On the Scientific Study of Human Nature. 479 



the measured march of cerebral transformations! We 

 point to the inventions, arts, sciences, and literatures, 

 which form the swelling tide of civilization : but were they 

 not all originated in that laboratory of wonders, the human 

 brain ? Geological revelations carry us back through 

 durations so boundless, that imagination is bewildered, 

 and reason reels under the grandeur of the demonstration ; 

 but through the measureless series of advancing periods, 

 we discover a stupendous plan. Infinite Power, working 

 through infinite time, converges the mighty lines of 

 causality to the fulfilment of an eternal design the birth 

 of an intellectual and moral era through the development 

 of the brain of man, which thus appears as the final term of 

 an unfolding world. 



The ultimate and decisive bearing of the foregoing 

 views upon plans and processes of instruction can hardly 

 fail to have been perceived. The scientific method of 

 studying human nature, important as may be its relation 

 to the management of the insane and feeble-minded, and 

 valuable as is its service in establishing the limits of mental 

 effort, must find its fullest application to the broad subject 

 of education. For, whatever questions of the proper sub- 

 jects to be taught, their relative claims, or the true method 

 of teaching may arise, there is a prior and fundamental in- 

 quiry into the nature, capabilities, and requirements of the 

 being to be taught, upon the elucidation of which all other 

 questions immediately depend. A knowledge of the being 

 to be trained, as it is the basis of all intelligent culture, 

 must be the first necessity of the teacher. 



Education is an art, like Locomotion, Mining, or 

 Bleaching, which may be pursued empirically or rationally, 

 as a blind habit, or under intelligent guidance; and the 

 relations of science to it are precisely the same as to all 

 the other arts to ascertain their conditions and give law 



