of life. The intercourse with our fellows that is based on the giving and receiving of knowledge is the least tainted with what is gross and grovelling.

The Sciences of Classification.

The third great scientific region is what is commonly called Natural History, represented by Mineralogy, Botany, and Zoology, whose peculiarity is to create a SYSTEM OF CLASSIFICATION for embracing an enormous detail of objects. All these branches have their other aspect as sciences of Observation, Experiment, and Induction; they are, in fact, the previous sciences over again, but accommodated to the emergency of putting into orderly array the vast multitude of minerals, plants, and animals.

Now, to learn to classify is itself an education. In these Natural History branches, the art has been of necessity attended to, and is shown in the highest state of advancement. Botany is the most complete in its method; which is one of the recommendations of the science in early education. Mineralogy and Zoology have greater difficulties to contend with; so that where they succeed, their success is all the greater.

Much of the subject matter of the sciences of Physics, Chemistry, and Physiology is agreeably repeated in the descriptions of Natural History: a mineral is given as possessing mathematical, physical, and chemical properties; each animal possesses anatomical structure and physiological function.

There is a great mass of useful knowledge mixed up with these sciences, although perhaps more for the

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special arts than for universal application. But the interest excited by the concrete detail is very great; it is the easiest of all forms of scientific interest. People can be got to study and collect animals, plants, and minerals, without going deep into the physiological and physical laws. Indeed, the maximum of interest often attaches to the minimum of science, as in the search for plants; but this taste is both something in itself, and also the introduction to more genuine studies.

In the discussions of the present day, as between creation and evolution, a knowledge of plant and animal structure is a preparation for judging of the arguments on each side. The enlarged views of recent years on the spread of vegetation lend a high cosmical interest to botanical knowledge.

Zoology is a handmaid to Human Anatomy and Physiology, on which must ever converge the highest of all utilities.

Whoever has made a study of the mother sciencesPhysics, Chemistry, and Physiology—is capable of entering upon the corresponding Natural History sciences, although no single mind can exhaust the detail of any one of them. It becomes, therefore, a nice point of teaching to select some adequate representative particulars, so as not to waste time upon an interminable region of facts. The Method should be thoroughly conceived; for in all studies of detail-Medicine, Law, Geography, History that will be found to operate in imparting lucid arrangement. Indeed, clearness in style and composition depends as much upon the arrangement of the ideas as upon the mode of expressing them, and no one subject is more suggestive of good arrangement, even in

the order of a paragraph, than the method embodied in the Natural History sciences.

From the Natural History sciences we might proceed to the consideration of Geography, which has still more of the characteristics of concreteness and comprehensiveness. As it draws contributions from nearly every science, it seems to comprehend them all. This gives it a factitious and misleading charm, as if it were the grand portal to the sciences. More soberly measured, it contains a large store of practical information, it fills the imagination with vast, various, and interesting views, and it is the essential groundwork of the study of history.

The Science of Mind.

Of the fundamental departments of knowledge, I have not yet spoken of the MIND, which is explained in a separate science, called Mental Science, or Psychology.

It is generally allowed that some knowledge of the constitution of the mind is desirable. But this is seldom sought for in the science of the mind; people are content with the knowledge that comes to them in other forms; as in personal experience, in common maxims, in history, oratory, romance. All this may be good or bad as information, but it is nothing at all as method or training. In point of fact, much of it is incorrect and wrong; and the purpose of a science of mind is to rectify all that.

The student should go to the science of Mind prepared by the discipline and the information gained in the previous sciences, more especially the Mathematical

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and the Experimental groups. If pursued on this basis, Psychology will superadd a discipline of its own, while extending the quantity and improving the quality of our mental knowledge.

Some of the greatest problems that can occupy the attention of mankind are grounded in the human constitution; and the scientific handling of mind has been often impeded by the partisan solutions given to such questions as Absolute Being, Innate Ideas, the Moral Sense. Unless entire impartiality can be shown in dealing with these subtleties, a theory of the mind may darken all that it touches.

The subject of LOGIC is usually associated with the Science of Mind, although it has an independent standing of its own. Logic, in the enlarged view of it taken at the present day, is a suitable accompaniment of a course of the Sciences, as we have sketched them. It directs attention upon the points of Method or Discipline in each science, which the cultivator is apt to neglect in his zeal for the matter or information of each. Even with Mathematics, a logical commentary is desirable; it is no less useful both in the Inductive and in the Classificatory Sciences.

The foregoing sketch comprises the field of the theoretical or knowledge-giving sciences, those that embrace the most complete and systematic view of all the kingdoms of natural phenomena. They both present the scientific method and spirit in the greatest perfection, and impart the greatest amount of accurate information. Whatever scientific culture can do, is done

by the curriculum thus laid down. Of this culture, perhaps the greatest result is embraced under the devotion to TRUTH, which, allowing for human infirmities, must emerge as a consequence of being initiated in all the devices of modern research. How the cultivation of this cardinal virtue tells in every department of life need not be here insisted on. The moral disposition to veracity avails little without the tests and methods of distinguishing true from false, while men well versed in these seldom quarrel on matters of fact, seldom keep up irritating controversies as to what is or is not. The disputes of the scientifically educated are narrowed to some very special and difficult issues.

The Analyzing operation, which pervades all science, is most pointedly opposed to the crude and clumsy procedure of the untutored mind, which insists on treating things in the lump. The British Constitution is a vast mass of arrangements, which a scientific politician views separately, pointing out which are instrumental to our safety and happiness, which are detrimental and need amending, and which are neutral or indifferent. The vulgar reasoner will speak of the mass only as one indivisible agent.

The bearings of Science upon Fine Art should be properly understood. In the first place, Science checks the extravagant departures from truth in Art, and is thus a medium of purifying Art productions. This is a great negative result; for it is an undoubted tendency of Art to depart from truth in order to pander more fully to ideality and illimitable desire.

In the next place, Science discloses new facts, new