66 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY 



perceptive faculties. They were able to paint as no modem artist can, 

 because they studied nature closely and were seldom blinded or deaf- 

 ened by the critics. The ennui often appearing in a student following 

 a course of didactic lectures is the result of the forced rumination upon 

 the very few facts which he has been given opportunity to acquire 

 through his own efforts. Modern education is still defective in train- 

 ing the sense-perceptions and the continuous meditation upon the few 

 data furnished us by our own eyes and ears produces a state of mental 

 fatigue, so that finally the tendency to reiteration becomes as annoying 

 as the constant effort to count the figures on the wall-paper to the fever 

 patient, or as the blind impulse compelling the child with St. Vitus' 

 dance to touch each telegraph pole, as he walks near it. Even if we 

 admit the truth of the dictum that there is nothing in the intellect 

 which was not first in the senses, we are not guided by this idea in ar- 

 ranging courses of study. Boys are still forcibly carried through their 

 school and college days in the same spirit in which personally con- 

 ducted parties are rushed through the Vatican galleries. As the result 

 of the so-called liberal education, the student frequently finds that he 

 has actually become deficient in his sense perceptions and has acquired 

 a faulty thought-mechanism; although possibly he finds some consola- 

 tion in feeling that conventionalities have been satisfied by the com- 

 pletion of the grand educational tour. But sometimes, when it is too 

 late, here and there one begins to appreciate that he has eyes and can 

 not see, ears and can not hear. 



Closely associated with the ideational faculties are the phenomena 

 collectively designated as Will. The careful study of individuals, some- 

 what as practised by the skilled alienist, has taught us that a great 

 deal may be accomplished in the training of the volitional powers. The 

 old method employed to strengthen the will was similar in many re- 

 spects to the practise indulged in of teaching children how to swim by 

 throwing them into deep water. In a few cases only was the method 

 successful. The remarkable advances in the study of the comparative 

 physiology of the nervous system combined with the careful analysis of 

 the conduct of individuals made by psychologists and alienists have 

 shown conclusively that all our volitional acts are the expression of the 

 activities of the brain. 



The old axiom predicating the existence of free will is a pure fic- 

 tion. When we speak of the will custom and usage have unfortunately 

 led us to suppose that the volitional act is a phenomenon quite unre- 

 lated to other events in our mental life. As a matter of fact, the will- 

 act is a very complex affair, depending upon a variety of conditions. 

 Here is an example: It is a pleasant summer-day and as I sit at my 

 desk and write, two conflicting impulses shoot up into my field of con- 

 sciousness. One tendency is strong to get up, leave my work unfinished 



