METHODS OF TEACHING 491 



805. We have seen that a vast capacity and tendency to profit 

 by experience is the distinctive attribute of the human being, and 

 particularly of the child. Through this arises what we call 

 intelligence. In one sense the adult is more intelligent than the 

 child j for, having had greater opportunities, he has profited more 

 from experience ; but in another and a very real sense, the child 

 is the more intelligent ; for, as a rule, he is more receptive, more 

 capable of assimilating fresh experience to that already stored. 

 As may be seen by comparing a Darwin with a Mohammedan 

 ecclesiastic, or average men trained in modern Europe with those 

 trained in mediaeval Europe or in Thibet, the degree in which the 



> adult preserves the youthful tendency to reach out the tentacles of 

 \ the -mind and knit together the materials thus gathered depends on 

 I the formation of a HABIT, which, in turn, depends, in great measure, 

 I on the kind of formal training he receives. The kind of teaching 

 ! we are now discussing, though not especially employed for science 

 | subjects, is usually termed scientific by modern educationalists. 

 It was practised in its highest perfection by the Pagan Greeks, and 

 was, as it seems to me, the source of their greatness. We have 

 only to read, for instance, the dialogues of Socrates, to perceive 

 how strenuously they strove to create not only skill in thinking, 

 but also that open, receptive mind which is its necessary accom- 

 paniment. At any rate, every nation on earth is, and has been, 

 great in proportion as it has practised it. At the present day, 

 owing to the freedom of thought permitted by modern civilization, 

 we all tend to receive, in greater or lesser measure, this kind of 

 training from our general surroundings ; but in our formal education 

 it is used comparatively little except, as we have already noted, in 

 teaching young children. 



806. It has been used only very rarely for religious teaching, 

 and can be used for it only when the religion is in no way opposed 

 to known truth, or when the teachers have no dread that newly dis- 

 covered truths deceptions of the devil will oppose it. If the 

 religion is in any way false, if it covers and colours a wide area 

 of the mental field, and if the contemporary science is rapidly 

 advancing, the two are apt to come into sharp conflict ; and then the 

 scientific method is liable to be abhorred by some, at least, of the 

 exponents of religion. On the other hand, when science has made 

 but small advances, the current religion, even if false, may offer as 

 good an interpretation of observed phenomena as can be con- 

 ceived, and therefore may be very tolerant. This, to an exceptional 

 degree, was the case in Pagan Greece. The excellence of Greek 



