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standard. In certain other respects it depends for its data on individual experi- 
ences, and has to content itself with a subjective standard. No doubt it can call 
in the aid of Physiology, a science that has an objective standard of its own, and 
in this way eliminate a certain amount of subjectivity. But in the last resort 
there is a corner of the field in which no objective standard can be obtained. 
It is true that in pure mathematics we appear to get into a region where the 
subjective may be practically excluded altogether, but even here the science of 
space and time is limited by the fact that it can deal with its data only from the 
point of view of human limitations. And there are certain borderline studies 
that are mathematical in their essence, yet have a direct reference to our bodily 
organs. linear Perspective, for example, is usually regarded as a science, 
indeed as an exact science. Yet when we look into the matter we find that Linear 
Perspective is nothing more than a conventionalised method of treating, in an 
exact way, the results of individual experience. The whole science is really an 
objective standard by which the ordinary processes of vision may be compared, 
analysed, and classified. Perspective tells us what we ought to see. It is not 
independent of our sense functions, it is only a mode in which the variable 
subjective is reduced to uniformity by the application of the objective standard. 
Indeed, in the teaching of art there sometimes arises a curious conflict between 
the subjective element and the objective. Students who have studied Perspec- 
tive before they are called upon to draw real objects set before them, are very 
apt to draw according to the rules they have learned, instead of observing what 
is actually before them and reproducing that as it appears to their senses. In 
other words, they set up the objective standard as paramount. So markedly 
is this the case that sometimes the study of Perspective is forbidden till famili- 
avity with model drawing has been attained. When a teacher urges a pupil to 
draw what he sees, and not merely what he knows from the rules of Perspective 
he ought to see, we have an appeal to the subjective standard. The teacher is 
turning from the science of Perspective to the art of Drawing. 
This illustration is of particular advantage to us in our present work, because 
it not only exhibits the subjective standard working alongside of the objective, 
but it introduces the idea of an ewact science in relation to our human organs. 
Astronomy is an exact science, and yet the problem of thé ‘ personal equation’ 
shows that even here the subjective must be taken into account. ‘The ‘ personal 
equation’ is, in fact, nothing but the elimination by quantitative methods of the 
disturbing subjective elements. It is by similar methods that we must seek to 
establish an objective standard in Education. The difficulty in this subject is 
very great, Astronomy and Physics touch the subjective only at what may be 
called the point of application, the point at which they are brought into contact 
with human life. Their subject-matter is external, and lends itself to objective 
treatment. In Education the subject-matter is human nature, which is so com- 
plex and involves such volatile elements that it is almost impossible to reduce 
its working to fixed laws. The same difficulty obviously applies in Psychology. 
Itself a comparatively new subject, Psychology has great difficulty in getting 
recognition as a science. For this there are two main reasons. To begin with, 
Psychology began life as a branch of philosophy, and scientific men regard with 
suspicion anything that con:es from that quarter. Besides, there was the less 
reason to make room for the new subject since it had already a settled place in the 
hierarchy of studies. The second reason is that which interests us here—the 
difficulty of establishing an objective standard. The descriptive generalities 
ot Dugald Stewart and Thomas Brown had to give way to something based upon 
laws that are generally accepted. The line of least resistance in seeking for an 
objective standard in Psychology is to fall back upon a physiological basis. It is 
generally admitted that nerve action can be referred to an objective standard, 
and by correlating psychic and bodily phenomena psychologists are able to get a 
series of recognised principles on the physical side that may be easily interpreted 
in terms of spirit. Psycho-physics has at least a plausible claim to rank among 
the sciences, aud the unbridged gulf between mind and matter is conveniently 
ignored. As a matter of fact such a generalisation as the Fechner-Weber law 
ranks parallel with the laws of Linear Perspective—that is, it is a law that states 
in an unjustifiably exact way what ordinarily takes place in the individual ex- 
perience. While rejecting the materialistic alliance, Herbart, as a paychologist, 
deliberately set up a mechanical system of ideas as forces, and in this way 
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