CHAP XXII.] CONSTITUTION OF THE INTELLECT. 423 



the terms, to reason well. Men draw inferences without any 

 consciousness of those elements upon which the entire procedure 

 depends. Still less is it desired to exalt the reasoning faculty 

 over the faculties of observation, of reflection, and of judgment. 

 But upon the very ground that human thought, traced to its 

 ultimate elements, reveals itself in mathematical forms, we have 

 a presumption that the mathematical sciences occupy, by the 

 constitution of our nature, a fundamental place in human know- 

 ledge, and that no system of mental culture can be complete or 

 fundamental, which altogether neglects them. 



But the very same class of considerations shows with equal 

 force the error of those who regard the study of Mathematics, 

 and of their applications, as a sufficient basis either of knowledge 

 or of discipline. If the constitution of the material frame is ma- 

 thematical, it is not merely so. If the mind, in its capacity of 

 formal reasoning, obeys, whether consciously or unconsciously, 

 mathematical laws, it claims through its other capacities of sen- 

 timent and action, through its perceptions of beauty and of 

 moral fitness, through its deep springs of emotion and affection, 

 to hold relation to a different order of things. There is, more- 

 over, a breadth of intellectual vision, a power of sympathy with 

 truth in all its forms and manifestations, which is not measured 

 by the force and subtlety of the dialectic faculty. Even the 

 revelation of the material universe in its boundless magnitude, 

 and pervading order, and constancy of law, is not necessarily the 

 most fully apprehended by him who has traced with minutest 

 accuracy the steps of the great demonstration. And if we em- 

 brace in our survey the interests and duties of life, how little do 

 any processes of mere ratiocination enable us to comprehend the 

 weightier questions which they present ! As truly, therefore, as 

 the cultivation of the mathematical or deductive faculty is a part 

 of intellectual discipline, so truly is it only a part. The pre- 

 judice which would either banish or make supreme any one 

 department of knowledge or faculty of mind, betrays not only 

 error of judgment, but a defect of that intellectual modesty 

 which is inseparable from a pure devotion to truth. It assumes 

 the office of criticising a constitution of things which no human 

 appointment has established, or can annul. It sets aside the 



