i8^ THE PSYCHOLOGY 



and the victim of the paralyizing drug' believes it to be an efificient stimulant. 

 How nuu-li of our intemperance is due to our helplessness in the face of natural 

 phenomena? The .i;Tailual extinction of the Indians, the Maoris, the Sandwich 

 Islandeis, ami otheis, I?, due to their inability to adapt themselves to changing' 

 environment. Even co[)ing with our fellow-men is an advanced phase of nature 

 study, and the best preparations for any conling-ency is the development of the 

 power of adaptation to envii-onment now. What are our inventors continually 

 living to do but to conquer the opposing forces of natuie ; the inertia of matter; 

 the opacity of solids ; the inertness of the conducting ether? And when one 

 inventor succeeds in conquering time and space, do we not all share in the sense 

 of power over nature? The thrill of satisfaction experienced in talking across a 

 continent cannot but make us more courageous, and confident of our power to 

 conquer. 



The absurdity of attempting the conquest of nature by thus modifying our 

 conception of it, is at once apparent, and the method which looks to mental 

 development as the basis of conquest will be accepted by all true educationists. 

 Yet there are visionaries who propose just such absurdities, comparable with 

 that of benumbing the senses with alcohol, hasheesh, opium, or tobacco. These 

 men would make the work so easy as to reduce it to play. They would not have 

 the child realize that there is an end which it should consciously strive to attain, 

 but hope that through jilay this end may be obtained. If the end be attained 

 through pla)', i. e, activity not consciously directed to an end, there will not he 

 the essential development which can come onlj' by a consciousness of (i) a 

 difficulty to be met ; {z) the means to meet it ; (3) the will to use these means. 

 The day must come in the natural order of events when the chikl, grown to 

 man's estate, must face difficulties, and it will be a costly experience for him 

 and perhaps for others, if he has, hitherto, failed to develoji those activities which 

 will enable him to adapt himself to them. I\'vt by decreasing resistance but by 

 i?icreasing nientdl poiver must conquest be made. 



What is the Process in Nature Study? 



The mental process is the same whatever may be the subject of study. It 

 beg'ins with an undefined, homogeneous whole, which the mind, if interested, 

 immediately beg'ins to analyze into particular parts, aided, oi course, by previous 

 experience which has left in the mind notions of these or of similar parts. 

 Comparing these fixed notions with the new particulars, the mind establishes new 

 relations, by which the fixed notion is still further elaborated and the new particular 

 is broug'ht into a familiar relation. It becomes a part oi mind. The process of 

 comparison is carried o\\ betw-een the parts o'i the whole, or more properly between 

 the mental images of these parts, until all are properly related so far as this can 

 be accomplished by the mind in its existing state of development. The farther 

 this relating- process is carried, the more clearly will the thitigs related be defined, 

 and the original undefined, homogeneous whole becomes a defined, heterogeneous, 

 yet related whole. We may describe this mental prc")cess by saying that within the 

 undefined whole mind moves in two directions, (i) towards the particular ; (2) 

 towards the universal. The teacher is apt either to stop with the particular; that is, 

 stop with analysis without securing a corresponding synthesis, or is apt to force 



