288 THE EDUCATIONAL CLAIMS OF BOTANY. 



example, an image is formed, an impression produced, and 

 there is a change of feeling. But the flame is not known, be- 

 cause there is as yet no idea. The trace left by the first im- 

 pression is so faint that, when the light is removed, it is not 

 remembered ; that is, it has not yet become a mental posses- 

 sion. As the light, however, flashes into its eyes a great many 

 times in a few weeks, each new impression is added to the 

 trace of former impressions left in the nervous matter, and 

 thus the impression deepens, until it becomes so strong as to 

 remain when the candle is withdrawn. The idea therefore 

 grows by exactly the same process as a bone grows ; that is, 

 by the successive incorporation of like with like. By the in- 

 tegration of a long series of similar impressions, one portion of 

 consciousness thus becomes differentiated from the rest, and 

 there emerges the idea of the flame. Time and repetition are 

 therefore the indispensable conditions of the process.* 



Now, when the candle is brought, the child recognizes or 

 knows it ; that is, it perceives it to be like the whole series 

 of impressions of the candle-flame formerly experienced. It 

 knows it because the impression produced agrees with the idea. 

 In this way, by numerous repetitions of impressions, the child's 

 first ideas arise ; and, in this way, all objects are known. We 

 know things, because, when we see, hear, touch, or taste them, 

 the present impression spontaneously blends with like impres- 

 sions before experienced. We know or recognize an external 

 object not by the single impression it produces, but because 



* " The single taste of sugar, by repetition, impresses the mind more and 

 more, and, by this circumstance, becomes gradually easier to retain in idea. 

 The smell of a rose, in like manner, after a thousand repetitions, comes much 

 nearer to an Independent ideal persistence than after twenty repetitions. So 

 it is with all the senses, high and low. Apart altogether from the association 

 of two or more distinct sensations, jn a group or in a train, there is a fixing 

 process going on with every individual sensation, rendering it more easy to 

 retain when the original has passed away, and more vivid when by means of 

 association it is afterward reproduced. This is one great part of the educa- 

 tion of the senses. The simplest impression that can be made of taste, smell, 

 touch, hearing, sight, needs repetition in order to endure of its own accord ; 

 even in the most persistent sense the sense of seeing the impressions on 

 the infant mind that do not stir a strong feeling will vanish as soon as the 

 eye is turned some other way." Professor Sain, 



