as Adam is 



15 said to have been, and then left to do as he best might. How 

 long would he be left uneducated ? Not five minutes. Na- 

 ture would begin to teach him, through the eye, the ear, 

 the touch, the properties of objects. Pain and pleasure 

 would be at his elbow telling him to do this and avoid that; 



20 and by slow degrees the man would receive an education, 

 which, if narrow, would be thorough, real, and adequate to 

 his circumstances, though there would be no extras and very 

 few accomplishments. 



And if to this solitary man entered a second Adam, or, 



25 better still, an Eve, a new and greater world, that of social 

 and moral phenomena, would be revealed. Joys and woes, 

 compared with which all others might seem but faint shadows, 

 would spring from the new relations. Happiness and sorrow 

 would take the place of the coarser monitors, pleasure and 



30 pain ; but conduct would still be shaped by the observation of 

 the natural consequences of actions ; or, in other words, by the 

 laws or the nature of man. 



To every one of us the world was once as fresh and new as 

 to Adam. And then, long before we were susceptible of any 



