The Kinetic Theory of Economic Crises 3 



processes of the human mind. The scientific investigator uses — 

 without full self-consciousness — the tools given him by Nature, 

 much as any other reasoner does. In so far as he is unconscious 

 of his process of thought, he may be set down as a really living 

 man (on a psychic plane, however), although he is engaged in 

 the investigation of the actions of those who are in a more 

 material sense living men. In order that he may reach a high 

 self-consciousness, he must be brought in touch with the problems 

 of education, for these are essentially the problems of self-con- 

 sciousness. It is said that President Eliot conceives the true end 

 of education to be to secure "effective power in action." 1 While 

 this definition is doubtless correct from the point of view of a 

 college president who wishes to impart every desirable epoch- 

 making quality to his students, and while it is strictly in line with 

 the spirit of the age, the question may be raised whether it is not 

 technically too broad. The distinctive feature of education, nar- 

 rowly viewed, and especially in the present epoch, is the attempt 

 to make the student acquainted with facts and with accepted 

 forms of thought, and to make him acquire a sort of self-con- 

 sciousness about them. The object is to acquaint him with facts 

 of a higher order, those which he is not likely to acquire in the 

 push of life. These consist largely in general propositions and 

 may be treated not only as scientific facts but as indications of 

 the methods of thought employed in the several sciences and for 

 instruction in them. Some facts of a lower order are also neces- 

 sarily inculcated because they are the means of acquiring the 

 higher kind of fact;s and can not be learned in ordinary experi- 

 ence ; such, for example, are the languages when regarded merely 

 as work tools, and the use of laboratory instruments in the vari- 

 ous natural sciences. Our business is to discover what kind of 

 thought and facts is characteristic of the present age of material 

 progress, adequate to investigate it and to describe it, and suited 

 to the apprehension of the students likely to be encountered. We 

 take the liberty of assuming, then, that the method of investiga- 

 tion and the method of teaching are to be in harmony with the 

 progressive spirit of the age : investigation must have for its 



1 j. P Morris, President Eliot of Harvard. Review of Reviews, March, 

 1902. 



